Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 361: Why Men Armor Up | Daniel Ellenberg

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Today's episode is a deep dive into the male operating system and how it can be upgraded. Today's guest, Daniel Ellenberg, is a psychotherapist, marriage and relationship therapist, author, and facilitator. He has been leading men’s groups for over 30 years and is the new sitting president of the American Psychological Association's “Division 51: Society for the Psychological Study of Men & Masculinities." In this conversation, Dr. Ellenberg explains: what masculinity actually means; what prevents men from forming bonds with other men; “traditional masculinity ideology”; why men die earlier than women; the importance of self-compassion for men; and how to be a good role model as a dad, friend, and fellow man.    Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/daniel-ellenberg-361 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. You don't have to look far to find examples of men behaving badly. This I hasten to add though is not a show about male bashing. Today, we're going to take a deep dive into the male operating system and how it can be

upgraded. Daniel Ellenberg is a psychotherapist, marriage, and relationship therapist, author, and a facilitator. He's been leading men's groups for over 30 years. He's also the new sitting president of the American Psychological Association's Division 51 Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinities. In this conversation, we talk about what does masculinity even mean?

What prevents men from forming bonds with other men? How to be a good role model as a dad, a friend, and a fellow man? We explore what he calls traditional masculine ideology, which means no showing weakness, no vulnerability, and which sheep points out has been passed down for millennia among men. We talk about why men die earlier than women with higher rates of suicide, and the importance of self-compassion for men. Speaking of self-compassion, Daniel comes recommended to us by a past guest on the show,

the self-compassion expert and researcher, Chris Gurmer. And also on the subject of self-compassion, we did a whole episode on that on Monday with Chris Gurmer's longtime collaborator, Kristen Neff, in which we leaned hard into gender differences. In fact, as I mentioned at the beginning of that episode, we're dedicating this whole week to issues related to gender. So go check out Monday's episode. If you don't have to listen to that first, though, if you want to enjoy this episode. If you're a long time listener, you've heard me talk

many, many times about our companion meditation app. You might even be a little sick of it. So you might ask, why does Harris keep talking about this? If I want to meditate, can I just go on YouTube and search for a guided meditation for free or sit in silence on my own or use another app? Well, first of all, yes, all of that. You can do all of those things. There are many different ways to learn how to meditate. And if you've already found one or more ways that works for you, that's great. Keep going with it.

However, I do think there's nothing special, if I do say so myself, about the relationship between what we do here on the podcast, interviewing world-renowned experts, getting their take on issues that impact our minds on a day-to-day basis, and the app where we share practices specifically chosen to help you apply the lessons you learn here on the podcast. There's a kind of deliberate symbiosis. In our conversation a few weeks ago, the meditation teacher, Seven A. Celasi, hit on something key about this relationship. Let me just play you a quick quote from her. I'm a big proponent of what I would call integrating study and practice.

So combined with our practice are what we call insights. That's why this tradition is called insight is these aha moments. And you're so great at articulating that and bringing people on to kind of discuss that, like what is it that we're learning and then how do we kind of re-incorporate that back into the practice? I will be honest, it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable hearing Seb praise my interview skills. She may or may not be right about that, but what I do think she articulates brilliantly is why we're so gung-ho about the before mentioned symbiosis between the work we do here on the podcast

and the work that we do over on the app. Practice and study work best in concert because you're working several parts of the mind at once. That's how I learned from my teachers, engaging my prefrontal cortex through reading books or articles or having conversations. I mean, those articles and books were recommended or sent directly to me by Seb. But then also doing the practices that help me sort of integrate the wisdom into deeper parts of my mind and my body. And that's really the experience we're striving to bring you here at 10% happier. The wisdom of

experts explained in a relatable way alongside practices that help you apply which you've learned. So I encourage you to give it a try by downloading the 10% happier app for free wherever you get your apps. So end of pitch, but thanks for listening. Okay. Having said all that, here we go now with Daniel Ellenberg. Daniel, nice to meet you. Thank you for doing this.

Hey, Dan, pleasure to be here with you. I'm just curious by way of background, how did you get interested in male psychology? You know, on some level, it's always hard to answer the question because we never know what the unconscious influences are there, but I'd say that the things that stand out from me are the fact that I lost my father when I was 10 years old. So I didn't really have a male role model in my life.

When I looked around that other kids at that time did. And so that was clearly something that was missing for me in my own adolescent development. And then there were just ways that I was, you know, a guy I played sports, I had friends, I was aware of very much of being a guy and had my own insecurities about that. And one of the things that I saw was that very few people were actually talking about what was going on in the inner world. And I just happened to be someone for whatever reasons that was wired to pay more attention to my inner world. And I think most people, and certainly most guys.

And then there were things that happened. When I was in eighth grade, where I was the end of between my eighth grade year and my freshman year of high school, I was walking near the high school. And at that point, I had decided I was not going to go out for football, and the expectation was that I would because I was a decent athlete. And so I happened to be walking across the street probably about three or four weeks before ninth grade was starting, and the star athlete of the class yelled out to me,

say, Ellenburg, are you going out for football, aren't you? And I said, well, no, I was writing this moment by the way. I said, no, I'm actually going to join the band. And this is a very long time ago. And I still remember where he was standing and what he said, he yelled out, you... And so you think about that anatomical part and just how much that plays into a young man's and sometimes an older man's insecurities because it's basically saying you girl. And when you think about how you control boys and how you control men, one of the best ways to control them is to call them a girl, a sissy, a p*****, these type of way of speaking about them pejoratively, like you're weak, you're essentially

you're a nothing. And then I think another influence was when I was 27 and I was looking for a group and I wound up finding a leaderless men's group. And that was really interesting, but in terms of exploring with a group of guys about who we were, what we believed, what we stood for. And it was fairly intimate, and at the same time, it was not exactly what I was looking for.

And so I decided when I was 30 to start leading men's groups. And I've actually been doing it ever since, in fact, my first men's group, still going, people stay for a long time. And I've found that over the years that my interest in male relationships in really having deeper connections with guys has been a huge part of my life.

And at the same time, I've looked around the world. And I've seen that most men don't have close connections with other guys. Some men do for sure, but I see that there's a major gap in terms of the potential for living a happy, fulfilled life. To me, there's a level of sadness around male conditioning, what happens with males growing up,

what are the cultural message, what are the things that getting guys' ways of developing deeper, more fulfilling relationships, and I've devoted my life to helping out in that regard. What do you think gets in the way of men getting close with other men? I think there's three different areas that are all related in some way, but they're also

separate. One of them is competition. And it's interesting that the word competition actually comes from the Latin, a competition which means to strive together. And what's sad to me is that a lot of competition actually isn't quite like that. It's actually a much more doggy dog. Beat the other, show your strength, dominate. And when you think about that paradigm, when you bring that paradigm of winning at all

costs into friendship, it doesn't go that well. So I think that the competitive part of it is a really enormous thing, and guys don't normally talk about their inner worlds that they feel competitive with friends, or they feel jealousies. And I know from me, one of the things that I started doing earlier in my life was I started talking with friends about, and I felt jealous of them, which was like totally outlierish to do those types of things. And I found that I actually brought us closer to talk about the real things. And I have a fanatic I use for intimacy, because I don't associate it with sexuality, intimacy.

It can be, but it doesn't have to be the fanatic of into me see. And so allowing others to see into you and including your vulnerabilities is a way of getting closer but paradoxically in a really competitive model when you're not showing that and you don't want to show that it's really really hard to get close. So that's one of the things. The second is homophobia. We learn that somehow if you love other guys We learn that somehow if you love other guys, you're gay and you see one of the things that gets thrown. Oh, you're so gay. It's an insult at least and it is a threat to the developing male psyche. And I'm certainly all four people being gay if they happen to be so. I'm not a question about that, but when you think about the social control of that is quite profound.

And the third is fear of physical violence, that when you get close to guys, you know, you get really closer is, you know, potentially to say the wrong thing and with some guys and the wrong circumstances, there can be actual threats that come your way. And so I think that the three of those acting together have a major negative impact in terms of guys developing relationships and with other guys. And it's also role modeling, seeing your fathers, you know, other men not necessarily getting close with each other. So I think those are all obstacles to it. And underneath it, when you think about little boys who are so sweet, this is part of my own personal pain, seeing these sweet little boys who learn at a certain point

that they have to adhere to this boy code, which later becomes the man code. And so they learn that showing vulnerability of any type or other is unmasculine. And that's really a major problem because again, the vulnerabilities where we connect, when you think about Bernays Brown work among the power of vulnerability, that's where we connect. And if you learn that somehow you're gay, you're weak, you're wrong for having vulnerable thoughts and feelings, then you wind up hiding them. And that's where these kids who are very emotional expressive when they're younger

become more harsh, tighter, more armored. And it's a sadness that I see repeated. I dread this. I have a six-year-old, who's very sweet. And I remember what I can interpolate back to what happened. With me, I was pretty, you know, I used to act in a lot of plays and was definitely the most emotional person

in our atomic, in our nuclear family. That's pretty good. And then junior high and fitting in in a sort of hormonal, full flowering of puberty set of guys and the bullying and the name calling and the competition over girls and all that stuff. And I just shut it all down, never acted in another play, basically went through several years of not talking to my parents, stop trying in school, and I dread watching this with my son and hopefully it doesn't happen, but I will say one of the most

painful aspects of parenting for me has been noticing how I sometimes have a very negative reaction to his crying. Well, it's not surprising. And it's great that you're noticing that just to tell you Dan, as you were sharing that story as someone who's done a good amount of my own work, I started to feel a little teary hearing that that there's just, it touches into just a grief that I live with every day about exactly what you're talking about. The grief that this sweet, innocent little boys like you at that time get shamed into developing

these intense defenses to fight against something that is actually natural and human. That's the craziness about it. And so for you, seeing your little boy and noticing your reactions there, it's really an opportunity to go into your own shadow stuff around the shaming and the blaming that happened to you and an opportunity to open to that. So you guys can have a happy childhood together, you know, potentially. But at a minimum, you're aware of it. And so you can see that. And so you think about it from a mindfulness perspective, that if you weren't aware, if you weren't mindful, essentially, that you're having a reaction, you're much more likely to just

act out the reaction, right? So you start to see that reaction and you go, huh, gee, this is it. This is where I came to in my life through no fault of my own causes and conditions impacted you. The sweet little boy you learn to survive and you develop those natural defenses. And so I think there is an opportunity for many of us men to really unlearn some of that conditioning and certainly to become better fathers ourselves in the process and essentially to be more the change as Gandhi said we want to see in the world. Hello, Atlantic Dota, about parenting a boy as a man, then a question on the back end of it. I really do try to override some of my conditioned responses without being too harsh on myself

to see as you just said. These conditions, I'm swimming in this culture and I've taken in the lessons that I've taken in. So I really try to talk to Alexander a lot about being okay with whatever he's feeling. And I was driving him to a Cubsouts event, the Cub Scouts together. And he was in the back seat, strapped into his child seat or booster, whatever. And he was talking to me about how he gets nervous sometimes. And I said, you know, I get nervous a lot too.

And you know, you're my dad, Papa. And you know, he has a history of that. And it's totally normal. And I said, so we're moving soon, we're about to move houses and what makes you nervous about that? And he said, you know, new stuff, like new school, new, maybe we're gonna get a dog, maybe new dog, maybe new friends, and then he stopped and said,

I just wanna be clear, I don't know if he said that, but he said, he made a clarifying statement, which was, I don't get nervous about new toys. Justin Kays, you're thinking about getting some point taken. So, my question, having told that story is, I really do, and my wife and I are in lockstep on this, really trying to give him some emotional literacy and to be okay. We're not fighting his feelings or ashamed of his feelings, see that they're natural.

However, we can't be with him when he goes to school in junior high and his peers, you know, exert whatever pressure they do. What do you do about that? Well, the more open a channel you have, the better. Because when you think about the opposite of what you're attempting to do, where a kid gets shame, blame, criticized, put down in some ways for showing more emotionality.

A lot of times, that kid would go home and some level allude to it or speak to it in some way and then get shut down at home. So you're going to have a very different situation like that. You're going to be encouraging of him. It's basically you're framing school for him. You will be framing for school for him as he and life for him as it gets older. And essentially saying, you know, you're a very Alexander, you're a very wonderful emotional boy. The world isn't as necessarily as open as you are,

and it's not the same as we are in our family. So I want you to be prepared for that. That there are times when people aren't going to be as sensitive and kind to you as we are. But I really want with you and from you is for you to come to me so that we can be in dialogue. We're in relationship. We're going to be in this altogether. You're going to be in school alone for sure, but I'm going to be with you mentally, emotionally and know that there is room for you when you come home to talk about this. So that I think that's one part of it.

A second part of it has to do with parents of children that he becomes friends with. And ideally, you'll have some type of connection with them and they will share some values with you. And so I think it's really good to talk, you know, even have a group of parents getting together and say, how do we raise these boys in this crazy

culture? You know, in a culture that still tends to shame boys for being emotional. So you create like groups of people who have the same type of mentality. And so then they are watching for what's going on with the boys, for example, when there's a sleepover, your son has gone over to somebody's house for dinner or for a Saturday morning visit. But I think it's important to be quite vigilant to some degree. And then another has to do with media, books, movies that on some level are promoting a

healthy view of masculinity. And I think that the good news these days is that there's much, much, much, much more of a focus on this and this territory about raising healthy boys. Speaking of media, this is a bit of a random element I'm bringing into this conversation, but my mind's going there, so I'm just going to say it. I have been looking throughout the pandemic for entertaining sort of funny shows to watch to take my mind off of all the horror. And I stumbled across a show on Hulu called Letter Kenny, which is about a tiny town in

Canada. And the main characters are these farmers, heavy drinking farmers who fight a lot, not with each other, but they get in fights with other people in the town. Very sort of male. One of them, my favorite character is an overweight guy who talks about flash illness a lot and food and his name is Squirly Dan. Every once in a while, Squirly Dan will interject into the conversation something he learned from his women's studies course

he's taking online. And he has this way without being self-righteous at all of talking to the other guys about what's cool and what's not cool to do vis-a-vis women and how you talk about women. And I hope that my son can be like that, can find a way to hold his own internally, but also to even educate other males

and meet them where they're at the way Squirley Dan is doing over beers with his guy friends. They're not alienated by the way he's, because of who he is and how he says it. Does that make any sense when I'm rambling on about here? You're not rambling yet, but we'll see what we've got. Yes, it makes sense. And what I think about is with Alexander, part of what you could be doing with

him is really interjecting this idea of him being even a teacher of this. One of the best ways to learn something we know is to teach it, and if you can't teach it, you don't really know it, right? And so think about with him saying, hey, you know, you could be a role model for these other guys. I mean, we look at it in the world

and we're not hurting for a material about what's messed up in the world. And you say, you can actually be a beacon of light for these other boys and men as you're getting older. And just to, you can actually be a beacon of light for these other boys and men as you're getting older. And just to step back from them, what I've seen a lot as a psychologist is that when parents plant these seeds in the young person's minds, boy or girl or come in between in their mind, they can really get fertilized there. And when you, if you keep reinforcing that over and over again, that, hey, you can really get fertilized there. And when you, if you keep reinforcing that over

and over again, that, hey, you can make a difference in this world. A lot of kids that go, oh, wow, I can make a difference in this world. I can make a difference in this world. When you think about that in contrast to like, oh, God, you can't do anything right. You know, you're a loser, Jesus, how can you? I can't believe you're my son. And that is actually a message that unfortunately, a fair amount of people here. So you have a high degree of potential influence here at Dan. What is traditional masculine ideology? Well, it's not equal to traditional masculinity ideology

as a correct name for it, but basically it's a set of norms that are taught to boys over the years. And it's handed down, I would say, from millennia there. And they tend to fall under the guise of or the rubric of stoicism, don't show too much about what you feel. Don't ask for help. Real men know where they're going and they certainly don't need directions. Right? Don't show vulnerability.

I think that's actually the linchpin of what keeps the whole traditional masculinity ideology together. Don't show any weakness, any kind of feminine side. Female is bad. Male is good. I'm not saying that, obviously. I wouldn't want this to be taken out of context. Be a bragadario in a certain way. Be successful. Be a success object.

And so it fits into a certain stereotype of a guy who's strong, has it all together, has money, is in control, never shows weakness. And we know that this is just insane, really, because it's just not human to be all that well put together, so to speak. And it's actually not well put together. It's actually quite defensive, and it's threat-based. What we're trying to do, and I say we because I'm involved with a division, American psychological division, that is very focused on that.

I'm involved with other groups that are really trying to expand the range of what's possible for guys. Because I think that the original sin, and I think about sin as the meaning of missing in the mark, is that we tend to see attitudes and behaviors as male, masculine or female feminine. And they're not. So you think about compassion. I know that you had Chris Grimm around here and you had Chris and Neff on here with their work and self-compassion. And we know that compassion has been seen as a

feminine trait. And so why is that? Like why is compassion under the domain of girls and women? And certainly girls and women can be compassionate, but why not boys and men? It doesn't make any sense. But I do think it's something that's just been handed down from the millennia and that at a certain point It made sense if there are hunters and gathers and the guys are bigger and stronger That they're gonna go out and hunt the wild beasts and the women are gonna be picking berries and taking care of the young so it made sense to have a division of labor like that And so it's been promulgated through the generations, but to some degree, we haven't changed the operating system that much. And so I think about this story, about this little girl who asks her mother. She says, Mom, why do we always cut the pot roast this size? And she said, well, my mother always did it that way. And then she went and asked her mother,

did it that way. And then she went and asked her mother, the little kids grandmother, why do we always cut this size? And the grandmother said, well, you know, that's what my mother did. And they turned out that there are four generations. So she went to the great grandmother and said, why do we cut this? And so that was the size of our pot. How can we change the operating system to use in LGU used? I think it's people like you, who have a microphone and a megaphone who can really put out the message. There are people who can actually make a difference in terms of sharing what is like to be human. You think about, for example, male athletes who are considered to be often the most masculine and even

like football players, the most masculine of masculine. And when guys like this come out and they say they have mental health problems, like Kevin Love, who's a star basketball player who came out and started talking about his depression. And other people come out and they say, you know, I always had to uphold this view of being strong and together and I never needed help. But actually, at a certain point, I started breaking down because I wasn't asking for help and I needed help. And actually, it's not courageous or strong to bear it alone. But it's much more courageous to actually ask for help.

I'll tell you that being involved with a lot of people involved in the area of male evolution, shall we say, there is a lot going on, even in the territory of coaching. One of my colleagues is a sports psychologist at Texas Tech University. And he's talking with, you know, the athletes about showing vulnerability, you know, asking for help, having more collegial, showing when you don't know something, like the education is happening right now, much more so than when I was younger. So it's a slow process and it may feel like it's pushing a big rock up, a very steep hill,

but it is happening. And there are different magazines out there like the Koot Man project, the mankind project. There's a lot of focus on men evolving. And I think that the future of our planet, frankly, is dependent on men getting with the new operating system. And obviously, there's a lot of pushback right now, because when things change, you can be sure that in the shadows, those who are in the shadows will come out of the shadows. And we're seeing that even with the insurrection. You tie the insurrection to masculinity gone wrong? I, yes. I mean, I don't think it's the only factor like most areas of life there's complexity to, but I think about, if I may speak about our ex-president, you know, for a moment, he is the

poster child for kind of negative masculinity, and masculinity. He never admits a fault. He's always trying to dominate. He's always trying to be in control. And if you mess with him, he'll attack you. And that display of masculinity plays with a good amount of people. And it's often with people who have more authoritarian parents, particularly fathers. And so we're dealing with levels of complexity in our families, in our subcultures, in our cultures, in our world that are pretty frightening. And to some degree, I think it's beholden on a lot of people to get with a new program, which is to really show up as full-hearted people, as full-hearted men who are willing to challenge the status quo, but not through hatred. And that's one of the challenges I see going on is that hatred gets hatred.

And I'm not saying that those of us who tend to be more on the left should stand by idly and not stand up. But I am saying that I'm concerned about the level of vitriol and hatred that comes really all over the political spectrum. You used the term negative masculinity. Was there a reason why you chose not to use the term toxic masculinity? Yes, as a matter of fact. I chose to not use it because I think it's been banded around a lot too much in the media and in my American psychological system, we're trying to keep away from that.

And I think one of the big problems is that masculinity in general is being chained, I think. So the question is, what exactly is masculinity? There is an association these days that masculinity is bad. Femininity is good, masculinity is bad. And there are people who are fighting against that. I tend to move back from even using the of masculinity and femininity. Because, you know, a man, say, can have a multitude of different aspects, right? And some of them may be more yin, you know,

more yielding, so maybe more yang, more solidly strong based, more assertive, more, even aggressive. We, as human beings, have the full range of possibilities. And so when I hear things like, you know, men should get more in touch with their feminine sides. I kind of roll my eyes, frankly. And I could like, it's bad branding. Really bad branding. You know, because I think it's much more about getting in touch with your emotional sides. And so when we come back to masculinity, the negative masculinity is more in terms of what I was speaking about Trump is always having to be in control, never asking for help, not showing vulnerability, really not being relational. That's essentially what it's saying. Like I'm not going to be a relational being that's actually open to connecting with you. I'm

either going to be above you or I'm going to be below you in the hierarchy, but I definitely want to be above. Much more of my conversation with Daniel Ellenberg right after this. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story

that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad free on the Amazon Music

or Wondery app. It seems like you're pushing us toward transcending a dichotomy between masculine and feminine and just thinking about what's in the human repertoire, what's healthy within that repertoire, which skills and aspects should we develop? Absolutely, that's exactly right. When I wrote my dissertation, which was over 30 years ago, I used a sexual inventory, so I was looking at what are the different psychological differences between more traditionally identified men and more untraditionally or non-traditional

identified men. And in this sexual inventory, which is just generally the way things are, there are certain behaviors that are designated as male, plays with trucks, and all those sticks or whatever happens to be. And our female and one so-called health is a degree to which one identifies with one's particular sexual. And so if a boy likes dolls, you know, and likes more so-called feminine things, he's seen as less healthy than a guy who plays with trucks and like sports, etc. And I think that's the wrong message there. It always like to play with trucks and want to play football, it's great. But to genderize attitudes and behaviors, I think, is an absolutely major mistake. And

I think that we see what's going on with girls and women these days as they're honoring and owning more of their assertiveness, what would be classically called their male sides, they're becoming more whole human beings. And I think the opposite is also true for guys who are honoring that. And as somebody who has really worked with men for a long time, I lead these weekly men's groups, I've probably spent 12, 13,000 hours in weekly men's groups over the years. And I can tell you that even the subject of masculinity

does not come up very often. You know, it's like, what's going on in your life? How are you feeling in this person's presence? Oh, actually, you know, I walked into the room, that's before COVID. And you didn't look at me. And I was wondering, will you upset with me or something? Like, the kind of things that people actually are thinking about, but they don't talk about with other people. And so we call these kind of labs, you know, it's kind of an experimental environment to practice bringing your insights

out. So you create more of Intumise C and you ultimately create more connect in this. I can tell you that the guys who have been in my groups and I know that there are a lot of men's groups out there throughout this country and really throughout the world right now all generally feel much better about themselves. And they realize that as much as they may feel lonely at times, they're not alone, and that there are other guys who experience similar things. And one of the, that one of the part of the crisis is that so many people live in shame, doubt, insecurity, and they don't know that other people too. They think they're unique. If I may

say something about you for a moment. Of course. That's my favorite subject. W-I-I-F-M. What's in it for me? So I think about the anxiety that you've talked about and how having an anxiety reaction, even a panic reaction there, and thinking about what is the role of perceived masculinity in that? Because I think a lot of times what happens for guys, and I don't know if you experience this yourself, is that anxiety, it doesn't feel great, right? It's annoying feeling, it's a jittery feeling in the body. And there's a tendency when you think about male psychology to judge that,

like what's wrong with me? That I'm feeling anxious now. I should be strong, I should have no doubts, I should be just stepping up, there shouldn't be anything. And so when you think about that perspective, how your male ideal versus what you're actually experiencing, there's quite a delta there. And if you try to get rid of the anxiety,

which is a tendency, what happens? It gets worse. That which we try to get rid of tends to get stronger. And there are reasons for this because I think about this whole territory of work called ironic processes where there's a part of the mind that's the operating system. And it's trying to be successful at whatever operation it there is. And in this case, you say like, I want to get rid of my anxiety. And then there's a monitoring system that's actually looking to see the degree to which

you're being successful, getting rid of anxiety and ironically, in seeing if you're being successful, getting rid of it, you're actually exacerbating it. And so this was Daniel Wagner's work on ironic process, brilliant work, I think. And so when you think about it from perspective of men trying to just get rid of things, I don't like that get rid of that. It makes it worse. And so what happens is we tend to double down

on things, we get tighter around there, push them down, get tighter, tighter, tighter, tighter, tighter, tighter, tighter, until we're wound up in a ball. And I do think that they contribute to men dying five to six years younger, committing suicide at four times the rate. And I think it's really problematic moving forward because as I've been really looking at some of the statistics that girls and women are doing better in general across practically all sectors than boys and men.

Now, one of the problems in even saying that is that it could easily be taken in the world in which we live as, oh, and then you're saying like, we should put girls in women down so that boys and men can do better. No, that's not the point. I think one of the big issues is that we tend to live in this either or a world that if you're raising one issue, it means you're putting down another mission. That's not at all my point. It's much more about how do we encourage boys and men to get with the new program and the new program

is relational. The world in which we live is a relational world, and we see this in organizations. I do leadership coaching and organizational work, as well as being a psychologist. And I can tell you that what we're seeing in the land of leadership is that people who don't have strong relationship skills are not doing as well. They may be very great at tasks, they may be great at visions, but if you're not able to

connect with people these days, it just doesn't work well. So to me part of my message is that, guys, you may not want to be, you know, going along with some of the things you read in self-help books, but if you actually want to be a more successful leader, you know, in the world, you actually have to develop those relationship skills. And essentially, at the bottom of my mind, is you actually care. You actually care about other people. And in caring about other people, you're obviously caring more for yourself.

Well, that's just what I was gonna say, because I've found, again, this is, I don't know that I can make universal claims, but I've just found that for me, a big unlock in my relationships and my being able to feel and express caring for other human beings is to feel and express it toward myself. You referenced Chris Germer and Kristen Neff, the two leading researchers in the field

of self-compassion. We've heard anecdotally that there's something like 80% of the attendees in their mindful self-compassion courses are women. What do you think, and this may be obvious, but what do you think the big barriers are for men in adopting self-compassion, which again, there's a lot of research that suggests it's really,

really good for you physiologically, psychologically, behaviorally and certainly that I've seen that in my own mind in life. Christian I have worked together before leading workshops with men in self-compassion. When we connected probably about eight years ago or so, we found that we had some commonality in terms of interest and men and self-compassion skewed in our particular directions. And I remember then what he was saying, there was actually like 90 percent, at least of people who take MSC, mindful self-compassion workshops or women. And I think it fits right in with the whole traditional masculinity ideology, which is

that compassion is weak. That's the association. And self-compassion is hopelessly weak, like really? And I'm going to exaggerate a little bit. I'm shocking enough. And I'm so like, oh, poor you. You're hurting. Ah, man up, suck it up, give me a break. Now that is a primary

message that guys internally. By the way, they can get that from from women also. It's not just guys that can be shaming around that, but get that message. And so when you think about, so if compassion, it's first of all, it's an awareness that you're hurting, right? You have to be mindful that there is a moment you're in pain, right there. And then what do you do with that pain? Well, the male conditioning tells you to stuff it, to get over it, to push through it, to deny it, all of these different things. Now that's very, very, very different from being self-compassion, right? It puts in self-compassion. When you're hurting, then you go, okay, let's breathe into that and allow this to be here.

In some ways, allowing it to be there like the anxiety. And so in allowing that to be there, what happens is it starts to dissipate paradoxically, but you can't do it strategically. Right? Because that might be the tendency, like, oh, I know, if I'm actually kind of myself right now, it's just going to go, oh, come, I'm being kind, I'm being kind, I'm being kind of myself now. That doesn't work like Like that, you actually have to feel that, and in feeling it, you are developing a more internal relationship. And guys, probably some of its biology,

but a lot of it is conditioning that lead us to become more externally referenced, looking out into the outer world and not paying so much attention to what we're feeling. Because if we were paying more attention to what we're feeling. Because if we were paying more attention to what we're feeling, it would be doubly difficult because what we're feeling a lot is doubt, insecurity, anxiety, depression. Some of the difficulties of just simply being human that we've learned to associate it as being shameful. Right? And so for guys to feel like, oh, I need self-compassion,

that in and of itself is a statement that I'm weak. That's the perception of weak. But we know from the research that that's not the case. But essentially, what we're trying to do is to rebrand self-compassion. I know that some years ago we started talking about young self-compassion. I know that some years ago we started talking about young, self-compassion. I know Chris and Neff has been doing a lot of this with fears, which calls a fear-self-compassion right now, which is really standing up for yourself, because I think that self-compassion

is an area that is widely, widely, widely misunderstood. It's seen as indulgence, it's seen as being too self-centered, too self-focused. But guys, to do it, it really is a sign of courage. One of the outer works I've done is I have a workshop which I do with Steve Hickman who's actually the executive director of the Center for Mindful Self Compassion. And we really look a lot at honoring guys for recognizing, for starters that they're hurting. That's the first point you're hurting. And now, to be kind to yourself in that, that takes courage. It really takes courage to go with a new program that you're starting to develop and over time you start to, as in the words of poet Mary Oliver, you start to develop a new voice that begins to keep you company,

that begins to be with you as you go into the world being kinder to yourself in the process and being kinder to yourself, you're actually become healthier and you become kinder to other people and you develop healthier Relationship and in general you're more successful in life And this is what we're trying to get across is that you're not a whoos you're not weak. You're human And it's tough being human. You may have noticed once or twice There are two observations based on what you just said. One, I think I mentioned this to Chris, but it probably bears repeating that.

I think, you know, having heard about self-compassion for somebody years and then refusing to do it, I think in hindsight, one of, if not the biggest, maybe even the soul, block for me was negative masculinity, that the whole thing just seemed soft, right? And so a sort of not so subtle, subconscious sexism was a block. The other thing is in terms of the new voice

that you referenced via Mary Oliver, you can make up, at least I've found, you can make up your own voice. You know, Chris will refer to himself, Chris Gourmer, as a sweetie, but that doesn't resonate for me, and maybe that, again, maybe that's just my internalized sexism. I'm totally open to that, but for whatever reason,

I don't wanna call myself sweetie, but I'm totally fine calling myself dude. And so I really have made a practice of, just like talking to myself the way I would talk to, I do have a lot of good male friends lucky in that way. What would I say to them? I do say things to them. I'll talk to my friends when they're in extremists

and I will just turn around and talk to myself that way, sometimes even doing something that's been very uncomfortable for me, which is putting my hand on my chest or something like that. I've taken a sort of like, kind of smack in my chest the way I would smack my cat's hindquarters when he's feeling frisky. But yeah, so I do kind of make it my own

and maybe some sort of embarrassingly traditional masculine ways. But the new voice that I'm taking out into the world is really helpful when I can muster it. And it doesn't have to be, you don't have to take somebody else's voice, you can make it your own, I guess, as the point I'm trying to make. Absolutely. I'm thinking about Alexander right now.

I mean, that's going to be incredibly important. Like, where you share with him about that and even share about who you were and how you grew up and how he has an opportunity to really go through life without the wounds that you did. And that's a beautiful thing. I think that's an important message. And in terms of your own personal development, we know the things that we do over and over and over again, especially with passion, stick. I know you've had Rick Hansen on your shows, a good buddy of mine, and with all the work on self-directed positive neuroplasticity, when you are taking in the good and reinforcing it over and over and over and over again, you're basically changing your brain.

You turn a positive state into a positive trait. And so that's what you're doing and you're seeing the rewards of that over time. And I am imagining that over time that will, you know, that will continue to increase. But you have to even believe that it's a possibility. And so in your recognizing that was you call a negative masculinity or whatever that was getting in the way, it felt like really like,

I'm going to let some stupid story believe get in the way of me living a thriving life. How manly is that? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well said. Yes. I wanna go back to a question I asked earlier, because I think there's more to say on this,

and I wanna ask it from a male perspective and also a female perspective. If I'm a man listening to this, and I wanna dive in and do this work, maybe I wanna join a men's group, or maybe I don't, what are my options in terms of taking a look at this stuff? Because I'll just speak from experience.

It's not easy to see your own biases and conditioning play out. It's been quite humiliating for me to look at some of this stuff. So how do I do it? Well, there are a bunch of different resources out there. There's a good man project, which is a great magazine. That's a free magazine. People can look up at. There's the mankind project. They have weekend workshops. I personally have a bunch of stuff. You can look at the APA division 51 website. You can find it

at division51.net. One of the challenges these days with like whatever the men's movement is is that there are many different factions in the men's movement. I'm not really talking about the men's rights movement here, which is a whole other animal. But I do think that if you really want to find it, you know, find resources, you will find that. But if you Google men's groups, you'll likely find lots of material there. What I can do is give you a bibliography or give some resources that people listening to your podcast can reference later on. I think that might be the best place to go from here. That's great. So we'll put a list of books in the show notes. What if you're a man and you want to support other men in your life to do this work without coming off as preachy or, you know, how do we act like squarely Dan and effectively kind of inject some enlightenment into the lives of other guys?

There's a basic principle here is to give what you want. And so if you want openness from other men, the best thing to do is to give what you want. And so if you want openness from other men, the best thing to do is to be open with them. If you come across, I say, hey man, I got it all together, I've done all this work on myself, I'm done with my personal work, but you need help. You know, I can tell you, in fact, you need a lot of help from what I can tell.

I mean, that's not going to work, really. But generally, if you care and you're coming to it because you truly want to help, and you're not being arrogant at better on some level, subversively controlling, share more about yourself. And to say, hey, I'd love to talk with you more about some of the stuff I've been exploring. And it may be like, I've learned things that I realized in my childhood and my adolescence

just don't work that well. And I've been reading this book or attending this group or listening to this lecture or this TED talk or whatever happens to me. And I've found that it's freeing for me. And what I want more than anything else is to be free. And that actually is true for me in that. And so if there are things that you can do to be free, wow, how exciting is that?

And I think that generally speaking, people read each other pretty well in a way. It's like if you're coming from a place of like, hey, you know what, I am like so much cooler than you. I've done so much more personal work than you have. I'm a much stronger person than you are. And I think I can help a schlob like you. I mean, the other person says that they're not going to feel the genuine sincerity

of that mainly because it's not there. not going to feel the genuine sincerity of that, mainly because it's not there. All right, people who say that haven't done much work because I used to say things like that back when I hadn't done much work. What about women or anybody who does not identify as male who have men in their lives that they want to sort of support doing this kind of examination and work. Are there moves that they can make that have some likelihood of having a positive impact on the men in their lives?

I think it depends on the man. I think a lot of women have found trying to change men, not the simplest activities, shall we say? There is. And again, I think it comes from where are you coming from? If a woman is on some level thinking that a guy is really freaking mess and it's their job to fix him, that's probably not gonna come across as very inviting.

Generally, if possible, it's better, I think, for it to come from a man, but that's not always a case. And so, if a woman really cares, and she can say, like, hey, I've heard about this, you know, I've heard about this group, I've heard about this, might you be interested in this, I'd love to talk with you about it more. Again, it's just that human to human connection. And again, it depends on the relationship. Some guys with some women are totally open to hearing. Other guys who tend to be more defended and defensive hear that as shaming. And so it becomes this fine line between how do you on some of an intervene with a man line between how do you on some of intervene with a man without triggering his male shame anxiety.

You know, like, oh my God, like I've been found out as being weak in some way and trigger into that whole traditional masculine idea that I've been trying to hide. So it becomes a pretty tender point of intervention there. Now I will say that I've seen a lot of men change with the threat of loss. I'm not necessarily recommending it, but when you think about, I'm going to leave you if you don't stop drinking. I'm going to leave you if you keep doing this, then I'm going to leave. Again, I'm not recommending that as the first strategy per se, but sometimes you have to keep uping the ante

in order to get someone's attention, as you I'm sure well know. I think it's interesting you talk about the trigger of seeming weak, certainly a trigger for me, but another big trigger for me is, if I feel like people are accusing me of, I read inappropriately by the way, when somebody points out that I've done something sexist, I take that to, I'm a monster. I have a retractable jaw and

clothing of those. And so I go right into hardcore defensive mode right now because I don't want to be one of the bad guys and sexists are bad guys. Instead of just seeing, okay, well, no, sexism is just infused into our culture and because those ideas have made it into my mind, sometimes I'm gonna act them out blindly and sort of seeing it in an impersonal way, I can just get super defensive zero to 60 because I feel like you're accusing me

of being something nobody should be. Does that resonate with you and does that strike you as a challenge in terms of bringing these things up with men? Absolutely. Well, on one level, we're living in a culture where there is a lot of accusation going on. You're only paranoid if they're not out to get you on one level. You did this and your white supremacist, your woman-hater, your misogynist, there's a lot of

accusatory energy that's going on in the world. So I think that there's different ways of looking at it. One is to recognize that there may be some shaming energy that they come to you and calling you a sexist. So I don't know exactly the context of the comment that they're talking about, but there's to some degree it's kind of like, well, maybe there's something that you are reacting to that was actually intended consciously or not. And then there's still one's own personal relationship to it, like, to the degree to which you identify with that.

As you're saying, Dan, that there's a part of you that probably believes that you're a monster. And I'm the saying is all of you, but can trigger that whole dynamic in you. Like, I'm not lovable. If I'm sexist, I'm not lovable, and I have to fight like hell to be lovable. Because generally, people don't install our buttons. I mean, our buttons are installed. They trigger that, which has been installed. So that's always an opportunity to do some emotional archaeology. To go like, what on earth? It just got triggered so much that I'm so angry, I'm so hurt, I'm so rageful, and that I've lost my center. One of the first places to go is to pause

there. This is part of mindfulness practice, right? And notice the reaction and give yourself space so that you don't have to react immediately. And we know that when we just settle our minds for a moment, there's an opportunity to sit with and go, Oh, wow, that's an intense reaction. Then you're in a position to do something different. And so there are a variety of different options. One of them might be, wow, huh, I noticed that I just got reactive when you said that and really sharing about like that went into a place like, gosh, I don't want to be sexist certainly. And, you know, maybe I am in some way that I'm not seeing. Help me understand what it is that you experience from me that led you to that conclusion. So you're self-regulating, you're pausing, you're self-regulating, you're letting yourself have the experience you're having, I mean you are having that experience you're being open to that experience

You are at the same time opening to your curiosity about well, maybe I am and then also soothing yourself in the sense of like even if I am Sexist in this one moment that doesn't make me unlovable All right, how could you not be sexist anyway? I mean, we all are in our own way. We internalize these things. I've had a term I call psychosmosis. We take in all of the messages from the culture through the permeable membranes of the brain.

And of course, it's going to be within us. That's just the nature of these things. But I think that really looking for you, I like, is it in you or are you sexist in certain ways? And to me, I go like, of course you are. And I'm not saying that because I know you, in particular, I mean, who isn't? It's the air we breathe.

It's the water we drink. And again, this comes back to self-compassion. What if that's true? How can I be with that in some way? How can I learn from that? You know, to me, the questions we ask ourselves are very much related to what we learn. I mean, you think about the word question quest. How am I sexist? What can I do about that? What can I learn about that? We all have our stuff and the more that we can be on a learning path the better. I think about Suzuki Rochi, the Zen teacher who said, you are perfect. And there's room

for improvement. I love that quote. I'm using it every day. Daniel, it's been a pure pleasure to sit and talk to you. I wonder, was there any sort of malpractice here where there was an area we should have touched or discussed and that I failed to bring us to? I don't know if I would put that under malpractice. It's not that bad then. We touched on this, but I wanted to say a minute or two about it, which really has to do with how we see boys. You know, I was involved with a boys task force

in this conference I'm putting to you, that we're having a whole boys panel. I'm really looking at how teachers, even administrators, parents, view boys in general. And I think that there is very poor understanding, a recognition that boys are these sensitive, sweet little beings who really want to connect. They really, really, really, really, really, really want emotional connection. And there are these beliefs in the culture that boys just

want to rough house and fight and when they get old enough to be with girls who are if they're gay to be with guys. And not recognizing that boys really want to connect emotionally. recognizing that boys really want to connect emotionally. And I think that that to me is the biggest travesty that we're facing right now. And we have to change our mindset about little boys, pay more attention. And really looking at that point where we start to shame them into traditional masculinity, ideology, and recognize that these are little boys who deeply, deeply want to connect. There's a movie, The Mask You Live In.

I don't know if you know of that. It was done by Jennifer Seabolt, I believe it was, and there's a scene in there where this African-American man is talking about his nine-year-old son. His son said to me, he said, Daddy, Daddy, I'm sensitive. I've been tears to my eyes when I think about this scene. And the father, he goes like, what the heck is that?

But he's so wonderful, this father. And he starts looking up male sensitivity, so I was learning about it. And he meets his son where he is. And to me, that's such a beautiful thing. And the more that we can meet boys, where they are, and really eventually men, and recognize, that when you see this gruff guy, even as he's got an older, you see some guy who seems like he wouldn't know a feeling if he hit him over the head to recognize that there is a hurtin little boy, you know, in that person. And he got guilt-tripped or shamed or criticized or even physically abused to not bring out certain parts of himself so they got

stuffed. And so we really want to honor that and to help guys bring out more of their emotional nature, more of their more sensitive nature. I suspect this is implied in what you're saying, but without in any way condoning the bad behavior that might result from that sort of inappropriate armament. Absolutely. I'm glad you said that, Dan, because as I was thinking that and saying it, I thought, should I say that? And you, because that is actually on my mind, that doesn't mean that just because you are even abused as a child, that that gives you license to abuse other people, not at all. You may not have been the source of what led to the developing

of these abusive attitudes and behaviors, in fact, you weren't, but you're still responsible for not acting those out in the world. And that's part of the challenge that I think we all face to greater or lesser degree. Well, thank you for prodding us to rise to the challenge. Yeah, I really appreciate it. I learned a lot.

Thank you. Thank you, Dan. If people want to learn more about you, I really appreciate it. I learned a lot. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. If people want to learn more about you, where can they do that? You can look at strengthwithheart.com. Strengthwithheart.com. It's really what I've called my men's groups and it's a newer consulting firm that some guys and I are developing right now to really show you can be strong and heartful. You can be strongly not heartful also. And the opposite is also true. So this is what we really want to encourage guys to have a really deep sense of personal mission and being a good human being first. Being a good man, that's secondary, being a good human being. And Dan thank you very much. I really

appreciate your openness and your willingness to to vault yourself as part of what excited me about coming onto your program because really what you're doing is you're showing other men that you can self-disclose and be a strong human being and a strong man. And we need more men to talk about their inner lives. And so to me, you're doing a great service. So thank you for what you're doing. I appreciate that. Thank you very much for saying it. And again, thank you for coming on.

I got a lot out of this. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. Thanks again to Daniel. I learned a lot there. Before I let you go, I do want to give a shout out to two of my colleagues. First up, my good friend and co-author on the book Meditation for Figuity Skeptics.

Great meditation teacher, Jeff Warren. Jeff is offering a series of in-person retreats. That's right, in person this summer and fall, which you might want to go check out. He's got two retreats. He's calling them both meditation for Figuity Skeptics,ics, which as mentioned was our book that we co-authored. One of the retreats is in New York in August. The other is in North Carolina in October, as I'm reading this I'm thinking maybe I should go to one of these. Also coming up in August, he's leading a new retreat, a training retreat called How to Guide Meditation. For more information on these retreats and all of Jeff's other offerings or to sign up.

Check out JeffWorren.org. We'll put a link in the show notes. The other shout out is to my ABC News colleague, Elzy Granderson. He's got a new podcast. It's called Life Out Loud and it draws from his own lived experience as a gay, black father. On the show, he hosts thought-provoking,

poignant and engaging conversations with some of the most influential and inspiration in the LGBTQ plus community, as well as some allies. You're going to hear from big names, including Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black, Grammy nominee Rufus Wainwright, post star MJ Rodriguez, and even Dr. Anthony Fauci. Check out Life Out Loud, wherever you get your podcasts. I am on a personal note, a big fan of LZ. So go check that show out. This show is made by Samuel Johns, DJ Cashmere, Kim Baikamom,

Maria Wartell, and Jan Plant with audio engineering by Ultraviolet Audio, as always, a big shout out to my ABC News comrades, Ryan Kester and Josh Kohan. We'll see you all on Wednesday when we come back with another episode. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon Music.

Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad free with 1-3-plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at 1dory.com slash survey.