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Moments with SEAN
26 Plays3 months ago
"Curiosity is the antidote for shame."
At a point, something's got to give. Reaching that point for SEAN made him curious about the trauma and conditioning that trained him to be something he's not. Seeking answers and ways of sifting through years of accumulated experiences and emotions, he worked with "non-mainstream" teachers and modalities that supported a break-through of consciousness and ways to gain agency over the troubling patterns of his life. He shares with us the importance of taking risks and developing the courage to trust himself to become the noble father, husband, son and brother he is today.
In his work as a trauma-attuned practitioner of somatic awareness & process he brings a full-spectrum approach of body, mind and spirit to helping other men make the journey home to Self. Find out more about SEAN and the retreats, workshop, groups and one-on-one coaching he offers:
https://www.seantalbeaux.com
Support my work with "Moments with MEN" ... thank you!!
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Transcript
Introduction to Sean Talbo and Men's Work
00:00:13
Speaker
Hi, everyone. This is Lizzie Kay. And thank you for joining me for another episode of Moments with Men, as I talk with Sean Talbo, who is a dedicated practitioner of men's work and deep leadership, trained in somatic facilitation, personal integration, and other embodiment practices. So today we're going to talk about his journey through recovery from trauma, including psychedelics,
00:00:43
Speaker
and some other modalities that he found very helpful. So join me in talking with Sean about expressions of masculinity and what it means to be a man in today's society. And Sean and I met through another friend on Substack and I love the work he's doing and he's going to tell us more about his work with men and his own journey.
Personal Background and Commitment
00:01:08
Speaker
So hi, Sean.
00:01:10
Speaker
Hi, Lizzie. So good to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you. It was really nice to meet you in this way. I feel like um you know that's kind of this new way of networking and putting our work out there and connecting with others doing this in different ways and coming at the same issue kind of from different angles. So um so like I said, we met through a friend on Substack.
00:01:37
Speaker
And you had just ah written some articles that really intrigued me about some of the work that you're doing in men's work. So I'd like to start with you just telling me a little bit about yourself. Like, where do you live? What do you do? um Married, children, all of those things, little demographic stuff. And then you know you're welcome to go right into, what does men's work mean? Yeah, totally. Thank you.
00:02:05
Speaker
I live in Portland. My name is Sean Talbo. I live in Portland, Oregon.
Letters to His Son
00:02:10
Speaker
um my I run two businesses. One, I'm a finished carpenter and cabinet maker, um general contractor, um which I love because I get to be alone and in my zone. um And then I have a more outward like coaching, counseling, lead retreats and immersive experiences for groups of men.
00:02:34
Speaker
um And that's something that I'm leaning more into in my life right now. I'm married to an amazing, my favorite, one of my favorite humans on this planet. Her name's Oriah. We've been married 2013, almost 11 years. And we have a toddler named Xavian, who's the best creature on the planet. And i have a my first sub-stack is called Letters to Z. And I write letters to him. I try to do it monthly. It doesn't always happen. But I'm just writing ongoing letters to him, just reflecting on our everything and him. And just you know it's just a sweet thing that I maybe he'll read one day and maybe maybe he doesn't. But fatherhood is just really important to me. and i it's really
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's like like the primary thing in my life right now. I feel like I've been preparing for it for a long time. And now that I'm here, it's hard and beautiful and amazing. and Yeah. um Beautiful. I love seeing the light in your eyes when you're talking about that. Yeah.
Breaking the Cycle of Inherited Trauma
00:03:50
Speaker
right And part of that that kind of leads into the other part of your question is like,
00:03:56
Speaker
um
00:03:59
Speaker
Like the reason that it's so important to me is because I grew up in a situation where like I was not offered good models for fatherhood, for being a man, for for being a positive role model. um And when I met my now wife,
00:04:23
Speaker
I was was dead set on not having kids. There was some awareness in me that was like, well, I'm not gonna pass on the shit that I inherited. I'm not gonna, like, I'm not willing to do that. I would die first.
00:04:36
Speaker
and And so the ensuing years between that comment and a few years ago when we got pregnant was a lot of work on my part, on our part, but um a lot of the unearthing and a lot of the,
00:04:53
Speaker
um healing and a lot of the somatic work and psychedelics and men's work and all of these aspects that were, I was trying to make that journey home, come back into myself, kind of like, you know, establish safety, establish connection back here where I can feel again, because that wasn't safe when I came into the world and for a long time. And so one of the aspects um of that work is is men's
The Essence of Men's Work
00:05:25
Speaker
work. Like how do we come together in a way to... What is men's work? For me, men's work is is is what happens in a room when men gather with the intention to set down the masks and the armor and be real with one another.
00:05:52
Speaker
and start to talk about things as as as they are. And and and ah i'm I'm hesitant to create ah ah like a really complex definition of what men's work is. Some people have a really you know um like really specific definition, like we're here to hone the masculine or we're here to like you know like learn accountability or whatever. and And for me, it's just like, how can we become come together to become better humans together? How can we like like sift through the stuff that we've inherited, the the things that we've done, the things that we've said, the things like the things that we are, how do we sift through that together and offer real reflections and offer witnessing, offer support, offer listening without judging either way?
00:06:49
Speaker
I think that there's my my personal experience is that that's been one of the most powerful things in my life ever is to sit with a group of men every week for years and to be seen and to witness others and to learn what it is to sift through our stuff, to befriend our darkness, so to and be with the broken heart and the the grief and everything. Wow.
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's beautiful. well ah i Okay, I'm writing notes because they have some questions. And this is exactly what brought me to doing this is that um my friend and his buddy have a podcast where they were talking about this, just one of their conversations about mostly, you know, world events and different things that are happening in their lives.
00:07:42
Speaker
um But this one conversation was, you know hey, it's hard out here. We don't have an outlet. We don't have a place to go do that, right? We come you know home from a business situation, meaning work. You don't emote and talk about these things there. You come home, your wife doesn't really want to hear it. She's expecting certain things. you know She needs things fixed and you to do the chores. And then the guys don't really want to hear it. They don't know how to hear it or to do anything. you know So we go to sports games and that's good enough.
00:08:13
Speaker
And so there really isn't, wasn't a, like hasn't been a place. And like you say, a lot of men's work is very, what we hear about men's work, it's very attuned to certain aspects of masculinity, meaning let's go paint our faces and be tribal members in the woods, or, you know, it's about particular aspects, which might not fit every woman. And I mentioned it often, my other um thing I do is astrology, shamanic astrology, and it really,
00:08:41
Speaker
there's right there on the wheel or 12 different expressions of masculinity, at least 12. Not the only, you know, three that a lot of men have then again, shuffled into, like you said, I love sifting through the stuff we've inherited, yeah also meaning the messages of what masculinity means. um And so, you know, it's, I find that in your conversation, you're like, you sat, you just said it, I sat every week with a group of men doing this, how fortunate, you know,
00:09:11
Speaker
So, you know, tell us more about that, that experience. How did you find that? How did it come to you? You
Experiences with the Mankind Projects
00:09:18
Speaker
know, when I talked to men and they go, there isn't that, how do I do it? How do I find it? How, how would it come about for someone seeking that? Yeah, I'll start first by answering that by saying um that if we lived in an intact culture, if we lived in a healthy culture,
00:09:40
Speaker
it would be everywhere. There wouldn't be organizations, there wouldn't be businesses, there wouldn't be like, I i wouldn't have a job, which would be ideal, right? um But in the culture that we're in, um there are organizations, there are businesses, there are groups of men who are trying to figure it out on their own and come up with frameworks and come up with different ways of gathering people together. And one thing I'll say is that sometimes painting the face and running through the woods at night or dancing around the fire naked or like by diving into sacred combat with one another, sometimes that is the path to the heart for some folks. That is the path to connection. That's the path within. And I really
00:10:35
Speaker
respect and admire a lot of the organizations who are doing different types of work. Because running around a fire naked it doesn't actually work for some people. right For some people, let's just but sit in a chair and let's talk about feelings. Or let's just like gather in a circle and around a fire and and just stare into it for six hours and just see what happens.
00:11:01
Speaker
um How I came to it was an organization called Mankind Projects, which was started by my father's generation. um And it was very like mythopoetic, Robert Bly, Michael Mead. It was very much about like rites of passage and kind of reclaiming certain um ways of being in the world that a lot of indigenous our cultures um admirably held on to through colonization. And so we were borrowing from for a long time.
00:11:34
Speaker
um
00:11:37
Speaker
And, you know, they have ah a rite of passage weekend, it's called a new warrior training and adventure. And I went through that in 2015, I think. And it was, it wasn't for me, they were like, I went there and like a lot of the things that they were doing a lot of the the the structures that they had. like I went into full-on trauma response and I stayed there all weekend long. I was totally dissociated. like And no one met me there. No one came to me and was like, hey, we see you and we really want this to be an impactful experience for you. um What do you need in this? That's not actually what that rite of passage is about. That's not what it's for. There's this idea that you know make them suffer.
00:12:21
Speaker
put them through this shit and they're gonna come out on the other side of this ordeal a new man or some level of that. And there's also like emotional literacy. There's also like dropping in about sexuality and like different things. And it's it's really beautiful. And I sat, the groups that I sat with for many years were through that organization. That was an experience that we all shared.
00:12:43
Speaker
on But I wanted something more. I wanted something deeper. And and so I kept looking and I've sat with a few different organizations, many teachers, many different um like men's group type experiences, kind of looking for because there was something in it, even though that particular weekend didn't helped me necessarily, it did open a door. It was like, oh, I can have these conversations. Oh, there is a lot in here for me. Oh, I am conditioned and trained to be something that I'm not. And what does that look like? um When Me Too came along a couple of years later, a couple of years after I did my initial thing, like that was a big opening for me also. I was like, well,
00:13:27
Speaker
Shit, how have I participated in this? like you know Can I go through each and every single moment of intimacy that I've had with a woman and like ask myself, like was that OK? Was she OK with that? did Did we both want that? Did she want that? And not always really liking the answers, not really like feeling comfortable with the uncertainty of them not knowing.
00:13:52
Speaker
um And that was, and these were just a few examples of like, just like touching different spots around like, wow, how did I get here? You know, some of it's mine, but I inherited a lot of it. My DNA is, you know, Northern European, like very talented colonizers. And that's played me in different ways. um And so really just getting curious about those things. And
00:14:24
Speaker
There's been lots of shame. There's been
Confronting Shame and Trauma
00:14:26
Speaker
lots of psychedelic trips where just pure shame came up and here like, like I don't belong on this planet and I can't be here. I would be a service. It would be a greater service to humanity if I left this planet right now. um And I'm getting curious about that and being like, wow, okay. Like, how do I reconcile the harm that my DNA has participated in? And in what ways have I continued that?
00:14:54
Speaker
And so much of my path toward becoming a father was like, I'm going to be a full stop. This actually came from a mushroom trip many years ago, like, like full stop, like as much as possible, like all of the trauma that I inherited, all of the trauma that I experienced as a child that stops here.
00:15:15
Speaker
And of course he's gonna pick up on certain pieces of it. And like, you know, I'm not gonna get all the work done in one generation, but but it was very much a like a the wizard and the Balrog, like you shall not pass moment. um And that was, you know, kind of what set me on doing this, like offering this work to other men, not just to my child and hoping that like, you know,
00:15:44
Speaker
seven or 10 generations out, like there's some ripple. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But really seeing if I can offer this work to other men in a way that is meaningful for them. And maybe they can have their own version of a realization or a reconciliation with themselves or with where they came from. Yeah, i you're speaking, you know,
00:16:11
Speaker
There's a lot a lot in there because, you know, you touched on that word shame, right? And we know in our trauma work that it's it's that emotion that's closest to or feels closest to death, right? It's the the lowest vibrational energy on the scale.
00:16:31
Speaker
which means we don't want to go there. People don't want to go there. This is why we develop all of our trauma responses, right? Because they feel like survival, literal survival responses, because shame feels like death. So when I develop a trauma response is to keep me from feeling like I'm going to die by going into that. So when we learn that, though,
00:16:56
Speaker
you know we can kind of give ourselves some grace and some compassion and start going into it a little bit more like you did you know asking these questions you know by then part of it and for women too ah that's what i'm kind of asking look ladies you you know um we have to ask ourselves how have we we want men to show up in some way but how have we demasculate it you know we got to be part of you know understanding it all because Because I think it's only then, like you say, you've done that work, you've asked herel these yourself these deeper questions about contributions to an overall energy. And when we do that, then we're willing to accept, you know we're willing to look at the shame of it all, but also to realize it's not just ours, it's been coming through us for thousands of years. And that's heavy. And you know so so this is where
00:17:52
Speaker
having other people around to do this work really helps because it helps the nervous system co-regulate right with others doing the work so that we can draw drop some of that shield and really take a look and I'm getting to some here because it's only then does the work we do meaning the channel you're becoming to help other men do it become clear and from experience not just from a weekend you went through, a certification you got, and I'm getting to the kind of new age-y style of just rise above it and ascend, you know, because you couldn't say on a day, full stop, unless you knew exactly what it was, right? Unless you know that you knew exactly what you were calling full stop to. And at a point, the work gets there, right? We we get like, I see it, done with it.
00:18:52
Speaker
so um So I just wanted to speak to that because you also spoke about grief, because there's a part of this whole process that is full of grief, right, for for our own, you know, yeah loss of, I call it the magic in whatever way you want to say, our connection, what we've, you know, done, lived, thought, behaved in our ways, but also generations of it.
00:19:21
Speaker
And I know, you know, this author, Martine Praktel, I know I'm talking a lot, but I'm getting to a point because I want you to talk about this, where he says that, you know, grief is also, we can't, grief and praise go together. um and We can't deeply grieve unless we're deeply praising the life of of one and that it's done in community. That this ugly crying, this grieving, this yelling and, you know, the hurt that we feel for generations,
00:19:50
Speaker
is done in community and we've lost that. So, you know, maybe this is an opening to some of your own experiences, if you'd like to share some of that, you know, how trauma lands in the body, how we get to that point of griefing and shame and all that so we can know what we're calling full stop to. Anyway, yeah, there, go ahead. Yeah, I grief.
00:20:19
Speaker
grief is such a, you know, I get, I get a little, I have feelings about people who have, if there's a, there's a graph somewhere that's like grief is like the super low vibrational energy or something like that. I don't know how they refer to it, but it's like down with shame. And I'm just like, no, it doesn't feel good. And And it does, because when we're actually grieving, when I'm actually grieving, there's a release happening. There's an acknowledgement happening. There's there's there's a there's ah there's a coming back into connection happening.
00:20:57
Speaker
And I feel so grateful for the deep grieving moments that I have. And I try to make space for it. There's not always, like, I can't always feel it in the moment, but it's just like, yeah, like that's something to grieve. Like that loss, that that relationship or that, you know, that part of myself or that, you know, story about myself, like, well, it's not true anymore. And yet I had some attachment to it. and Interesting.
00:21:22
Speaker
um In terms of like, Yeah, like when you um when you said you you you have to know what you're but you're saying, stop to. I have this visceral, very, very powerful moment um where I could feel, there might've been like four to six grams of mushrooms involved. um
00:21:52
Speaker
this visceral moment of all of that I needed to say no to. I needed like, I could feel it like filling up my reservoir in my body, like all of the violence, all of the abuse, all of the, yeah, like the genocider and the rapist and all these parts of myself, not necessarily parts that I was like, oh, this is a part of myself and I'm super excited about it, but like feeling my capacity.
00:22:20
Speaker
but without like just acknowledging the fact that I am in a body that can do those things. And there was this moment of like, which is why it's so important that I choose not to, which is why it's so important that I be able to choose.
Men's Capacity for Harm and Healing
00:22:38
Speaker
And when we're connected to our agency, when we're connected to our ability to choose, there's an awareness for me, of all of those little parts, all of those capacities to love and to destroy and all of those like all of those parts. And i can like I can love all of those parts because that's that's ultimately what most of them need. That's what all of them need. They need love. Nobody chooses to go hurt somebody or go cause harm or go kill somebody from their centered place of knowing and wisdom.
00:23:16
Speaker
They do that because some expression is trying to be healed. It's trying to come out because it wants attention. It wants some love. It wants some some holding. and Unfortunately, a lot of people, including me for a long time, but we don't get that. We didn't get it in childhood. We don't get it from our partners. we like You know, good therapy is very, very rare. I'm sure you know this. um Finding somebody who's not trying to to fix you, but like if all the parts can be in the room, then we can just get an inventory and we can start talking to them. And I'm kind of in the weeds a little bit, but like the work that I try to do first, and when I like talk about my, the the framework that I have on my sub stack,
00:24:07
Speaker
you know, it starts with groundwork. It starts with awareness. How can I just start to be aware of my breath, of my body, any places that I'm making contact with the earth, ground's holding me up right now, temperature there, my skin, like mindfulness is just like this connection to all of it. It's a connection to like how we can,
00:24:38
Speaker
I mean, be free, ultimately. yeah wow But like, the things that hook, those are the things to get curious about. You're talking about shame and like, you know, one of the things that was so powerful and in all the aspects, but especially with men's work is like, I can be in my shame. And another man over here can be curious about that. And the way that I learned it,
00:25:06
Speaker
Shame and curiosity can't actually exist at the same time in the same body. i Curiosity is kind of the antidote to shame. And so if I'm sitting in a group of men and I'm deep in my shit and somebody's like, hey, tell me about that. What's happening in your body right now?
00:25:26
Speaker
What are you telling yourself? What you know what do you what what do you sense? like what like What's the quality of the light coming in through your eyes? And suddenly, I can feel not only a connection to myself, but a growing connection to this person. And I can feel like, oh, I'm not so bad after all. I don't need to die right now, or I'm not dying right now. Oh, it's OK for me to belong. Oh, I do belong. Oh, I'm worthy of love. I deserve love. like And there's just this like journey back. And sometimes,
00:25:55
Speaker
You know, it's a super highway back and forth for ages, for sometimes for years, sometimes for our whole life. It's just like back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. But eventually, you know, when we get a break and and and psychedelics offered us so to are a large extent, it's like these opportunities to feel safe in our bodies.
00:26:18
Speaker
MDMA literally turns off the right side of the um amygdala, like that reptilian like trauma response, fear response part. And for four to six hours, like you can have this experience of like feeling safe in your body sometimes for the first time.
00:26:36
Speaker
It's a really powerful thing to be able to refer back to later in life and be like, oh, that's what safety is. Oh, with that that's when I feel all lovey. That's when I feel like I love everyone or like these things, these reference points that we have um in in psychedelic experiences and men's group experiences where we're touching into our darkness, we're touching into our light.
00:27:03
Speaker
i they can change everything. Because all of a sudden, it's not so it's not such a super highway back and forth between shame and connection. But it's like less of our it's ah it's a more shallow path. it's more It's easier to jump out of the groove. And when it's easier to jump out of the groove, there's more options available. there's more
00:27:27
Speaker
There's more paths available. Suddenly, we can choose again. Oh, I'm going to choose to go this way. Oh, I can, oh, there's that part that wants to shame. Oh, yeah. I love you so much. Go eat a cookie right now. Like, you know, I can choose to do something different. it's It's freedom, right? It is that freedom to choose instead of like the knee jerk reaction. And, you know, I'm totally grasping everything that you're saying. My parts have names and we have conversations and in all of this, right? But, you know, it takes, um,
00:28:04
Speaker
It does take that safe container to even begin to, like you say, drop in. You know, so as people are listening, right, it's like, that's getting a little crazy. But because it's such a long job, you know, I really, this is, you know, I have such compassion after seeing it after experiencing myself and just observing the world. You know, I said before we got started, they it whatever it is doesn't spend trillions to keep us from doing this because it doesn't work it does work to keep us separated it is quite difficult look at us we're all living from here up on our phones and our devices and everything else and especially when the body doesn't feel safe and we're told every day why we shouldn't feel safe ever ever you know the ah for any reason and in any environment you should never feel safe so when we're told that
00:28:59
Speaker
the the nervous system reverts to the brain, the data processor. It goes, hey, let's figure this out, let's figure this out. So we still stay up here and we don't ever, it is difficult. Grounding is a thing, right? Like we have to, earth thing is a thing instead of like, of course you walk barefoot on the ground, right? We're so separated from what would be natural to our bodies. And so it really is some work to get to where we feel safe enough in our nervous systems to be able to allow the full spectrum of emotion. And this comes to our our, this conversation about masculinity because I see it, especially for men, you know, women have been told that we are the emotional carriers of men or the logical ones, right? Which is, again, a crock, you know?
00:29:55
Speaker
um Anyway, i'm not well um so oh it is and it isn't, but it's much deeper than that. so But I think, again, we very generally, um in one fell swoop, cut off men's emotional legs, right? and we We just go, well, you don't even feel, because you're a man, and you're not expected to have this, which yeah now sends, you and I know in trauma work,
00:30:26
Speaker
that sends us into trauma response. When a human is told that their emotions and feelings either aren't real or they shouldn't have them, right? That begins this response in the nervous system that says, holy crap, well, I don't even know what my barometer is then, right? Because my emotions are my barometer. And you're telling me it's not even true? Nevermind if I've experienced violence and abuse around emotions.
00:30:54
Speaker
Right. So that's registered in the body. And that's what we're carrying. And this is why just having these conversations, starting out in men's group, when you don't even know what you're doing, you're just sitting in a men's group going, uh, I think we should talk about emotion. It just starting somewhere, um, starts this process, right? Even little things long before we get to a point where we're making friends with our parts and calling them names yet. Right. There's a whole, you know, so, so
Power of Vulnerable Connections
00:31:22
Speaker
what are some,
00:31:24
Speaker
um, like some basic ways, some ways you started, what brought you to just learning to take a deeper breath? You know what, you know, what was, you know, it's a start, right? Um, maybe some, you know, some personal experience about what, you what really got you started because I feel like that's an accessible point, you know, for, for people listening. Um,
00:31:49
Speaker
um For me, i had ah I had a lot of different access points and I can speak to a few of them. um I feel like my my trauma body needed to experiment and needed to needed to like go figure out different like like ways in that felt okay, that felt safe. um And to that, I'll also say, like i'm I feel also incredibly privileged in this body to be able to not only have the time and the resources to explore this, um but also to have access to some of the things that's but that have helped me in such deep ways.
00:32:31
Speaker
um One of those things has been many years of somatic therapy.
00:32:38
Speaker
um but Some of the first ones you were you were asking about, two come to mind. One is vipassana meditation, which was a 10-day silent meditation retreats. It was actually quite intense. It's not it's not like a gentle, like, come and be in retreat and eat all the good food. Like, no, you're sitting in one spot for 10 to 12 hours a day, just paying attention to your breath, just paying attention to the sensations in your body.
00:33:12
Speaker
um and watching all the stuff come up. The, I don't want to be here. but That's uncomfortable. The like thoughts and memories and like, oh, and it's just like, keep coming back, keep coming back. There was something about that practice for me that, like I had, I had experimented with a lot of psychedelics before that. I was in therapy by that point, but, but, but that kind of immersive experience,
00:33:40
Speaker
I really love being really, really immersed in things. I was a commercial fisherman for many years and the opportunity to just like be on a boat, separate from the world, I'm not on my phone, body, mind, soul, spirits, just fully devoted to something. like There's something about that that's very nourishing for me. um Because it gives me the and an opportunity to just pay attention to what's here.
00:34:06
Speaker
And you were talking about containers. um Like like oh how do you come into a men's group? How do you come into a space where it's safe enough to feel? Question mark. Just safe. Right.
00:34:25
Speaker
um So yeah, for me, like sitting in Vipassana was a really powerful experience. um being able to connect to my, but being able to just like parse out like stuff that's happening for me. And that's a tool that I use every single day in my life. I don't necessarily sit every day, but um yeah, it's probably one of the most powerful things I've ever come across.
Somatic Practices and Reconnection
00:34:56
Speaker
Couple of that with,
00:35:01
Speaker
in psychedelic world and MDMA world and and mushrooms like there's this there's this return to self that's available during those experiences um and in some of the trainings that I've been in like the teachers have spoken to like the the the spontaneous ah occurrence and in all humans is toward connection, is toward healing, is toward centeredness,
00:35:32
Speaker
toward goodness, if you will. And in that safe space of being an MDA or MDMA, suddenly I can be aware of like what's actually happening deep inside here.
00:35:48
Speaker
Like, cause I've been taught not only that it's not okay to feel, but I've literally been taught through all of the messaging and all of the men and all of the the things, um, like the mechanism with which I feel felt broken. And a lot of men talk about this. They're like, I just don't feel things as deeply as my partner and maybe their partner's are neurodivergent and they just feel things super, super deeply. And that's okay. But maybe.
00:36:18
Speaker
you know, going back and starting at the beginning. And this is where I like, when I work with men, like let's start with the breath. And that is accessible to everyone because everyone who's alive is breathing. And if you can just for one moment in and amongst your day.
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah. Take a breath and just notice
00:36:51
Speaker
the sounds, the physical sensation of my my chest or my belly moving, you know, the sensation in my nose of the air going like, that that's the beginning ah and it's the end. There's no like advanced level of practice here. There's no like, I mean, you can be in different containers and different methods, but like,
00:37:17
Speaker
entire lineages, and I said this in one of my posts recently, like entire lineages of thousands of years are dedicated to just paying attention to the breath. Absolutely. And you mentioned somatic therapy starts there, you know, to me, and that was very important in my work too, is a lot of different somatic modalities and techniques and integrative breath therapy was one of them and really helped me ah move a lot of emotion that hasn't been processed, you know, that we all hold in our bodies. And again, from this lifetime and from generations, you know, who knows ah how much is is still held in our bodies. And, you know, we can get a little biblical and go even it was said that that's always available. It's within you. It's inspiring. It's bringing in the spirit. It's, um you know, we'll never leave you as long as you're here. Right.
00:38:14
Speaker
something we can all work with, it's free and freely available. And now we can get scientific now that we know a lot about the vagus nerve and how right in that breath really touches, we can get a deep breath. Then we are actually able to reprogram the thinking. you know And you mentioned, right, because it's that information highway from deep in here on that, ah within that nerve that touches all of our organs that affects our thinking.
00:38:43
Speaker
And again, remember, we're living from here up. So we get cut off from it. And a simple breath can bring us into toning that information highway. But I made a note here because you said, we're taught not to feel. And that's really, you know I think, a seed point of all of these conversations that I'm having, that you're the work you're doing, what we're doing. We're taught not to feel, or we're taught how to feel, or we're taught that if we do feel it's wrong, I think look at an extreme example, PTSD, right? I mean, it's it's given this name of a disorder when, I mean, in my mind, I'm thinking that's a perfectly normal response to what a person has been through, you know, right? Anyway, we can start from there all the way to to other um experiences in our life that we're told is now a disorder because we feel a certain way. And so what were some of the,
00:39:41
Speaker
maybe overt messages that you received, you know? I mean, I know one for me was like, I'll give you something to cry about, ha ha, right? I was already crying about something, you know? um you know that's just i think A lot of people hear that maybe growing up, but what were some overt messages perhaps you heard in that realm about emotion, but also what it means to be a man, you know, suck it up, don't feel, um and then,
00:40:10
Speaker
What were maybe some covert messages? You might've heard a certain thing, but you were seeing something and you were picking up things and kind of defining it on your own, right? What were some of the-
00:40:28
Speaker
I mean, like on ah on ah on a broad and and subtle level, I think I absorbed a lot of similar messages, the the ones that are just floating about. like you know it's It's better to be stoic. It's it's good to work hard. it's you know like Don't be feminine. Definitely, definitely don't be gay. I grew up in a Roman Catholic environment, at least partially. So being even curiosity was not OK.
00:40:54
Speaker
um
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, there there was that and like even deeper in that religious framework is just like, you are not okay. You're a sinner. You're a fuck up. You're like, like, you're not worthy. You know, God is, you know, this very separate thing up here and like you will never so do what you can and give of yourself, give up yourself.
00:41:18
Speaker
And that was the primary message, not just from religion, but also in like high school locker rooms. Like, don't be yourself. That was the message that I received. um Anything that you think you know, like whatever my deepest intuition was, and this was, and maybe, maybe that wasn't necessarily the message. It was just my interpretation because so many of my experiences were like,
00:41:43
Speaker
I have an intuition about something and you're saying that it's either wrong or I shouldn't do it or you're gonna reject me if I follow through with it or if im if I ask that question.
00:41:59
Speaker
There's two things come up in this moment. One is a moment where you know somebody was speaking, it was a, high school locker like this other dude, this other dude was talking about a girl in a really negative way. And it just didn't feel good to me. I knew her just didn't feel good to me. And I spoke up, I said something, I don't remember what it was, but something, i something. And he sneered at me and he was like, are you defending her?
00:42:34
Speaker
And I wish in retrospect, I wish that I had the courage and the bravery in that moment to be like, well, does she need defending? Like, is there something here where like she's in danger? But I didn't do that. I needed connection, I needed belonging with this person and with the the people around me, or at least to not be rejected and like pushed out of that context ah more than, like that was a stronger need for me than to like stand up for what I believed in and to to say,
00:43:06
Speaker
Like why are you talking, like what what are you talking about right now? Like why is this important for you to for you to be like like going down this road and and and talking poorly about this person? um And a lot of messages that I had throughout my life were somewhere along those lines. Like me defending on some level the feminine and the masculine, though People call it the tox toxic masculine. We can talk about that. But like men coming in and being like, that's wrong. like Why would you do that? That's not necessary. That's not ah not manly. And you know what I was doing, it was my four-year-old defending my mom when my my dad was beating her right in front of me. like That's that's like subconsciously what I'm doing. right But it's also like the woman, the feminine in me being like, hey, I'm right here.
00:44:02
Speaker
motherfucker, I am right here and wanting something different yeah and not knowing in those moments how to reconcile all these different parts, right? Like it takes a lot of, you know, being with and willingness to do those things. But, you know, I thought James Bond was a cool motherfucker. I was like, that's how I should be in the world, you know? Cause my dad was kind of a joke, you know?
00:44:30
Speaker
so which is not my idea. Like I don't actually. Right. Well, but these images are put here we go. Again, trillions of dollars. These images are put in front of men and women, you know, and a big number has been done on us, meaning, Oh, that's what a man should be. Oh, that's what a woman should be. And then we end up trying to emulate, you know, this image that has been front in front of us to shape us.
00:45:01
Speaker
And here we are in our conversation. What is it that's inherent in a man, inherent in a woman, you know, however we wanna, I'm not getting into how we, I just mean, we know, you know, there are men and women and what's inherent in being a man, what's inherent in being a woman, masculine energies, feminine energies, and what has been laid on us through movies, through all kinds of messages, churches, you know, things like that.
00:45:30
Speaker
I kind of actually see when you were telling the story, I was listening to a recording recently, I think it was Rudolf Steiner recording something he wrote about. No, it was and it was actually ah another podcast on masculinity where the guy was talking about there's a certain sense of nobility within the masculine.
00:45:51
Speaker
Right. If we're going to talk about, I mean, there are shadow aspects of masculine energies. There are, you know, light and sacred aspects of masculinity. But if we're going to talk about kind of growing this sacred masculinity and and that that coming up again to meet the sacred feminine and and resuming this gigantic relationship, then what are those aspects? And one word he brought up was like this sense of nobility. And, that um you know, the man actually would defend, you know, because he saw the the importance of the feminine aspect, the woman, the, you know, actually revered her. And so this whole thing about degrading, you know, the locker room talk and all that is actually a distortion, not the way it should be, and how we're we're shamed into what's wrong with you if you're not talking like we are, you know, it's, that's actually the distortion.
00:46:49
Speaker
And so you felt it early on. And so you were saying that and you were in, I guess, high school, locker room time, but how many men, how many of us all in general, but especially men are still living that? I know 60 and 70 year olds who are expected to still go you know hang out with the guys at the you know girly places or whatever, you know what I'm trying to say.
00:47:16
Speaker
Like they just need to fit in. And like you say, I think that need is greater, especially I think maybe it's even gotten worse if you want to like put it in ah in a and a continuum of needing to fit into a group. Again, we're separated from it all. We're all doing things digitally. So so that that deep need when we're in a group of guys talking about women in a degrading, women too. I'm going to say women too, I've been in them, but we all sitting around connecting over, you know, degrading our husbands and our men, our men folk, right? So we need that connection more than we are striving for this sense of nobility, right?
00:48:02
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And, you know, Gabor Matei talks about that. He he talks about like in early developments, you know, when we're given a choice, which is usually not a choice between connection and authenticity, like being true to ourselves or, you know, staying connected to a caregiver, to a group or whatever, we're always going to choose connection because that's what we need. Like that's our, that's our survival. Of course, I'm going to give up my intuition if you know being a certain way is gonna mean that I'm gonna continue to get care and food and and love and touch and all of the things. like Of course, and the things that we learn in these very, very early developmental stages, like like you're saying, like we play those out for the rest of our lives. Often, most like most people, when they're not aware of it, are playing out the first two to five years of their life just over and over and over again and like wanting
00:48:59
Speaker
I'll give you something else. That connection. And then we can get into chakra development and the sacral chakra and our all relationships, you know, whatever happens in that developmental time, you know, colors, how we relate, whether we're able to feel our bodies enough to say, okay, this person is safe. That person is not safe. I mean, that's our discernment tool is our body and we're cut off from it. So it's not that I hope that we're bringing it kind of out of this, you know,
00:49:29
Speaker
there's psychological circles, new age circles, it's kind of, it's again, another layer of shame sometimes that's laid on us in that we don't, we're not, you know, acting right, emoting right, you know, expressing right, you know, only at this, at this level, and that this level is something to correct, and get over to ascend out of to, um you know, you're not doing it right if you feel these things.
00:49:57
Speaker
and And so it's i I'm kind of saying this to take, again, the shame layer off of it because, and to give ourselves some compassion, right? It's been a long time coming, a long time that we don't feel um safe to ah sit and breathe, you know, to just, I mean, we have to have a TV on all the time or, you know, I don't, I don't own a television, but you know, we have to like constantly be feeding ourselves because it does feel unsafe to, to stop that. It's very, is it, I just, I don't know. I kind of want to cry for humanity a little bit, you know, and how can we, um, you you know, just, I, appreciate this is why I wanted to talk to you. How do we, how do we help others open these safe containers, right? How do we, you know, I can't always come to Oregon. Not everybody's going to come here to Arizona.
00:50:53
Speaker
um you know, online doesn't always, you know, just, I don't know, if we're listening, what can we do? What can we, how can we, another point maybe to go into on this, you know, because I know women listen to this as well. Sometimes women will listen and and like introduce it to their husbands like, hey, let's let's open the conversation by listening to this, you know, which is really wonderful because um Sometimes that safe space, i I believe it seems like sometimes that safe space that men will find first is with the women they have in their lives. Right. And so then we actually maybe could try to be but more of that safe space instead of critical. Go ahead.
00:51:40
Speaker
yes Yes, hopefully, possibly, if it's real for you. right But like the fact of it is that so many women are the emotional bodies of their partners of their male partners. right And what my wish for for the world, my wish for like both men and women and those in between and outside, like is to have that responsibility, burden, job, role lifted so that you can be free. So that my wife can be free of like like processing my stuff and metabolizing my stuff and being aware of my stuff and telling me my stuff for me. So she can just be her. And I can approach her and I can say, hey, this is how I'm feeling right now. How are you feeling? And we can be these individuals in a context where she's not re-parenting me
00:52:34
Speaker
all the time. Sometimes that's like a thing that we can do for each other in intimate relationship when there's enough of a container. And that's a really beautiful thing when everybody's down for it.
00:52:47
Speaker
But for it to be expected, like that just doesn't isn't feel good. and Like like as ah as a condition of being in a relationship, it's like, oh, I'm going to metabolize this man's feelings because he doesn't know how to, like, and how necessary it is so often. And it's just a lot.
00:53:03
Speaker
so I want to speak to that real quick because I think that's also a survival mechanism for women because, you know, if we manage everyone's emotions, then we're safer. Right. ah Right. If we can just get everybody to like calm down and be happy and, you know, then the the and I'm not calling them this, but the nervous system senses the toxic angry masculine is then calmed and we can be safe.
00:53:32
Speaker
So I'm saying that because I really want to parse out. We've learned it too, and it's a response, it's a knee-jerk reaction. And so ladies, I don't mean safe container in that we process everyone's emotions and tell them how to do it. I think that's probably what we've gotten into because that, again, if we manage it, we feel better. I'm really talking about, you know, we don't know how to let you guys have an emotion, you know? We don't know how to...
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sucking my dogs for some reason or barking, but you know, for women to, what I mean is like a container, not a fixer. We've become like the, I feel like in a lot of situations, not everyone, I'm generalizing again, right? But you know, we tend to revert to needing to fix it and tell you because you know, we've sat in circles longer than you and we have some sight. We've read some books and and we feel like we can direct your spiritual growth.
00:54:32
Speaker
So this is kind of where two, I believe men's work is different than women's work. how do How can, you know, I can sit and tell you how to make a circle and light a candle and sing Kumbaya, but how do men approach this, right? how How in a different way that might, you know, again, just be different cause you're men and women. How is that different um for men? what And if it is, do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, totally. I mean,
00:55:03
Speaker
Hmm.
00:55:12
Speaker
I mean, first of all, there are books about this, right? Like you can go out and you can be like, oh, i um im I'm looking to start a men's group, right? i i'm I want this experience and I'm gonna go out and you do it. Like there're there are very masculine ways of like going out and and and doing a thing.
00:55:33
Speaker
The problem generally is that most people, most men don't find men's work because they want to. Like I said before, like those in power don't have to change. right We have to choose to. so So when there's something not working in my life enough,
00:55:58
Speaker
When something's about to break, when something has just broken, when I've just lost something that was really valuable to me, when I've just become aware that, I've just to become aware that my relationship or my marriage is over or he's crawling up the walls because like, I've just not been like, these are the moments men usually find these types of containers. These are the moments when men are like, Oh fuck.
00:56:28
Speaker
I've been doing it wrong for years or I've been ignoring my wife for 25 years or, um, I just got divorced and and I don't know what to do with myself. so Like, and maybe that's not as true now. And I'm thinking of like the different men that I've worked with, but like, generally we're aware of the things that need to be addressed. And when that,
00:56:58
Speaker
pressure barometer, whatever it is, reaches a certain point, it's like, okay, how can i um can I go find this? And we start maybe talking to our friends. We might start like you know looking online or asking chat GPT, like is this a thing? like Some men don't even know that they're lacking men in their lives and they don't have any male connections in their lives. so like Some men are friends only with women because that's their safe space, right?
00:57:24
Speaker
they don't trust men, they don't trust groups of men. A lot of the the ah people who come to my retreats are like, wait, you want me to sit in a room for an entire weekend with a group of men and talk about what? You want me to talk about my field? And so depending on where somebody's at, um sometimes it's just a conversation at the bar, just asking one way or deeper of their friends. Like they're like,
00:57:54
Speaker
You ever think about why we're on this planet? You know, kind of Barbie style, like out of the blue, like, sometimes I think about death. you know And just just throwing a monkey wrench into the into the the the norm, like just really jumping out of the thing and seeing seeing what sticks. Some people aren't available to be met there. And sometimes the risk of of not being met is so much that we just stay in the same and our lanes of relationship and typical ways of relating. And I'm kind of like talking around the question
00:58:31
Speaker
Because the answer is like, I don't know. Like, maybe you find it on Instagram and you're like, oh, I'm going to go to a sacred sense thing, or I'm going to go to a mankind project, or I'm going to go sit with, you know, like David data or one of his students, or we're going to like, like, and that that takes money. It's fucking expensive to do men's work. Partly because it's run by men who want to make money and like,
00:58:56
Speaker
I'm included in that. It's fucked up. And yet, here we are trying to build an intact culture.
Challenges and Costs of Men's Work
00:59:02
Speaker
And it also speaks to the value. I've spent many, many, many thousands of dollars that I don't have. I'm still paying off a lot of credit cards because I paid for retreats, because I paid for like men's wilderness immersion things to to be close to people for a few days. Because I'm like,
00:59:25
Speaker
Shit, you can be like that in the world. Yeah, it's an investment in self, right? It's an investment in your own life. Look at what we have invested in, how that's turned out, you know, a lot of times in the material world, you know, that's how I saw it too. And it has been an investment that has greatly paid off, whether it's, you know, returning actual currency,
00:59:52
Speaker
You know, or not, you know, we live off of many things other than that paper money. And I find it interesting you really brought something into the conversation that will maybe lead to, um you know, how, you know, maybe some messages we can, actually, I want to speak to this first is what you said. Sometimes it's just taking the risk. That was one word I start here is the risk to just throw a monkey wrench in the conversation at the bar.
01:00:21
Speaker
So, because I think that's beautiful. That was a beautiful, ah again, an accessible point to really see, you know, I find, I have a friend who's really looking at his friend landscape and seeing, you know, like, who can I have this deeper conversation with that I have with Lizzie? Who can I, do I have a man that I could actually have, you know, and really finding that like there isn't one around him, really, he'll throw the monkey wrench in and it gets rejected. And like you said,
01:00:51
Speaker
Not everyone is available for that. But if it's something the heart seeks, it will find. right And other people will come into um your life, your circle. You'll find your way. But it does start with that risk. And I find it's interesting you call it a risk because of what you said right before that. Men don't even trust men. like We want to talk about women not trusting men. Men don't even trust men. I mean, women don't trust women either. you know We'll talk about the witch wound and all that. but but you know we tend to kind of stick together. um And there's a ah bodily reason we do that, but another reason but another conversation. But men don't have that, oh well, no, I'll bring it in. you know That monthly menses that women have, we go to the red tent, or we did, right? It kind of is this bonding on a regular thing that we, it's inherent within our bodies that we bond, that we carry a child, we unite, right? We do have that bonding.
01:01:50
Speaker
Men inherently don't don't necessarily inherently have that. It's more the I am, I'm the that hero warrior. And yes, you spoke to it. Used to have, it would be normal. We wouldn't have to have men's groups. I would be doing this podcast. It would be normal that you would gather, right? And that you would support each other in your rites of passage. But now we've devolved into not even trusting your own you know your own gender, your own And so to even think about spending a weekend, I really feel like that moment at the bar was a real accessible moment for some people, right? To hear that they don't have to now plan to go join a thing and go for the whole weekend retreat and spend a lot of money. um And maybe it does go to that. And I love that it's more available in so many different ways, but yeah, kind of this trust thing and taking the risk, you know, if you want to speak to that a little bit.
01:02:47
Speaker
oh yeah i can and don't know if you can see this Ah, I did. It's been a bit of a theme for me. and And part of that ultimately is I didn't trust myself.
01:03:08
Speaker
I had a hard time trusting my intuition because I was told it was wrong. I had a hard time trusting my sexual desire because I was told it was wrong. I had a hard time trusting my motivations or my inspirations because I was told I should like and value different things or do different things. And so the mechanism, like ah like I was saying, like that mechanism with which I trusted felt off or broken. So of course I didn't trust other people because other people have done bad things. And if I'm not safe and I don't trust myself to do what I need to do to take care of it, it's just this whole system.
01:03:48
Speaker
um
01:03:51
Speaker
That's the whole thing, trust. I want to throw this in because when we're told and taught that what we feel, what we what our motives are, what our heart's desires are, all of that is wrong. um We learn to abandon ourselves, right? We learn to self abandon, which means that we can't be trusted because I'll abandon myself.
01:04:18
Speaker
I know that I won't, you know, trust my instincts. I won't trust my own intuition. And so if I, if I won't even do that for myself, I am darn sure you're not going to do it. I see that on the regular out there, especially, you know, and again, you know, the universe is reflective. So if I'm not trusting myself, I will always reflect those relationships that are untrustworthy. And as I learned to trust myself, those fall away and new ones come in.
01:04:47
Speaker
I have a, I have a dear friends, uh, who, for whom self abandonment is his work. It's his work in the world. So, you know, he's been abandoned as mom left when he was four years old. Like there, there's been a lot of pain there. And so he's always coming back to that question of like, am I abandoning myself right now? And if the answer is yes, he's like, I'm going to choose to to stay here and I'm going to choose to be with myself. And I've always really admired that about him. Yeah. i You know, there's a, there's a,
01:05:17
Speaker
very
01:05:20
Speaker
risk like Risk, like it takes risk to to attempt to trust, you know, sometimes like, and this is like inherent in any men's group is like, I'm going to take a risk here. And I'm going to say how I feel, or I'm going to trust that this person running this thing or that this group who are also like in this like liminal space of like, do I want to be here? Am I going to get something out out of this? Like,
01:05:45
Speaker
When we start to value what we can get or when we start to value who we want to be or who we truly know we are, we might be more willing to take the risks necessary in order to get there.
Risking Vulnerability for Healing
01:06:02
Speaker
And sometimes they they might be the the wrong thing. It might be something that's not necessarily like the thing. For me, like Mankind Project was not necessarily the thing, but what it did was it led me in a direction. You were talking about how you know when our hearts want something or when our hearts are open to something, like it can really start to come. like When I start to embody that person who I i want to be, who I think I am, that's emerging within me just a little bit more, the external the external landscape starts to change. My relationships start to change.
01:06:42
Speaker
My, my work starts to change. Maybe there's more money, but like that's a, you know, it's just like how I'm relating in the world, how I'm being in the world, how aware I am of my own body and my own being. Like that all starts to change and shift and really powerful ways when I'm willing to trust the part of myself that can feel. And then I get into content and I start to actually feel those things. and I'm like, Oh, okay.
01:07:11
Speaker
This is a no. Or or this is a yes. Oh, this is mine. This isn't mine. These little basic things that we can start to trust about what we know.
01:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's what we've turned away from. That's what we've been turning away from. And One thing that just keeps coming back into my brain that I just want to say is the training and conditioning to disconnect, to to to tur man up, to desensitize, to do those things might be controversial to say this, but like I feel like I really want to honor that part sometimes. Because when we're training thousands and thousands and thousands of men to go to war for whatever reason, but like like that's what they're're like we're training them to go die for something you know bigger than themselves.
01:08:18
Speaker
there is ah there is an inherent logic. There is a sense in that sort of training that's like, Hey, you really need to show up for yourself in this moment because like, you know, we're going to value the staying with the, the, the sitting in the discomfort of the fear of I might die right now. And this is, we like and talk about the the warrior archetype, which is, you know, not something that stays in the body all the time, but that we can access in different moments.
01:08:48
Speaker
um of like, how can we be in that discomfort and feel the discomfort? How can we be in relational conflict when our woman is is just expressing or she's in a foul mood or she's angry and like, doesn't necessarily mean it's about us, even if our name is coming out of our mouth, like how can we just like hold the space for her to just feel and be heard? And how can like I feel my own spaciousness? How can I feel that you know that protective boundary of like something sacred is happening here?
01:09:30
Speaker
And that that's a that's a skill that I try to teach and to impart in people of like, how can I be in a very uncomfortable position, whether that's like in a freezing cold river or so standing in a Chikung stance for 25 minutes.
01:09:48
Speaker
um How can we just learn to be uncomfortable and to be ourselves and stay connected in that instead of to like turn away or run away or push away or put that on somebody else to do, to take care of, be responsible for? Yes. Just like I was saying, when we try to manage others feelings, it's not often about helping them feel better. It's protect, it's so I feel better, right? So that we feel better. So even that is seen as altruistic.
01:10:16
Speaker
right, is really our own attempt to feel better because we're taught we should never be uncomfortable. I mean, there's a whole pharmaceutical industry for it. There's a whole, right, all of this, let us let's fix that discomfort when, you know, discomfort, you know, usually won't kill us. So, you know, it's just, and, you know, you're just really talking about even what I mentioned before about the Kali Yuga, it doesn't mean that it's, again, all bad.
01:10:46
Speaker
There's a purpose for it in the cycle. There's a purpose for the dark ages, for the density, for the polarity, for the patriarchy. It's only through that that we can really learn to have the will to open our hearts. so And that is only gonna come through consciousness. And Steiner speaks to this being the stage of human human development as being the stage of consciousness and only After that stage, can we get to the stage of morality? Consciousness doesn't necessarily have morality, can't you tell? I mean, there's a lot of immoral things happening in the conscious state. But it's, but again, for a point, for a ah broader reason, purpose is to allow us to be conscious of it all, sit with it in equanimity, reprogram our nervous systems from trying to get away from discomfort.
01:11:42
Speaker
Because that's not going to help us right get to the moral state. Because just trying to get away from discomfort could cause us to do some pretty immoral things. right So we really need to be with and just see it all. like The shadow isn't scary. It's just under the sofa. Just like move the sofa, bring it out in the light so we can become conscious of it. um But religion, many institutions, many institutions, that's what I mean by the trillions of dollars,
01:12:13
Speaker
tell us this scary and evil to go there, to the point, you've mentioned psychedelics, where in in the Kali Yuga, in this density, we may need these agents to help us see this broader vision. In another age, we may not have needed that, we would have seen that broader vision and just see it, it's the way the way our psyches would have worked, our vision, spiritual vision would have been. But here, we really do have to you know, be with others, regulate the nervous system, go through rites of passage, um perhaps, you know, journeys with other agents and in different ways. So, but that takes risk too, right? Hell, sometimes it's legal risks. Sometimes it's financial risks. Sometimes it's vulnerabilit just vulnerability. And we're taught again, not to be vulnerable, especially men, right? yeah So I was just kind of maybe a statement and a broad
01:13:11
Speaker
And from my, again, I don't know every detail of your story, but really the process, even from the statement you started out with, bringing it back to the beginning of, you know, I swore I would never have children. To now fatherhood is the like one of the most important paths and I would say perhaps the most important path in your life. You know, you're planting seeds, you know, you're raising, you know, a prodigy of, you know, of this, the shift of time.
01:13:41
Speaker
with consciousness and awareness. So I don't know what greater purpose there could be, but there was a lot of work in between that is what I'm trying to say, right? A lot of, and I can see everything you've talked about actually in your in your story to that light you you have when you talk about, you know, your son in this path that you're on. And we've talked about how to access it. So, you know, just kind of let's wrap it up with like, you know, ah either speak on some of the things I just talked about And then also, you know what what do we say? What do you say? What you say to some, not that it's women's responsibility, but how can we start ah even allowing, right? I think some women might tighten up when they hear about their men going away for a weekend. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? What can we say just in general here to start allowing this ah collaboration again to happen, right? Yeah.
01:14:43
Speaker
um
01:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's change happening.
01:15:12
Speaker
Right. Like if, if there's, if there's no other thing that we can agree on. Right. And when I say change, I'm not talking about just like the normal typical thing, but like there's something in the world that needs our attention. There are like, we can call them crises. There's there's things that really, really need our attention right now.
01:15:37
Speaker
I'm not talking about Instagram. I'm not talking about Tik TOK. But if those are the things that help like spark something for you, beautiful. Pay attention to that thing. There's no easy way through. There's no way that just does not involve risk.
01:15:58
Speaker
risk
01:16:01
Speaker
You have to risk in order to learn to trust. And speaking to to to women who are in partnership with males, like
01:16:13
Speaker
know, you know him as deeply as he will let you. And if he wants to go to a weekend thing, if he were if he's like really, really drawn toward opening himself, like, like these journeys, as you probably know, like, it doesn't get easier. At first, it gets harder before it gets easier. Because you're just opening up. You're just as as we open, we're like shining a little tiny flashlight into a whole big, dark room and sometimes there's monsters and sometimes they're scary and sometimes they're not.
01:16:48
Speaker
And speaking to the men, it's it's just like, who do you want to be? Who are you in the world? Like we've been taught on a certain level to to to be you know powerful beings and yet this this power that we're supposed to have, like it means repressing most of who we are. Like strength is not tightening up the body and holding strong.
01:17:12
Speaker
That's fear, right? Like in flow and martial arts and and and and awareness, like we're bringing flow into the body. And the most effective martial arts, like there's no tension at all, right? Except where it absolutely needs to be. And so take the risk, soften your body, soften your heart just a little bit and see what's there. Pay attention because, you know, like,
01:17:42
Speaker
One question I like to ask sometimes is like, so you're here and these are the tools and these are the strategies and these are the the masks and the armor and the the ways that you've gotten here. Like, how's that working out for you?
Embracing Change and Deep Connections
01:17:56
Speaker
How much loneliness do you experience? How much disconnection do you experience? How much desire for depth do you experience? And if those things sound good to you, then take the risk.
01:18:12
Speaker
Because as you dive in, as you do your work, as you deepen with other men of depth and who are on their path, your relationships will change. You may not go to the bar anymore. Those friendships from college may fade. Your intimate relationship, like like if she's not willing to meet you there or if he's not willing to meet you there, like you have this one life.
01:18:38
Speaker
And this is, i'm and I'll close with this, they there's ah there's a practice that one of my teachers teaches and it's just a breath practice. It's just a, like we're gonna breathe in and out. It's a little bit of breath work, it brings us into kind of a heightened state. So like big breath in, big breath out for many minutes. And then you blow all of the air out.
01:19:02
Speaker
And you don't suck it back in. You hold your breath on the breath out. This is how um free divers, you know, go into the ocean. Like they blow all of the air out. They go down empty.
01:19:15
Speaker
And when we hold our breath in that place of needing oxygen, we can start to feel like our body needing oxygen. Blood starts to pulse. There's ah there's a discomfort there. there's like ah And you get to feel into who you are. You get to feel into how how you are in these moments. like Like death is close. Death is coming. It may be cliche to say, but you really, really only do get one chance at this life.
01:19:43
Speaker
And how do you want to live that life? You get to choose. Yeah. I love that. And thanks for wrapping it up with that and reminding you know what it means when you say, how's that working for you? right And I don't think any would choose for choosing how to live this life would choose loneliness and disconnection, lack of depth. I think that's what we all really want.
01:20:12
Speaker
So thank you so much for this conversation. Wow, I wish we could go on for hours because there's so many avenues, right? And maybe we will. I'd love to have more conversations with you about this. um But maybe just tell us. I'll put it in the description box, too. But tell us how people can join ah your work or find you, um and maybe what you're writing about, and you know just a little bit more about how to connect with you.
Resources and Retreats for Men's Work
01:20:40
Speaker
Totally. Thank you.
01:20:41
Speaker
um Yeah, so i I have two primary avenues. um I write a sub-stack. It's just really starting to so pick up steam and build on the library. But I just talk about my approach. I talk about psychedelics and men's work and like you know what what can happen at that intersection when we gather men in groups and bring in psychedelics and and and the immense amount of change and and real transformation um in our lives that can come from these being together in these ways.
01:21:11
Speaker
um And so, yeah, the subject talks about approach. It talks about the different methods that we're using in the container building. That's such a big one for me. It's like, how do we create a container where where men can feel safe enough to feel and to do the things and to do their work together?
01:21:34
Speaker
um My website is seantalbo dot.com. um On there, you'll see information about upcoming retreats and workshops. I do monthly workshops here in Portland, like very somatic-oriented multi-hour men's groups. And I do retreats. I do an annual fatherhood retreat the 7th to the 10th of November this year. It's close to Portland, Oregon.
01:22:01
Speaker
And that is a medicinal men's retreat. where There's medicine ceremonies, there's men's groups, the qigong, breathwork, a lot of the things that I've been speaking about. And you don't have to be a father in a traditional sense to join us. But if that's a theme that's alive for you in your life, yeah, we would welcome you. And you can find information to to apply and join that um on my website. That's wonderful. Is there a limited number of of spaces open for that retreat or? Yeah, we cap the group at 12. And it's actually almost half full right now. So if that sounds interesting to you, feel free to reach out. You can email me at sean at seantablo.com. And we can just have a conversation and see if it'd be a good fit for you. And I can also provide resources and referrals for therapy
01:22:56
Speaker
um somatic therapy, vipassana, like I'm going to include a lot of those on my, on my sub-stack. So if you're looking for different groups and and this container is not the one for you, like totally fine, go find the one. um And I'll, I'll include a list on my, on my sub-stack this coming week um that has resources for that. That's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for telling us all about and sharing the retreat with us.
01:23:24
Speaker
And just thank you for having this conversation. I'm just really enjoying for myself, exploring the different perspectives of expressions of masculinity and what it means to be a man through different men's eyes so and experience. So thank you for having moments with me, Sean, and I hope we continue our conversation.
01:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, Lizzie, thank you so much for doing this work, for being a conduit for these conversations, for being interested for... Yeah, like i was just i I really honor what you're doing here, and um I appreciate you having me on. Thank you. Yeah.