68 | There's Something About Sam...and Men's Mental Health

We're back with an unvarnished conversation about life, challenges, and growth during the pandemic and beyond. Sam Powers, an experienced carpenter, shares his unique experiences of building a home for his family during these tumultuous times and how this process allowed him to connect deeper with his children and navigate a world reshaped by a healing movement led predominantly by women.

We don't shy away from the tough topics. We openly discuss the struggles men face in seeking help with mental health and loneliness. Drawing from Sam's personal experiences, we examine the necessity of creating safe spaces for men to express their fears and challenges. We emphasize the importance of self-awareness, understanding when it's time to step back and stop pushing for solutions that aren't being received, and the empowering effect of expressing emotions.

We conclude our conversation reflecting on the divine feminine and its connection to men's mental health. We explore how a 12-step program can structure self-accountability and serve as a healing tool, especially in times of grief. Sam opens up about his experiences with self-care, and how therapy and a really amazing retreat helped him understand and manage his personal narrative. Tune in for an episode filled with insight, transformation, and an honest look at navigating life's challenges. Each chapter of our conversation offers a fresh perspective, a nugget of wisdom, and a chance to see life through a different lens. Join us, and let's learn, grow, and heal together.

You can connect with Sam here:
https://www.sampowerscoaching.com/

And here:
https://instagram.com/swamipowers

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Transcript

Challenges and Healing During the Pandemic

Speaker 1 0:31

you know, after we interviewed that guy and then we interviewed Sam, like that was.

Speaker 1 0:35

We really loved that interview and loved talking to a safe man, and we feel that way about you too, and so we. But I think that there are a lot of men that are in, in I take this back. There are a lot of women who are starting this movement of healing and kind of what we were saying earlier before you got on, where a lot of women are like all right, get your shit together, or like like I'm going to leave you behind, and I think a lot of men don't know what to do with it.

Speaker 3 1:08

This is a very different world than we've ever had.

Speaker 1 1:10

Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 3 1:12

This is beautiful and so, and I'm a big fan of Sam Morris because I found his work a couple of years ago and he is incredible.

Speaker 2 1:24

He's that's so random yeah.

Speaker 1 1:26

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:27

And I was like, oh my gosh, like they're going to have him on, it's so cool. So, yes, okay, the Sam that is here.

Speaker 1 1:36

We also have learned that we like the name Sam for men. It has worked well for us. Tommy, not so much.

Speaker 3 1:46

So the Sam of today is not the Sam of even five years ago.

Speaker 1 1:52

Okay, let's, let's start, let's start. You want to start?

Speaker 3 1:56

Yeah, Do you want to give me a little? Should I do my little bio? I'm 45. I am a carpenter, what? And a person and a personal development coach. I saw that I am actually sitting in the house that I built.

Speaker 2 2:14

Stop. I kind of did know that Stop. I knew that you had like I well, I don't think I knew it to that extent I think I knew that you helped build it like helped build it.

Speaker 3 2:25

No, no, no, no, I okay, so we'll, we'll. We'll go back a little bit. Okay, so I was born and raised in San Diego. Um, my dad is a general contractor, started as a carpenter, so I've been in the trades for a really long time and I continued on the whole, you know, because you do what you're good at right. Um, so I met Chrissy, um, in okay, I don't okay. We got married in 2010.

Speaker 1 2:58

And for those that don't know, chrissy Powers is Sam's wife. We interviewed her in season two. She's a trauma therapist. She's incredible. She's one of our favorite interviews we've ever had. Plus, we also just want to be friends with her.

Speaker 3 3:15

And now you thank you the power and um, so I met. We met at a barbecue, and this is how long ago I found her on my space.

Speaker 1 3:25

Oh, my gosh, leah and Jason were big. Weren't you a big, my spacer? That's how we found each other was my. So you all are giving, giving your age.

Speaker 3 3:38

Well, and it's it's hard cause, like I'm on the tail end of Gen X, so the whole internet thing was kind of tricky. So we met, we dated, we got married and, um, when Chrissy was pregnant with our son, waylon, we found a piece of property literally 10 houses up from my parents on the same street, and so we took the risk, we bought the property. I built the first house, so we have a guest house and we built that from the ground up, which is quite a feat. We moved into that with Waylon. Then we had two more kids, so our middle child, zeke, and then our cherry on the top, which is Ruby, who's our little Leo?

Speaker 3 4:32

And during the timeframe that Chrissy was pregnant with Ruby, I was drawing and submitting the plans for our main house and this all ties together for this reason. Okay, very good, Very profound. So I got our plans for our main family house in and then we got our first permit on 9, 9, 19. So I, literally the next day I had tractors out, we had the whole thing ready, you know, took a giant construction loan, which was terrifying, because when you are building a house in California it is not a, it's a thing.

Speaker 3 5:16

Oh, I can only imagine California and California is one of the most restrictive places to build. Now I am like we got this doing this Chrissy's and that was during her influencing days, so she was had kind of done stop therapy when we had Zeke because it was just too much. And so I'm building the house, I mean we're flying through it, I'm like got the guys out there every day. I also am actually building it myself because that's my specialty. And then what happened in March of 2020?

Speaker 2 5:55

COVID oh yeah, this is, and this is where the profound nature of all of this.

Speaker 3 6:01

Now, while I'm doing all of this stuff, chrissy's starting to do the more embodiment work she told me one day. She said hey, I want to train under McKayla Bowen and do this trauma-informed, non-linear. And in my naivety I'm like sure, but whatever you want to do, cool, like, yeah, I create, I don't, I don't know. You know, I'm pretty. I was very dense and very simple in this timeframe and while I'm building the house, like I'm getting news reports of this thing that's happening and around the world, and no joke.

Speaker 3 6:39

And then all of a sudden it's here and everything literally just screeches to a halt and we lose our construction loan because it's frozen, because it's a national issue. And so I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, hey, I'm like, I'm going along now and I'm having wings and I'm going on from the next 15 minutes, and then those kids will come home.

Speaker 3 7:14

And now I'm here to S charming children, and that is the kind of thing that we Prix key us into in-house. They kg in-house. We've got the proper 얘기able program every time and every time, and we do, you know, every Leg0. You're stressed, you drink, right? Yeah, sound familiar to anyone? I?

Speaker 2 7:36

am like feeling everything that you're putting down.

Speaker 3 7:39

Yeah, taking all those. And in the hard part is is that I got. I come from a good Irish Catholic background so I now understand epigenetics Like now I get it and I would be able to be able to kind of hold it, hold it together for a while. But I knew I would slip into that depression and the hangover anxiety that I think Jason probably understands quite well.

Speaker 1 8:08

Yes, I mean, I get it too. I've been there. I didn't have, I didn't drink on a consistent basis, but when I would drink I would black out easily and then feel the worst anxiety the next day.

Speaker 2 8:19

He was. It's awful. It's awful. He was just talking about it yesterday with someone from work saying like the hangover, like wasn't just the next day, like he would go into the next week of work, just having this feeling of not being whole.

Speaker 3 8:35

Yes, and what I now understand is is that is the shame. That is the deepest shame you've ever experienced and, as a man, the shame is something we run from, because If you read Bell Hooks, who is one of my favorite cultural writers and feminist writers, she talks about how the only acceptable emotion a man can feel is anger.

Speaker 2 9:03

How many times have we said that?

Speaker 1 9:05

So we speak on that, not to throw my fiance to me under the bus, but and I think it's most men, it's usually all men. Okay, there we go. I am so glad you're here.

Speaker 3 9:21

Can I just say this it's in in the hard part is from now. What I understand now it's a cultural construct, elaborate on it. It's living in a patriarchal society. So America, we are a patriarchal society. A egalitarian society has both the feminine and the masculine energies. So happy I'm here. I like the. But the thing is is what's really hard to is.

Healing Journey and Overcoming Challenges

Speaker 3 9:58

I grew up in an evangelical space, so the cultural narrative is very top down as well and there's good intentions with there's always good intentions with these ideas, but the execution is so poor. And so what did I do during the pandemic? I would drink. I would wake up feeling terrible. I was stressed. I would watch the money running out of our account. I'd look outside because we were living in our guest house. I would look next door and see this unfinished building that I couldn't get subcontractors to. It was like mocking me. No joke. I shot myself with a nail gun at the first part of the pandemic while working on it by myself, I literally had a nail sticking out of this thumb bone. Had to go to the hospital. Talk about an interesting experience, like during the pandemic. So the April of 2020,.

Speaker 3 10:58

They almost didn't let me into the hospital because they thought I was faking it.

Speaker 3 11:02

I was like I'm not going to be able to get my nails done. No, because they thought I was faking it. I literally like the admin. I mean they had the COVID tense no one's in the building, no one's in the building, literally. And I'm like I don't have COVID. I have a nail stuck in my hand. I literally have a massive nail stuck in my hand and they're like is it fake? And I was like no, no, no, no, I'm like it's stuck in my hand and I was like I need to have it pulled out and I said I need antibiotics. I said I would have pulled it out myself, but it was too big. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 11:42

Because, when you work in construction or any kind of trade, you have an acceptance of the danger. So I'm working on the house, so no joke. I think there's a picture of me and Christy together early part, and I've got like a cast on. Our son had broken his other arms, so we're just like hobbling together Hot mess expressed so that was how we, oh fully, so I get it pulled out.

Speaker 3 12:12

I try to hobble along and the level of sadness, anxiety and depression it just finally caught up to me and I my last experienced time of coping with alcohol was June, the night of June 4th 2020. And I woke up the next day with my lovely wife going you need help, and if you don't get help, this is not going forward.

Speaker 2 12:45

Wow, the parallels. Yeah man, yeah Wow.

Speaker 1 12:52

Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 12:54

I was really grateful because, being the wonderful person that my wife is, she gave me a couple of choices and I don't know if you guys have ever heard of on site workshop.

Speaker 1 13:07

No no.

Speaker 3 13:09

It's in Tennessee and it is probably one of the top 10 experiences of my life that I've ever done On site workshop Okay.

Speaker 2 13:21

So what is on site?

Speaker 3 13:22

workshops. What is that?

Speaker 1 13:23

And so it is a wellness workshop.

Speaker 3 13:25

You do six days. It's experiential therapy, and I can honestly tell you that was one of the hardest plane flights of my life because I remember my wife was like, okay, now she had already done. She had so much training and she was doing so much embodiment and kind of getting understanding herself and like the stuff that she had brought into our relationship. And so she was probably a year and a half into her wellness journey. She went back to work during the pandemic scene clients. If she hadn't done that we wouldn't have survived because I couldn't work, yeah. And then I had three kids. Three kids Our daughter was two, so I had a second to third grader, a kindergartener and a two year old at home In an all in a 1200 square foot house during COVID.

Speaker 2 14:28

Wow, fighter flight, sink or swim.

Speaker 3 14:36

The level of well. For anyone that has lived through that remembers that time period, especially with kids, it was a different ball game, yeah, like. Because it was like okay, what can we do? What can we not do? Can we see our parents? Can we do all this stuff? Yeah, so you're just navigating this moving goal post forward. So I was lucky, very lucky, on site had just opened back up from the pandemic in June of 2020. I was like the second session that I went to and that was probably the saddest room I've ever sat in, because everyone that was there with me we're all just just to feed it from life. Just that complete sadness and it was so hard Hold on.

Speaker 2 15:34

You did six. Yes, I just had like. You went June. What, what day?

Speaker 3 15:41

It was like June, the end of June, early July of 2020.

Speaker 2 15:46

Okay, I'm just okay, just asking. I did, I think I did my first mushroom journey June 2nd 2020. So I say like that was like this, like desperation feeling.

Speaker 3 15:59

I think that is something. It's interesting. You say that because there are certain places and certain timeframes of that year that were so decisive for a lot of people. And I mean we had protocol, all the masks, all the stuff, you know, you name it. There was like 35 or 36 of us in the overall group. What you do is you break into groups of six and then you do one-on-one group therapy, no phones for six days. Love that you can't talk about what you do as an occupation. Love that you also don't wanna talk about your last name, so you don't get recognized.

Speaker 2 16:48

I know someone who's done this. You told me about it, I did, I didn't. I'm just now putting this together, right now.

Speaker 3 16:56

It's in Cumberland Furnace in Tennessee.

Speaker 2 16:58

Yep, same place, holy shit.

Speaker 3 17:04

And it was the hardest six days of my life. I mean literally, because you're not only holding space for your group and this is the healing part of it is you're also experiencing all these new systems of how to be, and when you take away your last name and your occupation and your cell phone, you have to be just you. You know how hard that is.

Speaker 1 17:34

Holy shit, I never even thought about that. And that makes so much sense, yeah.

Speaker 3 17:40

And for men, for us men, what's the first thing we talk about?

Speaker 1 17:45

I do this, so we were just talking about that. How, like you know, you're at a bar and for women you're at a bar, you go into the bathroom and it's like, oh my gosh, I love your hair and oh you're outfit and you're so pretty and like girls.

Speaker 2 18:01

There's like a corner of girls, a gaggle of girls crying in the corner over some guy that none of them know and like we're all like banding together and screw him. He's a jerk, like whatever. But we were both like what do men's restrooms look like? Are you guys like talking?

Speaker 3 18:18

Would you like to no it is, it is. It's one-upmanship at the stall.

Speaker 2 18:26

What I said. I was like it seems like I would feel. I think that it's probably a lot of comparison.

Speaker 3 18:33

You go in there and it's like competition. You're all sizing each other up like, oh, that guy's, that guy's stalling me and I'm unique in this way. Like, even though I've worked very masculine type jobs, I've never fit in because I would have been considered a HSP as the kid. I've suffered from anxiety for most of my life. I was homeschooled in the 80s.

Speaker 2 19:03

You were a different breed. We're a different breed.

Speaker 1 19:08

And that was a stereotype, it just was.

Speaker 3 19:12

Well, here's the hardest part. The only reason my parents homeschooled this is the school around the corner from where I grew up was terrible, Because where we live now it's all million dollar homes and stuff like that. It was not that when I was growing up. It was a slightly challenged socioeconomic area with a very diverse cross section of kids. But the hard part is I didn't fit into the homeschool group because I wasn't homeschool-y enough.

Speaker 1 19:46

Oh my gosh yeah.

Speaker 3 19:48

So I didn't go to like and I don't know if you guys know what Awana's is like. It was like this Bible camp thing, camp on Awana yeah, yeah. Yeah, my parents were kind of like recovering hippies that went to Calvary Chapel, did like that kind of. We had a dude that lived in a teepee in my parents' backyard for a long time. Good lived in a really groovy. They lived in a trailer when they got married, above a surf spot and it's kind of awesome.

Speaker 3 20:19

So we had I had this really strange where it's like the homeschool parents who were just like your kids, like did this, this and this? And I'm like we played music. My mom was really into art but then I didn't fit in with my school friends because I didn't go to their school. I could play with them in the neighborhood. So I had this really unique like I didn't belong to any group and so it was like this very unique movement forward. So I've always been kind of accustomed to not fitting in.

Speaker 2 20:55

That makes sense.

Speaker 3 20:57

And as a man that's a, that can be a very hard thing for a lot of experiences.

Speaker 3 21:03

Like I never was like a bar guy. I had a ton of friends that were musicians, played a ton of music, kind of lived in that world, did construction, all that stuff, and so it was really funny like going to onsite. I was like this is no big deal for me because, like this is my entire life of not Holy shit, just being and, but also having that internal dialogue of like do I belong, do I? How can I be? And that's hard as a guy.

Speaker 2 21:35

Yeah, yeah, so was this an all men's group? No, okay, so there were women there.

Speaker 3 21:42

There's, there was, and I literally got a text from my group today. Now this is three years later. One of our group members just got her doctorate. So it's like people of all walks of life. It's very interesting. I still my roommate cause we had a roommate we shared a room almost never hung out with him when I was there. He's like one of my best friends now. Wow, one of my other friends that was in the main group lives like a half hour away from us. I see her all the time, her and her fiance, and they're super cool. So that was onsite, so is it?

Speaker 1 22:24

only people who are struggling with substances, or can all people come?

Speaker 3 23:30

No, Okay, all people, wow, all people. So I did the living centered track. Now, onsite was originally founded on codependency and what I learned through onsite is I had deep codependent patterns and that is harder to stop than any substance, because you can't quit people.

Speaker 2 23:59

Damn, that's a hard pill to swallow. That's a tough pill to swallow, and.

Speaker 3 24:08

I say that only because when you unravel, codependency is a system and it's very common among addicts, alcoholics, anyone, really. What it is is that your behavior is driven by the need for affirmation from another person to build your confidence and affirm your place in the world.

Speaker 1 24:38

Holy shit, this is not where I expected this interview to go, but I must say that I'm absolutely loving where it's going.

Speaker 2 24:49

Literally Okay. So you go to this group and you are like having all these fucking realizations.

Speaker 3 24:58

I am so grateful we had this just wonderful, wonderful therapist, cathy, who I owe so much of this work to. And you do these like psycho dramas. It's incredible, it is hard, it is hard, it is the hardest thing you can ever do, because you're standing there and your group is like playing out your experiences, so you choose these different, like certain things that maybe were powerful. You could call it inner child work. You could call it an experience that, an interaction that just sent you in a different direction.

Speaker 3 25:41

And I remember kind of as our group would wind down, I remember talking to Cathy and I literally was crying, like I'm like weeping, and I'm asking her I was like because I have three kids and they had seen me inebriated more than they should, ever should, and I can even say that out loud. They're still a part of me that is so ashamed of the person I was. And I remember talking to our therapist in this group and I said, cathy, how can I repair with my kids? How can I do this? And she was like well, how old are your kids? And I told her that she goes. Well, when you leave this place, the person that you are now is gonna show them that that other person is never coming back.

Speaker 2 26:43

Wow.

Speaker 3 26:44

And I remember, and she goes in your kids are young enough that you're gonna be able to make the changes that you have to make, that they will forget the former you.

Speaker 1 27:06

I love that. Are you crying? Yes, you first, you first.

Speaker 3 27:12

I'm cheering up too because it's so and I'm guaranteed, like Tony and Jason probably can relate a little bit, Are any?

Speaker 1 27:20

person, any person I can relate to it.

Parenting, Apologizing, and Personal Growth

Speaker 3 27:25

Because the one thing is what they don't teach you about having kids is how resilient they are, but also how much your actions, not your words, impact the way they move forward.

Speaker 2 27:43

Yeah.

Speaker 3 27:46

And I remember coming home and it was very. That was the hard. It was a hard end. My kids were like a little distant because they were like dad was like a mess kind of scary and because-.

Speaker 2 28:01

And then he went away.

Speaker 3 28:02

Yeah, I went away and I'm like okay, like I hope, and I just remember coming home and I remember talking to my oldest kids and I said listen, I said I'm so sorry for the way I acted and if there's anything that I do that you don't like, will you please tell me how I can be a better dad? Because what I realized? No parent that I know ever asked their kids like, hey, what can I do better to love you? I mean, I'm not going to let him eat ice cream for breakfast. I told them. I said within reason. I said if there's anything that I can change to love you better, please tell me, because I don't know, because that's what I was learning.

Speaker 3 29:03

I was learning how to tune to the people that were in my life and that self-awareness. I remember my oldest was like you're a pretty good dad and I was like, please tell me if I'm messing up, please, please. You have to tell me, because there's three of you. We are completely outnumbered. Your mom and I are super busy and I remember his little brother, zeke, literally looked at me and he says more hugs, more snuggles. I said I got that dude.

Speaker 2 29:32

Done, done.

Speaker 3 29:35

He's our Virgo, he's our Virgo and our oldest is an Aries and I'm an Aries, so we butt heads. He's a Mar-Cherries, but I'm an April and it was really funny because when his little brother was like more hugs and more snuggles, I was like dude, I got that.

Speaker 2 29:53

So easy. What's interesting? We just had a, we did a little group and in that group I had this realization with my daughter, because I butt heads with my daughter a lot. Her and I are very similar. She was like in one of her moods and I was in a hurry and we had to get her somewhere on time and I snapped at her and it was almost like I had to let my anger overpower hers or she wasn't going to get in the car and we were going to be late and I immediately felt bad. And I want to get your take on this, because one of the hardest things I have learned as a parent is apologizing. I have a hard time apologizing in general, but it's really hard when you're a parent. And I think what normally happens, because within five to 10 minutes she was fine. I was still a little bit pissed off, but we're driving to where we needed to go and I'd get her to the door where her practice was, and I immediately apologized.

Speaker 1 30:59

I said I'm really sorry.

Speaker 2 31:00

I snapped at you in the car. I'm so sorry for that. I hope you have a good practice. I'll see you in a few hours and you could just watch her like the tension in her body just kind of drop immediately. But it got me thinking about all the times that by the time we got to her practice she was fine.

Speaker 1 31:22

She wasn't angry.

Speaker 2 31:23

She was quiet, but I would have picked her up hours later and it would have been forgotten about, she would have gone to bed without an apology. And then I think as parents sometimes we're like, well, they're not going to say anything. I think we're good, like, if they're not going to bring it up, we don't have to apologize. But I felt such a huge rush of holy shit. I think that would have gone such a long way for me as a child to have a parent maybe not immediately recognize it, but recognize it and catch it and make it right before the next day came.

Speaker 3 32:04

Oh, this is, yeah, here's something that I have learned or I think about quite a bit, because I am not a perfect parent. I'm not. I had great parents. They were better than their parents and my parents are. Actually. I now realize how they were very unique because they were very egalitarian.

Speaker 3 32:28

I never heard my dad come in and be like I'm the head of the household and yadda, yadda, yadda. I never heard that. My dad was like super mellow, surfer, loved music, total, got that hippie vibe. My mom and it's interesting because they were both they both come from bigger families. My mom's one of four daughters, my dad is one of five, like a good Irish Catholic over 20 years and both of them were not the golden child of their family systems and so they didn't have a ton of support, they just didn't. The family support went to their siblings and what it did is it made them just very resilient and very kind, kind to them, to each other and kind, and they just literally and you don't know it when you're growing up but now I'm like, oh, we shoot. That was amazing. They just did the best they could, took what they got and were just tried to be joyful and happy about it and I was like now I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

Speaker 3 33:44

But the thing is, is that attunement wasn't in the water when they were raising kids, because in the 80s and then 90s, a kid's feelings or attuning to their specialty it wasn't really even an idea and they did an incredible job because they actually attuned to each of our individual skills.

Speaker 3 34:16

But as a kid or an HSP, there were certain ways that now I realized I probably could have used a little more support in this way. And when you come to that awareness and then you have your own children, what I've learned is that my children are the mirrors to the things I need to work on. They are our greatest teachers, because when we get triggered, like your daughter or my son, I realize I have to go. I'm like, oh, this one's on me, this one's on me. And just because I'm the parent doesn't mean maybe I'm right because they're feeling one way because of my actions going this way and their feelings over here. Maybe I should say I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you or in the way that you needed and you caused me to feel this way, but I'm sorry that I wasn't attuned to you. And how can we repair this in a kind way?

Speaker 2 35:39

So let me ask you this, because I feel like we've heard this before your children are your greatest teachers, and recently I saw something and it resonated like your partner should also be the one who is shining a mirror to your wounds or maybe spots that you need to work on, and sometimes that might look like you're like two completely opposites, but I feel like I'm up for the challenge. I want someone to point these things out to me. I don't want it to be easy. Does that make any sense?

Speaker 2 36:19

Like should you be in a partnership. Where that is happening, you have to have someone pushing you in one way or the other, or you're never going to move right.

Speaker 3 36:36

This is something I had to learn the hard way and because, with being married to a mental health professional who's done a lot of work for the first part of her journey, as she was starting to heal and she would point things out, I couldn't receive that criticism or that constructive criticism because my ego was too locked up, thinking I was right or that my that I was already like this finished work.

Speaker 2 37:29

I'm good, I don't need to do anything more. I'm good. I like how I am.

Speaker 3 37:36

I like how I thought it, like I liked how I was.

Speaker 1 37:40

So how did you react? Like if she oh.

Speaker 3 37:42

I would get so fucking, I get angry and I'd be like I would justify my position or my narrative or defend. Defend, and we all, we all are really good at these, these things, because these are the cultural constructs of masculinity and femininity, and what it is is because these are taught. These narratives are taught from day one.

Speaker 1 38:17

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 38:20

Sorry, go ahead. I'm thinking about like, how opposite this is of so many things that people have said along the years, throughout the years of like. Being in a relationship is like, you should love me how I am, you know like, and it's Well.

Speaker 3 38:35

I mean, that's a little bit of a nation.

Speaker 2 38:37

I was just going to say, like to me, that's not who you are, though that's not. These are walls and coping skills and maybe patterns of behavior that aren't who you are. I'm not changing who you are at all, no, no, and it's.

Speaker 3 38:56

It's hard because the person that you're born as. So there's you, jason, tony, me, chrissy. We are, us, like who we are. That's what I learned, especially at onsite, and Carl Jung talks about it really profoundly. He says you know, there's two parts of everyone's life. It's the first part, where you put on the costumes, you become the character and all the you know, the clothes, the stories, the accomplishments. The second half of your life is when you wake up to who you really are, with all of that, and the problem is is that most people live in that first part till they die. Ouch, it's hard, it hurts, and they talked about it like even in our onsite workshop. They used an example one of the main therapists. He you know tool, you know the cloth tool that's kind of see through, so he would put layer upon layer upon layer on himself till you couldn't see him. And that's your journey. And then, when you start to wake up and you start to grow and you are willing to grow, you have to take all of that off.

Speaker 2 40:24

You were saying that Monday, like the layers, peeling back the layers, that's why it's never ending, like that's why this like journey of healing is like really never really done, because each time it's like one layer of tool.

Speaker 3 40:41

And it's interesting because the hardest thing for all of us that are doing this work is we are parents, so we're raising children at the same time that we're healing ourselves. It's hard. It is the most terrifying experience of my life and I'm grateful that a lot of our friends I have very close friends that are from my youth who've also been on this journey too, and I was talking to this good friend of mine who's an artist and I'm going to say her name, Kelsey. We were in youth group together. That's how far we go back, but she's been on this journey for a really long time and I asked her I said do you think you're ever going to arrive to where you want to be healing? And she's like no, because it's the journey, it's not the destination.

Speaker 2 41:38

I'll arrive when I die. Yeah, I have a very. This is kind of a personal question, but I'm just curious because you said Chrissy had been on this mental wellness journey for about a year and a half before she like comes to you and she's like hey, bucko, like get on board Mine, mine, mine was self-inflicted because I over-served myself to the point where I completely blacked out and I just woke up with the most intense shame over. Shame over. I love that.

Speaker 3 42:16

I had ever experienced, and there was just this profound realization, and it was the first time I kind of stopped lying to myself and I said I cannot move forward this way ever again, and so I need to get the help I need, because for us guys asking for help it's really hard. It's it's very hard, it's very hard.

Speaker 1 42:46

That, and also there are not really very many men who you can talk to about this.

Speaker 2 42:56

Like I can talk to Leah about.

Speaker 1 42:58

You know if I'm struggling and I'm having a hard day and what I'm going through. Men don't have that with each other and I find that to be incredibly sad to the point where we've, you know, even talked about with our partners how we want them. They have their friends right and not saying that they, those friends, should go away, because you know those, those friendships mean something to them, but they don't have people to turn to if they're struggling. They don't have those safe spaces, and so what are men supposed to do?

Speaker 3 43:39

Honestly, this is a question that I don't know.

Speaker 2 43:44

Oh fuck.

Speaker 3 43:46

Well, let me, let me take this back. So the one thing that I I've learned is that when you're on this healing journey, it is a very lonely experience for men.

Speaker 1 43:59

Yeah.

Speaker 3 44:00

But when you return to yourself, like when men can return to who they really are and stop doing and just can be there is, there is almost this disattachment from needing the group and what happens. And Sam Morris, he kind of talked about a little bit in him like I think you guys asked him about what it's like to try to find a partner in this space. It's a lonely experience, but the loneliest experience is being in a group where you're not understood and heard and felt and seen for who you are. Did you clip that?

Speaker 1 44:48

I sure did. Okay, we, we, so we've been clipping this whole time. Whenever we there's like a you say something profound, we can clip it so we can go back to it later and and and. So every time I'm like yeah, we're both over here clipping like crazy.

Speaker 2 45:03

I guess the reason I'm asking that and this is where I'm making first off I'm making my husband listen to this one. I don't make it.

Speaker 1 45:09

He doesn't listen to our podcast, unless I'm like I need you to listen to this episode.

Speaker 2 45:15

I'm going to say I loved Jason's interview.

Speaker 3 45:17

Like the one that you guys did together, was so good. It was really and honestly, this is kind of the community that you can kind of connect it's and one thing that I also understand is that I think it's it's something that I also understand with friend groups. Tradition is not truth. So your boys from high school and college, they cannot be your ride or dice till you're 50 or 60 years old, because guess what? I know those guys. I see them because I still live in the area that I grew up in and I have told my kids too is that your friends that you have now might not be your friends in the future, because you are going to grow and you're going to change. You do not want to live your life for other people that haven't grown.

Speaker 2 46:18

Just did it again Clip Sorry.

Speaker 2 46:20

So, I guess that's where we are both I, I. There's also a little bit of comfort knowing that, like I hate saying this, but like you're like I don't know what to do, because and the reason I was asking about this like Chrissy pushing you, there have been times, I guess. Okay, let me back up. She's in this mental health space, she's a therapist, she's trauma informed and she's probably I'm just assuming getting to a point where she's like I need you to listen to what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 46:51

And that's kind of where I am, and I have been, not currently, but every now and then it still shows up where I'm like I've been saying this and then you like listen to some podcast and then you come to me with this information, Like I haven't been saying this for six months, like it's, like you know what I mean, and so I have tried to wash my hands of being the one who pushes him so often, because I'm like you don't listen to me when I push you, but you also don't have a mentor or a group of men that you go to and it's just exhausting being the one trying to push you all the time. And so that's where Christine and I are like you know, we're like do we set them up on a double date, like we have? We've actually done that. We talk about it all the time. We're like do we put them like we were, like we went on a double date?

Speaker 1 47:42

and we're like Tony Jason meet meet here, Be friends. But that was two years ago and then and then do you remember at that dinner they were talking and me and you are like across the table for each other. It's happening, it's happening, it's working.

Speaker 2 47:58

But again, that was in the very beginning of our friendship and it hasn't really happened since. So I feel like we're both kind of like. Are there men's groups that they can go to? Well, I don't want to do that Like and us being introverts has not helped. Yeah, that doesn't help either because we don't really do anything.

Speaker 1 48:14

So how do you do that?

Speaker 3 48:15

Well, I think we're going to do that. Well, this is, this is very this is I know this well One thing that I can probably say and I can speak for for your, both of you, your mental health when you've had a partner that maybe have struggled with substance issues, you have to stop being their sponsor.

Speaker 1 48:43

Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 48:45

Yeah.

Speaker 3 48:48

And and and I, I I mean that because what I I used to do that with Chrissy, like when I stopped drinking. I'd be like, hey, I would like check in with her, and I still do sometimes, just because I respect her. She wasn't the one with the coping problem, I was, and I think that when you've done any level of recovery work or you've had an issue that was unhealthy, you cannot make your partner both your partner, your mom and your sponsor, because that's codependency Shit In a nutshell.

Speaker 2 49:36

Did you ever do? Did you do a 12 step? Did you do like any type of recovery program or?

The Power of the Divine Feminine

Speaker 3 49:44

So because because of the way I'm wired, so I wasn't an alcoholic per se, I was an alcoholic user. I had a great therapist and I said, hey, you know, like, do you think I'm an alcoholic? And he said no, because you you stopped and that was it. For me, it was the deeper issue. It wasn't the physical, you know, withdrawals Did a couple of the meetings like they had him at onsite when I was there I'm audit, you know, to. It was COVID, so like they had closed rooms and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 50:24

The one thing that I also learned Everyone's recovery Is unique to themselves and for me it was the emotional like when I kind of unraveled like codependent patterns and those tendencies, I was like, oh, shoot, this is what this is really. What I'm suffering from Is this affirmation Like I didn't know how to affirm myself, I didn't know how to love myself for who I was, because it was always like, oh, I have to get here to do this and then Chrissy will love me or my partner will love me If I do this, this and this, then I'm meeting the marks and checking off the boxes and when you unravel the emotional tie, that physical just kind of disappears and I have a ton of friends that have done the 12 steps and I, I, I think for people that need structure and that kind of level of accountability, it is a gift to this world.

Speaker 2 51:35

That makes a lot of sense. My husband's boss checker.

Speaker 3 51:40

Yeah, and that's okay, because linear thinking healing is not linear. What the 12 steps do for a lot of people? It gives structure for people who don't know how to be accountable to themselves.

Speaker 1 52:00

Never thought about it in that way.

Speaker 2 52:01

It makes so much sense? Yeah, makes a lot of sense, it does.

Speaker 3 52:06

And and the thing is is like I think it's a. I mean I have lots of friends. I have a friend who just got his year token and I had I knew he had a drinking problem Like, and I told him I was like because he would get super depressed and I would hang out with him and I'd see him and I was like, hey man, like you do know, okay, and I never, I never went like, did you got a problem? Because that doesn't work Right, unless you're laying literally face down in the gutter and you're like, oh, I need I got a problem. I think you got a problem. The problem you got a problem. The problem is is that most time it's kind of a covert, it's not an overt system of coping and what happens is we all cope in our own ways Shopping, eating, social media, I mean the whole world that we live in is one giant coping mechanism to move us away from ourselves and get outside of ourselves. That's why COVID was so brutal for so many people.

Speaker 2 53:12

It took away all of our coping skills except for like drinking and online shopping Right.

Speaker 3 53:19

I mean, you think about what, what that did. And I I told Chrissy this once. I said you know what COVID is going to do. I said it's the great leveling of our society and what it did is because all of us had to be at home with our thoughts and ourselves. It was terrifying.

Speaker 2 53:43

It was not pretty.

Speaker 3 53:46

It was an ugly. I mean, it was like one of the ugliest times that I can remember, yet it's like some of us needed that. I needed it to stop being distracted. Yeah, I mean, you think about like I would never be here in this capacity if COVID hadn't happened.

Speaker 1 54:08

Yeah, same.

Speaker 3 54:11

And so for me, like when people are like oh, covid, sucked, I was, like it totally did, but without it I would have just kept operating in the same way that I had been for the first 40 years of my life.

Speaker 2 54:32

So I think I want to talk to you about, like, how you started to look at the patriarchy. Is that something that has been ingrained in you from your parents, because they seem like all fucking parents. Right, they're super cool. They seem to head of their time a little bit.

Speaker 1 54:53

Yeah, we didn't get that no.

Speaker 3 54:57

I mean so actually honestly, I think, and it's something that my mom and dad kind of get it a little bit, you know, because their generation was like hey, if you love, like, but they were like Jesus, hippies. So it was like the 70s were like a full vibe and then the 80s happened and you know, it got more structured and a little more patriarchal. I mean the yuppies and stuff. They were never yuppies, but for me what it was is I would see the stuff that Chrissy was reading and I literally, and I can, I can go back to two books. That kind of changed the way that I saw this, because I love to read, I love to learn. I'm the one thing that my parents always instilled. This is be curious and like.

Speaker 3 55:57

Even like I played music, my brother played music and my dad was always like, hey, whatever you do, learn the history, because then you know where this is comes from. And I was like you know, like I grew up surfing and skating, so I learned like, where was the history of surfing? You know, I learned how to play jazz and so we would. I remember sitting with my piano teacher at one time and she's like what are you playing? I was like this is my status, like I want to learn this piece, like how, and so for us it was about honoring the past so that you could appreciate what was in the present.

Speaker 3 56:39

Wow, and so as Chrissy started to do like more of the embodiment work you know, I was like she joined a woman's circle, she went to Nashville and I was like so confused, so, so confused in my negativity, and I was like, okay, you're just going to meet up with a bunch of women and you're going to do what. I'm like what was he doing, what are you doing? And she's like oh, we did like nonlinear and we danced and we cried. And I was like, cool, okay, whatever.

Speaker 3 57:17

And you know part of me, I'm grateful that my parents kind of instilled this like hey, like you, do you and I was in drip with a lot of artists. So like I have this very strange background where I don't I went to college and I didn't fit in with any of the guys that were like I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm getting in the car and I'm like, cool, I'm going to this punk rock show and then I'm going to go surf. And I remember like, as Chrissy started to get deeper into that work and there she'd read a lot of books and I remember I was doing something and I found Mary Magdalene revealed by Megan Potterson and because I grew up in the evangelical space, you know I had that lens, you know. So I grew up in that with that lens, and I remember I was like what is this? Like I know Mary Magdalene. So I read it and it would like kind of blew my mind to have a different perspective, because Mary Magdalene as an archetype was the divine feminine.

Speaker 2 58:33

Holy shit.

Speaker 3 58:36

Did you? You said that book to us.

Speaker 2 58:38

Yes, okay, okay, because it's a red one with a sacred heart on the front and it's, it is a powerful.

Speaker 3 58:44

So I remember reading that book and then I read the universal Christ by Richard Moore, which gave like a holistic lens to having faith. You know, because when you grow up in a faith system, like from a very young age, you kind of feel disconnected. Where you're like, you know, people get up there like I was wasted, I was drunk and like I got saved, and I'm like, oh, that's cool, I kind of wish I had some of that radical transformation right. Like you're always envious of those kids, you're like, oh, cool man, like that's awesome, I didn't have that. Because you grow up in a system. It's a different, different thing. And for me, as I kind of I read that book and I remember it just because Megan Waterston is actually a Harvard trained scholar in divinity, so this isn't just like I didn't even know that was a thing, Not know that was a thing, and so I remember reading it and for me, what it did is it just put context to the bigger picture of the divine feminine.

Speaker 3 59:53

And now, mind you, because I grew up with egalitarian parents, I have a little sister. I never saw women as less than, and I kind of always I never got it was just never in me like oh, she's my property. And honestly it's funny because sometimes I refer to Chrissy as my partner and people are like what do you mean? And I was like she's my partner. And then I kiss you, your wife, and I was like, yes, she's my wife, but she's my partner, because it denotes equality. I love that Clip.

Speaker 3 1:00:38

And the problem is, you know you start doing this work. And so I read that book, another book that fully and I think I sent it to you both of you was made into mother, and the work of Sarah Durham Wilson. It's essentially the archetypes that women go through, and I remember reading that and just it blew my mind. I was like, oh my gosh, these are like some of the missing pieces that I always had questions about, or like, like there's more to this. And what it did is it gave me a reverence for the power of the feminine Because, like, where would we be? None of us would be here without women, so none of us men would be here with, without women.

Speaker 1 1:01:26

How would you describe the power of the feminine? Oh, man.

Speaker 3 1:01:32

The power of the feminine is like an ocean it's beautiful, it can be calm, it can be fierce, and you cannot control the ocean. You have reverence for the ocean, you can sail the ocean, but you cannot contain it. That is the feminine energy of this world.

Divine Feminine Connection and Self-Care

Speaker 2 1:02:14

OK. I'm like you're so giddy over there right now. My, there's a giant theme, a thing happening with a lot of people that we're, we're surrounding ourselves with right now, and it is this like tapping into this divine feminine, to the dark feminine, the Cali energy. You know, I thought it was just me and then I'm like the moment it's happening to me.

Speaker 2 1:02:44

I'm realizing it's happening to so many women right now, whether they're conscious of it or not. There are people who are talking about it but who aren't in this space, who are saying, like there's this intense rage that I'm feeling and I don't know where it's coming from, and I'm like I know where it's coming from. My question to you would be for the men who are in this space, like who don't know what to do with that, like they're like what the fuck is happening, how do you show up to this movement in a way that is holding space for the divine feminine, that is nurturing the divine, that is also like acknowledging that there is a divine masculine energy as well, like does that question make sense? Yes, it does.

Speaker 3 1:03:43

It does here's. Here's what I'm gonna for me, and this was something that was. It was hard at first, but men have to connect with the divine feminine that lives within them. That was beat out of them by the patriarchal culture from day one. Holy shit, how do they do that?

Speaker 1 1:04:16

Holy shit.

Speaker 3 1:04:19

It's not easy. You have to. You have to grieve. You have to grieve the loss of the feelings you never got to feel. Grief is love that had no place to go.

Speaker 2 1:04:42

Oh my god.

Speaker 3 1:04:48

So and I'm going to expound on this because please, please, so last year in August I lost three people in 40 days.

Speaker 3 1:05:03

Like friends 40 days and my first friend that that passed tragically. He was a very good it was. We were very close and we loved each other and I can say that out loud. We loved each other as humans and he was just one of those people that he people sometimes didn't know what to make with him because he was so free with the way he felt and and I think for men, a huge thing that we don't know how to verbalize, we don't have, we were not given language on how to feel. So feeling wheels are a wonderful thing, I mean for men, practicing talking about how we feel in these complex things, because culturally we are not allowed to speak freely of how we feel.

Speaker 3 1:06:07

It's like I feel really sad. It's like, oh, come on, get it together, move on. I mean it's a and just be happy, just be happy. Yeah, oh, sorry, your friend died, just get over with no, no, no, no. And I remember when my friend passed there was a, the great mother, which is the divine feminine.

Speaker 3 1:06:31

I did a meditation. A friend of mine sent me a meditation after my friend passed and I remember just laying on the floor listening to this meditation and just weeping and just feeling that grief, because it was like the first time I I knew what it was like to be a friend, and I remember when I was a little little bit older I knew what it was like to fully let go. And the reason I feel like there's so much of this rage, this collective rage of especially women, have held it together for so long. They have mothered all of us and our children and our culture, but there was no place for them to grieve. And so, as a man, I had to learn how to let that go and that, let that grief just come out. And it was so full, it's so foreign and it's terrifying, because when you have all these feelings as a man, they're all there, we're human, but the shell is so hard I mean, it's like the tin man you know in Wizard of Oz. It's like you're just this, you better just keep going. You just got to keep going.

Speaker 3 1:08:03

And when you can allow yourself to grieve and to let go and to feel all that, it is the hardest, most overwhelming experience you'll ever have. But as you do that, then you can hold space for your significant other and you can hold space for that divine feminine. Best thing to do is work with a really great coach and, honestly, it's a practice. It takes so much practice and I can say that my partner has fallen apart. You know, plenty of times in front of me and when you can understand that all of this emotional, this energy, there's no place for it to go in. It comes out. It's not directed at you, it's directed at the world at large. And to be a king, or in your king energy, you have to go. I see you, I hold you, it's okay, you're safe to fall apart here.

Speaker 2 1:09:15

Jesus, okay, I'm so happy we did this interview.

Speaker 3 1:09:22

Did that answer that question?

Speaker 1 1:09:24

Yes, and I'm really excited for just the men, our male listeners, for Tony, for Jason, to hear this interview, and it's been very I've. We haven't done interviews for a while and I forgot how therapeutic it is.

Speaker 3 1:09:40

Well, it's, the work is for all of us when we discuss these ideas and we practice in, and I can say that I'm not, I don't do it right all the time I come up short, all the time I say I'm sorry. And what I I think is important is the intentionality of moving forward, because when you do codependent work since you can't quit people the intention of your yes, like if someone asks you to do something, you have to change that energy around it. So, even the work that you do, if you go, I mean you give it a therapy for a lifetime and not get anything out of it. It's about intentionality. I mean, how many times do you know there's couples that are in therapy and they're like you're like, dude, why are you wasting your money? Right, like, why are you wasting your money? Because you can sculpt a narrative with your own personal therapist. You can sculpt a narrative with a coach, a couples counselor, your friend group, because we always want to be the hero of our story.

Intentionality in Actions and Overcoming Codependency

Speaker 2 1:10:59

I had a therapist one time tell me something that changed the way I see therapy. Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. And she said if you were still with me in 10 years, I've not done my job.

Speaker 3 1:11:11

Oh, exactly.

Speaker 2 1:11:13

And I know so many people who have had the same therapist for 10 plus years and I want to look at them and be like what's going on? What's going on.

Speaker 3 1:11:24

It's funny because I have a therapist and I see about once a month because of scheduling time and now when you do enough of this work, what it is is you just it's almost like a tune-up. You got I go to my therapist when I'm like struggling or I'm like this happened and I got totally triggered and totally reacted in an old pattern and that's now what it goes go. My old pattern came up and I wasn't taking care of myself, I was too tired, I'm trying to do too much and I think it's so hard because when I hear those words like self care, I don't like those words. I don't because I think self care has been branded just to sell us more stuff.

Speaker 1 1:12:26

Very true.

Speaker 3 1:12:28

Well, this is a billion dollar industry, right? I mean we have to. We have to be intentional with our actions, in everything that we consume, whether it's media, whether it's even self care, or it's like and it's funny because I had to come to that realization where I was like, is this self care or is this like, am I just checking something off? And so now even the way that I spend my time, where I'm like, hey, I need two hours, I need to go do this because it's going to bring me joy, and I think that just hat changing that that energy around your intention and the way you spend your time totally reflects growth.

Speaker 2 1:13:18

Yeah, so it's like you're. I think there's a difference in it. Well, talking about speaking of codependency, I think there's a difference in using therapy as a tool and really like having this codependent relationship with your therapist that you have to see once a week and it's, there's really no growth. It's just like you're running in circles but you're like I have to go to therapy because I have to get this stuff out. There was something else I was going to say and, okay, I just remembered it that, okay, I'm going to take it back to what you were talking about the men. And I think a lot of times men my husband included he has said this before his job. This is what he says my job is to provide and protect, and I think a lot of times men get stuck in that and they forget that they're allowed to have feelings and they're allowed to break down, and I'm like that's a heavy burden to think that, like, your job is to provide and protect for our family and that's it.

Speaker 1 1:14:25

That's so heavy and oftentimes, yeah, there's a lot of pressure. There's pressure that comes with that. That's really hard for men.

Speaker 2 1:14:32

Or he'll say things like I don't have time to break down, I don't, it's not productive to have a moment or to feel these things. It's not, it doesn't help me, you know like because they. There is this. What is that going to do?

Speaker 1 1:14:51

I don't know it does a lot for me.

Speaker 2 1:14:54

It gets it out. It gets it out of me, it puts it out into the world Like it's not sitting on me anymore, it doesn't feel heavy anymore. There is something to those breakdowns that feels very like it's, like it's always a release, you know it is Well.

Speaker 3 1:15:16

It's because I can. I know this well because I lived in that for many years.

Speaker 2 1:15:21

That mentality, of course, okay, I mean I built.

Speaker 3 1:15:25

I built two houses for our family. It's a breakdown. It's a huge. It's a huge thing provide and protect. The problem is that if that is your only focus, you give all your energy to that. You are literally just a machine. And guess what? You're human and what happens to a machine that never takes breaks and never gets maintenance breaks?

Speaker 3 1:15:59

they just end up and because expressing our feelings, especially for men, we are, we are taught to be internalizers. Well, if you do any digging on internalizing emotions in the vein of Gabor Mate, you will just literally internally rot from the inside out. So you get cancer. I mean a nervous breakdown, I mean you-.

Speaker 2 1:16:40

Heart attack.

Speaker 3 1:16:41

Heart attack. I mean, how many? How many guys like just dropped dead at 45, 50, you know, years old, because they're just a ball of stress or high blood pressure. I always love that one. I'm like high blood pressure. What are you carrying? The thing is, is that when you I think I told a friend of mine this I said how long can you carry something until you fall down, like how, how, how long can you carry it for? And when you're carrying your family's baggage, not just your own, you can only go so far.

Speaker 1 1:17:30

So, what would you recommend to the men who are listening, who don't know where to start and what to do? What would you recommend as maybe some steps or some tools that they can, they can start with?

Speaker 3 1:17:52

This is low.

Speaker 1 1:17:54

Well, this is a loaded question. I know it's not black and white.

Healing the Divine Feminine in Men

Speaker 3 1:17:57

It's not a black and white one. It's really hard because everyone has a different mode of operating. So everyone has their own operating system and this is something that I always like to say that your husband's operating system is not going to be my operating system. So, because I do one-on-one coaching as well, and on my website CIPHAR is coaching. It says building better people. So I look at everything. It's like we already were good, we're just remodeling what was there. And for guys, when I say that they're like oh, I can kind of see that where it's like, I'm like hey, man, like you have, you've got it all there. It's just been put in places that don't serve your current version.

Speaker 3 1:18:56

And so what I always like to do a great book that really is Terrence Reels. I don't wanna talk about it. I have that book. That book and his work for men is it's kind of like the jumping off point of understanding the masculine narrative, of not opening up, because he did 20 years of therapy with men before he wrote that book. Wow, I've listened to tons of podcasts. I mean, if I ever gotten to the financial position, I would go study with him because he is.

Speaker 3 1:19:42

His system of doing men's work is so profound, that book it was so hard to read and get through, but it was like it was a mind-blowing, because he goes through generational things and for us men, so much of what we do isn't just for us but it's for the idea of our legacy, our purpose and what the family did. And I'm kinda lucky because my dad's like do whatever you want, like it's like I don't care, but I know I have friends that I'm like. They're like, well, I'm carrying on the family heritage and I was like that's too much, man, do you even want to? Is this what you want? Is this what you're passionate about? This is your purpose. And so what I think for a lot of men is a really great thing is to just, I would say, go to therapy. I mean really going to therapy. It was very hard, but you can find coaches, you can find the work.

Speaker 3 1:20:56

I mean this is I pretty much work with dudes that are in this space on a one-on-one basis and a lot of it's the same thing over and over again. It's like how do I feel? I don't know how I feel. I'm like all right, man, let's do this, let's go here. I'm trained in a system called the Primal Question. And what it is? It's seven Primal Questions. It was developed by my mentor, mike Foster, and it's essentially am I safe, am I secure, am I loved, am I wanted, am I enough, am I successful and do I have a purpose? And I was like this is a great place to start. And so, for men, they will get help when they break just enough. You can only get rear-ended so many times until it's like, oh, I need help. And I can honestly say this the greatest gift that you can give your partner is to heal yourself first.

Speaker 1 1:22:11

Whew we were just talking about that, and often how usually in a heterosexual relationship that the woman is kind of the one who starts it 100% my wife started her healing journey. I started it.

Speaker 2 1:22:28

Leah started it. It's very rare that I find a man who started the healing journey before the woman did. And I think it's wild because when it starts happening, we look even crazier yeah.

Speaker 3 1:22:44

Oh, 100%, yeah, we look crazy. But the thing is, here's something to think about. Women are the only gender that can actually give life to another human, so they always heal first.

Speaker 2 1:23:03

That makes so much sense.

Speaker 3 1:23:07

Because for us, we can't reproduce without a woman, we can't Like it's just, if there's a bunch of dudes, we'd all be dead. Like, really, if it was just all one gender, think about that. That was it, it'd be one dude, he would live alone and then it's done. That's it lights out right. And this is where, honoring the divine feminine in all women, Because life comes through you, life comes through you you naturally are going to seek the healing that you need. I think, reading the heroine's journey, and I know you've read it.

Speaker 2 1:24:01

You've read it right. I think you were the one who reached out. Okay. The point in the book where she reaches the divine mother like I was just like breaking down, sobbing in the middle of a fucking pool Alone in the place I did it great. Yes, but I was like holy shit, this isn't your mother.

Speaker 3 1:24:21

This is the divine mother.

Speaker 1 1:24:23

I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 1:24:24

Holy shit, this isn't your mother, this is the divine mother and this connection to this feminine that we have been pushed and pushed, and pushed, and pushed away from our entire lives.

Speaker 3 1:24:40

It's so hard because the separation if you read Dancing in the Flames by Marion Woodman, I think that's I can't remember her last name, but she talks about this separation which came in Europe post the Black Plague, and that is when the systems at power separated women because they had a cycle and because of the natural cycle of giving life. They figured out through modern medicine they could not control that cycle. Then, wow, so they deemed the feminine uncontrollable, thus dismissible.

Speaker 2 1:25:37

Wow, I guess the relation there is like if it's hard for us to get there and we're the ones like searching for that divine feminine imagine, like how much harder it is for men to have that same realization. It is very difficult.

Speaker 3 1:25:58

It's incredibly difficult, but it's tangible, because this way, no man is motherless, right? So guess what? We are? I am a product of a woman. And when you can come to that awareness and that, that realization, then you can go oh, I wouldn't be here without a mother, hmm. And then, when you can, understand.

Speaker 1 1:26:37

The greater part of that is like oh my gosh, the whole world.

Speaker 3 1:26:43

We refer to our earth as mother earth. Nature is a mother. Well, we would not be here without a mom and you have, if, when, when they're not here, they're not here. And you have to look at the world. And you have to look at the world as a mother earth and you have, when, when, that realization of reverence which can take a very long time for a lot of men, but all you have to do is look at our world.

Speaker 3 1:27:16

Like the seasons, the change in our, our earth is revolting essentially from the patriarchal systems Of using resources and everything that is in that realm that is what you have to look at and you have to be lucky, right, but the progress of that Should be enough to be like Hmm, there's more at play here. There's way more at play, and I think I need to have some reverence for and respect for what is the great mother.

Speaker 1 1:27:55

So good, and we need to wrap this up. I know I could talk to you all day long.

Speaker 2 1:28:01

We can do part two. Hopefully we can.

Speaker 1 1:28:04

Well, I'm like. You want to come back on season three.

Speaker 2 1:28:07

I wanted to part two and have Jason and Tony on here with us, absolutely.

Speaker 1 1:28:11

That would be awesome If we had a part two and Tony and Jason were here.

Speaker 3 1:28:17

That would be very interesting. It might be a little challenging. It might be a little challenging because when you do recovery and you come to the honest, when you're honest with yourself, there is no way to not be truthful.

Speaker 2 1:28:40

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:28:42

And I told a friend of mine this. I said they're like, well, dude, you're kind of like radical. And I was like, well, I'm just telling you the truth. I said because there's no point of just lying about anything anymore, because we lie to ourselves every day. So why would I say, oh, hey, man, it's totally cool, you're doing this, you're doing that. I'm like, hey, man, we should stop. You got to stop, or you need help, or you probably should look at the other side that you're battling against.

Speaker 2 1:29:20

Yeah, everybody needs one of those friends. We should all strive to be that, but I think everybody needs one of those friends. It's easy to lie to yourself. It is.

Speaker 3 1:29:33

And unfortunately it can be a lonely experience that's like even Sam Morris talked about is when you start to grow, and this is the hard part. Men are lonely inherently from day one. That's why they find their bros or their dudes whatever you want to call them their pack, because being alone is so incredibly hard, because we're not taught how to be with ourselves. And so on this side, you know, people are like how many friends do you have? And I was like I don't even know. I've lost more friends over the last three years than I've ever lost and I've never been happier.

Speaker 1 1:30:13

That's how I feel, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:30:16

And it sounds terrible, and I'm a extroverted introvert so I have that deep well of like I could just be hanging out by myself, but now I'm not lonely when I'm by myself.

Speaker 2 1:30:30

Ah, Do you know, I really think this whole code codependent thing, I used to think that it was just me, and hearing you say all of this stuff, I'm like I think maybe he's probably a little codependent too and doesn't even I mean, obviously he was an alcoholic, he was an addict Like there's some codependency there, but like he's probably more codependent than he would like to admit.

Speaker 1 1:30:55

Oh, absolutely, especially with like the friend.

Speaker 2 1:30:58

We literally just had this conversation the other day where I was like what would, what would happen if I had left before you got sober and he was like I'd be, I'd be worse off. I'd still be hanging out with the same people. I would be like probably where my dad was when he was divorced, you know, because there's that like he can't be alone.

Speaker 3 1:31:27

And we, as a culture, demonize being alone.

Speaker 2 1:31:33

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:31:35

Because if you're alone, that means you're worthless. Something's wrong with you. There's something wrong with you. I've always occupied the space where I've never belonged to one group, and so my friends and the people that I know are just the widest ranging like set of humans you'll ever meet, because what it is is it's authentic. People recognize authentic people, and so when you're in a group and you're all doing the same thing, I mean how, how authentic can you be? Right, yeah, you know you're in the bar Friday and Saturday night with your boys, whatever.

Speaker 3 1:32:22

There is no growth, you're just like hanging out. I mean then that's a great, that's fun, but it doesn't. It becomes its own system of loneliness because your deep personal needs of love and acceptance and affirmation, because the more authentic you are, the more whole you are. And when you stop lying to yourself and honestly look at your the dark parts, the shadow side, when you can make friends with those the unbeautiful parts of you, you're like all right, let's bring it on, we can handle whatever. We can go to the abyss and back and we're cool.

Speaker 2 1:33:13

We have to have a part two. We do because we didn't even talk about ketamine.

Speaker 1 1:33:20

So well and and we don't have time, but I really I really wanted to go into with men how their mother wounds show up and how show up, but we don't have time, can we? I'm being for real. Can we do a part two?

Speaker 3 1:33:36

Seriously, Absolutely 100%.

Speaker 2 1:33:38

Okay, because we got to talk about that and ketamine and Right.

Speaker 3 1:33:44

So well, here's what. I'll give you the teaser. You know what I did in my ketamine journey. I did inner child healing work.

Speaker 1 1:33:57

Okay, and I really want to go into that.

Speaker 3 1:34:00

And I met up with the six year old version of me.

Speaker 2 1:34:03

Oh my God, oh my God Little.

Speaker 1 1:34:06

Sammy.

Speaker 3 1:34:08

Oh it was. It was the most beautiful experience I can honestly ever say.

Speaker 1 1:34:12

Well, and and I want to do another episode to go into that, because what we've realized with Leah um us recording or vlogging her journey that a lot of people don't have that same experience with ketamine clinics and they have awful experiences. They don't have that, that healing or that growth that comes from it. And and really warn people that not all ketamine clinics are the same and why that is, and kind of go into that.

Speaker 3 1:34:42

So Well, and and here's the one thing I'll say about that, because I've had, you know, I've had people ask me like what, what would you recommend? I said do a lot of therapy, do a lot of therapy before you do anything like that. Because I think there's a misconception that a lot of people are like oh, if I do this, it'll fix me, I'm healed, it's going to fix me. And I had a friend of mine go I think I'm just going to do that and and he was a first responder and he had all this childhood trauma and he's like I think if I do a session, it will heal me. And I was like no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said it will be the worst experience of your life because you're opening Pandora's box of all the darkness, the sadness, the loneliness that you carried to this point, and then the key is going to turn and all of that's going to come rushing out and you are going to literally not have the emotional tools to address and to love yourself through this.

Speaker 1 1:35:52

It's going to be too much. That has been the hard part about us being in the position that we are in with having this podcast, because people come to us, they maybe listen to some episodes or they hear an expert come on or you know they're talking about ketamine or we're talking about mushroom, whatever it is, and in the society that we live in, they come to us and they're like, okay, I want to do mushrooms, okay, I want to do ketamine, and they think of it as like this pill that they take and then they're broken and now they're fixed because, especially with Western medicine, that is kind of like what we're wired to believe, and I'm like there's so much context that we need to go over before even addressing if this is right for you.

Purity Culture Journals and Material

Speaker 1 1:36:42

Or you know, we've got a lot of people that are like I mean, I did mushrooms in college and it's not like what you're talking about. I'm like okay, but we're missing a lot of context here.

Speaker 3 1:36:52

I think what most people forget, that the medicine is simply the introduction and the integration is where you heal.

Speaker 2 1:37:08

I like that.

Speaker 1 1:37:09

All right, part two, let's go. Okay, let's do it.

Speaker 2 1:37:12

I'll reach out, sam. We already said we were going to. We already know the name of this episode. It'll be a surprise for you.

Speaker 3 1:37:20

Oh, I love it.

Speaker 2 1:37:21

But let our listeners know how they can find you on the great social media.

Speaker 3 1:37:28

Okay, you can find me first off on the web sampowerscoachingcom. I do one-on-one especially coaching for all genders. I'm actually got a discovery call in 13 minutes for a gentleman in the UK, so doing that. You can find me at swamipowers on TikTok and Instagram, and I don't post that much because I don't have a ton of time for it and then you can also see me on Chrissy's Instagram.

Speaker 1 1:38:03

And we love her Instagram. Yes, please tell Chrissy.

Speaker 2 1:38:05

We said hi, chrissy Powers.

Speaker 1 1:38:07

Tell her we miss her.

Speaker 3 1:38:09

She's on a plane headed to Charleston right now for the Isle of Palms. She's doing her sacred feminine healing weekend, and so you can find me there too. Every once in a while I pop in and I always like the purity culture, the journals that she does. Those are my favorite yes, and I can tell you, we have material for years.

Speaker 2 1:38:34

I love it, I love it. Those are like really good. All right, so everyone else, for all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in today. I hope you got something out of it.

Speaker 1 1:38:44

We got a ton of Mark. How many clips I got 15. I got 15.

Speaker 2 1:38:49

I don't know, you can see 18. All right, 18 clips, 15 clips. Stay curious, be open and we'll see you guys on the other side.