The One You Feed - Tony Rezac on Healthy Masculinity

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Tony Rezac is an author, men’s coach, and the creator and host of the podcast, Basecamp for Men. Basecamp seeks to be a resource for men looking to live more courageously, authentically, and from the heart. Tony participated in The Mankind Project’s New Warrior Training in May 2004 and has been a leader in the field of men’s personal development ever since.In this episode, Eric and Tony discuss his book, Body and Soul: The Essential Handbook for Men.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!Tony Rezac and I Discuss Healthy Masculinity and…His book, Body and Soul: The Essential Handbook for Men.Why he focuses so much of his work on and for menThe importance of including both the masculine and feminine parts of yourselfHow he works with archetypes within men The Warrior ArchetypeThe Magician ArchetypeThe Lover ArchetypeThe King ArchetypeWhy it can be hard for men to get feedback from other menHis podcast, Basecamp for MenHis program, The Life Renewal Program for MenHow to go about managing your energyBodywork, like rolfing or the Alexander TechniqueThe barriers of embracing forgivenessTony Rezac Links:Tony’s WebsiteWhen you purchase products and/or services from the sponsors of this episode, you help support The One You Feed. Your support is greatly appreciated, thank you!If you enjoyed this conversation with Tony Rezac you might also enjoy these other episodes:Lewis Howes on the Masks of MasculinityLeading in Life with Michael Brody WaiteSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I think the broader meaning of lover is just having your heart wide open, living with your heart right there for everybody to see. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions

matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to really no

really.com and register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The really no really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Tony Rezac, an author, men's coach, and the creator and host of the podcast Base Camp for Men. Base Camp seeks to be a resource for men looking to live more courageously, authentically, and from the heart. Tony participated in the Mankind Project's New Warrior Training back in May of 2004, and has been a leader in the field of men's personal development ever since. Today, Tony and Eric discuss his book, Body and Soul, The Essential Handbook for Men.

Hi, Tony. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric. It's great to be here with you. I am happy to have you on. We're going to be talking about a book you wrote called Body and Soul, The Essential Handbook for Men. And we'll also be talking about your work in your Base Camp for Men project. You've done a lot of work about, you know, what does it mean to be a man in the modern world, and how do we do that more wisely and skillfully? So we'll get into that, but let's start like we always do with the parable. There is a grandparent talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a

bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at their grandparent and says, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd love to start off by asking you, what does that parable mean to you in your life and in the work that you do? And I think we're always feeding both in a way. I've been sober for nine years. Certainly prior to that, I was feeding the bad wolf more with my drinking. I was feeding the bad wolf a lot of bourbon back then.

Bad wolf loves bourbon. It does. It's in its top three favorite drinks. Exactly. And so as you know, when you're in a battle like that, the bad wolves getting fed, not just bourbon, but a lot of shame and guilt and just feelings of unworthiness. Am I ever going to be able to get a handle on this? All those different things. But I was also feeding the good wolf back then. I was doing a lot of good work in the world. It wasn't like it was just one or the other, just like today, I'm sober. So I'm not feeding the bad wolf, the bourbon and all that goes,

but I can still have moments where for me, like the bad wolf is, is my self care. Am I taking good care of myself? Cause I can junk out on food, which is feeding the bad wolf where I know this isn't really good for me, but let me just scarf down these potato chips or gossiping, maybe judging a particular group that doesn't see things the way I do could be feeding the bad wolf, not giving people space to make sense of everything that's going on on their own terms. So you're always kind of looking at, you know, how do I feed the good wolf more consciously? And where is the bad wolf sort of getting fed without me being that aware of it? Because a lot of times when we're gossipy

and saying things about groups or people, it's kind of happening under the radar. Like other people will pick it up. Oh, he's gossiping about his brother again, or whatever the case may be. And you don't know. And I think that's part of what the bad wolf thrives on is when you're not quite on the finger of what's going on. Yeah. As you were saying that, it made me think of this idea that I've heard before that, you know, oftentimes on a spiritual journey, in some ways the road gets narrower. In some other ways, I think the road gets broader, too. I think depending on how you're thinking about it. But in the sense that I think it gets narrower, certainly as you were describing is, you know, the me of addiction years would look at the me of today and be like, that guy is an absolute angel.

Like an, you know, but the me of today knows that's not true. The me of today knows like, you know, of course, I've still got areas that I'm continuing to grow. And there's ways that I'm not the person I fully want to live into. And so I think it's really interesting how what feeding the bad wolf looks like changes for us as we move on. And if our journey is one where we continue to grow, we kind of constantly have to be looking at that. Absolutely. I mean, I have a saying that each chapter of your hero's journey will require a different version of yourself. It's nice. I'm like you in that sometimes I can't believe who I am today relative to when I was younger. It's not like, you know, wow, not from an ego point of view,

like, wow, look at what you're doing. Just how aligned I am with my mission and my speaking. And just like, not that there's no bad wolf, there's no self-doubt at times or whatever, but there's times when I'm like, I can't believe I get to do this show for instance. Right. Like that's really cool. Like I would have never imagined I'd even be on a podcast, let alone have my own podcast back in the day when I was drinking a lot, I was just trying to get my bills paid and there wasn't a lot of thought about what am I going to do creatively or as a life purpose. So I just feel super blessed and I just can't believe it. And it just seems like once you're attuned to it, like I can plan for what's coming, but I really don't know what's coming and it's

going to require another different version of myself. So I'm looking forward to it. I'm game. And it's been super exciting. It's kept me on my toes for sure. Yeah, I want to pivot into your work in a minute. And you know, you primarily do men's work. And so we're going to orient in that direction. As a podcaster who knows I've got people of both genders for sure in our audience is that, you know, a lot of what we're going to talk about, I can read it through the lens of being a man. And I can also go, you know what, you've got the same sort of thing going on through the lens of women. And I'm thinking about specifically the thing that brought this up was you mentioned somewhere in the book, you were talking about shame. And you were you were mentioning some writer who says shame is clustered

around these sort of core areas. And as I was looking at them, I was like, yeah, those are definitely things for men. And then I went, wait a second, those are just things for, you know, women too, you know? And so I think, you know, there, there are levels and there are ways in which being a man or a woman is different. And I think it's important that we know what those are and we nurture and connect those. And then there is a universality to human experience that lies do work that specifically for men is I just felt called by the divine to help men. I saw there was a need for men to open up conversations that were authentic, where men could speak the truth about what's going on. The women were doing that in

spades. The women were growing and manifesting and being creative and they're doing all this great work, heart-centered work. And I saw a lot of really good men that were sitting on the sidelines, repressed, maybe drinking too much, midlife crisis, whatever it was. So there was a part of me that said, I just really felt that's where my work is. And I love women and children. It's not to say, I'm going to do something for men that's not for women. And on the show, on my show, I do a lot of topics that are about consciousness and spirituality, and certainly those are for both genders, but I created it for men as an extension of, of what I was doing in the world. So. The other thing that I'll say to your work in that way is

that throughout the book, you're certainly quoting and talking about leaders in the men's movement. But I would say there's an equal amount of wisdom in that book. Is it also coming from women? So it's definitely a very balanced thing. And like you, I found there were periods of time in my life where I did things as part of men's groups that I found powerful in a very different way. And I'm not saying a better way, but in a different way than work that I did with females, you know, some, some AA things that were men related, there was a different poignancy there. And, and I know, you know, women would say the same thing. My women's group is different than our mixed gender group. And so I think there's a lot of

benefit in finding our way into it. And as you say, I do think by and large, a lot of the stuff that we talk about on your show, my show, women more naturally orient towards and men are a little bit more like, eh, I don't know about that, you know? And so we need help being pulled in. I'm going to pivot to a line from early in the book that I think is very powerful. You said to be a man in the modern world is to live with ambiguity. In what ways do you feel like that's the case? Well, we get a lot of mixed messages as a man. It's like, be tough. Women value toughness in a man, but be sensitive.

Don't be too sensitive. If you get in a struggle, don't talk about it with your friends. Like that shows weakness. I mean, this is kind of the man box that you and I were brought up in. I mean, I didn't see a lot of examples until I got in the men's movement of men who were powerful in their expression of their inner life. I saw men that did not express that, even though I knew there was men around me that were hurting, that was not the thing to do. And, you know, I've made the point many times growing up men, you know, they could get a cancer diagnosis and

not share it with their best friend. Their marriage could be completely coming apart and nobody knows about it because he's so repressed. And he's like, I can't show that that's not what men do. There was always this mixed message of be tough. Then it was like, be sensitive. Right? So then it was like, then you saw this whole other thing where it was like these new age men that are like, okay, now there's going to be the sensitive man shows up on the scene. But there was problems with that. It's like, if that's all you're going to do, and you're not going to have any of men's natural strength and toughness and ability to handle yourself, then that's an issue. So there was always this

kind of like, which way do I got to be? It wasn't until I arrived and I saw men that gave me examples that mentored me, you know, and I correct whenever I'm on a show and they say, uh, vulnerability, I say, men don't really like that word. We prefer authenticity. It's a more masculine word for vulnerability. Right. And so, um, yeah so, yeah, I think authenticity is kind of that sweet spot between the natural strength of men and being available with your inner life and what's really going on and be willing. Authenticity says, I'm willing to speak the truth and the emotional undertones of what's going on. And I'm not afraid, Eric, as you're my friend to say, hey, this is what's

really going on. I really want to tell you this because it's going to lighten my burden and you, you have natural wisdom that you might share with me, or I know that you struggled in your marriage. So what did you do? What did you find? And that's not weakness, that's strength in, in community and strength in the male tribe to be able to do that. Yeah. I think you make a couple of really good points there. I think that growing up, you know, and seeing that man box, I very strongly rebelled against it. Moving into my teenage years, very strongly like, nope, don't like that. And then, you know, became maybe more of what you might say a sensitive man, right? But what came with that was a deep, almost dislike of some of my more masculine tendencies. Right?

And saying like, oh, you know, you shouldn't be like that. And it really wasn't kind of like you until I met some developed mature men where I went, oh, wait a minute. These things coexist. These are both false distinctions that don't need to be made. They are society's labeling of us. And I love the use of that word authenticity because it became about like, all right, let me really see what all is in here and be able to touch base with the full range of possibility. Right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's for any man that's done some inner

work, you're inevitably going to arrive at this place of another way of saying it is including both the masculine and the feminine aspects of yourself, right? You could frame it that way. You know, men are so afraid of their inner feminine, but that's your heart. That's your care. That's your ability to say, I love you, or I care about this. I care about the planet and its people, right? You have to have that. Otherwise, you're just a working machine, you know? Yeah. You've got 10 base camp essentials in your book. We're going to move into those, but I really want to start by focusing on archetypes because we've never covered that on this show yet. And I'm really interested in it. So I would love to first, you know, talk about when we say archetype, what do we mean? You describe it

from both a, you know, mythological or literature perspective, as well as a psychoanalytic perspective. So what are we talking about when we say an archetype? You know, it's used in the men's movement, specifically with the Mankind Project, who created the New Warrior Training using those archetypes. So anybody that went through is kind of steeped in that way of seeing things. It's tied to myth. Joseph Campbell talked about it a lot. And then Carl Jung, the famous psychotherapist, really developed it. And it's kind of this lens, this collective energies that men exhibit, and you can be conscious of them or unconscious. So when you're unconscious,

there can be shadow tendencies. So for instance, clean warrior energy is exhibited by a man or woman who can draw boundaries, is really clear in their speech, knows what their mission is. One of the shadows of the warrior would be the victim. So whenever somebody's like always blaming everything else on their life, oh, it's this, it's this, it's this. That's a lack of healthy warrior energy. So as a diagnostic tool, you would start to say, you would point that out. So it's not in the shadow any longer, and then start to work with a conscious expression of the warrior saying, what are the behaviors that we can do to bring that out? Because you keep deflecting responsibility. That's a big problem.

And you can make the case. I mean, I work with five, basically, warrior, king, lover, magician, and the hero. And there's just all kinds of processes and ways of talking about each archetype that bring a recognition in the men that I work with. And then there's often, you know, a man will have strengths in particular archetypes and usually shadow or weakness. And that includes people that have been working with it for 20 years like myself. So I'm really strong in warrior and magician. And I'm always at the edge trying to develop lover and king, basically. Hero, I'm fine on. So there's two there. If I'm using my own methodology on myself, it's still lover where I'm like, am I expressing

enough with a full lover? Is my self-care good? And up on the king, am I really looking at the legacy of seven generations? Am I blessing the younger men? Am I bringing younger men along as a king would? Am I making alliances? What's the vision for this? Are we sovereign? There's always edges to each one with questions and processes that help the development of men. Yeah. You say in the book that you can think of archetypes as inner potentialities, allies or guides that are always available to you. Absolutely.

They can act as collective wisdom, like living libraries that contain essential information. So you mentioned five archetypes there and you mentioned the mankind project. Did they develop those or do those come from earlier work that they've just sort of codified, do you know? I think it's from earlier work, to be honest with you. There's a woman, Carol Pearson, who wrote The Hero Within, and then she wrote another book, I can't remember the title, where she talks about 24 different archetypes. Okay.

And Jung developed, I mean, he was talking about all kinds. So I think when the Mankind Project, when they were forming it, they knew they wanted to bring archetypes in. That was going to be a mythological. They were developing a hero's journey initiation for men. And they were saying, this is a really good way to frame it, to give them tools, to create processes in all of these different archetypes. So they grabbed those.

It could have been different. You could have the trickster in there, for example, right? Would that have worked? Yeah, it would have been a different processes for that. And the trickster has a different energy. So they brought those four, I think, because there's kind of a yin and yang to the four. There's more forceful ones like the warrior, and then there's more yin ones like lover, almost like a masculine feminine balance with what they selected. like lover, almost like a masculine feminine balance with what they selected. But, you know, if somebody is working with archetypes and feels really drawn to a particular other archetype, that's completely available. And Carol Pearson, to me, is a master at sharing what archetypes are, what different ones are, and what they could maybe provide as benefit. And even though these archetypes were developed by the Mankind Project to be used on men, the idea of finding archetypes and using them in your life really transcends gender, right?

Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Carol writes about that. And I think there's probably women's trainings where they do archetypal work and it wouldn't be king, it would be queen. Right. They would probably still have lover and magician, but they may or may not have warrior.

They might have something else for that. Just depends on what their creators wanted to emphasize as their edge of development. Yeah. In the Buddhist tradition, there is the Shambhala lineage, which is a type of Tibetan Buddhism. And, and there's a lot of writing in there about the peaceful warrior. And I know there's been a lot of women, Pema Chodron being one who've really written about that energy, you know, so I know some women certainly align with that warrior energy in that way, without, you know, trying to unpack the entirety of the archetype world. Let's talk about these archetypes. So you've mentioned warrior.

So obviously, we don't mean fighter here. What do we mean? Well, I think warrior is the part of a man or a person who is principled. It evolves over time too. Like myth, it evolves with you. So your idea of warrior, maybe when you're younger might be, you know, I don't have any mental toughness and I'm going to develop that. Well, at my age as a mid fifties guy, the warrior to me is a symbol of putting first things first. So for instance, you know, I used to do a lot of fantasy football because it was fun and I was with all my football friends. But there was a point when I was doing a lot of work and leading men's groups and I just felt like a fraud, like, wait a minute, the warrior test is, is this putting first things

first? Is this where my energy needs to be? And the answer to doing fantasy football, not that there's anything wrong with doing fantasy football, but when you do archetypal work, you may look at something like this and go, is this an expression of warrior? Does it pass the warrior test? Is it helping the world? Is it helping my development? The answer to the question for me was no. So I let it go. Right. There might've been a touch of the warrior when I quit drinking, where there was a little bit of fierceness there where it was like I had a dream of three of my closest friends who were not drinkers anymore.

And I had a dream where they were sort of looking at me with their arms crossed from a hill. And I was coming through this doorway with a suitcase and I couldn't get through the doorway. And when I unpacked the suitcase, it was full of booze. And so I was not going to be able to go higher on the mountain without letting go of that. And there was a real warrior quality of what is your life going to be about? Because you can keep drinking and do men's stuff and you can make that work, but is that good enough? Or do you want to live by the principles that you're speaking of, deepen your connection to spirit and be a true kind of agent of change and an agent of inspiration?

Because that might take some letting go. And so there was definitely a warrior there. And I think also the warrior is okay with saying no. Sometimes when I meet men that are people pleasers, I used to be a horrific people pleaser when I was younger. I just wanted you to like me, Eric, and I would do any, you know, just didn't want to have any conflict. Well, the warrior is okay with uncomfortable conversation. The warrior is okay with saying no to your requests. You're like, hey, let's go out and we're having a big party, you know, and for me to just say that's not in my best interest,

thanks for the invite, but no is very warrior. It's drawing a boundary. It's saying that doesn't work for me and being okay with that. And so, yeah, I think that's my take on that particular archetype. I can't really see it, but you can see my, well, actually you can right there. There's a, there's a statue, a little statue, and he's got a holding, you know, holding like that. That is Manjushri, who is a Bodhisattva. And that thing that he's holding there is a flaming sword. And it's for cutting through illusion to find realization. So this idea of a fierceness is even in, you know, someone like a Bodhisattva who's dedicated to basically not achieving liberation until all beings are saved.

You know, there's a deep love in a Bodhisattva, and yet he's carrying a flaming sword, right? You know, there's a fierceness. And I agree with you. I think there's a fierceness to stopping drinking and a lot of different things. All right, let's move on to magician. Magician, to me, is the quadrant of working with the invisible realm. And that sounds really woo-ji-woo. Well, it's the magician. So it is going to sound that way, but it's anything that you do to connect with the divine, like we did before the show started is very magician. So you have prayer, you have mysticism over there, things like ayahuasca,

even live over in the magician realm. Anything where you're in direct communication with a dimension that's not the concrete dimension. So even poets, musicians would be considered magicians. I know men that don't ever do work in this quadrant. Everything is in the material realm. It's just, I'm just doing this. And it looks to me and feels to me like a missing, like if you're not going to access this deeper realm, it's right there as,

you know, thousands and tens of thousands of mystics, musicians, poets have said. And there's a reason that when we read poetry or listen to music or read any of the great books of mysticism, you mentioned Buddhism, there's plenty of mysticism there. There's a reason it resonates with our soul because there's truth there. There's an inner knowing that grows as you work with that quadrant more where you become really confident in the soul's journey and become kind of a spiritual warrior of, look, this is super important to me. I teach it in my groups because it's so important to leave out that particular way of seeing things or creating accesses or portals for men is super important because it's how they grow their inner knowing. I work with them for a short period of time, then they're going to have their whole hero's journey the rest of their life. So you

have to give them tools like stuff around the magician where they're going to be able to use that, whether it's a meditation practice or a contemplative practice, or they just take time to slow down with intention to feel these kind of deeper mysteries that are happening all the time. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal?

The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too?

Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really? No, really. Yeah, really. No, really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition

signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. There were two lines that you used in talking about that, that I really like, in addition to the music and art and transformative and creative was, sees everything as a lesson and able to find multiple meanings in each situation. And I feel like those are such, such valuable skills. That's the area that my magician works fairly well, I think. As I read that, I was like, okay, I guess I have some of that going on because that's one of my superpowers is that, you know, multiple meaning kind of thing. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. Beautiful. So lover. Lover. Yeah. The full spectrum of lover. There's sexual in there, but only as part, probably less so. I think men will

commonly blow up the sex as that's what lover is, right? But I think that is where you get shadow created because I think the broader meaning of lover is just having your heart wide open, living with your heart right there for everybody to see. And I think for men, there's a little bit of an edge there is that men don't often like to say, I really care about what's going on. I'm really concerned. I care. I care about the state of the world. I care about the seven generations. Are we doing the right thing? Who do we got that's in council to help us with this? I deeply care how you express yourself, how affectionate you are. Are you closed off? All these different things.

There's a collective with men where we've got work to do in there because there's a lot of men that just aren't comfortable with affection, particularly around other men. You know, they just don't want to hug another man. That means I'm gay. You know, like just there's some limitations there. And I think there's always an edge there. And I wrote about it in my book as well, that sexually, we're always developing our skill or our understanding of it. I think to my detriment, I kind of stopped learning about sex when I was in my 20s. And then I just said, well,

I know what I'm doing. I said in the book, you know, it was ironic that I was looking in all these different areas and then sex, I was just kind of leaving alone as like, I don't have to do any work there, but I still have work to do in there to be vulnerable, to be authentic, to be fully expressed. And I think that sex is such a loaded topic for men that it can be a, I don't want to talk about this. It's just a very tender topic for men. We get shown a lot of images about what sexual men are supposed to be like, but they miss the mark often about what it really means to be a mature lover, I think. Yep. So we've done lover, warrior, magician, king. Yeah. King. That's the one that I think collectively we have the most work to do. It's funny, Eric.

I would lead men's groups and we do four rounds in a men's group. We do lover, warrior, magician, and king. And there would be all these different creative processes and dynamic things going on in the first three processes. And we would get to king and there would be just kind of like this dot dot dot like we were taught well the king expresses gratitude and the king right sizes his ego and is comfortable in silence and blesses other men all of those things are true but i believe right now we're living at a time where this particular archetype is asking to be reinvented

or rediscovered by the tribe of men. Because I have a feeling that I don't really know what a full expression of the king is. And I don't think there's many men that I know that do have a quick answer or have a direction. So I think that this is the one that gets fleshed out in men's groups as we meet. And it sort of needs to be co-created by the whole tribe, or at least the part of the tribe that's willing to do the work. And I think it's the part of men where we carry this kind of collective wisdom. You and I sharing conversations like this helps the archetypal king, but I also think there's something in groups that might emerge over the next few

years or few decades where there's a reclaiming of that. I don't even know what that looks like, but I just recognize it as a need. I think that there's important work to be done there. And I'm, for one, I'm willing to do the work and it's going to take all of us. It's going to take the ones that are leaning into their development and leading into these conversations to sort of flesh that out. Yeah. A phrase that stood out to me was able to hold space for the voices of the kingdom. And that's a really interesting idea because, you know, we are in a place where there's a lot of voices these days and there's so many, there's so many perspectives and ideas and how do we from a place of strength allow for those voices and also seek wisdom.

It is an interesting archetype at this point. And you brought up something there that, you know, it's very in the king quadrant to hold space for the different voices, you know, the vaccinated, unvaccinated, the mask, the no mask, the shutdowns, the no shutdowns, the, the, all the different things, all the different things that are being put out there for us to digest. And there's been a lot of separation. And I think part of the king energy in men, we're sort of tasked with seeing through this and really being a stand for the unity. I'm okay if you're on this side and I'm on that side. I'm okay if she's here and I'm here or they're here. The king is like, I'm totally that side. I'm okay if she's here and I'm here or they're here.

The king is like, I'm totally fine with it. This is where we have arrived at this point of our hero's journey. How do we get to the next spot? How do we get to the next base camp? Knowing there's been a lot of division, we can't keep bickering down here where we're at. We've got work to do and we've got new chapters to create for humanity. How do we go about doing that? Excellent. got new chapters to create for humanity. How do we go about doing that? Excellent. Well, let's move on to something that you said, which is that I learned that as men, our emotional lives are at

the core of our power. This is a statement that most people wouldn't immediately think is obvious, right? You know, as men, we don't often think that, you know, men are A, known for their emotional lives and B, if to the extent they have them, is it really the core of their power? From your perspective, why do you believe that? Well, I think that it's an untapped superpower for men, I believe. I think many, many, many of our leaders, I mean, if you look at Dr. King, are leaders. I mean, if you look at Dr. King, for example, full of emotional power, if you look at Tony Robbins, you might not be a Tony Robbins fan, but you can't deny his authenticity at the front of the room. He changes people, he directs them, he's using his emotional life. I think any man that has charisma and is committed to the tribe has to bring the emotional

charisma and is committed to the tribe has to bring the emotional juice. Great athletes, Tom Brady. I mean, they bring something of their emotional life in. They're not flat. It's hard to listen. You're an emotional man. So your speaking has those emotional undertones that make it very interesting. And I want to lean in and find out what you know. The emotion is the attractor. That's why I'm there. That's why the technologists, they're not such charismatic leaders. They can speak about technology, but they're spending too much time with ones and zeros and not enough time, you know, expressing their emotions in a real free-flowing way. So I just think there's an attractor there. The leaders in the conversation about where are we going will be emotionally astute, being able to speak from the emotions of the tribe and both in the transpersonal sense and the personal sense. I can

tell you what's going on with my inner life on a personal level, but I can also sense the emotional undertones of what's going on with the tribe. And I can speak from that and to that. I think that's a really important superpower that men possess and often don't claim. You described five lessons that you learned from growing up kind of in some of these men's groups. I don't know if you're going to remember them. I'm pulling something out of a book that you wrote years ago, but maybe I'll cue you as to, unless you remember what they are, I'll cue you as to what they are and ask you to sort of expound. The first is that men are courageous. Absolutely. I think that's one of the things that I see in everyday men. We tend to think that courage is like Muhammad Ali is courageous. Oh, Dr. King was courageous. Gandhi was courageous,

right? Tony Robbins is courageous, but I'm just an ordinary guy. I'm not courageous. courageous, but I'm just an ordinary guy. I'm not courageous. But if you speak with any man and start to unpack some of his stories, you hear all kinds of courageous acts. Quit drinking. I was terrified of therapy, but I got in because I wanted to save my marriage for my wife and my kids. Quit my job. It was really well-paying, but I really felt compelled to start this business. They diminish their own courage. And my experience of almost men universally is that we are a really courageous bunch. And I think part of what I do in the men's groups, part of the thing that I provide is a witness to men's courage, that I'm a stand, that they see their own courage and own it because we're all, Eric, we're going to need

courage for the next chapters of our hero's journey. We're getting older. It takes courage to age, right? It absolutely does. There's a lot of letting go that takes courage. And so I just think I try to broaden courage as much as I can, because I think I'm blown away by the courage of our tribe and the courage of men. And I just want to magnify that as much as possible so that men understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got that too. I can own that. I'm courageous. Yeah. I'm going to combine several of these remaining ones because I think they group together,

but which is under sort of you can handle honest feedback from men you trust or that, you know, men can be trusted, right? And again, I think it's important that when we hear a statement like that, because I know the minute I said men can be trusted, there's a lot of people out there that go, well, hang on a second. And you can bring up a long list of men who simply cannot be trusted. That is absolutely true, right? So we're not saying that every man is trustworthy, but by no stretch of the imagination, right? What we're saying is that that capacity is really there. Yeah. And it would be naive for a

man to think I can trust everybody. That's not a mature warrior at all, right? That's not, that's not what we're saying. You know, when you get into men's work and men's groups, you know, there's a, there's kind of dropping of the guard, dropping of the facade, you know, that, you know, men come in there, I got all my shit handled, right? They got, they're like, oh, I've got everything handled. And then they start to see how authentic the sharing is. And all of a sudden they're like, wait a minute, the way to be in this group is to tell the truth about what's going on. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden you see the sharing, like you were talking about in the men's AA group, the sharing gets really deep and soulful.

And then that leads to other realizations. So to your point earlier, where you said you can handle feedback from other men, most men have been brought up. They did not get constructive criticism in a good way. In other words, when we were younger, we usually got it with shame, right? It was you dot, dot, dot, dot, right? It was from an elderly, an older man that maybe didn't have our best interest or was acting out of his own wound. And so we say there's a difference between when you get a sarcasm in criticism of a young man, it's like being cut with a rusty blade. It stays with the man and then he'll avoid criticism or getting feedback from other men because he's got that wound. But when you're in

men's circles where the trust is there, we can call each other out with compassion. You know, I've been on the hot seat where I've got called out. It's not comfortable. But when I know the other man has my personal development, first and foremost, Tony, do you know you're doing this? You're avoiding this. You're saying this thing and you're doing something else. It stings. It's like being cut with a clean blade. It stings. It brings my attention to it, but it doesn't fester because there was no sarcasm. There was no snarky. There was no shaming me. The man was simply pointing out, Tony, I got to tell you this. This is important. Nobody else is telling you this. When you receive criticism that way, you can be like, oh my, or feedback that way. You can work with it and you're grateful to

the man for showing you something that you weren't seeing on your own. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer.

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No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In a semi-recent podcast interview with a guy named Ethan Cross, he wrote a book called Chatter,

all about the voices inside our head, the way we talk to ourselves. But he was able to articulate something that I've not been able to articulate well until I heard him read it. And I think you're going to relate with this. He talked about how when we go to someone else with a situation, talked about how when we go to someone else with a situation, we really have two needs, right? And very often we only get one of those two needs met, right? One need we need is some degree of emotional validation. Man, Tony, that's tough. I understand. Jeez, boy, I really feel bad. Like, oh, that must have been really difficult, right? We need that, right? But a lot of times that's all someone gets. The flip side is we also need kind of what you said, which is a little bit of help going, you know, must have been really hard for

you, Tony. And I know you a little bit. And I'm wondering if this might have been happening. Yeah. Or I wonder if you see this part of it for you, right? And I've often seen this delineation be at the heart of a lot of difficult conversations between men and women? I think John Gray probably first articulated this, at least in the popular culture, which was that women want emotional validation out of their conversations, whereas men just want to solve problems. And my experience is actually, and I was glad to see some studies from this guy that sort of show this, like a mature conversation, one that integrates our masculine and our feminine gives us both those things. It gives us the emotional validation. It gives us being seen. It gives us being heard, but it also moves us into solution in some ways. Absolutely. I mean, I don't know if you ever experienced this. I have experienced wanting

my wife to be a sounding board, but not be coached where I just want to vent and I just want to unpack. And I don't want her saying, well, I think you should do this. I think you should do that. And sometimes I really do want the coaching piece. Cause I might be like frustrated that I'm not finding the solution on my own. And so then I'm like, yeah, I do want to hear what your take is on that. And the same thing for her. So we, we sometimes want one. And sometimes we want both. It just depends where you're at. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And what I liked this guy was sort of saying, you know, looking at the studies about like, you know, who benefits from talking to other people

was the study seemed to point to, if you only get one of those two, you actually don't make a lot of progress, you know, just venting is great, but it doesn't actually move you forward. My experience is it's a prerequisite for the second. I don't want to be coached by anybody who's not hearing me, listening to me and understanding me. Once I hear that you understand me and you know how I feel, then I'm willing to listen. But so many times, particularly men where that, particularly men where I'm this way, someone will start sharing something that's going on and I'll be like, I know the answer. Here you go. Here's what I think you should do. As a coach, it's a constant tendency. I have to sort of like,

just stop, slow it down, slow it down. Let's listen. Let's listen. I also discovered that, like you said, in men's groups about sort of like having other men really say, Eric, here's what I see in you. And that feedback being oftentimes difficult. But the reason I was able to take that feedback to your point, the reason it was a clean blade, was because of their authenticity and vulnerability ahead of that so that I knew they were trustworthy and they had my best interest. That I feel like is the prerequisite for that blade to be truly clean. you've been at it for even just a few weeks, your flavor, the things that you bring start to become very evident to the other men. And just, I mean, I remember, you know, we did processes where a man would sit in the King's chair, we called it, and every man would take turns telling the man, A, something that he saw that was kind of his edge of development and done with compassion,

but also the gifts that he brings to the group and the world. And man, those were some of the greatest blessings you'll ever hear. Cause a lot of men, they never were, you know, a lot of us were never blessed. I had a really good father.

I was blessed, but there's a ton of men that never got seen by a mature man with a good heart saying, I see you bringing so much heart, so much passion to the world. You're a good man and you've got a ton of fire and you're moving the needle and you're making a big difference. And to hear that from men that you respect, oh my God. I mean, you leave there standing taller going, okay, I've been seen, I've been witnessed this kind of part of me that never

got seen when I was a boy and a young man is now seen and blessed for what I bring. And it kind of strengthens the things that you're already good at because you realize, wow, I didn't know that was such a evident strength of mine, but it's evident that five of the men pointed that out when I was in this circle. So it must be true. I think that some of that is one of the reasons it's not, it certainly doesn't account for all of it, but why men are sometimes so sports obsessed. Yeah. Because I feel like a lot of times that's the first time a man has ever gotten any of that from a mature man saying like, great job Zimmer. Like all of a sudden, and you just inside, it's like, oh my God. Like, you know, it's a really powerful thing.

And you just inside, it's like, oh my God, like, you know, it's a really powerful thing. And so if we look at sports from the outside, we go, okay, it's a bunch of people running around with a ball. Like, why is it so big? But I think it's because for a lot of men, that's where that first happens. And it creates this deep connection to this thing because it's like, I know it's in there, you know, it's sort of like, you know, me chasing heroin. It's like, I knew that at one point in their wellbeing was sort of's in there. You know, it's sort of like, you know, me chasing heroin. It's like, I knew that at one point in their well-being was sort of embedded in there. Now, I know it wasn't truly there, but it's a similar analogy in some ways. Although I think watching football or even

playing fantasy football, in your case, is listeners better than heroin, just as a broad guideline, I'm going to go out on a limb on a limb yeah yeah that's a controversial statement that's right you know me you know me yeah i i think i can relate to the sports thing it's really where i first it's where i was first blessed and seen for what i could bring to the world to your point you know it was a it was a safe place to be a young man to be a boy because men are, you know, we're, we're rough and tumble. We're not women. There's things about us. We're kind of more canine than feline. If you get us in a group, we're like a little pack of wolves, right? Especially when you put a bunch of boys on a sports team, you know, it's, it's kind of got

that, that kind of rough and tumble feel. And yeah, it gave me a taste for maybe what my life was going to be like as a man in that some of the men's groups kind of feel like an extension of the bonding and the acceptance that I felt when I was first there in those early sports teams. Yeah. And it's one of the few places, again, the world is changing, but not fast enough, but it's one of the few places that most men get some, it's okay to show some degree of affection and love for another man is, you know, on a team, you know, like, you know, not going to do that with your best friend, but you know, so I think there are reasons why that it is the thing it is. Your podcast is called Basecamp for Men. What's your program

called? Your newest program? You find it at Basecampformen.com. It's all part of the same kind of brand, but it's the Life Renewal Program for Men. And the tagline is eight weeks, eight modules, one big reset button for men. And it's really for a number of different kinds of men. It could be a young man, let's say in his 20s or 30s that's never really had a mentor, or it could be a middle-aged guy that's hitting a wall. Maybe it's just like, I've worked hard and I don't feel great. I don't feel inspired. It's kind of this reset button along the ways that we've been talking about, and men will come out of it with a lot of new tools. We work with the five archetypes that you and I have been talking about. One thing that I'm decent at is creating a mythical kind of context for the men.

So treating everything as a hero's journey and getting them ready for the next versions of themselves in the next chapters is really what the program is. And it's a combination of one-on-one coaching. There's also an opportunity to do group work in some of my men's groups, which opens up a lot of other things. I just love it. I love doing it. The first session that I do is free. So if you are interested, there's a 45-minute call that's really a discovery to call to see if you're ready, if it feels like working with me is a good fit and all that. And so, yeah, I just, I try to share that as much as I can just because I know that there's men out there that are feeling isolated and feeling like, you know, what do I do and

finding programs like yours and programs like mine where they can get out of their comfort zone and start to create forward movement and upward movement on their hero's journey is super important right now. Excellent. And we'll have links in the show notes to that. But if you want to give people the URL, that's fine too. It's Basecampformen.com. Okay. So back to that name, Basecamp for Men, you know, your body and soul book we've been talking about has the 10 Basecamp Essentials. Your podcast is called Basecamp for Men. Why that name?

You know, it's funny. I got hired to do the show, a men's show by the Epoch Times way back when. And they said, we want to do something specifically for men. So I'm like, okay, that works well for me because that's a lot of what I do. And the subtitle of the show is Men, Myth and the Hero's Journey. And it was just kind of the divine wanted it to be named that. So when I was looking over all my journals, I'm a journaler. I was looking back. I'm like looking, what do we want to call this thing? We were kicking the tires on all kinds of stuff. Basecamp for Men kept coming up. The team kept saying, I like Basecamp for Men. It kind of indicates a hero's journey. And it just ended up being the one, you know, just felt right to me.

And then it was like, no, no, let's, let's go with that. I like the way that sounds. I like the way that feels. You know, it's funny that I look back, Eric, on my journals two years prior, before I even had a podcast or even knew what a podcast was, I was writing base camp for men in my journal. So it was, it was in my creative thinking already in the magician, you know, in the magician archetype was already dropping clues as to what I might be doing in the next versions of myself.

Excellent. You know, I think the idea being right that a base camp being a place you set off from, right? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. A place that you set off on your hero's journey from. I want to just hit a couple of these essentials before we wrap up. We've talked on some of these, but I'd love to talk briefly about Basecamp Essential Number 6, which is manage your energy.

Talk to me a little bit about, you know, in your mind, what does this look like? And, you know, how do we go about doing it? Well, I think framing a particular lens when you're looking at self-care is, does this increase my energy or does this increase my energy or does this decrease my energy or my chi as they call it right in Asia? And I think when you're really kind of looking at it through that kind of contemplative lens, you'll see there's some things that you're doing that add energy. Whether, you know, for me, like it's if I'm playing, if I'm playing out anything that's play oriented, throwing the football around, kicking the soccer ball, that increases my energy. It's really good for me. If I'm playing, if I'm playing out anything that's play-oriented, throwing the football around, kicking the soccer ball, that increases my energy.

It's really good for me. If I'm out in nature, if I'm skiing, I notice, God, this is really great for my energy. Eating junk food tends to deplete me, right? And there's some sneaky ones in there. I think I did an episode on porn. I think porn is a really bad depletion for men in their energy department. And men will do it on the sly. It's there's this shadow aspect, this kind of addictive quality to it. And I think if men were honest about it, they would say that is a no-go that doesn't help me.

Really. I'm just getting my yaya's out. But if I'm honest, does it deplete? Heck yeah, it depletes your energy. It doesn't, it doesn't lift you up. You don't feel better afterwards where you're like ready to conquer the world. So it's like being really honest with, does this help? Does gossiping, talking about people that you don't agree with in a negative way, does that uplift my energy? No, it doesn't. I don't feel really good. I feel disconnected from the tribe when I do that. That's a clue. I don't want to do that. So it's like cultivating this habit of, it's not like you're never going to feed the bad wolf, but how do I keep feeding the good wolf to the point where anything that's depleting my life force becomes very, very evident. Even thinking about it, I go, eh, that doesn't sound that great. You know? So yeah. Does that help? Yeah, it does. In that section, you talk a little bit about body work. Yeah, you know, massage is one type of body work, but you actually go into some different types and the different benefits of each. Is that a conversation we could wade into for a second?

I used to be a body worker for 20 years. I was a structural body worker. They call them rolfing back in the day, which had a weird name, but it's really deep tissue work. And there's just tons of benefit from it. I think that men, you know, they can get disconnected from their body. That might sound really weird, but whenever I've gotten skilled body work and it could be direct, like stuff that's kind of painful actually, but you work through it over time. It really, it's almost like going through accelerated yoga, working with somebody that's

skilled at deep tissue work. And then on the other end of it, the subtle body work, something like cranial sacral, it's got this kind of magic quality to it. It's definitely over in the magician quadrant, but you know, I've gotten results from getting subtle body work, whether it's cranial sacral, whether it's body-mind centering. There's a ton of modalities out there. And the people that practice this, they feel called by the divine to serve the healing of people.

So they're in service to us. And my experience with body workers, they're some of the most tuned in, intuitive, sensitive people. And they've just got a knack of putting their finger on what's really bothering you. Sometimes you're like, oh, I just can't seem to, you know, my shoulder, my shoulder. And they start talking to you and you realize, wait a minute, this is, I haven't called my dad in six years, you know, whatever, right? You know, whatever it is, I'm being a little exaggerating it, but there's this kind of wisdom to body work, I think, that is right there. I highly recommend it as a way of healing. I think it feels good. And I think that, you know, it's always good to feel good in your body. I think it gives you a sense of youth and energy. When you feel your best, you look your best. So yeah. Yeah. It interested me because I love massage, but I haven't really explored anything beyond the, you know, the basics like walk in, okay. Deep tissue massage. Okay. That feels good. Yeah. You know, but I haven't explored any sort of

where it combines to something deeper. I think if you ask around your community, there's almost always a few people that people are talking about. Like, Oh, have you done a session with, that's how it always was with me. It's like, Oh, have you done a session with so-and-so Oh my God, it's transformative. It's, I can't, you know, that's when they start talking that way about a particular, you don't have to know what the modality is. Just know the person is an artist and they've got a craft that they've developed over probably decades. Right. So yeah. Have you heard of something called the Alexander Technique? Are you familiar with that at all?

I've done a ton of Alexander Technique sessions. In fact, that was the first foray into that. Alexander Technique is really subtle, but very powerful. It's used a lot with performers. So, actors use it a lot because it helps free up the voice and free up the instrument to be tension free. But I probably did maybe 10 sessions over my life with probably three different practitioners, always big thumbs up. So yeah. Maybe in the post-show conversation, you and I can talk about that a little bit because I just started. Nice. I'm interested. I am still in the like,

I don't know what to make of this. But we'll get to that in a minute. Let's talk about the last piece before we wrap up, which is your Base Camp Essential 9, which is about embracing forgiveness. Talk a little bit about why that is important and where you see the biggest barriers to that. Well, the biggest barriers are sort of ego, wanting to be right, not letting your loved ones off the hook. So I had a piece that I wrote in there. I love my dad and I get along with him fabulously, but I had a piece in there as I wrote about where we just weren't on the same page and I needed to forgive him for, you know, now I can see it was just, he was just being himself. He wasn't trying to cause me any harm, but there was a lot of wound there for me. And you know, there's a forgiveness

piece waiting to be gotten when you don't call your brother or sister for years on end, when you have not forgiven somebody for being themselves. I mean, I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was drinking, you know, none of us are perfect and it's like embracing forgiveness. And I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was drinking, you know, none of us are perfect. And it's like embracing forgiveness. And I put a forgiveness process in there. There's a number of them you can do. It just restores sanity. It restores unconditional love. I mean, everybody is fighting a soul battle.

Everybody's got baggage. Everybody's got wounds to deal with. And when you're unforgiving, it's almost like you're standing above somebody going, you know, I forgive everybody else, but you for, you know, for wronging me. I mean, people have done some stupid things to other people. I'm not saying they haven't, but at the point when you're still holding onto it, the shadow, it lives with you. It's like, if you can forgive the perpetrator, the person that your ex-wife, whoever it is, when you think about where have I lost affinity, when you can put your finger on

some people. And it's an ongoing thing. I've got a thing with my brother-in-law right now. I have to work with it as an active principle. It's not a one-time thing and it's done. I have to circle back around and say, I'm starting to think thoughts of him that he's not so great. And that's where I'm starting to get in that judgment mode. And so it's a dynamic piece, but it's so powerful. Almost everybody has at least one person. And often you'll have a few, you know, a best friend from 20 years ago that you had a tough breakup and you just never, you never did the work. And you don't necessarily have to have a conversation with the person. The forgiveness can be done in a meditative process where you just send them love and say, I'm sorry. I love you. I forgive you. Please forgive me for

not talking to you for so long. It's just like this conversation you're having almost with your higher self to their higher self so that you don't carry that resentment because that's a type of poison that doesn't help you on your hero's journey. Excellent. Well, Tony, thank you so much for coming on. You and I will continue for a little bit in the post-show conversation and talk about the Alexander technique. We might talk a little bit about sobriety, maybe a little bit about depression, but thank you so much for coming on. This has been a real pleasure. Listeners, if you'd like to get access to that post-show conversation, you can go to one you feed.net slash join. There are ad free episodes, I do a bunch of

special episodes. And there's all kinds of great stuff there when you feed.net slash join. Again, Tony, thank you so much for coming on. Eric, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join.

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