Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Conquering Part X

September 1, 2023

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Join our guest Benjamin Owen, as he talks about overcoming self-sabotage. We’ll dive into all the sneaky ways self-sabotage can show up, how to notice it, and what to do about it.

Episode Transcript:

Intro: [00:00:00] Mark Azulay is an industry leader in psychotherapy and men’s mental health. He’s helped countless guys get back on their feet, deepen their relationships, and excel in their lives. Now he’s taken all that he has learned and is sharing it with you. In each episode, Mark will interview an expert in the field of masculinity and men’s work.

We’ll cover topics such as emotional intelligence, masculine identity. Anger management, financial health, trauma recovery, marriage, and divorce ethics and spirituality tune in and become a better man. Welcome

Mark: back to the men’s therapy podcast. I’m here with Benjamin Owen, and he’s the founder of the awaken man project, which is an awesome group of guys that puts on tons of events.

He’s professional men’s coach, and he helps guys overcome self sabotage, which is a huge issue. Uh, Ben, I keep working

Benjamin Owen: for the show. Thank you so much for having me, Mark. [00:01:00] I’m really excited to be here and it’s a pleasure to be having this conversation.

Mark: Yeah, I can’t wait to learn more from you. Learn more about you.

Um, let’s dive right in with your story. What got you into doing men’s coaching?

Benjamin Owen: Uh, I think it was working on myself, you know, largely I’ve been a coach since I was, uh, but before I knew I was a coach, I was a coach. Let me explain this. What I did is a very young age. I was training my friends and on the beach doing personal training in parks.

Literally anyone who wanted to do fitness and exercise and needed a guide. I would yeah. I’d help them out for a pound or five pounds, you know, real super cheap. And this was like 16, 17, 18 years old. And I realized really, really, like, like early into my career that sitting with people and listening to them and, and advising them and consulting with them was going to help them way more than the actual training.

I was very lucky about that. And when I got my first gym, when I was around about 23, I bought a little consultation room [00:02:00] and I just, because I was paying for it, I just thought, I’m going to use this. I’m going to invite people in and sit with them and listen to the struggles around the health. And that turned into coaching.

You know, you often found that. I was sitting listening to people talk about their relationships, their heartache, their lost, you know, family members, uh, you know, all the reasons which would derail their diet or which would lead them to cope with alcohol or drugs or, you know, being lethargic. And As I was on this coaching journey, I started because I was in an enormous amount of money, you know, enormous amount.

I wasn’t used to earning that amount of money. It came from really, really small amounts of money. My family was quite poor, you know, in terms of money, but we’re very rich in love. And I was just plowing this into self development, you know, really getting coaches and mentors. And I was working on myself.

And [00:03:00] the love from the experience of being coached, I don’t know about you Mark, it’s a lovely experience, being coached, being mentored, being educated, I really found it was just my biggest value, biggest passion. And I think what happened was, although I was making huge changes in my life, investing lots in coaching and mentoring, when I faced my own crisis, which was around about 28, 29, where I got married and divorced, In a year, I, I really struggled like that really knocked me for six and I just coped with that by throwing myself into exercise, like punishing myself hard in the gym, like really, really training, you know, really hard and push myself and work, uh, you know, the workaholic showed up full strong and I, and I, and I realized that that couldn’t [00:04:00] perpetuate as a coping mechanism.

I was gonna go. I was not going to a great place. And then, um, I got told about a retreat, which was just a retreat. I never really kind of been on a men’s retreat before being lots of retreats, but never a men’s retreat. And, um, my buddy, he was running the retreat. He was a men’s coach. I said, Oh, you should come.

It’d be really good for you. And I went on it and I learned some stuff that was just mind blowing. Blaine so much of the struggles and challenges that I’d had over the last 10 15 years and that was it kind of that process Yeah, you know, that was a 50 a little bit like

Mark: like what was there? Yeah, like what did you take away from it?

It sounds like that was perhaps your first questioning of masculinity, right? Or thinking about it Oh, man. In a more critical way. Yeah. I never even thought about my own masculinity

Benjamin Owen: until then. Right? Yeah. Never even, yeah. It never even crossed my mind. It never even, I don’t think it needed to. Like I just was a kid going about, I was still a boy.

You know, I hand on heart can say, [00:05:00] I was very much a, a young boy, stroke young man. Didn’t see myself as a, as a man at that point in my life. Yeah, it was um, it was, it was game changing and being confronted by grown, grown men who were questioning about their, their own masculinity really helped and it was a conversation that I really enjoyed being part of.

Mark: Yeah, what were some of the takeaways? Like what some of the doors that opened for you?

Benjamin Owen: Um, I think that the biggest one is like how much work I had to do on myself. Um, we did this exercise. Have you ever done, um, the exercise with a mask where you, you’d write all the things that you like to show to the world on the front of the mask and all those stuff you want to hide from the world in the back?

Have you ever done that one?

Mark: I have. Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah. I wrote on the back of that mask, uh, shit son. I just had this real, [00:06:00] um, you know, really insightful moment. I was like, I’m not the son that I want to be for my father. I really have a lot of shame around how I show up as a son for my dad. And, and, um, my relationship with him wasn’t where I wanted it to be.

And that was one of the biggest realizations I had. I really needed to mend my relationship with my dad. Um, equally, there was a lying liar. You know, I, I lied through exaggeration. You And, you know, everyone asked how much money I was making, I would always tell them more than I was, and I was already doing well, I had to exaggerate it, and I didn’t understand why.

And then the final one was this, this deep sense of lack of belonging, you know, I was always trying to find somewhere I belonged. And, uh, yeah, so that’s why I created communities, to give people that feeling of belonging. So yeah, it was, it was very profound.

Mark: Yeah, it sounds really, really powerful. I think there’s something [00:07:00] incredible about being initiated as a man, which is what I hear you talk about, right?

This idea of being accepted into the community of men and being accepted as, by older men specifically, that we don’t just, we don’t get in our culture. So it’s, it’s great that you went and sought that out for yourself.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, I um, it was actually even, even the way that I, I sought it out was like, I made a promise.

I was like, oh yeah, I’m definitely gonna come to the guy that was running the retreat, Craig. And On the last minute, I had a big tax bill that I hadn’t paid, and I, last minute, I phoned him and was like, Hey man, I can’t come, and he was like, Is this a promise that you are not keeping? Where else are you not keeping promises in your life?

And I was like, Oh, shit. And I was like, I need to fix this stuff. And I, and I, again, it was a part of me that I needed to work on. I was, I had this, um, and I said, you know what? I’ll, I’ll be there and I made this commitment and I went and found the money and I did [00:08:00] and I was there two days later and it was just like that kind of being held to a higher standard by another man was something that I hadn’t accepted into my life at that point.

So yeah, it was a big, big change for me. Yeah,

Mark: so you do this retreat, right? It opens up all these new doors. What happens next? You start to go into men coaching right after or are there more steps in the story? Yeah.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, there was I had a coaching practice. So I had a really great coaching practice. I started that when I was 23.

I built it till I was like 29. It was a really great. It was mostly women. It was actually mostly ironically, mostly women. And when I went through my divorce, I just kind of, uh, I’m like, I didn’t want to be influencing anyone else in a state that I was in. So I Burn it to the floor, shut it down. It was quite a significant amount of money that I kind of forwent with that.

And I just worked on myself for about three, four years. And I got to this point and I was like, right, [00:09:00] I’m ready to go and do something again. And I started looking for a guide. And then I sought out a guy called Yassin. And Yassin was a, a psychotherapy trained, um, Business owner, he’s got a really successful family business over in South Africa.

Very, very, very great guy. Just an incredible man. And I asked him to be my mentor and he mentored me for a year for, you know, great mentoring skills and I told him at the end of that, I was like, hey, I’m thinking of doing a men’s group because I’ve been trying to find this space where I could talk about masculinity and I can’t seem to find the guys.

I can find guys who have like it. A kind of counterculture and not in business, but I can’t find the guys like me who love money and want success and you’re not, are not broken. Like, you know, cause I went to quite a few men’s group and I loved the guys there, but they [00:10:00] weren’t my guys. Totally get, um, yeah, you know, you’d be probably, um, imagine you’ve been in the same, you know, same sort of circles.

Um, and I wasn’t broken. I never felt broken. I felt like I was just going through something and I needed men around me, just, just knew that I needed to be around men. And, um, yeah, he said, well, why don’t we do it together? And I was like, blown away. Like, what? This, my mentor wants to be in business with me.

And I, you know, I sat on it for. Probably about two months. I was like, I couldn’t get over it. Anyway, I got over myself eventually and he said, listen, are you going to do this or not? You know, go and take an offer out to some guys. And it was the pandemic actually. It was the opening of the pandemic when it’s, it’s kicked off.

And then the guys just like, guys said, yes, they came and joined us. And we started the Make a Man project, which was, it was part, the conversation before we started was, like you’ve seen, like, I just want to say this before we get going on this. It’s like, [00:11:00] I’ve got. I didn’t, you know, an unhealthy relationship with porn.

I have, I drink probably are more often than I want to. Um, I’ve got some really big victim thinking, and I’m not awakened. I’m very unawakened. And he said, that’s exactly why you need to do this. And he’s exactly why you need to lead this. And he’s right. He was right. You know, he was right. Every single thing I just talked about was gone.

I’ve overcome all those things in becoming the leader of the program. And. It was magical. You know, it was watching these guys have the same experience. So, yeah, it was a deeply transformational process, really.

Mark: That’s really good, right? I mean, it’s like you’re holding yourself to a higher standard, right?

It sounds like the program held you to that higher standard, too. Where it’s like, man, if I’m going to be the leader of the Awakened Man Project, I better get my shit together, you know? Yeah, yeah, it was. Let’s figure out some of these things, yeah.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, and like, I love this idea of, [00:12:00] um, of struggling in plain sight, you know?

I think there’s a lot, there’s a lot of safety in, in just like, people knowing what I’m struggling with, being open and honest about things, because I was so closed for such a long time. And I just find a high degree of safety in that. And I just was opening with my men, the guys I was leading, and I was like, Hey, I’m working on my stuff too, and, Um, Very, very lucky to come across some great, great speakers and people that came to talk to the men on the program.

And, you know, Dr. Robert Glover, you know, he came on, like the guy who wrote Mr. Nice Guy, came on and he shared about How he does his work with his men in his men’s work and in men’s group. And we had Barry Michaels. He’s Phil Stutz’s business partner from Stutz the documentary. He said he he’s open and honest about his struggles with his clients.

And that’s, and it just was really, really affirming to me that it’s, it’s all relational. And if I want to lead from a place where I’m no best, [00:13:00] which is in the trenches with my guys, that’s how I want to lead. So yeah, it was good.

Mark: Yeah, I think it’s critical, right? It, it breaks down the guru thing, and I think a lot of guys, especially now we’re cynical, probably for good reason that we don’t want like a perfect leader, you know, we don’t want to be bullshitted.

We don’t want to be scammed. You know, we have all these things. And I think being transparent shows that it’s like, yeah, I’m one of you. Right. Like I’m sitting in a different chair right now, but it doesn’t mean that I’m, I think I’m better than you or anything. Right. We’re kind of all in this together.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah. I had an expression a while ago. Like you can either be the sage on the stage or the guy by the side. And I’m like, I know where I want to be.

Mark: Yeah. So as, as we’re moving towards the end of the segment, can you just say a little bit for our listeners about what the awakening project is like logistically, what it offers, how people sign up, like what’s the deal?

Benjamin Owen: Well, we just realized that my, my, my inherent belief is that. Men’s work is the personal development for men. I believe that to my core. If you are a man who’s crossed the threshold of [00:14:00] his thirties, you haven’t been initiated or you haven’t had a great fathering experience, there’s going to be gaps in the way that you show up as a man.

There’s no two ways about it. And the only way that you’re going to learn this is by being around other great men, like, and learning together every single day and filling in each other’s gaps. Good leadership. Good guidance. And good community. And I think what I wanted to create was exactly that. And I’ve learned more from the other men in my men’s group than any personal development.

I paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to learn in the last 10 years previous to that. And so what I just wanted to create is a place where guys could learn from guys.

Mark: Yeah, so people can sign up for groups online. I hear you got speakers, like what? What kind of? Yes. So,

Benjamin Owen: um, so what happens is we meet, uh, frequently, you know, we have a couple of calls a week and guys, we, we, we coach, we [00:15:00] do therapy together.

We, uh, we have speakers in, we do like, we work through books together. There’s a myriad of curriculum. Where we look at everything from being an absent father to relationship with your partner to overcoming victim thinking and it’s just The parts that we miss out when we don’t have that father figure that can teach us that or the men in our lives You know because I you know a lot of guys now they treat themselves like a lone wolf And then they’ve got no one to learn from, no one to sharpen the, the, you know, iron, sharpen, iron, all that jazz.

So what we provide is, is all of that online. And it’s an opportunity for guys all over the world to come together and, and work on themselves.

Mark: That sounds really incredible. Yeah, I think guys need other guys, just like you’re saying, we need that community. There’s something special when you have a lot of guys that are all working towards the same mission of self improvement that is powerful.

And I think men [00:16:00] operate in groups, right? Even though there’s this thing in Western society about the lone wolf or about the antihero or the, the man against the world. Like, that’s, that’s dumb, right? Like, if you look through history, like, it’s been the hunting party. It’s been the fire team. It’s been the squad, right?

Like, it’s been the family. We’ve, the unit has been the group. It hasn’t been just like this one Rambo character. So it’s great that you’re providing platform and connection for guys to find their, their squad, you know, to find their team. Thank you. So we’re going to move to our first commercial break.

When we get back, I want to hear more about. Yeah, I guess the power of community. I want to talk about self sabotage. I want to talk about maybe some case studies of how you’ve seen some guys grow. Um, there’s a lot of good stuff here. So if you’re listening, hang on in there. I want to see you all on the other side of the commercial break.

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Intro: You are listening to the Men’s Therapy Podcast with Mark Azulay. To reach the show today, please call 1 888 346 9141. That’s 1 888 346 9141. Or send an email to PodcastAtMensTherapy. com. Online or visit www dot men’s therapy podcast.com. Now back to the Men’s Therapy podcast.

Mark: Welcome back to the Men’s Therapy podcast.

I’m sitting here with Benjamin Owen, the founder of the Awaken Man Project, and we’re talking about male community and how powerful it can be for guys to [00:19:00] be around other guys that are just kind of, you know, getting after it. Right? And one thing you specialize in that I want to just give you the platform to talk about is self-sabotage.

I think a lot of guys feel this. I know I feel this right. So I’m interested personally to about it. This idea of, you know, we know that we can be operating at 100%, but we’re stuck around 75 or 80. And we’re not quite sure of how what’s going on, right? Like, why are we not getting that full that full power when we need it?

Um, so, yeah, take it away.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, I, I actually got accused of self sabotaging and I was like, no, I don’t self sabotage. No way. I’m a successful guy. I’m success minded. I want to push myself. I don’t, I don’t cause myself, um, pain or suffering to stop myself moving forwards. No way. Anyway, when it was presented to me in this fashion, I was like, hang on a second and let’s take a beat and just want to give some constructs around how I worked out.

I was self sabotaging to that nth degree. I realized that In every moment where I had huge opportunities to move forward in my life, I’d [00:20:00] do something dumb and it was something insignificant, like miss a small detail, or I would, I would really like, I would succumb to an impulse or a desire. And I was, I was really struggling to get my head around this because I didn’t have the language around self sabotage.

I was like, okay, well, I’ve heard of self sabotage. It sounds like willing full destruction of a plan. I don’t willingly destruct my plans. I make plans. I sometimes don’t follow them because I, They don’t work out or they’re too big or, but I don’t self destruct. But anyway, um, we got in touch with one of the, the authors of the book, uh, The Tools, which had a Netflix documentary up recently called Stuts.

And in the documentary, they talk about this idea of part X. Anyway, I reached out to the authors and the very, very famous psychotherapist. They came and spoke to our man. I thought they were just gonna [00:21:00] come and talk about these tools. But Barry, who came and talked to us, all he talked about, about this idea of this self saboteur, this inner enemy, this part X, and I was like, oh my gosh.

He started talking about this part of us that is there to, can I swear?

Mark: Yes.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah. To, to fuck our life up. And I was like, and he, he, he used that same terminology. He, he swore and I was like, and he said, I’m just gonna say how it is. Part X is part of you is that, is there to fuck. Your life up and it’s to keep you small, keep you safe and keep you secure.

And because if I can make tomorrow the same as today, it’s more likely that I’m going to feel safe. And I got that. And then when he put it like this, I really got it. is that Newton’s third law is every force has an equal and opposing force. So if I’m a guy and I’ve got this great, massive, huge force for growth in me and I want to make the world, I want to change the world, I want to create a movement and that’s what I’ve always [00:22:00] had a desire, to create movements, to bring people together, to do something bigger than the, you know, what’s going on out there.

That force is going to be met with an opposing force and an internal force for destruction. And that is your self saboteur, your inner enemy, your part X. And like, as I started reading around this, I was doing a, um, a short course on it for people. And if, if you read like the chimp paradox, like, um, the do the work by, um, Oh, what’s his name?

Okay. Um, you got the upper limit problem by. They got the upper limit issue by Gay Hendricks, the biggest, big book in the coaching space. There’s the, the Diabolos, the Bible talks about it. In all these texts and personal development teachings, there’s this inner saboteur, this, this part of you that’s there to stop you.[00:23:00]

And I didn’t realize that that was how it, what was going on. And for me, what would happen is I would have a really famous guest come on. I’d like, they’d come on and said that. To, to wake commands, come and do a, deliver a session, I’d mess up the time zone, or I would miss a, a seemingly really significant question out on a business deal and I’ve cost myself a fortune.

And at the moment I most need to pay attention, I was softening and not heighten. And this was all starting to make sense to me. And I was like, Oh no, I actually do self sabotage. I can really see this now. And when I started to learn and understand this idea of this part X, this, this part of you that is there to X out your potential.

That made so much sense to me. It was, it was a concept. It worked. It made lots of sense. And then as I [00:24:00] started to learn about where it shows up in my life when there’s risk When I was about to go on stage, so I would pre, during and post risk is the most likely time You’re going to have a sabotage attack from part X, you know, you go pre pre stage I mean before I go on stage, you know, you don’t know what you’ve done about your you know, you’re a fake You’re a phony, you know, someone’s gonna call you out Imposter syndrome people call it you get on stage and you get all those nerves and those jitters and then After you’ve taken the risk, after you’ve bared your soul on stage and talked about your life or because I talk about quite openly in my life and things like you’ve overshared, can’t believe you said all that, someone’s gonna, you know, no one was really listening.

They didn’t come for that today. And I had to deal with that. You know, I, I tried to do all the stage speaking masterclasses and that [00:25:00] those feelings never went away. And so that was like, it’s a real cue for me that. That was the new work for me. Yeah, so that’s kind of how I started seeing it appear in my own life.

Mark: Yeah, I think it’s really interesting. I like your example of it being, you know, missing small details, right? Or making small mistakes and stuff that you wouldn’t make those mistakes in other ways. There’s like, you know, little things that you go over, but in these critical moments, there’s like that stumble.

And you talked a little bit in the beginning of other examples. You know, I think the ones that people, you know, relay with is alcohol and drugs, right? Or like, you know, infidelity or those kind of big Things that crush people’s lives, uh, I was also curious, you mentioned like lethargy and I’m curious about that one because I think that one doesn’t get talked about nearly as much as those like big kind of like nukes to people’s lives, you know?

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, and just thinking about not just myself, because obviously it’s great when you hear someone talk about how they found something and it worked on them, but this [00:26:00] has helped multiple clients and I’m going to give you an example. We had one, one guy, um, come to the Awaken Man project and he, one of the biggest struggles is that if he got a knock back, he took it as a complete knockout.

So a no on the phone for a sale would lead to him licking his wounds for a month or two. Like he wouldn’t hear from him. And understanding the language and the landscape of self sabotage and Part X allowed him to see that it was just this part of him that was there to shut down his potential. He. He turned that two month knock back, knock down, knock out, whatever you want to call it, into a month.

And then one day he was like, Ben, I can’t believe it, you know, I’m still getting knocked back, and I still, you know, I’m hurting for a, you know, two weeks to a month. I’m like, dude, it used to be two months. And then, you know, it happened again, and he got knocked back, and he was like, I can see it now. [00:27:00] When I got knocked down with this same sort of problem, I was, Broken for two months.

Actually, it’s only been a week and I was like dude, it’ll be 30 minutes soon And it’ll be momentary soon. And that’s what his biggest shift was while he worked with us He turned a two month knock back into Half an hour where he went into a, do a stage speaking event and he saw some people he didn’t, uh, didn’t get on with too well and he went into victim mode and, you know, really got in a spiral and he was able to get himself out of that within 30 minutes.

Now that for me is real success where he was able to manage his mind to the point where he’s able to rescue himself out of a situation like that.

Mark: Yeah, that is a big success. And I think. Your role of having a man that can hold him accountable and hope that mirror is really powerful. Cause a lot of guys were not seen in that.

A lot of our, our struggles are secrets, right? They’re [00:28:00] private. And sometimes you don’t make progress because we try to do it alone. You know, um, I was really curious about this victim mentality thing. It’s something I talk about a lot and that I, you know, see with a lot of my clients and it’s so wild because a lot of my clients, I’m sure yours are.

Fairly affluent, right? They have a lot of things going for them, right? They come from decent families. I mean, some people, of course, have abuse and et cetera. But for the most part, like, it’s pretty good. You know, they work jobs like they have a good home. They have wife, kid, whatever. Right. But this victim thing is so prevalent in so many men.

Um, I see you nodding over there. So yeah, I’m curious, like, what, what do you think about that? Cause it’s always been so paradoxical to me.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, I did a little nodding because I went through that and I think I still have shades of that. I can get myself out of victim feeling. I think anytime you get to that point where you’ve got your emotions are running higher than than you’ve lost [00:29:00] control of, you know, like when you when your emotions are that high.

That you’ve lost control of your state, that gap in between decision and an impulse and action. Um, that’s when you’ve lost control. And I think that’s when the victim is most potent. And that’s why I wanted to find a way to help men reclaim that space. That, that, you know, as Viktor Frankl talks about it, that decision point or that choice point between stimulus and response is like in, in any given moment, that final freedom is that ability to make that choice.

It’s to choose your attitude in any given moment and for me, that’s what I realized I came from a very reactive background with my parents, both my parents, super reactive, whereas what I’ve noticed as I’ve slowed down and become more conscious as a man and also as an owner of my life. [00:30:00] Things can happen that are not too favorable, but yeah, I’ve slowed the reaction down to the point where I’m actually making a conscious choice instead of a reaction.

And that, for me, was the game changer.

Mark: Yeah, I think similar for me, because I had it growing up, and for me it was more like the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset after reading, you know, that book, right? Of the fixed mindset being, okay, if there’s a mistake that gets made, I’m wrong, there’s blame.

It’s somebody’s fault, right? Like, either I’m bad or they’re bad, right? Where the gross mindset, which I’m sure you live in most of the time with the entrepreneurial stuff, too, is like, okay, there’s a failure, but how do we move it towards success? Right? Failure is information to learn. It doesn’t mean that I’m wrong or I’m bad or that I’m a bad person or a bad man or business owner.

Um, but yeah, there is that kind of mental gymnastics of like, okay, there’s information in this failure. It doesn’t mean that I just suck, you know?

Benjamin Owen: Yeah. I think I had to get used to getting that, uh, that feedback. Um, I remember [00:31:00] we had a customer service expert come into my first business in the gym and she had to give me some really hard feedback from clients about how I was showing up in the gym and part of, You know, 25 year old, I’ve got 12 staff, you know, some of them are older than me.

I own the gym. I had to learn pretty quick to take feedback and I wasn’t able to do that as a young 20 year old. I was like, if someone gave me negative feedback, I’m so deeply hurt by it. So I think what was quite freeing. What’s being able to say thank you for, uh, you know, all feedback. And, and that’s what I teach a lot of guys is like, it’s just feedback.

It’s okay. It’s okay to be hurt by it as well. So, yeah, it was a really interesting journey.

Mark: Yeah. I mean, similar, which people give me feedback, I would just make them wrong. I’d be like, Oh, they’re stupid for X, Y, and Z reasons. Like, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Like, have they looked at themselves in the mirror?

Right. It’s like complete, [00:32:00] you know, retaliation. Um, and now it’s the practice of like, okay, see that as a gift. Because people are rarely honest with each other, you know, and it’s like you can get feedback in a way that’s honest and hopefully has, you know, a foundation of compassion or wanting to help you grow.

That’s such a gift, such a gift to get that. Instead of just being kind of like lied to or ignored or talked behind people’s backs or whatever, right, which is all too common these days.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, and I think it’s like I can simultaneously have some really cut and hurtful thing said to me now I’m like, oh I can I agree with you on some level.

So what there’s some there’s obviously something that needs to be fixed here and That level of consciousness is, it’s taking work. It’s taking a lot of work. And, uh, I love it when I see the same in the guys because every single week they’re getting guys challenge them hard. And that’s the high challenge environment is guys are used to saying, can I just call you on your bullshit there, you know, politely and, and, uh, [00:33:00] respectfully and guys like, yeah, absolutely.

And then you see guys just really being honest with each other. And that was just, Life changing to watch guys care about each other that much that would be respectfully honest. So yeah, it’s a, yeah, to have that in my life, to watch that, um, I’m the leader of the hot seat, I’m the coach, but most of my clients do the work for me.

Mark: Yeah, I think what you’re saying is so important. I mean, when I work with my clients, right? The number one thing they say is exactly what you said, right? I asked them, Hey, how could I be a good therapist for you? Right? And they say, call me on my bullshit. Yeah. Don’t let me get away with stuff that people in my life let me get away with.

I think that is so critical that I think men need that. And I use that foundation of respect, foundation, like a container, right? Like, it’s not being mean, it’s not bullying, but we respond to challenge. Men grow through challenge. We need to be, we need to feel like we’re strong and that we’re heroes and we can overcome things, you know.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, I agree. And it’s interesting when [00:34:00] I was in my, just the first part of my struggle, I had a female therapist, She wasn’t going anywhere. She didn’t challenge me. She agreed with all my bullshit and she just wasn’t, she wasn’t in the right energy to hold me to where I needed to be held up to in order to heal.

And yeah, that’s what was really transformational. It was actually men that helped me do that.

Mark: Yeah, it’s all too common. You have, you know, a common validation therapist, right? They just agree with you. It’s like, I don’t want to pay you to agree with me. Like, I know I fucked up, right? I need help. You don’t have to agree about that.

Um, so we’re going to move to our final segment here. Um, when we come back, we’ll talk directly to you, the listener about how you might overcome that part X. How you might work with the victim mentality and how you might grow to be a better man. Um, Benjamin’s got a lot of great advice and suggestions when we come back from the break.

So hang on in there and we’ll see you on the other side.[00:35:00]

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Intro: You are listening to the Men’s Therapy Podcast with Mark Azulay. To reach the show today, please call 1 888 346 9141 That’s 1 888 346 9141 Or send an email to podcast. com That men’s therapy dot online or visit www. menstherapypodcast. com. Now back to the men’s therapy podcast.[00:37:00]

Mark: Welcome back to the men’s therapy podcast. At this second, we talk directly to you, the listener. So better than we’ve been talking a ton about self sabotage in part X. So I’m curious for the guys out there. How might they spot self sabotage? How do they know if they’re doing it?

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, great question. Um, so this is what really helped me is just knowing this the symptoms of self sabotage How is it showing up in my life?

And when you can spot it, you can label it and believe it or not. That’s 80 percent of the work That’s how you’re gonna get a real real great Um, rip on this. If it’s something that you know, or aware or even, you know, and this is something that I learned is that most people until they become aware of what or how they self sabotage is running around about 80 percent of their decisions and choices is actually, you know, it’s, it’s a big thing for a lot of people.

So the first one is an impulse that you cannot go without the thing that you want. that not having that thing is going to [00:38:00] lead to death. Now, it’s like, honestly, this is what we have, and when we’re addicted to our phones, cigarettes, drinking, whatever it is, it’s like, if I don’t have this thing, I’ll die.

So deprivation equals death. Well, actually deprivation is a path to life. When I forgo technology, or when I forgo, when I spend, um, distraction based media, I feel more alive. And so it’s noticing impulses that come up just when you’re about to do something creative, like a creative endeavor. I go to write my podcast notes in the morning and I get this massive urge to check my phone because my part X knows that if I take away, if I fracture my attention, I’m not, I’m way less likely to move forwards.

So. It’s watching for these strong impulses for your phone, cigarettes, it’s, it’s you sit [00:39:00] down to work for guys, you sit down to do meaningful work and you feel this urge to go and jerk off. It’s like, it, what’s going on there? If that’s your part X at work, it’s self sabotage because if it can steal that moment, it’s a moment you’re not moving forward and doing something that’s going to propel you into that force for growth.

And that blew my mind when I found that out as well. Like that was, Mark, that was like, that was my biggest part. Um, and when I learned that, I was like, ah, I got you, you know, so just labeling it a bit of ridicule, I know the way I treat it is like a bit of ridicule, like, ah, you nearly got me man, I’ll throw my phone over the other side of the room or I’ll just like, ah, you got me and I built that relationship.

With that part of myself that’s trying to stop me moving forward. So, impulse is the first one. The second one is a victim narrative that you’ve, that the world is against you. [00:40:00] And this may show up from a certain specific person that’s giving you a hard time. And then you create that person’s voice in your head and you react to it.

Mark’s nodding away there.

Mark: Yeah, it’s just like, all the time. People have this like nemesis, right? Or this like antagonist in their life. Yeah.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah. And like, I, I always say for my guys, it’s like Severus Snape, you know, the idea of this Severus Snape character in your life that you, and you can be like doing the dishes and all of a sudden, whether it’s your wife, whether it’s your Severus Snape character, your boss, you play a, an event that hasn’t even perhaps happened in your head and you react to it.

And you steal your state in the moment. You drop into the maze, you drop into a state that’s not going to help you move forward in your life. So say for example, you’re doing the dishes, you’re then going to go and record a video or do some great work. You’ve lost your [00:41:00] state which would allow you to go and take meaningful action.

And that’s the whole point. Really powerful. The third one is hopelessness, hopelessness, which is that what talked about confusing a knock back with a complete knockout. So this is where you go dating and you get one rejection. So all men, all women are a waste of time. And so many people do this and they, and they realize that that one rejection on a sales call, but that one time they go to the gym and they fall over a weight and they may make themselves look an idiot, they totally overcalibrate.

And we’ve got to remember that, you know, that like a, a mistake is a mistake. You can go again. And that for me was like a big one. I was like, Oh yeah. If I don’t get something right the first time, sometimes I just spit my dummy out and I’m not doing it now. [00:42:00] And it’s an, in that moment, which we really need to commit higher to, to moving forwards.

And, and if you think about it, if there’s a part of our brain that says that we want you to be the same and safe, we don’t need to move forwards. You’re doing something creative. If I can get in there at a point where you make a mistake and stop you from moving forwards, I’m going to take every chance I can get.

And that was like, wow, that was like, what? So that’s self sabotage? Yeah, 100%. Because you, you’re at the foot of an opportunity and you’re doing it, you’re willingly doing something that’s stopping you from moving forwards. And there is a choice there.

Mark: Yeah. So what, what do people apply in that moment? So they catch it.

Right. They catch the moment, like what tool mantra affirmation, I don’t know, like what helps people like get over that hump.

Benjamin Owen: So

Mark: there’s the

Benjamin Owen: two Rs for me is rage and ridicule. So rage is, um, is just powerful cosmic, like [00:43:00] force of rage. It’s like, it’s like rage. It is like, no, I’m not doing this right now.

Fuck off. I like, you know, it’s like a powerful, you know, get, get away. And this is not why I need right now. And it’s actually Uh, it’s actually presenting or externalizing that Part X as a character. So for mine, ever Snape or a, you know, a person outside of myself, it’s like, no, actually no. Stop that right now.

I don’t need to be struck, distracted. I need to get on my work. It’s a powerful boundary setting exercise where you are not allowing yourself to drop into that distracted version of yourself and you get on with what you’re doing. So rage. And the other one is ridicule. It’s like, Ah, you got me. I can’t believe it.

You nearly tricked me. So, like, doing the dishes, that’s me. Sometimes, I’ll be doing the dishes and I’ll drop into this state where I’m winding myself up about something that’s not happened. I’m like, Ah. I know what you’re trying to do there, brain. I [00:44:00] knew what, I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to steal my state.

I got you. And then that allows you just to reclaim like I’m good. And they were the first two things is so label it rage or ridicule. And there are actually some tools that you can use. Like, you know, the tool, the tool being like, it’s called cosmic rage. It’s a, I learned this from Phil and Barry. It was like, you just use a force of rage within you to just, you know, Push it away and that’s the only time I’d ever, um, convince a client to use rage.

Um, so, so really it was like, that was a big one for me and just learn to, to label it, use rage or ridicule, and then to spell it. So it’s just really allow yourself. And then, but the most important thing is that you move into the creative endeavor or the action that you were going to take. That’s the most [00:45:00] important thing you, you, you create that trust within your mind that the thing that you weren’t going to do, you go and do, because that’s how you build self confidence.

Mark: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, to take it a little further, right. Talk to my guys about is two things. One is getting good at being bad at stuff, right? Like being good at being incompetent. I think a lot of people don’t have that. And if you can find that, that’s like a superpower. Right. Like being like coming into it and just admitting to yourself, having a place of acceptance of, hey, I’m going to suck at this and I’m going to explore.

I’m going to make mistakes. It’s going to go really slow, but like, I’m just going to keep chipping away and not expect yourself to be perfect. You know, um, and I think, you know, the other thing is this idea of. Just, yeah, I guess it’s the same thing. I try to think about loud, like, just the lack of it being to be perfect or complete.

Right. Being okay with good enough. Right. And being able to ship something that’s good enough, knowing that, like you said, with a [00:46:00] mistake, you can take another take, you can keep moving forward and iterate on it. Um, I see so many guys just get totally paralyzed because they get out there, they make that video, that video sucks, and then they just, it’s a knockout, right?

To use your language. And they’re done and they can’t move forward. Um, rather than being like, you know what, I’m just going to post this, I’m going to move forward, and the next one’s going to be, you know, 5 percent better.

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, um, I think That’s something I really struggled with, like I wouldn’t have called myself, yeah, I wouldn’t have called myself a perfectionist, but I realized it did show up for me, you know, when I got clear on it, I was like, Oh, it does show up for me, unless it’s perfect.

It doesn’t go out. I was like, Oh, right. Okay.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And I think about, so this is kind of like coaching versus therapy, right? I think about rage. And about depression, right? And using this model, I think depression could be seen as extreme self sabotage, right? Like, self sabotage on every single front to the point of paralysis.

And what I see with a lot of my men, particularly is that rage is the 1st thing that they can access, right? Because a lot of [00:47:00] these depressed guys underneath it is they’re really fucking angry, right? They’re angry at the world. They’re angry at themselves. They’re angry at their parents. They’re angry at their boss, whatever.

And that power, like you said, is so. It’s so mobilizing. It’s so powerful. He gets someone to tap into that cosmic rage and that thing of like, fuck, no, like I’m going to fight for my life, right? Like it’s worth it. It’s worth it. I’m not going to just stay here in the bed or drink myself to death or whatever.

Right. Like I’m going to pick up the sword and charge forward. Um, so I think rage is a really important emotion for men. I love that you’re talking about it because it gets so shamed and put away in traditional therapy and maybe even traditional coaching. I think as men, we need to learn how to harness that aggression.

Yeah. Instead of pretend like we don’t have it because we, we have it. We’re, we’re apex predators of planet earth. You know, like, like we’re serious. Men are serious. Um, we got to understand that,

Benjamin Owen: you know? Yeah. And then I think that’s like, that’s where I was like, you know, my relationship with anger was real poor and, and like, this is why I didn’t have that ability to go, no, like, fuck, [00:48:00] you know, just fucking focus, Ben.

And like, that’s what you’ll hear me. I’m sat at my desk and I’ll be writing in the morning and like, you’ll hear these. You know, me saying, Fucking focus, come on! And it, and it’s, it’s a, it’s from a place of, of real love and support and, and it’s a real, um, It’s good to be able to use that emotion instead of fear it and avoid it.

And yeah, so I have to sell rage to a lot of guys.

Mark: Yeah. Cause you know, especially I think in the modern era, like we don’t want to be perceived as being a predator, right. Or being like aggressive or being mean or being, you know, chauvinist or whatever, right. Like this whole, there’s so much shame around male rage.

And I’ll tell you, I mean, it’s definitely done some shady things in the world, but we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I mean, that is really our power. Right. Is in that,

Benjamin Owen: you know, yeah. And there’s two more. I think that we were mentioning before is, um, is the energy part and like, and I didn’t see this is that you wake up in the morning and you look at your calendar and you just say, I haven’t got enough [00:49:00] energy for all this.

And so then you start, you know, sabotaging yourself by reducing commitments, playing smaller. And, and this was a, a real channel of, of thinking that I never was used to is that, like, that I had to seek energy from the outside world. Like I had to fill myself up outside in thinking, and there was a real profound shift when I started what I call tools work, you know, working with the guys who do the tools.

Um, is that. We’ve got everything we need and it’s about harnessing that and and creative expression. So that was a big shift for me personally and When I check in myself when I say I need a coffee in the afternoon I’m like, well, why do I need a coffee in the afternoon? What is do I is it like I haven’t got enough energy in is I’ve ever got a caffeine deficiency And it wasn’t it was that so it’s really [00:50:00] allowed me to Rely on myself way way more And that’s been a massive, massive game changer.

And there’s, there’s other symptoms I, and I can talk about how you can access them and, you know, later on in the, in the, in the podcast. But I just wanted people to be aware of these things because they were so profound for me and, and the guys I work with as well as them learning, there’s this, I’m building a profile of this part of them, which is there to stop them from moving forwards.

They can. Actually name it and tame it. And I think that’s what was happening for a lot of the guys I worked with. It was like, Oh, right. Well, that’s just how I show up and sabotage myself. Okay. Now I’m aware of it. The symptoms show up. I’m way, way more equipped to shut it down, reclaim my state and move on.

And I think that’s been a big part of my own success personally. And. It’s great to see it wasn’t just me that was experiencing that and these tools worked as well. [00:51:00] You don’t need to go deep into some psychological mantra or thinking. It’s just that it’s that you’re able to do it very, very quickly. It’s five seconds and you’re right back in the state that you wanted to, to create a life.

Mark: Yeah, I think that’s really well said. And it makes me think back to, we talked about very early on in the show of this idea of keeping promises. Yeah. And when you’re talking about it, just keep thinking it’s like, yeah, like Benjamin, you’ve learned how to keep promises to yourself, right? To like, do those things and keep showing up and shit, man.

Like, that’s the basis of self esteem, right? Like, if you know that you’re a dependable man with yourself, first and foremost, that’s really powerful. Um, we have to start to wrap up here, but then where can people find you online if they want to learn more about you or the awakened man project?

Benjamin Owen: Yeah, thank you.

Um, so the best place to find us is probably Instagram now. And Instagram is like at the Awaker Man Project and at Coach Benjamin Owen. I’m showing up more on there. I [00:52:00] love to put things out. I want to share with the world more. But if you want to learn more about Part X and Resistance and all the, you know, what we’ve been talking about.

I actually made a seven part audio series, which is totally free because I wanted to share that with the world because I felt it was so helpful for me and you find that at inner enemy. com inner enemy. com. It’s totally free. It’s podcast format. If you listen to this, you listen to podcasts and it’s just like inner enemy.

com super easy to find and you just download it. It sits in your Spotify or your whatever you listen to your podcast on. And yeah, you have a great listening experience.

Mark: Right, yeah, go check those things out. We’ll put all those in the show notes too, so you can click around in. And check that stuff out. Um, yeah, thanks again for tuning into the men’s therapy podcast.

Benjamin, thanks for coming on the show. Uh, and listeners will see you next week. Another episode of the men’s therapy podcast.

Intro: Thank you for joining your host, Mark on the men’s therapy podcast. [00:53:00] Be sure to tune in again, live next Friday at 2 PM Eastern time and 11 AM Pacific time on the voice of America empowerment channel and anywhere podcast are found to support the show. Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform for more information or to apply to be a guest.

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