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65 - Most Men Were Taught the Opposite of Masculinity · Masculine Containment

• 0:00
  All right.
• 0:00
  Welcome to the Masculine Containment Podcast.
• 0:03
  My name is John Davey, and we're doing a little bit something different this week where I'm coming on and I'm going to be interviewing Alex this week on a specific topic.
• 0:14
  And this week's topic that we're going to be diving into is masculinity.
• 0:20
  So...
• 0:22
  I'm sure that if you listen to this podcast, you've heard a lot of different conversations around masculinity, what it is to be a man, alpha male, being strong, being a provider.
• 0:31
  But today, what I want to explore is whether we've actually been taught what we've been taught about masculinity is actually helping us or whether some of those ideas might be part of what makes things harder for men, especially in relationships.
• 0:44
  So with that, Alex, thanks for having me on podcast.
• 0:48
  Yeah, it's good to have you here, John.
• 0:49
  I'm excited to try this new format.
• 0:51
  I think it'll be interesting.
• 0:52
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 0:54
  So like I said, basically on this on this format, I'm just going to be diving into a topic and asking you a bunch of questions.
• 1:03
  So, like I said, the first the first question I want to start with is, do you think men today have a healthy understanding of what masculinity actually is?
• 1:15
  No, I think there was a qualifier word in there of healthy.
• 1:21
  I mean, I think we can just leave healthy out.
• 1:23
  And I don't think men today have an understanding of what masculinity is.
• 1:26
  I think it's one of the biggest misconceptions of being a man is like, what is masculine?
• 1:33
  I think in so many ways today, masculinity is seen as being loud and brash and violent.
• 1:41
  And the guy who's like the biggest energy in the room and maybe the most intimidating in the room is what a lot of people see as masculinity.
• 1:52
  It's funny, I have, as you know, John, I've got two daughters, Reagan and Alexandra, and they are 17 and 19.
• 1:59
  And when I started telling them that I was working on masculine containment, they're like, you mean masculinity, dad?
• 2:03
  And I'm like, yeah.
• 2:04
  And they said, you mean like toxic masculinity?
• 2:06
  Because that was the first association they had with masculinity was toxic.
• 2:11
  And I think it's because like that's kind of the perception of what it is.
• 2:16
  It's like the person who is the most aggressive and the most challenging.
• 2:23
  Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
• 2:24
  It's I think there's a lot of misconceptions around masculinity, especially today and different definitions cause people to have a different understanding of what masculinity is to them.
• 2:35
  And so that actually leads to like somewhere I want to dive deeper on is like, what do you like?
• 2:54
  I think we're fundamentally confused about what masculinity is.
• 2:58
  And there's so many reasons.
• 3:01
  But I think...
• 3:02
  If you just look at practically and where so many of us have encountered what it means to be a man, you know, here's my recollection and see if you can relate to this, John.
• 3:13
  When I was told be a man, it was usually in a situation where I was being told to stop feeling or I was being told to stop emoting or stop reacting or to, um, um, um, um, um,
• 3:29
  to be stoic or to not feel.
• 3:33
  And you hear things like, be a man, or there's no crying in baseball, or you're making everybody else uncomfortable.
• 3:40
  And it's usually like that.
• 3:41
  So I think it almost gets hardwired into us that being a man is not being a normal, functioning, feeling, rational human.
• 3:50
  It's some other thing.
• 3:51
  It's some performative thing that you do where you...
• 3:55
  You know, unfortunately, I think so many of us encountered the first feelings of being a man were like stuff it down and repress and suppress and don't show who you really are.
• 4:06
  And so I think in so many ways, the impression of what it means to be masculine or be a man is actually the exact opposite of being who you really are.
• 4:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 4:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 4:16
  Do you remember that for you?
• 4:17
  Yeah, I mean, I was gonna share personally.
• 4:20
  I mean, even just the interactions with friends growing up, just like, be a man.
• 4:25
  They're like, you're not being a man if you're, especially around emotions, like, man up is always, you know, a saying.
• 4:32
  So I think...
• 4:35
  And it's probably there's probably a lot of generational components to this as well.
• 4:38
  Like, you know, in the 40s, 50s, you're dealing with what it means to become a man is much different than what it was in the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s.
• 4:48
  And now today, there's I'm sure different generations have different ideas of what being a man means.
• 4:54
  But for me growing up, it was, you know, it.
• 4:57
  It wasn't explicitly said, don't show your emotions, but it was said in the way of like, man up, be a man.
• 5:03
  Don't, you know, if you if you get hurt, don't don't let it bother you like those types of things.
• 5:08
  And and so I think the emotional maturity or lack thereof that comes from that is is a challenge that a lot of people probably deal with.
• 5:16
  And so from that, what would you say men can do now if they did grow up with that as their as their baseline?
• 5:26
  Yeah.
• 5:27
  Specifically when it comes to masculinity.
• 5:30
  Yeah, I mean, I think, well first, first I think it's important to define what does it mean to be masculine, you know?
• 5:38
  And, and,
• 5:40
  This is a question that for honestly most of my life confused me like crazy.
• 5:44
  There was a point where years ago I started studying relationships and that led to a study of different belief systems like tantra and Taoism and Vedic philosophy and the study of masculine and feminine energy.
• 5:58
  And when I laughed because when I started studying masculine and feminine energy, I gave up so many times.
• 6:04
  I'm gonna figure this out, and then I would really go deep on it for a few weeks or months, and then I'd be like, forget it, this is not figureoutable, I don't understand it.
• 6:12
  You know, because when you look at masculine and feminine energies, you hear stuff like, we all have both of them, and then you hear the qualities of both, and they sound like things that both people have, like masculine energy is structure and process and routine and discipline and execution, and feminine energy is creation and
• 6:32
  You know, bringing things into the world and emotional expression and, you know, and you look at it and it's like, wait, I do both of those and I don't understand the difference.
• 6:45
  But I didn't give up and I kept looking at these two different energies and, you know, yes, we both men and women have both masculine and feminine energies, but.
• 6:56
  But what I came to kind of understand is that as men, when we are in our masculine energy, we're in kind of a natural state of being who we are.
• 7:04
  And as women, when they're allowed to be in their state of feminine energy, they're in a more natural state of who they are.
• 7:09
  And we can both cross over and do both.
• 7:12
  But I think when you look at, for me, what I believe is masculinity, the highest expression of masculinity is presence.
• 7:21
  Yeah.
• 7:22
  It's being there.
• 7:23
  It's being present with yourself.
• 7:24
  It's being present with your body.
• 7:26
  It's being able to feel what's going on for you, understand it without weaponizing it, without reacting to it, without feeling like you're compelled to do something, but really understanding what's happening around you.
• 7:38
  You know, there's this phrase that I'm sure you've heard.
• 7:41
  I know you've heard because we've talked about it, but there's this phrase that gets tossed around in entrepreneurial circles.
• 7:46
  The calmest man in the room wins, you know, and yeah,
• 7:52
  I believed that.
• 7:53
  For years I believed that.
• 7:54
  I used to say that.
• 7:55
  I used to share that with people.
• 7:56
  Like the calmest man in the room wins.
• 7:58
  But I didn't really understand what that meant.
• 8:00
  Because often the calmest man in the room is the one who's suppressing, the calmest appearing man in the room is the one who's suppressing everything, who's repressing, who's not expressing, who isn't really like involved with the people around him.
• 8:11
  He's just there.
• 8:12
  He's like this stoic, you know, presence.
• 8:17
  but he's not really present.
• 8:19
  And the calmest man in the room is the one who is present and aware and feeling his feelings but not weaponizing them and understanding that yes, there's triggers, but they don't have to be reacted to and being able to be there and actively engage with the people around him.
• 8:37
  To me, that is the highest expression of masculinity.
• 8:40
  It's being curious about what's going on for the people around you, being curious with yourself and understanding what's happening for you
• 8:46
  And getting to a place where you don't have to be in this state of reactivity because oddly enough, that state of reactivity is often what we refer to as being masculine.
• 8:58
  The guy who's angry or, you know, angry, loud, boisterous, violent, you know, the toughest, quote unquote, toughest guy in the room.
• 9:11
  That's how we see them.
• 9:12
  But often they're proven the opposite.
• 9:13
  Yeah.
• 9:14
  They're proving they're the least present and the most reactive and certainly not the toughest because they're losing it around everything that's going on around them.
• 9:23
  And, you know, that's an unhealthy expression of what we would look at as masculine energy.
• 9:31
  So I love what you said about presence being the highest form of masculine energy or masculinity.
• 9:37
  Yeah.
• 9:39
  It reminds me of so many different like business tactics.
• 9:41
  If you think about like negotiation tactics, it's like the person in the negotiation who is being emotionally reactive and getting overly emotionally attached to an outcome is likely the person who's going to lose the negotiations.
• 9:54
  And so it was reminding me of a book I was reading a while back on that.
• 9:58
  But if a man is sitting there present and he's seeing all the options and seeing what's going on in the room, he's able to analyze and be able to make a,
• 10:05
  a more informed decision for himself, really.
• 10:07
  And so I think there's so many different powerful pieces of that that obviously translate into relationship dynamics, whether that's with your partner or with your kids or with, you know, business associates, whoever it is.
• 10:20
  And so my question from this is,
• 10:23
  When you say presence of the highest form of masculine energy.
• 10:29
  Highest expression.
• 10:30
  Highest expression.
• 10:33
  What does it look like to get there?
• 10:35
  How do you get there from what we've been told growing up of like,
• 10:41
  That mucho or that macho guy, you know, overly expressive, like being tough, being loud.
• 10:49
  How do you move from that to presence and being the present one in the room?
• 10:53
  Hmm.
• 10:56
  I think, you know, first is kind of part of what you said.
• 11:00
  I think as men, for us to change, there has to be a motivation to change.
• 11:06
  And I think understanding that there's an inherent motivation here to make your life better in any way, and not in just any way, in every way, is a big part of moving towards this.
• 11:18
  And so here's what I would say as far as like motivation, because I think, you know,
• 11:22
  Let's be honest, men don't do anything without motivation.
• 11:26
  Humans don't really do anything without motivation.
• 11:28
  There has to be a reason for us to change.
• 11:30
  There has to be a reason for us to see a better outcome or something better for ourselves.
• 11:36
  And so I'll kind of play off of what you said about the guy who's in the negotiation.
• 11:40
  The most present person in a negotiation is the one that's usually gonna have the better side of the deal or is going to get what they want.
• 11:47
  Because if someone's in a negotiation and they're reactive and they start reacting and they get emotional and they get frustrated, as humans, when we're in that place of unexpressed emotions and frustration and feeling pressure or allowing a situation to put us under pressure, we have natural survival mechanisms that kick in.
• 12:10
  We have the fight, flight, fawn, or freeze mechanism that kicks in.
• 12:14
  And, you know, when you're in that nervous system reaction, there's some predictable things that happen.
• 12:20
  And this isn't me sharing this.
• 12:21
  This is like actual science around that survival mechanism where, you know, adrenaline kicks in.
• 12:27
  For men, we get some dopamine, not so much as to like feel good, but to stay in it.
• 12:32
  We have a kind of hormonal change in our body and we start trying to detect a neutralized threat.
• 12:38
  And when we're in that place of detecting and neutralizing threat, we're not in a place of really seeing what's going on around us.
• 12:46
  Because the second you get into one of those reactions, like the amount of options narrows.
• 12:50
  That's why it crushes you in a negotiation.
• 12:52
  You don't see all the options.
• 12:53
  You just start getting kind of tunnel vision.
• 12:57
  and the vision of the future, like how far into the future we can go actually pulls forward because that survival mechanism is saying you're in a fight, you're in a conflict, let's end this conflict.
• 13:06
  And so it's immediate what's here right now, not what's in the future.
• 13:10
  And, you know, it's not just that your options narrow and that, that it comes, you know, the future comes to like a more present state where you can't see as much.
• 13:19
  You also acquire this sense of urgency.
• 13:21
  Right.
• 13:22
  So if you mix that where there's like not an, or you put it together, there's not, not as many options.
• 13:28
  And the future isn't like really the future.
• 13:30
  It's just what we can do now.
• 13:32
  And we add in a sense of urgency.
• 13:35
  You end up in this place where once you start reacting, you're actually at a deficit with like every outcome you're going to get.
• 13:41
  You're not going to see as much.
• 13:42
  You're not going to understand as much.
• 13:44
  You're not going to be as effective.
• 13:47
  And, you know, this comes like this, this applies like even in the old business coaching you and I used to do when people were in a constant state of reaction, they always had trouble seeing options and growing their business and communicating with the people around them because they got this tunnel vision and it was, you know, they'd start reacting.
• 14:05
  They'd start applying urgency to everything.
• 14:07
  Yeah.
• 14:08
  And so I think the motivation to get out of that is to look at it and say, like, wait a second, if I can be more present and I'm not exploding and I'm not reacting to the emotions, I'm feeling them.
• 14:17
  But without having to react, you know, I'm feeling them in a state where I can respond.
• 14:22
  I get better at everything, like literally everything.
• 14:26
  I've been challenged on this.
• 14:28
  You've heard it on some of our calls, John.
• 14:30
  Not so much challenge, but question.
• 14:32
  Also, I get challenged a lot on social media where men say things like, oh, no, there's absolutely points in time where losing it is the best option.
• 14:40
  I'm like, show me.
• 14:42
  Show me, like, what is, tell me one scenario where losing it is the best option.
• 14:46
  And, like, one that gets reflected back a lot is, like, what if you're under attack?
• 14:51
  Like, man, if you're under attack, like, real physical attack, the last thing you want to do is lose it.
• 14:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 14:57
  You know, the best fighters in the world are the ones who see the punch coming from a mile away.
• 15:01
  And they're so present that they can see body movements and telegraphing and like what's going to happen next.
• 15:06
  And they don't ever lose it because they're in control of themselves.
• 15:09
  They understand the situation.
• 15:11
  They can see it for what it is.
• 15:13
  And so there's really no situation in life where we are helped by slipping into fight, flight, fawn, or freeze.
• 15:20
  You know, like, yes, it's a survival mechanism.
• 15:23
  And yes, it might kick in when you're in an emergency situation.
• 15:26
  But man, I hope it doesn't for me.
• 15:28
  You know, I want to be present.
• 15:29
  I want to be the one who's seen all the options, who sees a bigger future, who understands what's actually happening and doesn't go into some type of reflective, instinctive response.
• 15:40
  Because a lot of times that's not the best response.
• 15:44
  Yeah, totally agree.
• 15:45
  Yeah, I love the example of the fighter because, I mean, if you think about any martial artist, they're not losing themselves into the fight.
• 15:54
  They're becoming more present so they can be in the fight.
• 15:58
  And so I want to carry on from this and make it a little more personal.
• 16:04
  So if I'm listening to this right now, I'm thinking…
• 16:07
  okay, this all sounds great.
• 16:08
  I want to be more present.
• 16:10
  That's specifically in my relationship.
• 16:13
  But I do find myself being reactive and in conflict with my wife.
• 16:20
  I'll say for me or anyone listening, what are the ways that I can integrate this to where I'm not fight, flight, fawn, or freezing or becoming reactive in the moment or when a trigger is present that I'm not the one...
• 16:36
  Losing presence.
• 16:39
  Yeah.
• 16:41
  You know, John, I think the first step is to acknowledge that it happens.
• 16:45
  I'm kind of talking to my younger self right now because if you had approached me in the middle of most conflicts I experienced in my life, I would have told you I was perfectly fine.
• 16:56
  I would have said, I'm fine.
• 16:58
  You know, I don't need your help.
• 16:59
  I'm good.
• 17:00
  You know, I'm, I'm in control, quote unquote, you know, and I think one of the most important steps in the path to healing anything is acknowledgement.
• 17:11
  Yeah.
• 17:11
  It's like saying like, hey, there is an issue here and I actually am losing it.
• 17:15
  I'm not present.
• 17:16
  And so first acknowledging that it happens.
• 17:18
  And then second, starting to really slow things down when there is a trigger or conflict or emotions present.
• 17:27
  Because...
• 17:28
  For me, throughout most of my life, when there was a trigger present or when my wife would present me with emotions or when there was a conflict with my kids or any of those times, urgency kicked in.
• 17:39
  It's like, how fast can I make this go away?
• 17:41
  How fast can I fix it?
• 17:42
  How fast can I change it?
• 17:44
  And the more urgency was there, the more that I tried to do it quickly, the more things escalated.
• 17:50
  And so acknowledging something's going on and then slowing down.
• 17:53
  In the brotherhood, we say slow is fast and fast is slow.
• 17:55
  And it's not just a cool saying.
• 17:57
  It's like a mantra of, hey, when you feel, when I feel emotions coming up in my body, I take a breath.
• 18:06
  And I show myself, hey, in this moment, you're safe.
• 18:09
  The irony for us as men is that in the vast majority of situations in our life, like in excess of 99%, maybe 99.9%, we're not in physical danger.
• 18:19
  But in so many situations in our life, we respond as though we're under actual threat.
• 18:26
  We're in physical danger, we're under threat.
• 18:27
  I have to extinguish this, I have to neutralize this.
• 18:31
  And when we understand that's our pattern and how damaging it is, not just for us, but for the people around us, you know, it's incredibly damaging for us.
• 18:38
  It slows things in our life down.
• 18:39
  It causes chaos.
• 18:40
  We have to go clean things up.
• 18:41
  I mean, it's like the slowest way to do things is to try and make everything happen all at once and right away and get rid of the issue.
• 18:50
  Instead, it's slowing down.
• 18:51
  And, you know, in the brotherhood, we talk about training the trigger.
• 18:55
  You know, I remember when that, like,
• 18:58
  downloaded from me or when I first had the realization that like hey there's this thing that happens to us as men where there's a trigger present.
• 19:04
  And by the way, that can be hers, ours, who cares, it's the kids, like there's a trigger.
• 19:09
  Something that starts us to get escalated.
• 19:12
  And then there's this escalation period where things get more intense.
• 19:16
  then typically we escalate as men because we are like programmed to detect a neutralized threat.
• 19:23
  We cause a rupture and then there's this rupture period and then there's withdraw.
• 19:27
  And then after a period of withdraw, we come back and we repair or quasi repair or we don't repair and we just pretend like it didn't happen.
• 19:33
  Like all of those things are equally as not, not equally as challenging.
• 19:37
  They're all challenging.
• 19:38
  If we repair, that means there was a problem to begin with.
• 19:40
  If we quasi repair and we don't really talk about it, then there's unfinished business there and like a lot of repressed emotions.
• 19:47
  And in my relationship for so long, John, we would rupture and then it would just be like this time period where we started talking again and never really talked about the rupture, you know.
• 19:56
  Just really quick before you continue on that, because I've seen this question come up a number of times.
• 20:01
  Can you put a little more clarity on what rupture is and what that looks like?
• 20:05
  Yeah, sure.
• 20:06
  So.
• 20:08
  The pattern that I found in my relationship and the pattern that I've, I mean, the pattern that men have identified in their relationship with 100% of the men I've talked to so far, like none of them have told me, like, no, Alex, that doesn't happen in my relationship at all, is that there's a trigger present and then there's an escalation.
• 20:25
  And we have to define escalation.
• 20:28
  A lot of times we think escalation is like yelling and screaming and losing it.
• 20:32
  But there's a different type of escalation.
• 20:34
  There's escalation of what's going on for us.
• 20:36
  There's escalation of the energy.
• 20:38
  And so sometimes that looks like yelling and screaming and losing it.
• 20:41
  Sometimes it looks like escalation is just shutting down.
• 20:44
  Yeah.
• 20:44
  And withdrawing and like not being there.
• 20:47
  And so whether we bring too much energy or we withdraw our energy, we cause a rupture because a lack of presence causes a rupture in the energetic between us and the person that we're with.
• 20:59
  And what I mean by that is if we're yelling and screaming, we disconnect.
• 21:03
  If we withdraw and pull our energy out of the conversation, we disconnect.
• 21:07
  And that disconnection itself is what causes a rupture.
• 21:11
  And in most cases, like when there's that rupture that happens, when there's a fight, where there's yelling and screaming or where there's complete withdrawal and like not communicating anymore.
• 21:22
  you usually leave that situation and then there's like this withdraw period.
• 21:26
  It's like, we need to let that cool off or we need to, like this wasn't working so I'm not going to do it anymore.
• 21:31
  Or she leaves, you leave, somebody exits the conversation and then we come back and try and fix it.
• 21:38
  And I think if you look at it, it's really understanding that if you slow things down and you understand that when there's a trigger present, you're not in danger.
• 21:51
  I mean, geez, my kids are young girls.
• 21:55
  And so often there would be a trigger present and I would react in the moment as though there was danger present.
• 22:00
  I'm yelling and screaming like there's a real threat.
• 22:04
  They're young girls, there's no threat at all.
• 22:07
  Like once we can rationalize that and understand like, hey, rationally, if I'm yelling, if I'm screaming, if I'm withdrawing, if I'm taking my energy out of this situation, something else is going on.
• 22:18
  It's not from this conversation we're having here.
• 22:20
  It's something in my history.
• 22:22
  It's something that's happened in the past that is making me bring that interpretation of the past into this present moment and then react to the trigger.
• 22:32
  And so as men, when we understand like, hey, if there's a trigger present, I have a choice.
• 22:38
  I can respond.
• 22:39
  I can slow things down.
• 22:40
  I don't have to react to every trigger.
• 22:42
  I don't have to react to any trigger.
• 22:43
  Every trigger is like data.
• 22:46
  And it's a way to understand myself better.
• 22:48
  And if the same trigger is coming up over and over again, I probably have some work to do there.
• 22:52
  But I don't have to have a reaction.
• 22:54
  And I'm not, this is important, I'm not justified in the reaction.
• 22:58
  Let me explain that.
• 22:59
  There's a difference between the reaction being understandable.
• 23:02
  Right.
• 23:04
  When my wife starts crying, I have this need to withdraw because I had a really emotional mom, and it brings back all this stuff.
• 23:12
  That's understandable.
• 23:14
  But let's not make it justified.
• 23:16
  Let's not say like, oh, because you cried, I'm allowed to do this.
• 23:19
  No, that's data to say, okay, so when my wife starts crying, I have a really challenging response to it that doesn't make sense in the moment because of this thing that's happened in the past.
• 23:29
  And if I can process that and understand it and slow things down, I can stop doing that and be better everywhere in my life.
• 23:37
  It's huge.
• 23:38
  Yeah, even just the awareness around that.
• 23:42
  It reminds me of a while back when I was having this repetitive trigger come up in my relationship, and I talked to you about it.
• 23:53
  And you kind of like walked me through this process.
• 23:56
  And what my takeaway at the time was, was this is a process of me overcoming myself.
• 24:03
  The thing that I want to do is react.
• 24:05
  Right.
• 24:06
  I want to be in the trigger.
• 24:07
  I want to be justified in my defense of whatever the trigger is.
• 24:12
  And here's why I'm doing it and be seen as valid and validated for the trigger.
• 24:18
  And what I'm hearing is.
• 24:21
  It's it's it's a much different approach to that.
• 24:24
  It's.
• 24:25
  I can be present with myself and understand that there's something coming up for me that does not have to do with my partner, my wife, or my kids or anything like that.
• 24:35
  I need to deal with this and then become present with what's going on.
• 24:40
  And that's the way to interrupt that pattern that you explained.
• 24:46
  Does that sound accurate?
• 24:49
  Absolutely.
• 24:50
  And if you look at that, John, like when we say, what is masculinity, right?
• 24:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:57
  To me, masculinity is the state of being able to be present and to lead with curiosity and to understand yourself at a very deep level where you don't have those reactions and to be able to process emotions in the present.
• 25:16
  Like, that is a powerful man.
• 25:19
  You know, we do a meditation in the Brotherhood where...
• 25:22
  I have men go into, you know, we call it meditation or ritual, but we have men go into a state where they access the most recent trigger or a recent trigger.
• 25:32
  And we have them feel it and feel it in their bodies.
• 25:35
  And oftentimes they're feeling like heat in the chest.
• 25:37
  And if you're listening right now, you know, like think of a recent trigger.
• 25:40
  You might feel like heat in your chest or heat in your face or tension in the shoulders or, you know.
• 25:46
  tension in the stomach, the solar plexus, kind of a tensing around the whole body.
• 25:51
  And that is a state of like...
• 25:56
  being in a reaction.
• 25:57
  And then we have men breathe through those feelings and breathe through the feelings in the body and bring the body back to center and calm that feeling.
• 26:07
  And it's like night and day.
• 26:09
  They say, here I was like a seven out of 10 or an eight out of 10 or a 10 out of 10 in discomfort.
• 26:15
  And when I was able to breathe through them, I got down to a two or a three or a four and I felt more present, I felt more relaxed and I felt less tense and I felt less triggered and less frustrated.
• 26:24
  And then I have men go into the meditation and answer the question, what would your life look like if that's how you were all the time?
• 26:34
  And they always reflect back, it would change everything.
• 26:36
  Or it would make me an entirely different person.
• 26:39
  Or I would have less conflict with my family, with my mom, with my wife, with my kids.
• 26:43
  Or I would have less conflict with myself.
• 26:45
  I mean, I remember one guy even typed in, I'm pretty sure this is what he said.
• 26:50
  I don't want to overstate it, but it was something like I would hate myself less.
• 26:55
  You know, because so often this state of reactivity and the state of losing it in the moment feels righteously justified.
• 27:05
  But afterwards, we feel a tremendous amount of shame and frustration with ourselves.
• 27:10
  And, you know, that can lead into a spiral of like shame and self-loathing and frustration and judging ourselves.
• 27:15
  Yeah.
• 27:16
  And so the more present we can be in that, the less we're reacting to the trigger, the more, the more we can actually appreciate ourselves and not have that like negative opinion, that negative shame spiral that comes with reactions.
• 27:29
  Yeah.
• 27:31
  Yeah, it's really good.
• 27:32
  It's what I was actually thinking about, like, what does it look like to be masculine within this process or within the process that you explained?
• 27:39
  Yeah.
• 27:41
  I want to shift the conversation a little bit, but keep it really focused around masculinity.
• 27:48
  And my question comes from, like, what is...
• 27:57
  Because we have two different definitions of masculinity, we've defined a definition of masculinity that I think makes a lot of sense and I think can potentially help a lot of guys, especially if they're looking to be better on their relationship.
• 28:15
  But I want to go back to the alternative definitions of masculinity.
• 28:20
  And where they come from started and kind of where we started.
• 28:23
  So with with that, if if we look at all of these different definitions of masculinity.
• 28:30
  What what can guys do to slowly shift from kind of like that alpha male macho.
• 28:38
  To more of the masculine definition that we're talking about here.
• 28:44
  And the question specifically is around masculine containment.
• 28:47
  So when we talk about masculine containment, first, can you define that for everyone?
• 28:55
  And then how does masculinity fit into masculine containment?
• 29:00
  So, you know, my definition of masculine containment is being able to be present in the face of chaos, in the face of emotions, in the face of challenges, in the face of frustrations or irritations or any of those things that happen to us as men.
• 29:15
  You know, we're able to contain ourselves.
• 29:17
  And so often people hear the word containment and then what they interpret it as is suppression or repression or, you know, not emoting, not being there.
• 29:26
  But it's the opposite.
• 29:27
  Containment is being able to remain curious and remain present and be in the moment and stay there with whatever's coming up and actually feel your feelings and know that it's okay.
• 29:40
  You know, John, when I look at like what happens with so many men,
• 29:44
  when there's a trigger that comes up, we try and stop that trigger.
• 29:46
  We try and like repress it and suppress it and it just gains energy and comes out sideways.
• 29:51
  You know, it's like, oh, I don't want to feel that feeling and now I'm screaming and yelling.
• 29:54
  I don't want to feel that feeling, now I'm checking out and I'm not even present, I'm disassociating.
• 29:59
  And so masculine containment is the opposite of that.
• 30:02
  It's learning that you can actually feel your feelings fully without having to act on them and without having to react to them.
• 30:09
  And when you look at that as a...
• 30:13
  way of expressing masculinity like think about the guy who is calm in the face of chaos who when there's a challenge and everybody else is like looking in different directions and panicking he's walking right in and saying like hey here's some decisions we can make and this is a direction we should go and he's taking over and leading and when there's someone who's having a really big emotional issue or a big challenge he's able to stay present with that person ask questions help them understand what's going on for themselves and reveal to themselves the solution
• 30:44
  To me, that is like if you picture that person, that is a extraordinarily masculine, extraordinarily grounded leader of people, leader of himself.
• 30:57
  And so I think, you know, when you look at masculine containment, it's like acquiring that state and understanding it.
• 31:03
  And that is the expression of masculinity.
• 31:07
  Yeah.
• 31:07
  Yeah, I think that's really good.
• 31:12
  I've come to understand for myself and, and, and for me, one of the, the sayings in the brotherhood is progress over perfection.
• 31:19
  And I'm definitely a testament to progress over perfection.
• 31:23
  I do not get it right every time.
• 31:25
  Um, uh, and, and it's, it's amazing to be with a partner who understands this type of work and, and really seeing changes over time.
• 31:36
  Um,
• 31:38
  And it's funny, actually, we had an email go out today about how guys can change and it might not be acknowledged right away because sometimes that trust factor is broken.
• 31:53
  And so that's where I want to go with my next question is.
• 31:57
  If a guy goes down this road, if a man's like, hey, this all sounds good, I want to practice these with myself, with my partner, I want to practice being more masculine, being more present, and they start to do these practices and they start to change.
• 32:12
  And their wife or partner doesn't acknowledge it and they don't feel the, almost the validation of this hard work and effort they're getting or putting into it.
• 32:23
  What would you say around
• 32:26
  remaining or i would say like keeping masculine containment or what does masculinity look like in that scenario if there's not acknowledgement around the changes that they're actively trying to make i think um i think one of the ways as men
• 32:47
  that we leak or affect or challenge our ability to actually stay in a place where we are in our masculine, to stay in a place where we are holding our capacity, is by seeking the approval of people around us instead of seeking the approval of ourselves.
• 33:05
  Hmm.
• 33:07
  And I think for so many men, not so many men, you know, John, I mean, I'm sure there's a guy out there.
• 33:13
  I certainly haven't met him.
• 33:14
  But all of us have mother wounds and all of us have father wounds.
• 33:18
  And we have trauma and conditioning from our childhoods that tell us that the approval we seek is outside of ourselves.
• 33:29
  And the, you know, the progress we make will be reflected only by the people outside of us.
• 33:35
  And I think one of the things that is so important when you embark on this work, when you decide that you're going to start moving towards containment, when you're going to decide that you're going to really improve your relationship and make things better in your life is that you compare yourself against yourself and you gauge your progress.
• 33:54
  You remove the pressure of your partner having to be this validation scoreboard that tells you whether you're doing it right or not.
• 34:02
  And I think, you know, so many of us, myself included, that used to be what I did.
• 34:06
  It was like, how does Katie feel?
• 34:08
  How is she reacting?
• 34:09
  How does she seem, you know?
• 34:11
  And inadvertently, what I would do is just put tremendous pressure on her by making her the
• 34:22
  the litmus test or like the scoreboard of whether I was doing okay.
• 34:25
  And I think what's far more important is recognizing in yourself when you're doing okay.
• 34:31
  Like there's been more than one time where, you know, I've been on a call with the brotherhood and I've had a technical issue and technical issues used to make like, like,
• 34:40
  like energy go up my back and I'd get all reactive.
• 34:43
  I mean, you've seen this, you've seen me specifically have a big reaction to a technical issue.
• 34:49
  And there's more than once where that's happened.
• 34:51
  And I'll stop and say like, man, I didn't even like feel a heart palpitation or lose my breath just now.
• 34:57
  That was kind of awesome.
• 34:58
  You know, in front of everybody because, um,
• 35:03
  I'm my most important scoreboard.
• 35:06
  I have perspective of where I'm making progress.
• 35:08
  And I think as if a man's in a relationship and he's looking to improve his relationship, that's crucially important.
• 35:16
  The more that you make this work about you and not her, ironically, the faster it'll work with her.
• 35:23
  Hmm.
• 35:25
  Totally makes sense.
• 35:27
  I think that's actually a really good place for us to wrap up for, for this conversation, because, um, I mean, just my own personal reflection, I've seen, I've seen my, me judging progress over perfection for myself and not needing or, uh, not requiring the validation to know that I'm on the right path has been massively transformational just for me.
• 35:49
  Um, with that said, uh,
• 35:53
  Can you give me like a 30 to 60 second summary of masculinity, what we talked about today, and how guys can utilize this and apply it in their lives?
• 36:04
  Yeah, I think to wrap things up, I'll start with progress over perfection.
• 36:10
  It's such a good point you bring up, John.
• 36:12
  The more you try to be perfect in this work and the more you try to do everything right and do it all at once and right away, the more difficult it's going to be.
• 36:19
  And the highest expression of masculinity is presence.
• 36:22
  And presence takes time to develop.
• 36:24
  And it takes time to let go of wounding.
• 36:27
  It takes time to understand your triggers.
• 36:28
  It takes time to...
• 36:30
  to notice a reaction before, or notice a trigger before you react.
• 36:34
  And so, in this work, give yourself grace.
• 36:39
  And understand that if you have the goal of becoming more present, and you are moving towards that, and you see yourself reacting less, and you see yourself catching yourself, and you see yourself
• 36:49
  I'm slowing things down.
• 36:51
  Those are all acts of massive progress that quite honestly, the average man in the world will never even think this way.
• 37:00
  So give yourself credit for being one of the few who actually want to make themselves and their relationship and their family and the relationships that they have with people around them better.
• 37:11
  Because I truly believe like one man at a time, we can make this world a better place.
• 37:16
  Love it.
• 37:17
  I love it.
• 37:18
  There's one final question I want to ask before we wrap up for the day.
• 37:21
  And the question is, if you could go back and tell yourself one thing about masculinity or what it is to be a man, and your younger self might even be 12, 24 months ago.
• 37:33
  It doesn't have to be when you're eight or nine.
• 37:36
  But for a guy who's sitting here thinking like, yeah, okay, all this sounds good.
• 37:41
  What would you go back and tell your younger self about being a man or masculinity?
• 37:49
  I think I would say like you don't have to do it all at once and right away.
• 37:55
  that was the timing that I was satisfied with for most of my life.
• 37:58
  And I applied a sense of urgency to almost everything that I did that was just unnecessary.
• 38:04
  And it was reinforced by so much of the dogma that I heard from people around me, like speed to execution.
• 38:08
  And, you know, you got to be doing things fast.
• 38:10
  And if you get slowed down, change your state.
• 38:12
  And like just this constant, almost, uh, disassociative application of speed was really, really challenging.
• 38:22
  And,
• 38:23
  I think I'd try and express to my younger self just how important slow is fast and fast is slow.
• 38:30
  When you slow things down and you stop the rupture and you stop or you start, you know, you, you arrest the situation, the trigger before it ever gets to rupture, your life moves so much faster and you get so much more done than if you're constantly cleaning things up and in a shame spiral and feeling challenged with yourself.
• 38:47
  And so I think that's probably what I would say.
• 38:49
  It was beautiful.
• 38:50
  Thanks for sharing, Alex.
• 38:51
  And thanks for having me on the podcast today to deep dive on masculinity with you.
• 38:57
  Yeah, thanks, John.
• 38:57
  This was awesome.
• 38:58
  I'm looking forward to doing it again.
• 39:00
  Absolutely.
• 39:01
  Thanks, Alex.
• 39:04
  So thanks for listening today.
• 39:05
  If you have related to anything we've talked about on masculinity or masculine containment, we would love to have you in the next Brotherhood.
• 39:13
  You can go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com and get on the wait list.
• 39:17
  We should be opening another container soon once this podcast is up and public, but we would love to have you in there.
• 39:26
  So again, go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com and you can sign up for the wait list there.