Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Grape Therapy: Understanding the Men in Our Lives with Connor Beaton

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

You’re likely familiar with one of Kaitlyn’s favorite guests, therapist Vienna Pharaon, but she’s not the only brilliant mind in the family; in this episode, her husband Connor Beaton joins KB to talk all about his work which centers on helping men face and overcome their shadows. First, he dives into his life with wife Vienna and how they navigated having a baby, building a house, and each writing a book all at the same dang time. And speaking of having a child, Connor has some pretty impactful parenting advice that all of us can benefit from. Then, Connor explains how he arrived at his current career which came only after he reached rock bottom and moved towards all the things he had been avoiding. Transformation cannot happen without confrontation, and Connor explains how his book, podcast, and general work help men to confront their own truths, go beyond the surface level, and build relationships with their inner critics. His book not only helps men to learn and grow; all the women and anyone who is listening with questions about the men in their lives can learn from his messages and advice, so get ready for some major takeaways. Thank you to our sponsors! Check out these deals for the Vinos: MASTERCLASS - Right now, you can get 15% off an annual membership when you go to MasterClass.com/VINE.  GAMETIME - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code VINE for $20 off your first purchase. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Conix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to a advisor free of charge but mGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with eye gaming Ontario this episode of grape therapy is brought to you by masterclass right now as an off the vine listener you can get 15% off an annual membership when you go to masterclass dot com slash vine and game time download the game time app create an account and use code vine for $20 off your first purchase i'm kately bristow your session is now starting Welcome to the on a scale of one to 10 with it today, I'm like a two.

It was my birthday yesterday and I feel like I'm like not a functioning human today. I'm coming around because it's like finally 3.15 in the afternoon. So I feel like I'm finally starting to become a human being. But I apologize if I'm just like not all here today. You're good. You're good. I'll try and do the heavy lifting for us. Yeah. I'm counting on you. Don't screw it up. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I was just saying to Alicia, my producer, I'm like, man, you and your wife, if only you could adopt me and I could just like learn from your knowledge and just how you two work as a couple every day. I feel like I feel like I've so many questions just about that in general. But I want to dive into everything that you do, the book that you have written. And, but I have some questions first because for the, everyone who doesn't know, Conner's wife is Vienna, who I have on the podcast frequently because I'm obsessed with her. And she just had her book out called The Origins of You. And how was your experience of writing a book compared to hers? Were you guys writing at the same time?

So I actually, I signed my book deal first. And, and I've been trying to get Vienna to write a book for years because she just, She's just such a fantastic writer. And so I signed my book deal first, and I had this wonderful book agent. And once the whole process was done, I sort of turned her and I was like, you need to do this. Like, just have a call with them. And so she ended up going through the process right after me of, you know, getting a book to put together.

So I think I had like a three or four month head start. But we literally, we both wrote a book. We had a baby. we both wrote a book and we built a house all within the span of like 12 to 16 months. It was ridiculous. I strongly do not recommend. Yeah, don't recommend. Because first of all, Jason just wrote a book and I see how many hours go into writing a book.

Like I can't even imagine doing anything else while writing a book, let alone bringing a human being into the world while building a house. like all three of probably the most stressful things you could possibly do at once at the same time. So yeah, don't do that again. No, no, strong. We actually recorded a podcast episode called two books and a baby where the two of us like talked about how the hell we made it through that shit show of like 16 months because it was really it was tough. And the funny thing was as I started writing my book, you know, it's a huge undertaking, right? Like I feel great 12 of English. I never thought that I would write a book, but it was a huge challenge for me. I was like, I know I can do this. I've, you know, I've become a good writer, a decent enough that I think

I can probably do this. And so I started writing the book and I was probably like a month in. And I remember, we've talked about this a few times, she and I, but I remember going to her and came out of my office one day. And I was like, I don't know if I know what the hell I'm doing. like don't tell anybody but I am freaking terrified like I you know I'm writing this book it's called men's work it's about like the you know the psychological and emotional work that men need to do in our modern society I'm like oh my gosh what if this is brutal and I just no joke she turns to me and she says something along the lines of I don't know what your problem is stop being such a baby like you're fine you've got this

just get over it right yeah and so and exactly and I said I'm going to remember this because in about in a couple months you're going to have to write and you're going to have the same existential crisis that I'm going through right now and sure enough just a couple of months later she comes out and she's like I'm so sorry and I don't know can I give back my advance can I cancel this you know like this is brutal this is so hard and I was like uh-huh what was your response back because petty me would go ha ha ha ha ha ha but i think having a lot healthier uh conversation i mean i did i chuckled a little bit because you know she she was just very you know she was admitting that it was really hard and i think i just gave her you know gave her a hug and i was like i get it

i understand and she was very apologetic which was good and then we just we just sort of sat down and talked about it and how you know how i got through it so yeah how did you guys get through that because I'm sure you talked about it on your podcast, but how did you get through two books, a baby, and building a house and come out on the other side alive and well? Oh, some really good communication. Like V and I are very good at communicating where we're at and, you know, being able to say like, I'm tapped out and I just need to go for a walk for 10 minutes or I need to jump into the gym, you know, for 30 minutes. A lot of communication. And you know, little meetings here and there once or twice a week talking about what's happening

with the house, what needs to get done, how's our kid developing, just a lot more communication than maybe, you know, most people would think, talking about how we were feeling about our books, you know, what the experience was like. I think that really was our lifeline because if, you know, if we didn't have that we would have been two ships in the night and so we really made a conscious effort a few times a week even if it was late even if we were just exhausted to just sit down and say like how are you and how am i and how do we think our baby is doing how do we think how's your book doing you know how's the house coming so it was just those conversations that kept the like fabric of the relationship really together because it was hectic you know it was a brutal time

that's got to be also challenging to even want to have those conversations because when I'm that exhausted and that burnt out and I don't if somebody asked me at the end of the day how are you I'd be like I don't even want to talk about my feelings like I'm so tired so I feel like that's even just an effort to even have those you know communication sometimes seems like such a simple thing. Well, yeah, you're just going to talk about how you feel at the end of the day and how things are going. But sometimes even that, how are you? I'm like, I don't want to talk about it. But sometimes that's it, right? It's just acknowledging like I'm burnt. You know, I'm burnt out. I'm feeling, you know, overwhelmed. And sometimes that was a conversation where

one of us would just be completely burnt. You know, because my, our son, his name is Code, You know, in the first, like, year of his life, he just, I mean, their sleeping patterns are brutal, right? So he was up every two hours. And sometimes he was up for two hours at a time. And I learned very quickly that I am not a good human being when I don't have at least six hours of sleep in a row. Yeah, I feel you on that. I don't know how parents do it because I'm, I need eight or more to function. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah, I don't quite need eight, but I like, you know, I need like a good six to seven. Yeah. And so we, you know, we did a good job of structuring things where, you know, we would, once we got into a good rhythm after the first few months, because I actually, I coordinated and arranged my business so that I could take three months off at the beginning to be with Vienna and code.

Because it felt pretty important to me. And, you know, that's one of the reasons why I became an entrepreneur in the first. first place was I wanted to be able to dictate things in my life a little bit more. So that was, that was pretty awesome to be able to do that and to just be with my son when he was born. But yeah, those first, those first like nine months are hard. Oh my gosh. How old is he now? He's two years, three months. Oh my goodness. And I love the name code. How did you guys come up with that? So when Vienna got pregnant, we were driving cross country and we were talking about names and doing this little word association because we wanted something that

kind of had a tether to us and we were talking about what we do and Vienna said, oh, like we help people, you know, understanding their own programming and we help people like decode themselves and rewrite their code, you know, about their family systems and relationships and sex. And then she was like, what about code? It's like, well, that's a pretty cool name actually. You know, and I had never really come. I've never heard anybody named Code. And so it just kind of stuck. I really like the name Bodie as well.

I know that there's a lot of kids named Bodie. And so that ended up becoming his middle name, Code Bodie. Oh my goodness. That's so cute. Yeah, I'd say it's a pretty adorable name, actually. And he fits it. He's like, he's a pretty adorable little kid. Keenow in magazines write articles about people.

It's always like, Caitlin, 38. So, okay, Caitlin Bristow, 38. And I think I know a thing or two, but one thing I've learned in my years is that I absolutely never want to stop learning no matter my age. I love trying new things and just getting better at things I already love doing, like singing, cooking, podcasting, drinking wine, maybe to just name a few. And I'm always trying to gain more knowledge for my wine brand, Spade and Sparrows. And one resource I used recently was actually taking a wine appreciation class on Masterclass, and I love cooking too, so a class where Gordon Ramsey can teach me how to cook, priceless. With Masterclass, you can learn from the best to become your best

anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace. Annual memberships start at $10 a month, which is so incredibly reasonable, and you get unlimited access to every instructor, thousands of online lessons, exclusive content, insights, and much more. I personally really like to watch something before bed when I'm winding down for the night, like a little night class for me, if you will, or in between meetings and podcasts. It's, I don't know, I find it fun. So how much would it cost to take one-on-one classes from the world's best? Well, with Masterclass annual membership, it would only cost you $10 a month. Get unlimited access to every class. And right now, as an off-the-vine listener, you can get 15% off when you go to masterclass.com slash vine,

that's masterclass.com slash vine for 15% off an annual membership. Masterclass.com slash vine. My gosh, I can't even, I just would love to be in your household as even a fly on the wall. Like what? I have a lot of listeners who are like, first of all, 99% female, which we will get into that. But also a lot of parents out there. And do you have any parenting tips that you ever give out or advice? for parents and with either newborns or with kids or with adults like teenagers what is your

number one piece of parenting advice you're like I haven't gotten there yet he's too Caitlin calm down no no honestly the I think a lot of the therapeutic advice that's out there is sometimes over complicated the stuff that we need when we are really little and the stuff that we need when we are older is often very similar and a lot of it is touch, movement, and breath. And so with my son as an example, I found this very quick little thing to be super helpful. When he starts to freak out and he's having like a meltdown

or he's just super upset about something, I'll just pick him up and I'll say inhale and I'll point to my nose and I'll inhale. And then I'll say exhale. And I'll blow the air out of my mouth. And he might still be, he'll be like full tantrum, right? screaming, kicking, you know, and I'll just stay with it. Inhale, exhale. And after probably like 20, 30 seconds, he'll usually, not always, but he'll usually join me. And so he'll eventually go,

he'll point to his nose and go and then point to his mouth and go, and sometimes he's like, you know, rolling his eyes and he's like, all right, dad, like screw it, fine. But, you know, when you hear about this term co-regulation out in the universe, out online, that's what co-regulation is. Your breath is the dial and the modulator to help you regulate your nervous system. And so for kids especially, they regulate based off of our nervous systems as adults. And same thing in relationships. Oftentimes what's happening is we're regulating to our partner's nervous system. And so if we can do these very simple things like inhaling for a count of four and exhaling for a count of seven, it's important for your exhale

to be longer than your inhale, that is naturally going to decrease your heart rate, it's going to decrease your breath rate, and that's going to stabilize your nervous system, and you're just going to be more calm and grounded. And so I do that with him all the time. And it's just a very simple tool that I've tried to tell people to do in their own lives with themselves, you know, maybe not with your partner. You probably don't want to, like, hold your partner and be like, inhale, exhale. They might be like, get the hell out of my face. Yeah, yeah.

But it can be a very good tool for you and it can be a very good tool for your kids. And obviously everyone is, you're already, that's a gift you've already been given. So you know how to do it. It's just slowing it down and being more cognizant of like how you're breathing in and out. And it really does regulate your nervous system like that. I always used to think like breathwork was a bit. Like I was like, oh, come on until I actually got into it. And now it's pretty much changed.

my whole life. So I love that. And I feel like, gosh, if I would have been taught that at an early age, I don't know if we really knew, you know, how impactful breathwork could be when I was younger. And it's so crazy. I think I've said this to one of my girlfriends who does breathwork. And I might have said it on a podcast, but I'll say it again. I, if someone even just told me that fact that you said that it's important to have a shorter breath in and your exhale to be longer. So when I was little, I had really bad OCD about certain things if they weren't even. So like if you touch this shoulder, I would want to touch this. I needed everything to be even. If I had like, if I was wearing snow pants on top of pants, I needed only two layers on the top.

Like everything had to be even. And I would have panic attacks when I was little about my breath being shorter on the way in than it was on the way out and it didn't feel even to me. And if someone could have just told me, like that's actually how it's supposed to be. But I just sounded crazy because I was like my breath isn't even but that even to this day knowing that now still helps me because breath used to give me anxiety and deep breathing used to give me anxiety because I would think about that as like my childlike self freaking out about it so it's so interesting how the brain works I mean that alone is pretty wild well it's it's very common right it's it's very common a lot of us take breath for granted and we don't think about our breathing

and we're not tuned into it and so we're very disconnected from it but it is the modulator for your nervous system and so you know the it's why in certain forms of meditation they'll try and slow down the breath so that instead of taking 14 to 16 breaths a minute

you slow it down to 8 or slow it down to 6 and just by doing that you can move into a quote unquote altered state because you're moving your nervous system into this very relaxed, very calm state. And your temporal state, right, your perception of time actually begins to alter as well in accordance with it. So it's very interesting. It's a fascinating thing.

We don't need to go too much down that path. I don't want to take us like off the rails here, but yeah. Yes, I mean, I did a whole episode on breathwork with a breathwork coach. So if people want to go down that rabbit hole, you can. I do believe that you and your wife were put on this planet to help other people. I know your work is more focused on men, but can you just tell me about how you got into the work that you do? Yeah, I mean, the long and the short of it is years and years ago, probably about 12 years ago. It looked like I had my life together on paper.

I was traveling the world. I had a cool career. I had this wonderful girlfriend who I really adored. And so on the outside, it looked like I had this great life. You know, I had the motorcycle, I had the Mustang. And behind the scenes, I was really a disaster. You know, there was substance abuse, a pretty heavy porn addiction, lots of infidelity, like lots of cheating. And so behind the scenes, I just felt wildly out of control, you know, wildly.

out of control and I didn't like who I was but nobody had a clue and so I like a lot of guys had convinced myself internally that nothing was going to change until I bottomed out and that's what happened you know eventually I bottomed out I hit rock bottom my relationship blew up my career started to fall apart I was questioning whether or not I wanted to continue with it and instead of telling people I moved all my stuff into storage, lived out of the back of my car for a few weeks, and eventually came out of that and started to have conversations with other people in my life, specifically other men in my life. And I started to realize that a lot of us had very surface level relationships. And by surface level, I mean, you know, we talked about all this

stuff about, you know, women and career and cars and that kind of stuff. But we didn't really know about the deeper shit going on behind the scenes. And that really hit home in a conversation with a good friend of mine that I went to university with after my rock bottom where I opened up and told them everything that had been going on, all the lies, all the cheating, all the substance abuses. And, you know, by the time I was done, I sort of like verbally just laid it all out. I paused and he he got pretty emotional and he thanked me for for being transparent and opening up with him and proceed to tell me that he had tried to commit suicide six weeks before and it was so raily so jarring in that moment because I knew the type of scotch he liked to drink and the type of TV he liked to watch and the women he liked to date and the restaurants he liked to eat at. but I had no idea that he was struggling so much internally that he had tried to take his own life and he had no idea that I was struggling so much internally that I basically had bottomed out

and lived in the back of my car and as I started to connect with other men I started to see this pattern where that was apparent in so many of our lives where we had these relationships with other men where we talked about a lot of stuff but we didn't talk about the deep meaning full shit that was happening in our relationships, in our careers, in our health, within us, um, in our families. And something in me wanted to alter that. I didn't know what that was going to look like. Um, I ended up spending two and a half years apprenticing with somebody who was versed in Jungian psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, um, Zen and Buddhism and all these sort of therapeutic and spiritual modalities. And that kind of set me on a,

different trajectory. It saved me in a lot of ways, but it also set me on a different trajectory. I'd go on to work for Apple for a number of years and then start my own company later. But yeah, that was that was sort of the crux of it. That's where it all started was me bottoming out. Isn't that? It feels like I talk about rock bottom moments a lot on this podcast, and I do feel like that usually is the pivotal moment in your life where you do make a change. And I'm just wondering how people can ever get to the point where they don't have to hit rock bottom to make a life change and to get out of something. Like, it just always seems like that seems to be the case. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, I think you can circumvent in the sense that rock bottom moments almost always bring us into some sort of death and decay, but they also bring us into a type of radical transparency that we've been avoiding. And so if people are wanting to not have to bottom out in their life, what they can do is move towards the stuff that they've been avoiding. They can move towards the conversations, the truths, you know, the ownership of the stuff that they have been hiding or neglecting or not dealing with. And by doing that, you know, not systematically, but just in small incremental steps by, you know, opening up about your indiscretions, your infidelity, or, you know, being honest about where

you've been lying or being honest about what you've been withholding in your relationship or about your finances or about your health or whatever it is, when you start to be honest about those things, you bring some of the energy from the rock bottom moment into the present moment. And you have to start to confront the stuff that you've been avoiding. I usually say change can't happen without confrontation. Transformation cannot happen without confrontation. There's always confrontation required. And most of the time, that's what we're actually avoiding. We're avoiding the confronting conversation or admission that we don't want to undertake. And then lastly, I would say that sometimes it's about confession, right? Carl Jung said that the first step in any therapeutic process

is confession. And so sometimes it requires us to really admit and confess to the things that we have been withholding or not wanting to talk about. So, yeah. Makes sense. Would you say that men struggle facing their shadows more than women? That's an interesting question. I don't know if I've ever been asked that.

That's interesting. I would say, I would say generally, as a generalization, not that they have a tougher time but that they have a denser shadow to confront and that journey is both psychologically and emotionally and sometimes physically they know it's going to alter their lives for good and so I think for a lot of men the real reckoning

or the real initiation that they've been waiting for is in facing their shadow, right? The stuff that they haven't wanted to talk about, the stuff they've been avoiding. Because for a lot of guys, you know, our life, in my book, I talk about how for a lot of men in male culture and a masculine culture, there's this notion that there's strength and suppression, that the more that you just push it down and don't talk about it and avoid it, the stronger you are, right, so that you can somehow hack the system of being manly by just avoiding the stuff you don't want to talk about, but that will inevitably weaken you. That will inevitably become a problem at some point in your life. And so the men who are really strong and really

resilient and really grounded and trustworthy and the men that we, you know, that we seek and look for in life, whether that's our culture, our community, our relationships, et cetera, there are always the men that are able to confront their own truth because, man, it's hard. And so I think that it's not that men have a harder time. I think it's very challenging for women to face their shadow. I would just say that sometimes what men have to confront in their shadow is maybe a little bit more it's maybe a little bit more intimidating and there's a stigma around it so yeah there is a stigma around it do you think that's changing um or do you think i mean i feel like

your work the kind of work that you're doing is is changing people's perspective and outlook but do you think it's like the stigma is starting to shift yeah i think so i mean i think that There's a lot of guys out there doing some good work, talking about, you know, what it means to be a man in our modern culture and going against the narratives, right? Like, I talked about, I talk about this concept of the one rule of men in my book, which is very similar to the first rule of fight club, which is you don't talk about fight club. The first rule of men is you don't talk about what it's like to be a man who's struggling. You just don't. And so I think it's becoming, I think that rule. is getting broken a lot more in our modern culture where men are starting to open up more,

they're starting to share more, they're starting to gather together with other like-minded men who are having these conversations who have realized that that sort of old one-dimensional version of masculinity doesn't work very well in today's modern culture. It doesn't work very well for kids to get to know their dad and to get to really be around them and feel loved by them. It doesn't work for their partners. And so I think a lot of men are definitely starting to shift the narrative, but on all sides of the fence. I think that's the thing that gives me a little bit of hope. It's like on all sides of the political fence, I think that this is starting to happen. Okay, so I've been going to some pretty incredible events lately. I do. I do.

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Your book title kind of says everything people need to know. It's called Men's Work, a Practical Guide to Face Your Darkness and Self-Sabotage and Find Self-Sabotage and Find freedom, which sounds like something that everybody can benefit from. But what are the main takeaways that people will gain from reading your book? Yeah. Well, you know, I have had a ton of women that have gone through it. And I think it gives them good insight into what the work that men can do really looks like. And it really, I've gotten a lot of messages from women that are like, oh, this helped me understand my husband or my boyfriend or my dad in a way that I had never expected. But I think part of the takeaway is a real deep understanding of the shadow and

what to do with it, how to actually work with your shadow and confront it and integrate it in a healthy, meaningful way. That's part of it. The second part is understanding men's relationships to women. And in the book, I talk about how there's this great quote that Jung had that said that a woman stands at the very edge of what a man knows about himself a woman stands where a man's shadow begins and so in my book rather than talking about like this is what women want and this is how women think and doing that stuff that I don't find very you know it's very subjective and it's not as effective um rather than doing that I took the angle of saying when you're in relationship with a woman what starts to happen inside of you as a man reveals something about you it's less

about her it's less about trying to fix her or solve her or figure her out or solve her problems for her it's more about what's coming up in you what insecurities are showing up you know what part of you starting to shut down and tune out and then when you start to realize that these things are coming up what do you do with them because for a lot of men the real training ground of their life is in relationship, right? Where they can really start to flounder and struggle is in relationship, right? They can go maybe crush it at work and feel confident and feel good with their buddies. And then they get home into their relationship and they're like, man, I feel like a failure.

Like what's going on? So that's another piece. And then I talk extensively about why we as men cheat, why we are unfaithful, why so many men overuse pornography. So I talk quite a bit. I obviously want people to read the book, but I'm like, now I'm like,

could you just give us like a little insight as to why? Yeah. So, you know, there can be a number of reasons why we is, you know, why men cheat. I think for a lot of guys, they,

it depends on the relationship, right, if they're in a long-term relationship and infidelity happens, oftentimes it's a signal that that man feels like there's something missing in the relationship and maybe he's tried to make it happen in the relationship or maybe he hasn't tried, but rather than going through the hardship of trying to develop that in the relationship, he seeks it outside to try and maintain the relationship. So a lot of men actually are unfaithful and longer-term relationships to try and maintain the relationship rather than to try and leave the relationship.

It's okay. So that's that's one possibility. You know, there's a small group of men that are just chronic cheaters that are just going to cheat at any possibility, you know, that it's just a part of who they are, a part of their lifestyle. I would say that that's fewer and far between, right? That there's less men in that camp. That's just, that's just what they enjoy and is what they want to do.

the other camp of guys are, you know, are oftentimes finding themselves in an unfaithful position because they're getting some type of validation and affirmation from the affair or from the infidelities that they haven't developed within themselves. So like part of the reason why I cheated when I was younger is I was just insecure. And what I realized at a very young age, you know in my late teens and early 20s is I wasn't good at a lot of things but I was good at getting women's attention

and I was good at getting women to like me and then I was good at getting women to give me validation and as a young man who was insecure, that was nice and so I think that a lot of men fall into cheating and infidelity because they are insecure and they start getting validation and attention from a lot of women it just feels good and it starts to like fill the void that maybe they feel inside of them that they don't know how to deal with.

So there's a number of reasons why it can happen. Those are just a couple. Yeah. And I will say, like I said earlier, a lot of my listeners are women, but for women listening who have a man in their life who maybe struggles with suppressing his emotions, what can women do in that kind of partnership to help kind of crack them open, I guess? Yeah. Okay. So I get I get these questions all the time. This is a tough one. You know, one, I would say create invitations and openings for him to share. You know, I'm going to say a

couple of things and I'll just expand on them. So one is create invitations and openings. Two is invite them into spaces where other men are doing that. Because, for a lot of guys, they just have been conditioned to not talk about their internal state. And so if they can get around other men that are doing that and that are still successful, grounded, masculine men, that's going to be very helpful to recondition that perspective. The invitation, you know, you can send content, you can send podcasts, you can say like, hey, why don't we listen to this conversation together? You know, I thought it was really interesting.

and then you give him a choice to say no or you know you find like what some women have done is they've just bought my book and gave it to their partner and said like you know I thought this could be a good resource for you but no pressure if you don't want to read it and or like read the first chapter and see if you like it because I made the first chapter of my book really about my story and less about telling men how they should be or you know what masculinity is because a lot of the stuff that's out there is literally telling men, you need to be like this and act like this and, you know, behave like this. And men are just fucking exhausted of being told how they need to be or how they should be or what they need to look like or how they need to talk

or act or behave. It's exhausting, which I'm sure women can understand as well. So find a resource and say, you know, check this out. But let it be his choice. I think one of the worst things that we do when we are trying to help a partner is we don't give them a choice. We're like, I want you to do this. I want you to take this course. I want you to read this book. I want you listen to this podcast. Why won't you do that? And then it creates more conflict, right? One of the best things that you can do for your relationship is to infuse it with choice as much as humanly possible. So if your man, you know, is struggling to open up, just keep creating invitations and openings for him to make the choice to maybe do it, to say, hey, do you

want to talk about that? Hey, do you want to have a conversation? Hey, I'd love to hear how you're feeling. Are you open to that? Use that type of language that actually lets him have the say and the choice to say yes or no. And maybe he shares a little bit. Maybe he shares nothing. Maybe he shares a lot. But giving him the choice to dig into some of these pieces will be very helpful because he may not have had that choice in past relationships. So those are some of the simple things, but the big one that I would advocate for is getting around other men that are grounded, solid, masculine, having these conversations. There's so much value in that because a lot of men are, we're built through modeling. A lot of boys will become men based on what they've

seen their father or their stepfather or their grandfather do. It's a lot of modeling. And so if a man has grown up with the father who, you know, shamed him and told him like, you know, whatever, whatever he said, like stop being so emotional or, you know, I'll give you something to cry about or, you know, real men don't cry or whatever he grew up around. He's going to probably model that. And so if you can start to encourage him to be around other men who are just as competent, just as strong, just as capable, just as respected, but are also able to have more open and transparent dialogue, he'll start to lean into it because there'll be other men that are there that are challenging him.

And that's the important piece. So he needs to find a community of men that can challenge him in a heartfelt way. way in a heart-centered way that isn't too soft because there's a lot of stuff out there for men that's like I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole if I was entering into this work right now I'd be like no man I'm not going to that like there's there's a lot of garbage there's just a lot of like bad stuff out there and so I don't blame men for being hesitant and then there's some other piece in there about the therapeutic industry but I'll maybe I'll just leave that alone well you also have a podcast I feel like would be a great resource for for guys to

listen to as well. Yes. Yes. And what is your podcast called? People that want to maybe invite their significant other to listen to? It's called The Man Talk Show. Yeah, I mean, I've had a ton of people on, you know, I've had Wim Hof who does breathwork. I've had sex therapists and psychologists and astrophysicists and former male porn stars and like, you know, the whole gamut. So I've had some interesting guests that guys generally would enjoy tuning into, right? So I think just finding an access point where you're like maybe check out one of these podcasts. It might be interesting, you know, maybe try and find one that that you're like, actually, I think, I think my boyfriend would enjoy this one, you know? Don't send him the one that's like, that he's probably

not going to tune into just because you want him to listen to it. Yeah, he'll get there on his own, just send him one that you actually think he'd genuinely enjoy. That's good advice. That's it. I know we've said shadow work a couple times, and you kind of touched on what that is, but just for people listening, could you kind of dive into what shadows are for people? Yeah, so your shadow is the part of your psyche, your identity that you don't want other people to know about, that you don't want people to see, that you don't like.

um that you don't want to address uh so it's really it's that it's the part of you like if you think about your inner critic right that voice in your head that's constantly you know talking shit and smack talking you all the time you know what's wrong with you how come you know why did you do that and why did you say that to him and blah blah blah that's part of your shadow right the things you don't like about yourself part of your shadow your insecurities part of your shadow. Generally, it's all the things about ourselves that we want to avoid, deny, or reject. And the reason why it's important is because that is the part of us that sabotages our goals,

our aims, our wants, our desires. So when we start to get into that relationship with the person that we really love and really like, and you're like, oh, my God, this person is great. And then we start acting wild, you know, or like stop texting. I can't stop. I'm like, I've text bombed 20 times, you know, I don't know why I can't stop texting. You know, or we feel needy and we start acting needy. That's the shadow coming out and sabotaging because what happens is the parts of us that we

reject and the parts of us that we refuse to love are the parts that unconsciously we ask other people to accept and love. Very simple. It's so true, yeah. What we have to learn is rather than offloading that onto other people because that creates all kinds of chaos in our lives, you know, asking other people directly or indirectly to love our insecurities is nice on paper. But if we don't understand them, like them, appreciate them, accept them, then they will

constantly hold power over us. They will constantly direct our lives. And so we have to learn how to work with these insecurities. We have to learn how to be more graceful and compassionate to ourselves when we want to beat ourselves up and berate ourselves. So by doing this shadow work, we're actually moving towards a deeper sense of wholeness. That's the direction. That's the trajectory that we're trying to go. And relationships work really well when we have two people who are working towards wholeness coming together versus two people who feel like they're defective in some way hoping that the other person is going to heal them or help them fix themselves. That's a recipe for disaster, right? We've probably all, I've experienced it.

Maybe you've experienced it. We've all experienced what that's like, right? So, yeah. There was this quote, and I'm, I can't remember exactly how it goes. Maybe you know it or maybe you've heard something like it, but it's something about like what you, what you don't heal will still be revealed or like what you don't reveal will never be healed. Something like that where it's like if you don't reveal those shadows and look within yourself and work on those and heal those inner wounds, like it will never heal unless until you address it. Yeah, well, I think it's something along the lines of like what what is hidden will always be revealed or something like that i i know what you're talking about but i can't quite pinpoint it either but yeah i mean

you know yung said carl young who created the concept of the shadow said that the the shadow creates the unconscious snag that aims to thwart our most well-meaning intentions so what he's saying is the shadow will always reveal itself it will always get in the way of what we want until we begin to work with it until we begin to sort of turn towards it and say okay you know this insecurity that I have or this fear that I have or this the way that I criticize myself you why is that there you know why is this part of me even here and what is it needing from me because if you think about your identity as an amalgamation of a bunch of different parts or you can think about giant round table and the eye of the self, the sort of like highest version of you, is sitting at one part of

the sort of head of the round table. And then at one side of the table are all the parts of yourself that you like, you know, all the part, your humor, your charisma, your charisma, you know, whatever it is, your wittiness, your satirical nature. And on the other side are all the parts that you don't like. Now, if you can imagine that that table is the board of directors of your life, they call the shots. The parts of you that you ignore are not going to go away. You can't kill them. You can't get rid of them. You can't put them into submission. And the strange thing is that the more you ignore them, the more power that they actually get. And so they start to subvert power away from the parts of yourself that you do like. So our work is to start to build

a relationship because everything's relational, especially within ourselves, right? Our work is to start to build a relationship with these parts, with our insecurities, with our fears, with that inner critic that's constantly, you know, talking smack. It's, that's the work is to build a relationship of acceptance, of love, of compassion, and sometimes it's hard, you know, especially with things like our anger or our trauma. Right. I stole this from your blog because I liked it. But what is true about you today that would make your 10-year-old self-cry?

Me? Oh, boy. That's the question that you're rocking in. What is true to me to make my 10-year-old self-cry? You know, as a boy, I loved, I don't know where this is at in terms of TMI, but I loved like stripping down into my undies, you know, just like into my boxers or into my underwear and just running around outside and playing in the dirt. And I think if my younger self, if my 10-year-old self could see how every single day I get to take my boy outside onto our five acres of land

and just play in the forest and in the dirt, he would probably cry with joy because he didn't get that type of connection with his dad and it was the thing that he always longed for and getting to give that to my son today is hands down one of the greatest gifts of my life but that's going to make my 38 year old self cry god that's really beautiful and I'm so I'm just so happy like you've just you've built this life through you know through being vulnerable and opening up about who you are and who you want to be and the kind of father you want to be in partner and everything it's just You have so many resources for people to listen to the podcast, courses, retreats. So tell everybody where we can all go to find these retreats, these courses, the podcast,

the book, where can they find everything? I think honestly the best place is man-tocs.com. It's just M-A-N-T-A-L-K-S.com. And then follow me on Instagram. Tune into my podcast. I've been fortunate enough. I've been running it for seven years now. And I've had some really cool, really cool guests on the show and I have some cool ones coming up.

So yeah, drop into those, see which conversations are interesting. But follow me on Instagram and I would love to answer more questions about men. Maybe we do like a rapid fire with your community's questions next time. Awesome. I would love that. We should definitely do rapid fire. Even if we did like an Instagram live or another like shorter podcast or something, And I feel like people would love that.

And I mean, I always love when I can ask questions that, I don't know, maybe like people, people can't afford some therapy sometimes or maybe just having these kinds of, you know, moments for people, I feel like goes a long way. So I would love that. I appreciate you so much and love all the work that you and your wife do. And just thank you for coming on the podcast today and sharing your wisdom. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I'm Caitlin Bristow. Your session is now ending. And if I'm being honest, I wouldn't mind a rating and review.

Pick up that class of Pina Grigio, your drink of choice, and come have some fun with us on Turtle Time. We're going to do more than just drink and party on this podcast, Mom. I know, I know. Okay, if you don't know who I am, well, I'm Ramona Singer, and that's my daughter, Avery. And you probably know us best from the Real Housewives of New York. And now you'll get to know us even better on our podcast, Turtle Time. Let's make more iconic moments together every Wednesday. It's Turtle Time.

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