Jason Lange on Men’s Mental Health, Vulnerability, and Why Every Man Needs a Men’s Group

[00:00:02] Hey there, listeners. Welcome to Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads, our podcast where we normalize conversations around mental health. That's right. I'm Dirty Skittles and alongside my amazing co-host, G-Rex, we're here to share stories and tips from our incredible guests. Each episode, we deep dive into struggles and triumphs of mental health, offering practical advice and heartfelt support because no one should feel alone in their journey.

[00:00:31] Join us as we break the stigma and build a community of understanding and compassion. Tune in and let's start talking about the shit that goes on in our heads. Three, two, one. Welcome back to another episode of Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads. I'm here with the awesome Dirty Skittles and today we have an amazing guest, Jason Lange. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me. Pumped to be here.

[00:00:59] Yeah. I'm excited to get to learn about like what you do with men's mental health. Where should we begin? Yeah. You know, I'll start just very simple. Part of my mission is every man should be in a men's group. And we're talking here at the beginning of men's mental health month. And I think it's one of the antidotes to the looming crisis that so many men are in that is deep, right?

[00:01:25] It starts at a cultural level for so many men when they're young, right? In terms of the ways we raise boys differently from girls. And it goes all the way up to what produces, right? Men who are often in a lot of isolation and a lot of emotional pain and often don't even have the language to know how to talk about it. And so what I often see, certainly what was part of my journey is when we don't have the language to talk about the pain inside of us,

[00:01:54] we reach for things outside of us to try to change it. So that could be alcohol, weed, porn and masturbation, sex addiction, work addiction, TV, you name it. And so this idea of what, you know, I think the moment is calling for us men is to be allowed to have inner lives and interiority and learn how to communicate that so we can show up better in our relationships and communities and whatnot. And frankly, just feel better.

[00:02:26] When did you, I guess, learn how to communicate? I wish I could say it was early. I would say I'm still in process. If my wife was here right now, she would say, like, I still learn it. But I'm way better than I used to be. So, you know, part of my journey and what really brought me into this work was, you know, I'm a white guy raised in the lower middle class of the Midwest, the United States. And, you know, in the 80s, basically had all my security needs met, right? Stable food and shelter.

[00:02:53] But what I discovered as I became a teenager, so in my case, I'm heterosexual and I started to get attracted to girls, was I would get really uncomfortable. My body would lock up. I'd get kind of sweaty and anxious and I didn't know how to talk to them. And then what I found as I got into those teenage years, on top of that, was I started to make male friends, thankfully. So I had some connection, but I noticed they were connected differently than me.

[00:03:22] They would like horseplay. They would wrestle, which at its basic level, they would touch each other, right? There was actual physical connection. And what all this started to illuminate for me in my teenage years was I was raised in a household of neglect. Physical and emotional neglect, meaning my family, you know, they did the best they could. My parents were trying, but they did not bring physical closeness.

[00:03:48] Touch was not something that was alive in my household, let alone talking about feelings and what was going on inside. So I become a teenager and I'm just basically locked in my body, numb, not knowing how to talk. And it was so painful, it kind of kicked me off on a journey that I'm still on in a lot of ways, but that in my mid-20s for me in particular, got me into men's groups and men's circles and somatic therapy for the first time in my life where I started to actually get connected

[00:04:17] to myself and what I was feeling. And then doing so in a circle, in a space where I was allowed to learn how to talk about it. Not be shamed or ostracized or the things so many men are fearful of. If I, well, if I'm vulnerable, you know, guys are going to make fun of me or attack me and, or bully me. And that is a sad truth in reality for a lot of men. What empowered you to, I guess, join or seek help in your 20s? Literally just, I didn't know what else to do.

[00:04:47] So, you know, I was in my body, I was seeing my friends get into relationships and no matter what I tried, I just couldn't do it. And it became more and more painful. And then as a man in particular, part of many of the cultural forces I was working against is the shame of being a late bloomer. I didn't kiss a girl till I was in college. I didn't get into my first relationships and have physical intimacy till later in my 20s.

[00:05:11] And by that time I had some good, solid male friends, but I was terrified to talk about that. Because for so many men, you know, if you haven't had sex at a certain age, there's something wrong with you. I don't, you know, now obviously I don't think that, but that's like the cultural pressure. So I was just in so much pain. I was like, there's got to be a better way. Like literally there has to be a way for me to move through my day and not be in so much discomfort.

[00:05:39] And I think like a lot of men, I first went up into my head and I got super into philosophy and reading and trying to understand. And then that luckily kind of guided me to a place where I just got really lucky being in a community, in an area where the type of work I needed was available. And some of the men I was connecting with at the time kind of gently brought me in. And then things started to change. And I started to build some of the skills and capacities that I think so many men do.

[00:06:07] Whereas now, you know, I've so many incredible men in my life that I'm much more able to talk about what's going on inside. And lo and behold, my mental health, my well-being, they've all gone way up since then. And like how hard, you know, like in those early years, because, you know, when you're not taught that at home or when you don't get that at home, you know, you got super vulnerable

[00:06:33] and you're like, I am going to go find a way to get to fix myself because I'm tired of feeling this way. And like, yeah, that took a lot of foresight on yours on your part, because like you could have just ignored it and gone along your merry way and like been miserable your entire life. And instead, now you've like taken those life lessons and you've created this incredible movement. And, you know, I've been following you guys. I'm so proud of everything you've done. And I'm really proud of you.

[00:07:03] I'm proud of you for like looking out for you because I'm sure it wasn't a conversation that you could have with your parents, right? Because, you know, there's a whole lot of uncomfortableness around that anyway. But, you know, finding these men that could help shape you. And I think it's just so, so true that, you know, men, even men that do get like have

[00:07:28] the, those loving, feeling, touching families still need some guidance from other men. I mean, I think everybody needs a mentor, whether you're a man or a woman, you know, everybody needs somebody you can learn from, you know, lean on, you know, share ideas. And so I'm really, I think that's really cool what you did. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. She raises an interesting point.

[00:07:56] How did your parents, did you share with them in your twenties, like what you were doing? No, they were in a pretty different place. So it took me a while to change my relationships with them. And, you know, I think it probably started first with my mother. And honestly, it probably wasn't until my mid thirties in that I realized one of the things that makes growth work challenging is that once we become aware, we become kind of responsible.

[00:08:26] Meaning I became aware of the way my mom was raised, the family system, how it played out in us. And what that made me realize is she doesn't actually have the skills to come towards me in the way I want. I've been training in these skills. So it's kind of incumbent on me to open a new doorway if we want to have some different kind of connection. And I remember vivid.

[00:08:51] I had been doing some work, was working with men and really got clear that there's, there's one of my ex-evolutions is going to be changing how I relate to my mom and she's not going to do it. And so it literally came down to, I remember it was like a Tuesday night. It was like 34, 35 maybe. And I don't really call my parents a ton. If we did, it'd be like on Sundays, there was kind of this groove. And so me calling her on a Tuesday night was like out of nowhere. And I could tell, you know, she kind of answered the phone.

[00:09:20] And we were talking and at the time I was living in Los Angeles, I had been pursuing a career as a filmmaker and it was quite hard. And I basically was just like, Hey, you know, since moving out here, it's been really hard and it's been challenging. And you have really supported me in a lot of ways. And I just want to say, appreciate that. And I love you. I had never said that to my mom before. And there was like a pause, kind of awkward. And then she was able to say it back. And since then we're able to say it to each other. Like it just, it changed it.

[00:09:49] Usually I'm still initiating. It's not kind of her first, so to speak, but she does say it back now. And then, you know, that kind of continued in our relationship has deepened in its own ways, particularly since I had kids, that's brought us much closer. She was able to step in as grandma. And then same thing with my parents. You know, my dad never quite got my work. He recently passed away. But what the work allowed me to do, what my growth allowed me to do, particularly about

[00:10:14] 10 years ago, I had to do a lot of angry, anger work of the ways he wasn't able to show up for me. And that I did have to go out and find guidance and teach myself and all these really painful things. And I'm so grateful I did that work back then because he passed earlier this year and I was able to just be present with him and really appreciate him for what he did try to bring and the love. You know, he was doing the best he could.

[00:10:40] And instead of having all that resentment built up, I had already been able to work a lot of it and come to terms with what he was able to offer me and what he wasn't. And because the resentment wasn't there, I was able to be a lot more present as he passed and just really appreciate the time I did have left for him. So it's one of the challenges I see, you know, with anyone in growth works. We start growing and the people around us don't, you know, that can create some different

[00:11:07] relationships in the future where we start to decide who we don't put our attention on. If you're open to sharing, what did you learn? Like when you went in for your 20s, like what were some of the, I guess, exercises or how does that work? I know nothing of what your fruits are like. Yeah. A couple of things. What does that look like for you? First, honestly, how to connect to my body. Meaning myself, I think like a lot of men, I mean really anyone, but I think men in

[00:11:37] particular, it's really easy for us to just live from the neck up and always be thinking and ruminating and trying to fix and solve and analyze and read more books and listen to more podcasts. But what it misses is being in our body. Like actually being connected to what am I feeling in my body. And in the work I was trained in that I now train men in, emotions, right? They actually start as sensations in our bodies.

[00:12:05] So if we're not connected to our body, guess what? We're not really connected to our emotions. So what early men's groups and somatic work really taught me to do were to get into my body and simply connect to what I was feeling. Oh, this is what I'm feeling. I'm feeling a pit in my stomach. I'm feeling scared. Or I'm feeling like heavy in my chest. I'm actually feeling sad. I'm feeling sad right now. Oh, that's what it is. I'm feeling sad right now. Like sounds really simple.

[00:12:32] But to me at the time, you know, the way I was raised, I didn't have the vocabulary. You know, many men and I count myself in this group when I was starting, our vocabulary was good, bad, and fine. How are you? I'm okay. I'm bad. I'm fine. And so it's hard to connect when we can't really talk with more nuance. And that's something I'm particularly passionate about, you know, as a father now and with kids is that's part of what ideally I think our caregivers are supposed to give us, right?

[00:13:01] So, you know, my son's 18 months now and he's starting to have some pretty big feelings. So, you know, I take the scissors away from him because they're not safe and he gets red, he gets hot, he starts stomping, he screams. Now he doesn't know what that is, right? Right. But I'm able to drop down, my wife and I were both really good at this and say, wow, you're feeling really angry right now. You're feeling really angry because you want to play with the scissors and daddy isn't letting you. You're mad, right?

[00:13:29] And that's how the circuit starts to connect, right? Oh, this is what's happening inside me. You're right. I am mad, right? And that simple skill is one so many men I think in particular are just completely undertrained in. In the therapeutic world, they call that interoception, which is the awareness of what's happening inside your body. If I'm not aware of what's happening in my body, I can't communicate it, right?

[00:13:56] So this work really taught me to get into my body, to slow down, to get connected to my emotional experience. And then in the context of a group of men in particular, they're able to notice when I'm not connecting to it, right? So this thing of like, oh yeah, I'm kind of mad at that, and then I just keep going. And they're like, slow down, go back. You just said you were really mad about that. Are you really mad about that? Yeah, I'm mad about that. So feel it.

[00:14:25] Like actually feel you're mad about it. And then I get to feel it. And then that allows me to be present with it and eventually work with it in a different way. I definitely learned how to be vulnerable, right? How to share things in particular with other men. And now, you know, my spouse in a way that I was never taught of, wow, it feels really scary to say this. I don't know how to say this, but this is what I want to do. And I feel really lucky I got access to some of these tools when I was younger,

[00:14:53] because now I work with a lot of men in particular who don't find this stuff till much later in life. And it has a cost, right? On accumulated stress and relationships and so many different things. So it's never too late to do the work, but it's pretty amazing when like I'm working with like a 27-year-old kid now, and I'm like, oh my goodness, the fact that you're doing this now, like you are going to have it made moving forward. Because like you're doing some of the heavy lifting now that,

[00:15:24] you know, again, a lot of men don't do till later in life because they think, oh, if I just work really hard and do the things, I'll be happy. And then midlife comes and they're like, wait, do I even want to be doing these things? What have I done? Who am I? What do I want? And then you actually have to do this inner work.

[00:15:52] What I think is really a great correlation here is I see how Dirty Skills raises her son. And a lot of what you were talking about, she's already working with him on that. And so he's going to be like so set, you know, by the time he gets, you know, into his late teens, early 20s, because like, I know for men, those years are really hard. Yes.

[00:16:21] Between the ages of like 16 to 25, because you're still trying to find out who you are, where do you belong? And so Dirty Skills, I have to commend you because you're doing the right thing for him now. So you set him up for success, you know, in the next five to 10 years. And Jason, I love what you're doing too, because like it's so important. And there's so many men out there that are not in touch with themselves. And then they bring themselves to work

[00:16:51] and they're giant dickheads and they don't understand why they're giant dickheads because they've never been able to express, like fully express what's really like getting at them. And I think, you know, a lot of people, a lot of men that aren't in touch with their feelings are the people that are narcissists and misogynists and can't really like pinpoint what it is that makes them the way they are.

[00:17:21] And a lot of it does stem from the way that we are brought up. Yeah. And again, this culture of so many boys and men are raised in the culture of, well, to be a man means to be invulnerable, right? So be tough, pick yourself up, don't cry, just get over it, move forward. And this is part of the challenge for so many boys and men that often starts young, right? They've done research just observing how often boys and girls are parented differently, right? Boy falls down, it's like, oh, get back up,

[00:17:51] you're fine, you're okay. Girl falls down, a little bit more attunement. Just, hey, you're probably in pain right now and that's okay, you know, I'm here with you. And so what that does from a young age actually is even at that young age, it starts to teach boys, hey, what's happening in your body? Ignore it. Ignore it. Override it with your head. Stop crying, right? What's happening in your body? Ignore it. Override it in your head. Get into the school system. You know, young male bodies in particular,

[00:18:20] it seems to be they have a high need to move. They have a lot of kinetic bodily energy. They need to move. And they learn through movement and play and, you know, roughhousing. But that's not really how our school systems are set up. So what happens is, well, you can't stop moving. There must be something wrong with you. You're a bad kid. We need to medicate you, get you into some system, something like that. You know, there's some crazy research that shows a lot of the education gap that's showing up between young boys and girls right now. You can eradicate it with two things.

[00:18:49] Hold the boys back a year because they emotionally mature slower. And start the day with like two hours of physical activity, rigorous physical activity. And then all the differences kind of wipe out. But that same message, then it really goes into adolescence, adolescence where other boys became the perpetrators, right? In groups, out groups, boys' bodies are developing at a different pace. What many boys learn in locker room culture is stay cool,

[00:19:19] don't share anything that could make you a target of any kind of bullying or ostracization. So just play it cool, play it cool. Whatever's happening inside, override it with your head. And then we get out into the workforce and, you know, say what you will. Our culture has a bit of an obsession with, wow, he works 80 hours and sleeps under his desk. Isn't that great? Like, no. How do you do that? You have to override your body, right? You have to push through it with your head. So there's this whole kind of trajectory

[00:19:48] boys are on that we have to fight against that says, no, what's happening in your body is really important. And you can learn the skills to be in it. And it starts, like you said, at that young age. So the fact you're able to attune to your boy like that is giving him, I think, actually one of the killer skills that's going to make him really able to thrive in the world we're moving in. Where being able to be responsible for your nervous system is, it's like a superpower now.

[00:20:18] Yes, that's literally. And I think it started, at least for me, because I can relate to part of your story where, you know, I grew up very much similar in that, well, parents are workaholics. Yeah. There was nobody there to tell me or to create that safe space that it was okay to have feelings. Yeah. So I think because of that, I had always said it in my mind that when I'm a parent, I want to do better for my kids. I think we all parents set out for that.

[00:20:48] But it was deeper. I wanted to make sure that whether I had a boy or a girl, regardless, the emotions that they felt, I wanted them to be able to identify it because I couldn't for so long. So that was where that sort of started. And it is very validating to hear you say some of this. I have selfishly a question because this is the... Sure. This is something I cannot crack with him. And it's probably actually going back to what you had said,

[00:21:17] where society or you're raised to be a man, like what does it mean to be a man? And there's this very toxic, like... Yeah. ...way of telling somebody to be a man. And I'm at this point where I'm like, okay, he's able to have emotions, identify them, work through the emotion. But I keep getting this feedback from like his teachers or in school, how sensitive he is. Almost like it's a bad thing to be sensitive. Well, you know, he's just so sensitive, right?

[00:21:46] That shit pisses me off. Yeah. And it's to the point where now he's going to school with his male friends who are also calling him sensitive. And I want him to treat it as a superpower. Yes. So in the men's groups and all the work that you've done, how do you learn confidence that like, that's okay to do that? Like it's okay to be vulnerable and gentle as a man and not have to be this toxic version of a man. Yeah. Well, I'll start, you know,

[00:22:15] this word gets a lot of flack in our culture right now, but what you're speaking to is the patriarchy, right? Like this idea that sensitivity is, there's something lesser or wrong with it and that impacts everybody. And, you know, the wild thing is it's not just men, right? There's women out there too who kind of reinforce that. Oh, you know, I want my man to be sensitive and then he's finally sensitive and they're like, like that actually happens to a lot of guys I work with where they get scared by it. So that's one of the things we're just working against

[00:22:45] that just says, hey, and, you know, two things come to mind. One is, and this is why there's thankfully, it's just, oh man, the smallest seeds right now, but they're starting to blossom of a reintegration and a bringing back this idea that boys and girls too, but boys in particular need rites of passage. They do need to go through a journey from that boy to kind of man. And often all rites of passage is spending time

[00:23:14] with older men who are embodying the healthy versions of things. So you actually have an anchored role model of, oh, that's it, right? The first man that ever really got me in my body and cracked me open and gave me access to an emotions in a way that I didn't know. It's so wild. I tell this story now. I was 26 and I was going into his group and I remember thinking, seeing him, that's what I want to be when I grow up. And at the time, I didn't know I was going to be doing this kind of work. So it wasn't the occupational thing,

[00:23:44] but it was the way he's being. His presence, his intention, the ability he communicates and how he holds space, how he deals with conflict. I was like, whatever that is, I want to get there because I feel more relaxed being in this man's presence. And I think that's one of the great gifts of the healthy version of the masculine is it actually makes everyone feel safe. Just like, oh yeah, great. We can just be ourselves here. And that is one

[00:24:14] of the great things I think about men's groups in rites of passage work is getting exposure, right? That what I've seen is the fastest way for that transmission to happen is to be around it. And where the pain point is for so many boys, I think, is they never get to be around it. Mainstream culture does not give us this, right? We get examples of kind of the action hero and vulnerable. I'm just tough as nails, guys. Or we get kind of the sitcom dad who's like the butt of every joke.

[00:24:43] And neither of those are really showing a man who's standing in his dignity and his power but still has sensitivity. So, you know, potentially finding some kind of rites of passage program for him could be really powerful. And then the other thing that I'm just seeing more and more, which is great thread because it, I don't know, it just kind of immediately deflates a lot of the, some of the arguments is taking him to or I don't even know, like going to a learner class or something, but getting him around martial artists

[00:25:13] because really highly trained martial artists are some of the most sensitive people on the planet. Their bodies are very sensitive, their emotions are very sensitive and it is so clear in that environment that's part of what makes them effective. If you're not sensitive, if you're not tuned into your body, you are not very good at martial arts. Even the Navy SEALs, right? This thing that's kind of championed in our culture as a paradigm, they're extremely sensitive to each other,

[00:25:42] to their environment and it is not a weakness. The thing that we just, often I work with men in this work and in men's work we talk about is there's kind of two extreme poles and this is where most men end up. There's collapse, which is like I'm overwhelmed so I collapse into myself and I don't know what to do, I'm frozen, I'm scared or whatever that might be or I'm in shame and then there's the, unfortunately, the far more common one which is posture.

[00:26:11] What do you mean? I'm fine, I'm tough, I got it, no, do that and I'm actually putting on a suit of armor, right? Pushing out and that middle space is what we call dignity. It's hey, I have feelings, I'm impacted and yet I'm here. I'm really sad right now. I want this, I don't want that and so I'm feeling the full emotional experience but I'm still able to hold myself and take action and again, this is kind of where I don't have a great answer other than maybe

[00:26:41] getting them around some men is it's so easily visible when we see another man doing it. So I get this all the time when men come in and for the first time in their lives, they see a man cry who's not collapsed, who in the process of crying, they're like, wow, I actually think you're super powerful. Like, I can't believe how courageous that was. Like, the way you just felt that, like, they get lit up. Or the other big one is the first time a man is around another man

[00:27:10] who knows how to consciously be in touch with his anger which means I can be angry, I can feel it fully and yet it doesn't feel unsafe to be around me and that transmission when men see that of like, I didn't know that was possible. I thought I either had to be an aggressive, outward-facing kind of caveman like maybe my dad was or the kind of collapsed, I just, I don't ever stand up for myself but when a man's there and he's like,

[00:27:40] hey, I'm really mad right now yet I feel totally safe being with him because it's so clear he's in touch with his emotion but he's not being run with it. It's a huge difference run by it. So, you know, in some sense this is the challenge of, you know, the work you're doing is you're pushing against a culture that does not support what you're trying to do and doesn't have a lot of role modeling. Yeah, that literally though like, I had this moment of like, oh, that makes total sense though. Like, that makes total sense.

[00:28:09] I'm very much like, so involved that I want to figure it out. Like, I literally started that with like, I can't crack this code because he does. He needs that, that male figure and I feel like that's, just hearing that made it like, oh, okay, this is a dad moment. Like, I need to step back, let dad do the thing. Dad can crack the code and show him those things. So, that makes total sense. Thank you. Thank you. Not just your, not just his dad but your dad. Yeah, because as Jason was talking,

[00:28:40] I remember some of those interactions you told me that, you know, he's had with Nugget and like, just what a good guy especially now that he's retired because he's a lot, you know, he's a lot more relaxed I guess you're gonna say but like, I, and I can see that as we were growing up too like with my, my cousins and my brothers and how our, interactions with our grandfathers were way different

[00:29:10] than our own fathers and how our grandfathers really like, wanted to teach us and things like that. So, Jason, my question that I have is like, how soon can men or teenagers join men's groups? Yeah, I tend to specialize in, you know, kind of 20s and on but like I said, there are more and more, there's more and more work happening around the earlier we catch boys the better, right? One of the

[00:29:39] crises we're in is because there hasn't been a lot of voices for healthy masculinity in our culture, what's left is this extremely empty vacuum that the kind of red pill manosphere stuff has started to fill and so thankfully, you know, there's starting to be more awareness that we got to get into the ground, you know, we got to get a ground level soon. So mentorship, you know,

[00:30:09] I know programs where they're training coaches because that's kind of like the frontline defense in a lot of ways in our culture are people who coach sports and teaching them that, hey, you get to bring the inner experience online and it's okay and guess what? When that comes online, kids tend to perform better, right? When they don't have all that stress, you know, there was that wild, I don't know if either of you followed, I cannot remember her name right now, but there was the wild story of the woman who I think won the gold medal in figure skating this year

[00:30:38] at the Winter Olympics, right? She was like a kid and was going through the system and it was just grinding her out because it was all about outcome and performance and she quit. She just literally quit, went to school, did her own thing, just had fun and then she got creatively inspired to come back and she won the gold medal, not because like she was trying to perform but because she just fell back in love with it and that was coaching that kind of helped bring her there. So I know there's training there, there's definitely

[00:31:07] work happening with these different rites of passage programs throughout the country. I'm meeting more and more men who are leading those now. So it seems to be around the age of 11, 12, 13 or some of the earliest things I found which it's not like super explicit work at that point but it's like go out into nature, be around older men, do activities, sit around a fire, hear the men talk about their inner world which suddenly makes it seem like oh wait, if that guy just spent all day with it

[00:31:36] I think is super cool because he knows how to X, Y, or Z is talking about being sad, maybe I can talk about being sad. Right? And it really starts to change it from that early age. So I think there's going to be more and more energy in that direction coming soon. So you know in some sense you can't start too early. A lot of times I'll work with fathers who are struggling, you know their kids, their sons in particular are struggling and I just tell them get them offline in nature. Just offline no tech

[00:32:05] in nature and just spend time with them and oftentimes kids will start to open up their nervous systems will start to regulate because you know it doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl what most kids just want more than anything else is presence. Just one presence and that's one of the great things we can bring in those environments. I love this. I love that for having this conversation because I think before hearing you speak all I knew of like men's groups and like anything that men would do together was like what you'd

[00:32:35] see in movies and like kind of to your point earlier it's like a butt of a joke like it's not I guess serious like but it makes so much sense now having you share so yeah I do see the importance here like this especially growing up not having that right like being able to connect with that later on in life I totally get it. How has it impacted you do you think as a dad? Oh just like couldn't I

[00:33:05] don't even know I could fill up two hours alone I mean there's both there's two ways one is being connected to dads to other dads and particularly older men who are at a different phase of the child rearing journey has been unbelievably valuable right just the you know when you first time you have a kid it's like hey here's this little thing you're now responsible for it good luck and it's like what I go home and nobody like so having people to talk to if like hey I'm really scared

[00:33:35] about this thing is this a big deal or is this and they're like no this is fine or this is fine just so relaxing to know that I had a place to go for support when I needed it so that alone made me a better father as does the groups themselves give me a place to unwind my stress and tension when my stress and tension is unwound guess what I get to be more present with my kids which unwinds their stress and tension so it helps me stay

[00:34:04] healthy and present which allows me to be a better father and you know the most exciting one is my kids get to spend time around the men I've cultivated in my life so my father like I said passed he was pretty ill for a long time so my kids don't really have grandparents in a lot of ways some of where they're getting that is my community of men older men they can look up to that they're going to be have conversations with that I think is just so important and profound in a lot of ways

[00:34:34] and you know in a lot of ways maybe a simpler way I can put this is men's group is the place I get to go to be restored so I can come back to my family and be present and energized and loving all the different things I want to do but if I'm not caring for myself then I get cranky frustrated resentful agitated tired you know all the things so many of us are dealing with because parenting takes a lot wow what a gift you give your kids too you know not just your kids but yourself

[00:35:04] and your wife and your community and I love how passionate you are about it and you know this is for you Doris I mean I know you're the mom but like you're instilling all this in Nugget now and again what a gift right because think about like where what my generation is I'm easily 20 years older than both of you and like that was not something that happened back in the day it was all like that woo shit and they're like oh you're not

[00:35:33] making me go to therapy I'm fine okay listen you need therapy but I think that you know as you know the generations go on it's becoming more prevalent and I just kind of wish there was like men's groups at work so that men could like talk to each other about things that are going on in the workplace yeah even that I had a company reach out maybe like a year ago a man who was in honestly like I couldn't even tell you which one

[00:36:03] a big kind of multinational insurance organization you know with offices everywhere and that was happening they reached out to me because they're like hey you know we're doing this thing where men are able to you know meet online it was virtual for like two hours and basically having men's groups because we realize the better state we're in the better we do at our jobs right it's kind of this wellness thing so again it's very early not a ton of organizations doing that but it's starting to I think spread fast

[00:36:32] and people are men in particular I think are waking up that hey just grinding through life is not sustainable and it makes us grumpy and not fun to be around and sometimes dangerous and so the more you know a big part of what I just work men work with men on in a lot of ways is really the greatest gift you can give the world right now as a man is to take responsibility for your pain to take responsibility for your pain and do the work you need to do to not keep transmitting it

[00:37:01] and you know if every man was doing that I think we would all live in a much safer healthy healthier and happy world I have two questions for you if you could go back to the younger version of yourself and give that younger version some advice what would you say and how old are you

[00:37:30] sure I would probably go back to let's say man so many ages but right now I'm thinking about yeah probably just my early 20s when I was kind of feeling the most lost and I would just say just relax right you're on the right path and I think for a lot of men for me at that time there was like it has to happen now thing it was just like no

[00:38:00] just trust just keep showing up keep connecting and more than anything else keep getting better at asking for help more game changing than anything else in my life as a man of just like wait I could suffer alone in this and try to figure it out for the next three months or I could just ask someone for help and they're like oh you just do this and I'm like oh that would have taken me that used to take me months to you know ruminate over so yeah I would I would say something like that of just it's okay you're okay you're not broken you're not messed up it's gonna turn out fine

[00:38:31] okay what has been the hardest lesson in your life that you've had to learn so far yeah I would say that it never ends what I mean by that is the work it just the work of inner growth it never ends solve one problem and like another one comes along and certain wounds that you know we all carry in some ways they leave scar tissue you know and it was a

[00:39:01] challenge I certainly felt and now I guide other men through if you do some deep piece of work and you think you fixed the thing and oh I'm never gonna do that again I'm never gonna treat my kids like that again or say that thing to my partner or treat myself like that away again and okay I'm fixed right and then three months you get a bad night's sleep someone cuts you off in traffic you know what and it's like oh hey that part of me is still here I thought I'd fix that and then for a while that was like well I'm so broken I thought I fixed it I couldn't even fix it right and then that

[00:39:31] would lead to its own kind of depression in a sense but now it's just more like oh no it's just this is just the way it is it's just like a continual process you keep working things you do the best you can and kind of let go and so for me it's been this you know wonderful process in some sense of the paradox of the work never ends yet I keep doing it just like you do the best you can and it's never gonna end so there's nowhere to actually get to there's just okay how can I be more and more whole

[00:40:00] more and more myself and again more and more for me particularly just learn to ask for help and share what's going on inside me thank you so my questions are if your anxiety had a theme song what is it and why oh yeah that's great if my anxiety had a theme song it would be you know it would be like one of those really cheesy 80s horror movie themes

[00:40:30] you know where it's just like when my anxiety gets going that's what it feels like like wow threat level maximum nothing is safe be on alert you never know you know what's going to come around the next corner so not necessarily vocals but more of like a yeah you know use like the sense and it just be like a couple tones like man those it'd be something like that and so Jason you know you're helping all these men but what do you do for yourself as far as self-care and self-love

[00:41:00] and you know for everybody out there they are not buzzwords you really do need to be taking care of yourself so I'm interested to find out what you do yeah absolutely I mean first and foremost I go to my men's groups that is the place that probably restores me the most I see one group locally twice a month and then I'm a junkie so I have two other groups I meet with virtually at various points so I'm connecting with other men that I'm really fond of in my life and are really fond of me

[00:41:28] and then I love just getting offline in the nature hiking hot tubs saunas massages when I can are extraordinarily good and one of my favorite past times is just going to a movie alone I just love getting into a nice air conditioned theater turn off all my devices and just let go of life for two hours and then kind of put myself together and come back and then eating well sleep you know the older I get the more it becomes just like what I kind of call the boring work of

[00:41:58] life of like get enough sleep eat pretty well move my body multiple times a week if I'm doing those three things I'm feeling pretty good in life and they're not necessarily the fun sexy things that they can sell you on Instagram but the things that move the needle I have found more than anything else so there's a certain process in my life where I'm more and more appreciating the simple state of

[00:42:27] sobriety I'm here I'm not in pain I have energy great give me as much as I can of that I love all of this so much so how can our listeners find out more about you yeah absolutely best way to keep up with me you can find my socials my own podcast where I talk about men's groups men's work all of this stuff emotions non-stop is that evolutionary dot men so it's not dot com but dot men and on there you can see yeah I have lots of free stuff written

[00:42:57] podcasts written stuff programs men's groups and you know like I said my passion is every man should be in a men's group and there's a contact form on there as well so you know as you grow your listenership if there's men out there or people who support men send them my way because you don't even have to work with me I'm very well plugged into the community and the world now and if you're like hey here's what's going on for me I live here I'm looking for something I generally can kind of find the right thread for you to pick up and find what's local to you or what's virtual for you

[00:43:27] because I just yeah I think it's the biggest leverage point us men have on culture right now is getting into community like this and learning to be present wonderful this has been such an awesome conversation thank you for joining us yeah I learned a lot thanks so much for having me helping get the word out beautiful thank you hi all thank you so much for listening to this episode I'm G-Rex and I'm Dirty Skittles don't forget to

[00:43:57] subscribe rate and review this podcast we'd love to listen to your feedback we can't do this without you guys it's okay to be not okay just make sure you're talking to someone you