The Heart of Shadow w/ Jason Lange

The Heart of Shadow w/ Jason Lange

March 13, 2024

Shadow Work involves confronting the parts of ourselves that we deny – our aggression, our sexuality, our grief, or our sensitivity. Our guest, Jason Lange, is a men’s coach that specializes in helping guys access and heal their shadows. Through men’s groups and retreats he brings a light to the darkest parts of ourselves.

Episode Transcript:

0:58

e welcome back to the show I’m your host Mark aay and I’m here with Jason Lang he

1:06

is a men’s embodiment coach out of California um and he works with Shadow work which I’m really excited to dive

1:11

into and share with the listeners um he has a group called The Heart of Shadow which is just wrapping up your most

1:16

recent cohort and you’re recruiting new people so you can check out his website in our Show links if you want to join and see what this Shadow work stuff is

1:23

all about um and he’s also the host of The evolutionary men podcast so Jason welcome to the

1:28

show so excited to be here Mark thanks for having me yeah I love talking about

1:34

Shadow work man because like I think it’s the next level right I think it’s next level and I think men have this

1:41

dark shadow in them I mean what I tell with a lot of my guys and I’m curious what you think about it is that man

1:46

literally like the human male is the apex predator of planet Earth right we have dominated the Earth and we’ve

1:52

controlled so much except for maybe the great white sharks or something right but like that’s in us and I think it’s

1:58

really important as men to dive in and really understand what those Shadow parts of ourselves are so that we can

2:04

get a handle on it and control it and and use that power in an honorable way in our communities and our

2:10

families yeah Shadow for me is um it’s it’s where the heart is right that’s

2:16

that’s the name of my program and there’s so much power and vitality and gold there so to speak and the process

2:24

of taking men into this work um has been a great gift for me and was a huge part

2:30

of my transformation as well and what I have found is it’s just the quickest way

2:35

to often quickly improve our lives in very concrete felt body

2:41

ways yeah and I really like that you bring that embodiment into your work because you know I think for a lot of

2:47

guys right therapy or coaching or whatever the traditional model of just like sitting in a room and talking for an hour is kind of foreign for us you

2:55

know I think we’re much more physical in a lot of ways so I think having the really embodied acts can be really

3:02

powerful for guys like you I’d really like Jackhammer through and open up people yeah and I’ve seen this you know

3:09

it’s been so great um I became a parent four years ago and as my child has

3:15

started to grow as she’s grown it’s been really revolutionary for me in terms of

3:21

yeah seeing how Shadows created and how emotions are dealt with and the developmental process of a human and

3:27

then being able to bring that into the shadow work has been so huge because um

3:32

you know what’s so amazing about a toddler is there’s no limit on their

3:37

expression just out of the box just if they’re feeling something express it and

3:43

it’s at that age that we stop expressing things through our family system through

3:49

our culture certain things start to happen and whatever it is moving through US sometimes you know for for good

3:55

reasons there’s there’s impulse control and whatnot but just as often for negative reasons we start to hold back

4:01

certain things in our body and in kind of my world the way it works you know

4:06

the way Shadow works is anytime we try to stop a feeling prevent ourselves from

4:12

feeling something the way we do that is actually through musculature in our body we

4:19

actually hold it and you know there’s more and more research coming out particularly around the fascia is kind

4:24

of being the place we store a lot of this tension we actually store the tension in our body

4:30

and then it gets held there and what’s held there often becomes the kindling

4:35

then for all these things later in our life as I say that to me un unfelt

4:40

emotion or or Shadow material that’s unacknowledged or not connected to yeah

4:46

it’s like kindling on the forest floor it’s it’s this debt we have to pay emotionally and then suddenly we’re

4:52

adults we out in the world and somebody does something that maybe triggers what

4:57

would normally be a teeny bit of anger us a little spark but that little spark hits this whole pocket of unprocessed

5:05

stuff and suddenly we’re having this extraordinarily strong reaction to something that maybe didn’t necessitate

5:11

that and we’re like why is this happening or why does this keep happening and that often points to the

5:18

shadow piece here and that’s our Gateway in to what ends up being for so many men

5:24

and you know you work with a lot of guys so I’m sure you see this too of energy management is such a big thing for us

5:30

men just feeling like we have enough energy in our system to deal with life and every time we’re holding an emotion

5:37

or keeping something in the shadow it’s literally taking life force from us to do it and as we reclaim that what I find

5:45

in Shadow work is guys come alive again like our Vitality comes back alive

5:50

there’s actual life force in our system again yeah I think that’s a great endorsement of doing the shadow work

5:56

right it’s like just to literally have more energy and I see it in my work too right like you said guys spend so much

6:01

energy clamping down right or censoring themselves or holding back and there’s a there’s a cause to that um so you know

6:08

before we dive further in episode I’m curious like do you have a a quick definition of Shadow just so we can be

6:13

on the same page uh and give our listener something to hold on to yeah there’s you know there’s lots of kind of

6:19

conceptual definitions of it but to me it’s anything that is unconscious within our system that um the light hasn’t been

6:28

brought to so to speak so this might be unfelt emotion this might be things that

6:34

we’re dissociated from we’re pushing down that don’t feel okay for us to feel and so the idea of Shadow is you know

6:41

it’s hard to see your own shadow right you’re looking behind yourself and you’re like I don’t see it power of of

6:46

group work right or working with a therapist or a coach is O they can often see our shadows really fast like hey do

6:51

you see that thing right behind you right now do you realize everywhere you go that’s coming with you and so it’s

6:57

this process of you know in in my mind it’s it’s unfelt or unprocessed energy

7:04

and emotion that gets stuck um right so

7:10

we’ve all heard oftentimes this platitude now of emotion energy in motion right emotion is supposed to

7:16

cause a reaction and bring some kind of motion to our system and move it’s the

7:22

movement of energy it’s a process when that gets interrupted that kind of congeals into these little pockets of

7:28

shadow that are then often modifying and controlling our current behavior without

7:34

us even realizing it right there’s actually something underneath what’s happening that’s causing me to act in

7:41

certain ways and so we all have Shadow it’s not a bad thing but taking

7:47

responsibility for it I think is one of the big steps men can take at this moment in time yeah really well said so

7:55

I’m curious we could talk about the theory all day but I’m curious about your story right so what was your version of doing Shadow work or how’d

8:01

you get into being a men’s embodiment coach yeah totally so for me it started

8:06

um kind of the somewhat typical story I often hear for a lot of guys is I had a pretty good childhood right like my

8:12

needs were met I had a stable house um it wasn’t until I kind of hit puberty

8:19

that I started to notice things I just like I don’t feel good in my body I

8:24

don’t feel comfortable particularly connecting with the opposite sex and for me there was a moment um maybe my junior

8:31

year high school I was doing this like summer environmental program and um my

8:37

friend’s dad was going to drive us all it was like on the East Coast or something so I was like leaving home from where the first times like without

8:44

my parents and they came to pick us up and I remember hugging my mom goodbye and it just felt really weird like

8:50

really weird and I didn’t know why it just like was this kind of bookmark in my nervous system and it wasn’t until

8:57

years later when I kind of started to get into this work I was like holy crap

9:02

the reason that felt weird is I literally could not tell you the time before that I had touched my mom or been

9:09

touched by her like there was no memory there of any physical um touch and as I

9:18

you know moved into puberty and became attracted to women I just noticed my body would get really anxious and

9:24

uncomfortable and I didn’t know how to talk to women felt really just did not

9:30

feel good in my body and it was pain around connecting to to the feminine

9:35

that kind of launched my whole personal growth trajectory and that started in a more philosophical vein but eventually

9:42

led me to um my first men’s group where in my first men’s group of a a male

9:48

facilitator was working with me and I had done some one-on-one therapy with a you know a really nice woman who was

9:54

great um but I was so good at protecting myself I could kind of sit there on the

10:01

couch and in some ways oh yeah I’m okay and like knew how to open enough to not

10:06

have to open right really right in some sense and I’m I’m in my this this this

10:13

weekend with this man and he’s facilitating me and it’s my turn and

10:18

within five minutes I kid you not within five minutes I’m on my back on the floor

10:25

crying and in a very cracked young voice saying touch touch me touch me hold me

10:31

where are you I need you and just balling

10:37

balling um and I was like what is going on here I had no idea that was inside of

10:44

me right that there was actually this deeply neglected little little baby and

10:49

boy that was so desperate for touch in connection that his nervous system would

10:55

get overwhelmed uh when it was actually on the table and that really kickstarted my

11:02

trajectory to this wasn’t a cognitive thing like I was actually talking you

11:07

know as like a 2-year-old my voice cracked it was it was so intense and I cried in a way I’d never cried before

11:14

and that really started my whole process and then I was kind of all in on men’s

11:19

work and doing the shadow work to the point that um you know I tried a lot of

11:25

different modalities and I’ve done a lot of the different things but really what with me over the years as men’s groups

11:31

and men’s and U men’s work and specifically doing this Shadow work and

11:36

learning to access parts of myself that I wasn’t even aware of um that again

11:42

were an embodied version of that and not like a cognitive part of that and you

11:47

know it’s not like everything magically got fixed after that session with that man but I literally felt something in my

11:54

body I had never felt before and that is something I really see a lot in Shadow

11:59

work that guys will literally tell me I’ve never felt that in my body before as an adult man and to me that is

12:05

incredibly significant that means something is happening here at a nervous system level something is changing and

12:13

then I just got so deep into it at some point I was in so many men’s groups and doing so much stuff I was like I think

12:18

I’m G to start helping other guys because they’re asking me about it and you know and it just kind of naturally um transferred from there to

12:27

something I also offer to other men and I’m deeply embedded in the work still myself so I meet with a shadow work

12:33

group about twice a year of men who I’ve been with for about seven years now and I’m always always peeling back the L

12:41

onion so to speak and finding wow there’s a whole lot more there there’s a whole another part of me there that I

12:46

didn’t even know about yeah that’s incredible that’s incredible and I really like how visceral your story is

12:53

and I think as a lot of guys like we need that we need to feel that it’s real you know I think with traditional

12:59

therapy and coaching when it’s all like you said cognitive or you know what I like to call sarcastic like validation

13:05

therapy right being like Oh my God your life is so hard blah blah blah like as men were like e like what is this like

13:10

this is not helpful I don’t feel anything like I’m I can like I’m smarter than my therapist right like you said

13:16

you can kind of like manipulate and Dodge but when you have something like Shadow work and in your story where it

13:21

just punches through everything and you have that like cathartic experience I’m

13:26

I’m inspired that you felt the call you know that that you leaned into that instead of backing

13:33

away yeah and it’s it’s been you know it’s completely changed my life like that and I think I got lucky in a sense

13:40

that I got exposed to that pretty early on and I had this other pathway of oh

13:46

you know it’s really easy in our default culture to focus on the outer stuff well

13:51

I need to lose weight or I need to be making more money or like for me the you know pain around women when it was like

13:56

actually no there was this deep part of my nervous system that I had to bring some healing and wholeness to and learn

14:03

to reintegrate and as I did that lo and behold my experiences totally started to transform because what had been

14:09

happening is in a weird way is that that little panicked kid was so desperate for

14:15

touch would show up and would overwhelm my nervous system and take over and I

14:21

love my little little boy now but not particularly attractive to you know a

14:26

fully grown adult woman like she doesn’t want to be my mom so to speak all the time so now that I’ve able to

14:31

reintegrate him I can take care of him which sometimes asks you know requires me to ask for help and support but then

14:37

I the adult am able to show up in these interactions and it’s just something I

14:42

see with Shadow work over and over and over again how much Reclamation of

14:48

ourselves is in the process and like we said how much energy can then be liberated for the present moment and

14:57

it’s not just a cognitive thing but it’s an experiential thing right that’s the

15:02

thing that I think really makes it stick for a lot of men is it’s it’s an actual experience we have in our bodies of

15:08

feeling something different than we’ve ever felt before yeah I’m wondering do you notice any physiological changes

15:15

because I know some guys report like like you said more energy or even weight loss or more flexibility or more

15:21

physical strength or even like shaking you know and spasming like I’m wondering did have you had any of those totally

15:27

visceral things yeah I mean do in a in a session of deep Shadow work I’ve experienced it myself and I see it all

15:33

the time now in men um their faces will actually change in particular it’ll be

15:39

like a huge softening of tension in the jaw and around the eyes and some life

15:44

force comes back literally to the eyes they glow a little bit more but there’s just an incredible softening of tension

15:51

particularly around here often times and yeah just more space deeper breath more

15:56

joy comes through right that’s the other thing you know I’m sure you know in in the work you do but that a lot of guys

16:03

don’t get is it’s like you know our Central column our channel for feeling it’s just one pipe right you don’t get

16:10

to pick just feel the good stuff or the bad stuff if you start to clamp down on the the darker stuff the grief the

16:16

sadness the anger what you’re actually clamping down on as well is the bright stuff the light stuff the golden stuff

16:24

and so we’re actually narrowing our range of feeling and that’s part of what happens for men

16:30

is I can feel this or this and then we’re in this tight little box and when we start to blow that open and often

16:37

times the quickest way is through the shadow going into the stuff we’re afraid to feel or overwhelmed by and we go

16:44

right in there and suddenly just like a a tidal wave all this other energy gets

16:50

to come back online playfulness Joy curiosity bodies soften breath comes in

16:55

energy comes back it’s a tremend experience to witness I mean it always

17:01

just totally blows open my heart to see a man literally come alive yeah I am I love the way you’re

17:08

talking about this you know because I I think what you really embody and what I want to mirror to you and also say to our listeners is the courage required to

17:15

do this you know like you said going into that Darkness going into the stuff that we are literally the most afraid of

17:21

and we organize our whole lives around not feeling I think you’re a great role model of being courageous right and like

17:28

going into that with the torch held above your head and really your eyes open and I think you know one of my soap

17:33

boxes is that like that is the modern war that men need to sign up for right like that is the frontier is the inner

17:41

world I’m so right there with you we used to have to go out into the unknown of the outer world now the edge really

17:48

is can I face my inner stuff and can I take responsibility for everything I was

17:54

handed in my lineage and in my life right now and it’s also deeply

18:00

empowering for men that’s the other thing I see is wow I have a lot more power than I ever realized absolutely

18:07

absolutely so we’re going to move to our first commercial break when we get back we’re going to talk more about the shadow talk about men’s groups I’m

18:13

interested also of what it means to be an embodied man in the world right outside of the therapeutic or the

18:18

coaching space it’s what it’s like to live and kind of walk the walk um so we got a lot of great stuff to talk about

18:23

if you’re listening hang on in there and we’ll see you on the other side

18:57

e

19:27

e

19:57

e

20:27

e

20:53

welcome back to the show I’m here with Jason Lang and we’re talking about the shadow I’m in the heart of the Shadow particular

20:59

so Jason I’m curious to kick off this next conversation you talked about some of your Shadow content right this like

21:05

desire for touch um the hurt of being neglected right this kind of like neediness and this want for the mother

21:11

right the mother wound I think it’s talked about often in men’s work I I’m curious what other content do you see in

21:18

some of the guys you work with and and listeners as Jason’s talking just see if anything evokes a feeling in you you

21:23

know when he’s going through this list I’m wondering if anything hits a spark because that might be um you know a

21:28

compass point to pay attention to yeah absolutely I mean I think one

21:34

context piece here is just that um yeah right every time we don’t feel something

21:40

it has a cost and as men one of our challenges at this moment in time is we

21:46

are generally taught and rewarded or rewarded actually for not being in our

21:51

bodies and our emotions they start a sensation in our bod so for a young age

21:57

many of us not all of us but have heard things like stop crying get back up push

22:03

yourself be tougher right we get all of these messages sometimes from our family from our religion from our culture from

22:10

particularly here in America that kind of rugged individual man who’s just tough and works hard and keeps going but

22:17

in general what we’re rewarded for is actually being disembodied and so one of the big edges

22:22

of Courage is to come back into our body and feel and so for a lot of men we’ve been

22:29

disembodied for a long time and the edges the Shadows I see showing up for a

22:34

lot of guys often just have to do with some of the primary emotions around

22:39

anger fear grief lust things that for

22:46

whatever reason we don’t feel safe feeling or expressing and so for many

22:51

men you know the main kind of um Spectrum I often tend to work is

22:58

anger and anguish it’s deep grief and deep anger usually one of those is the

23:03

portal to the other and they’re very closely related a lot of times but I’ll

23:09

have men coming in who have been you know holding Secrets let’s say for 20 30

23:15

40 50 years that they’ve never shared with anyone um beliefs they’ve had about

23:21

themselves for as a kid traumas they’ve held had from being physically sexually

23:26

or mentally or emotionally abused that they had just dissociated from

23:32

challenges in their relationship their work so many things feelings of

23:38

overwhelm and fatigue right so many men don’t feel like it’s ever okay for us to

23:44

slow down and feel wow how I’m living my life is totally unsustainable it’s

23:50

costing my body and whatever that that Avenue of Shadow is um or for some guys

23:58

it’s you know around addictions right why why is that I keep looking at porn why do I keep drinking why do I keep

24:04

turning for the cigarette right another way to think about um Shadow Mark is

24:09

when there’s something we keep doing over and over and we don’t know why there’s often Shadow material right

24:16

powering it underneath it and this is just a Gateway in all of it is a Gateway

24:21

in what is being what has been unfelt or unexpressed or unmoved in in my nervous

24:27

system my relationships whether as a kid or currently or in life and it’s that

24:34

embodied priest of actually bringing those emotions through or bringing sometimes literally the physical

24:41

movement of the body through that we weren’t able to bring through previously that starts to resolve or bring some of

24:48

the charge off that tension so I’ve worked with literally everything with men relationships marriages divorce kids

24:57

uh addiction disconnect from their sexuality you name

25:03

it any man who tells you they don’t have some Shadow Run for the hills you know those are the guys I would say don’t

25:09

work with those men look out for those men um we all have these wounds and it’s

25:15

just a matter of getting access to them and for most men we just want to feel safe we’ve never been shown or taught

25:23

what to do with our emotions and like I said we’re encouraged to get away from them them so for most men the only

25:30

medicines we’ve ever been told are okay are booze now kind of weed sex we EAC

25:38

literally we will ejaculate off our feelings right just ah I got to get that

25:43

out of my system whatever that tension is and we’re never shown what to do with our feelings how to how to be with them

25:50

how to process them so there’s really know end the Shadow and one of the great Joys I have in leading this work is I

25:57

often have no idea where a session is going to go right there’s maybe a little context a guy sets but then we go in and

26:06

the places I’ve gone with men I mean like blow my mind right you might know

26:11

like I never would have guessed we would have ended there but suddenly we found ourselves in something that’s been a

26:17

core part of themselves or their nervous system that you know the beauty is once you see it once it comes into the light

26:24

the relationship with it immediately starts to change might not be fixed like in a magical way but the relationship

26:31

starts to change yeah yeah absolutely you know and I think you made a really key point there which is that you’re

26:37

doing this work yourself and that’s something that I want to impress Upon Our listeners if you’re looking for a

26:42

men’s coach or a therapist or whatever right like ask them like are you doing this too you know because you would be

26:49

surprised of how many don’t really you know and when you’re talking you know Jason about going to these extreme

26:54

states that’s what comes up in so my men’s groups are the Retreats that I run out in the wilderness right like it’s

27:00

intense it’s super intense it’s raw you know I’m sure you’ve seen it I’ve seen guys like crying screaming wanting to

27:07

break things being in a ball and just shaking you know like spasming like getting into these like really intense

27:13

states that are deeply healing but it does require a facilitator that can handle it and not shut it down you know

27:19

because if us as Leaders push that away it just further digs the whole deeper

27:25

right it puts it more and more into the shadow um um so I’m really really happy

27:30

that you’re really highlighting that aspect because it’s something that’s like is hard to screen for but critical

27:35

to ask of like you know what’s your story and have you done this yeah and because what I found is

27:43

you know part of what’s so valuable about that is the more I do my work the more I’m unafraid to be with any part of

27:48

my experience lo and behold the less afraid I am to be with anyone else’s experience and that’s often just what we

27:55

need is someone to be with us in our experience where often times no one was

28:00

in our past and that’s right the other kind of trauma that happens the event that happens then there’s you know as

28:06

gabron says what happens after when we’re alone in it or where we can’t share it part of what we get to do in

28:12

this work is start to recontextualize that of you don’t have to feel all this alone and we’re meant to grieve and to

28:20

emote in community it’s one of the most healing things there is for us and we

28:26

just need to feel safe as men and our bodies often know what to do they know

28:32

how to release they know how to heal we just have to get ourselves to the right

28:37

space to do it where we feel safe and where someone can hold us and many men

28:42

just aren’t used to that they’re you know used to holding everyone else in their life and they often have nowhere

28:48

to go where they can just be held sometimes that’s literal in terms of actually being held by men other times

28:55

that’s just figurative and that yeah wherever you got right now we’re here for it it’s okay we’re not going to shut

29:00

down your anger or your grief we actually we just want more like bring it and I think that’s a big Edge for a lot

29:06

of men and particularly what can be really powerful you know men working with men or in men’s groups or in men’s

29:12

work is there there’s just like a willingness to go towards the anger or the Rage or the destruction or the lust

29:19

in a way that we don’t reduce a man to that but we’re willing to just go into that whatever that might be because

29:25

often times like like I’m saying there’s much gold on the other side that’s where the the heart often really lies yeah

29:32

let’s talk more about male Community right because I think it’s something that doesn’t exist in the same way that

29:37

it used to and you know I maybe I have like a uh dramaticized version of the past but it seems like there used to be

29:43

the men’s lodges and a lot of traditional cultures there were hunting parties there were there were work Crews right there was a lot of men getting to

29:49

know each other and needing to rely on each other through adversity right through like difficult situations but

29:54

now the modern man is so isolated and and I felt felt that you know I’ve done a lot of work to connect with own my own

30:00

male Community I’ve seen that in many of my clients you know we connect online or we just or we don’t connect right we

30:06

just talk to our spouse and that’s our only friend you know I think a lot of men are feeling this this loneliness

30:12

this deep loneliness and hunger for community and you know when I talk to my clients that are fathers they talk about

30:18

how surface those relationships feel right like literally they talk about their kid they talk about sports maybe

30:23

talk about their dogs they talk about the weather but it’s not the stuff you’re talking about it’s not anger and anguish and lust and grief and and pain

30:31

right like stuff that we all carry with us um so yeah I guess I encourage you to

30:37

like Riff on the importance of community for guys and and if you see the same thing in the men you work with this kind

30:42

of loneliness it seems to be sweeping yeah it’s huge um and you know

30:48

part of my mission I think is every man should be in a men’s group that’s kind of like part of what got me here that’s out of all the things I’ve done that’s

30:55

been the most durable in helping me really implement and stay with the changes I want to make in my life and I

31:02

mean the numbers are staggering I mean right male suicide is going up every year M loneliness you know the how many

31:09

men don’t make new friends after the age of 30 like the stats are just unbelievable Abal and they have a yeah

31:18

and and this isn’t just oh you feel a little lonely like um isn’t that sad this stuff has massive impacts on our

31:26

outcomes in longevity in life right they have research being lonely like this

31:31

just as damaging as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day being morbidly obese um you know there was one book I can’t

31:37

remember the name right now that came out recently that was like just joining a group of any kind can increase life

31:44

expectancy five to 10 years it’s how important Community is and we’re living

31:49

in this really fractured age where we have all this fax fake community so we

31:55

go on to social media and we get this hit of I feel like I’m connected to that person but it’s not real right there’s

32:01

not a real time component to that in a sense and so we’re getting you know I

32:07

kind of call it the sugar it’s like the fake calories of connection and then Society has been moving to actually

32:14

increase these things right we just got we’re kind of working through covid work from home people are getting you know a

32:20

lot of men are getting more and more isolated not even having to go into work anymore which can be awesome and it can

32:26

be super challenging a lot of the social communities and Social Clubs and religious

32:32

institutions they’re waning and so men are left Wonder um how do I connect right how do

32:39

I um meet other men I I work with a lot of guys who like I don’t even know where to go to meet a man you know

32:46

particularly when you become a father or you come busy and then this stuff starts to show up in our bodies you know one of my partners I work with in the heart of

32:52

Shadow he’s a doctor of Chinese medicine and one of his frustrations he started to experience was he’d be seeing clients

33:00

and he would be treating the thing but it would it wouldn’t go away their autoimmune disorders all these different

33:07

things that start to show up particularly in our 30s and 40s um are often manifestations of early trauma and

33:15

disconnection like literally just not feeling connected and um so I’m a huge

33:21

proponent to U it does not make life easier to be in a group but it gets way

33:27

better it’s like increasing your Your Capacity to handle life’s stress and I see this every time I I I work with a

33:35

group now of Suddenly It’s like oh my gosh I have more here to bring towards

33:41

whatever I’m doing because I’m resourced with Connection in community and other men who actually know how to be present

33:48

with me because the other thing I think you were pointing to Mark is most of us men the default culture we’re taught is

33:55

to relate via triang triangulation you and me and our attention is on a

34:00

third thing sports game a movie an activity hunting something we are

34:06

connecting by having our attention on this third thing what most men are never taught is how do we connect where our

34:13

attention is on each other Y and the battery the wattage of what can happen

34:19

when you actually put your attention on each other is so tremendous and how it can fuel us for for um a again just kind

34:28

of tackling life’s challenges and I do one-on-one work with guys um but I’ll

34:33

tell you I always encourage guys and my preference is to to do the work in a group because the work often goes deeper

34:41

and faster because so many of the wounds we carry as men are wounds that were

34:46

created in relationship right shame is often a huge one for guys and shame

34:52

doesn’t just happen right it’s created relationally in a dynamic and so that’s where it needs to be healed and that’s

34:59

the power of the group of the relating of the connecting and the shift that I’ve seen men go through of this

35:05

realization that wow other men don’t have to just be my competition they can

35:12

actually be my greatest allies is a lifechanger doesn’t mean every man but

35:18

it means the cohort of men you decide you know to really invest in and that can hold you um become such a resource

35:25

and has been such a resource for me and my life after some genuinely really heartbreaking stuff over the last years

35:33

um I I literally don’t know what I would have done had I not had my group as a place to bring all these parts of myself

35:39

throughout it yeah yeah I think the men’s group thing is absolutely critical and we were touching on this idea of

35:47

kind of popping open the hood and looking at relational Dynamics in Vivo is so powerful right I mean I have guys

35:53

that are you know the nice gu syndrome right that like have never started conflict in their life life and to be

35:58

able to do that in a group in a place where they can train is critical you know and one of the metaphors I use is

36:04

kind of the group can be like your MMA gym or your Dojo or something right where you can practice these skills and

36:10

understand and get better so you can bring it out into your life you know and be a better man out there um you we

36:16

don’t have tons of time in this segment so we might pick it up next time but I am curious on that topic of was it like

36:21

for you to be an embodied man or an evolved man or whatever modern man whatever the the terminology is out there in the world right outside of the

36:28

therapeutic life because I think a lot of guys struggle with that you know they might really love their contained

36:33

environment but they struggle bringing it into their day-to-day yeah it’s something I’m

36:39

really passionate about particularly in the heart of shadow that it’s easy to go to the monastery and become enlightened

36:46

to be in the marketplace in the family in the day-to-day that’s where the real hard work is and I tell guys this on

36:52

Retreat every time I’m like as challenging as this was the retreat’s the easy part the hard hard part is how

36:58

do you bring this back into your life and that’s where an ongoing persistent group can be so transformational a touch

37:05

point of people you can keep checking in with that can keep reminding you who you are what you want and where you’re going

37:12

and um for me the lesson I’ve just had to learn over and over and over again and I’ve been doing this stuff for 20

37:19

years Mark and still fall prey to it is I’ll avoid feeling something sometimes

37:24

for days weeks sometimes months man and then I finally through a group I go

37:29

there and on the other side I’m like oh my God that was so much easier that took five minutes sometimes literally like

37:36

five minutes and I wasted so much energy on that it’s it creates so much more

37:43

potential when we just go into this embodied style of living and people you know they feel more comfortable and they

37:50

trust you more yeah one of the things I want to leave our listeners with is this phrase I use in my groups a lot which is

37:56

depression is repression right so if you’re a guy out there and you’re feeling depressed it’s probably just what Jason’s talking about is you’re

38:02

just holding something and maybe for years maybe for months right like all that energy that goes towards holding

38:08

something back is causing that depression and often there is like that key right that needs to be unlocked um

38:14

so yeah we’re going to move into our final commercial break when we get back I want to talk more about how to really embody this work day-to- day and Jason

38:21

will provide you with some uh ideas and tips and tricks about how to get started if you’re interested by this conversation so thanks forist listening

38:27

and we’ll see you on the other

38:56

side

39:26

e

39:56

e

40:26

e

40:46

welcome back to the show I’m here with Jason Lang and we’re talking about the heart of the Shadow and men’s work um Jason where we left off before the

40:52

commercial break was talking about really how to live this stuff right how to embodied how to bring it into life um

41:00

so I’m curious right like for your definition what is the embodied man who

41:05

is the modern man like what what directions does masculinity need to go in order to evolve because I think

41:11

there’s very little debate I think it’s like very difficult time to be a man right now and I think we’re under attack from all angles in a way and I think a

41:17

lot of guys are confused about what it means to be a man so it’s such a huge um challenge for

41:23

guys because we do not have many Role Models or archetypes to lean towards um

41:30

but you know what I’ve kind of settled on is I break it down into three parts you know the the the man we want to

41:37

become or step into starts with a grounded presence where you’re connected

41:42

to your body you’re connected to your power you’re connected to your sexuality and that’s all online right and you’re

41:49

really here you’re really present and then we pair that with an open and

41:55

sensitive heart that is actually available for connection and

42:00

relating and then on top of that there’s we cultivate a deep awareness to know

42:05

what’s most important for me to pay attention to in any given moment and

42:11

when we have all three of those things you know kind of what I say is the evolutionary man we’re kind of

42:16

Unstoppable right where we have the power we have the balls we have the fire we have the heart we have the

42:22

sensitivity and we have the awareness and where so many men get stuck is

42:27

they’ve only seen the kind of Macho jerk the my way or the highway just totally reactive man and so a lot of those guys

42:34

react to that and go to the nice guy of well I’m going to shut all that down be

42:40

very sensitive be very safe highly attuned to other people the whole while

42:45

they’re dying inside right not getting their needs met or we’re just completely overwhelmed and distracted by the

42:52

onslaught like we said of technology and stuff right now so when we cultivate all three of those what we have are

42:59

extraordinarily powerful grounded present men and when I say power I mean

43:05

the capacity to name and know what we want and to move towards it in our life

43:11

like that’s a man who’s in his power he’s identified what he wants and he’s moving towards it it’s not even about

43:17

getting it but he’s moving towards it he’s taking action and when we do that as men we feel very very alive and very

43:24

very empowered and it takes training to cultivate those two and why again I love

43:29

groups is for a lot of men it’s the first place they see or get to experience an embodied transmission of

43:36

wow that guy is totally in his tears right now his grief and I still feel his

43:44

strength he’s not collapsed he’s not defeated like he feels even more here I

43:50

trust him even more because of his tears or there’s a man who’s bringing his

43:55

fierceness his bound is no and I don’t feel afraid I still

44:02

feel his heart I still trust him we start to get these actual experiences in our body of what this other kind of

44:08

masculinity can look like and that was the first place I saw it right that man

44:13

that facilitated me was the first man I was like he was in his 60s at the time and I was like whatever that is I want

44:19

that how you’re moving how you’re breathing how you’re relating to people like what is that what did you do in

44:26

that kind of P me in so for men this you know we’re carving this new model of

44:32

what it means to be grounded to be open and to be deeply aware yeah the words

44:37

that keep coming to mind as you’re talking is uh responsibility and respect you know this idea of taking

44:43

responsibility for our traumas for our shadow and owning it and not coming at it from a place of weakness or a victim

44:49

mentality of like oh poor me look what happened to me blah blah blah but being like yeah this happened it sucks I’m

44:55

going to feel it I’m going to heal it and I’m going to show up better because of it I think that is a deeply masculine

45:00

kind of you know model and then and respect right being able to respect another man you don’t have to agree with

45:06

him right you don’t have to like follow him but I think respecting the grounded and rootedness is is critical you know

45:13

and I think a lot of men don’t respect other men and don’t respect themselves and I think it does take experiences

45:18

like exactly we talking about Retreats men’s groups Men’s Work Shadow work to be able to truly feel respect for

45:24

another man instead of this kind of like fake plating nice guy thing that I know so many of us can fall

45:31

into yeah and it’s you know one of the other powerful things I see about a group in where there’s a type of

45:38

activism that can happen here particularly around the shadow work of every time we see one man step deeper

45:45

into his authenticity or his feeling or his truth it actually makes it easier for

45:51

other men to do it so you probably see this in Retreats I see it in group all the time one man goes and another man

45:57

goes and just like they start to pop it’s like oh my God I didn’t know it was okay to feel that or I didn’t feel safe

46:03

until I saw you go and then I thought well I’m not going to half ass it I’m going all the way in and it becomes a

46:09

real Act of leadership to say I’m gon to feel first I’m not going to wait right

46:14

I’m going to be the one to go deeper here and part of the you know cultural narrative I’m trying to change that you

46:20

know I realize there’s a little bit of paradox here but is real men feel everything yeah right we’re just willing

46:27

to go right into what it is and all that machismo and manbox and tough culture it’s like you tell me who’s more afraid

46:34

the man who’s scared to death of his tears or the man who will go right into him just go right into it and so a real

46:41

man has a capacity to be with anything to be with anything any emotion any

46:49

feeling any experience and we need a lot more men who are willing to be with

46:55

everything in my mind yeah I think that’s true I think a lot of the cultural pains that we’re feeling is

47:01

from afraid men it’s from men that haven’t touched that chat who haven’t gone into that darkness that don’t know

47:07

who they are even right that are just kind of operating almost like robots right just kind of like playing out

47:12

these scripts without feeling anything and without understanding like the impact of what they’re doing you know just listening to the cultural messages

47:19

or message of the generation before them um so I agree completely I think it is a wonderful MCH to get every man to a

47:24

man’s group and there is a big advocacy piece of like we need it the world needs it our country needs it like we are

47:30

we’re drowning here um so I’m curious Jason if some guy’s listening and they’re inspired right where can they

47:36

start what’s one thing that they can do right now to start to do some of this work yeah one really simple exercise

47:44

that I often give guys is just to start to notice what bothers you in other

47:50

people right there’s there’s certain people or certain behaviors that bother

47:55

you that often cause some kind of reactivity that is the Gateway in to

48:01

Shadow right often what’s unresolved in ourselves will will see or be hyper

48:07

aware of in other people so we start to see who triggers me or what triggers me in the world and then we can start to

48:14

journal and what’s underneath that right how do I do that too or what does this man have that I don’t want to have or

48:19

this person have that I don’t want have but it’s just starting to become conscious of our reactivity of our

48:25

triggers of what bothers us because as one of my teachers you know said that I just love this is your angst is your

48:32

Liberation right those little pings that is the doorway in that’s you know why we

48:38

call it the heart of Shadow we start to look for the things that cause reactivity in us because when we

48:44

actually consciously then go in in underneath the surface that’s where all the gold is right that’s the old the the

48:51

old ter the archetype of facing the dragon we got to go to the dark cave face the Dragon and on the other side of

48:57

that all the treasure awaits but so we have to start looking for our dragons what scares us what makes me reactive

49:03

where do I get too angry when I don’t need to be so angry or when where do I judge other men or where do I project on

49:10

other men and start you just start journaling this what bothers me where do I get reactive and as that stuff starts

49:16

to accumulate that’s when yeah there’s a certain amount of work you can do with yourself but I’d really advise you to

49:22

work with Mark or find a group or someone where who can kind of guide you through that process of you’ve

49:28

identified these different things now let’s go in at a deeper level and see what’s really happening underneath yeah

49:34

totally I mean the word that comes to mind is stalk your fear you know and I think like as men it’s again it’s it’s

49:41

Cur it’s courage it’s pure courage is going after it is and using that as a marker forward rather than as something

49:47

to run away from and that takes time I mean I’ve had cowardly moments I’m sure you have I think every man has had moments but the idea of stepping up more

49:54

often than not right and continuing to get get back on that horse and using that as a signpost of wow there might be

50:00

something here for me instead of staying in that comfort zone because [ __ ] man it is it is so easy to be in the comfort

50:06

zone these days and I think guys are are aching and hurting because they’ve been trapped in that comfort

50:14

zone yeah you know we discover who we are as men by going into the unknown and

50:19

doing hard things the hard thing is often just staying present in the unknown that’s where you know we can

50:25

really learn to lead with the vulnerability I don’t know how this is going to go but I’m going to go right into it and that breeds a certain

50:32

self-confidence and Trust in ourselves of oh I can do these things and I can

50:38

feel these things this is the thing I see in Shadow a lot as well Mark is at first there’s this like back well it

50:43

feels like a tidal wave like I’ll have you know men say to me like I know I’m afraid that if I feel that it’s going to

50:49

overwhelm me and I’ll never come back and we learn to go in and titrate and start to feel some of that and you know

50:55

there’s certain wounds that are always going to be tender but we start to we can metabolize a lot of that and what it

51:01

allows us to do is to start to move more towards real time in life where we discover you know the paradoxes you know

51:09

the the phrase that which we resist persists anytime we avoid a feeling we

51:15

actually generally Empower that feeling to keep happening um and the quickest

51:21

way to help a feeling pass is to go right to it and touch it completely indirectly and this is what blows a lot

51:27

of men away but I’m talking about sometimes 2 3 4 minutes and something

51:32

can change when we actually be with the experience in our nervous system directly it does not often last forever

51:39

there may be waves and you come back to it but it’s often so much more uh just

51:45

faster than we even imagine when we really connect to the energy underneath

51:51

yeah yeah and what I want to say to guys kind of piggyback off what you said is you know I call it like the wall of no

51:56

right but there is this like big resistance to it and often is like a house of cards just like you said right like once you walk up to it and you

52:02

touch it the whole thing falls apart but it seems really intimidating from far away and what I want to communicate to

52:08

listeners or guys that are interested in this is like every single guy I’ve ever worked with including myself has that

52:13

wall of no it doesn’t mean that you’re a coward doesn’t mean that you you know are weak because I think that intimidates a lot of people I think they

52:20

shouldn’t be afraid but it is something that’s rooted in a real reason maybe it’s childhood trauma maybe it’s you

52:25

know long-term condition maybe it’s a need that you didn’t even know you had that never got met you know but like feeling that wall of no and overcoming

52:32

it you start to make friends with that wall and realize like okay this is part of the process and if I can just keep

52:37

overcoming this thing I’m going to keep finding the gold in the cave like you said Jason yeah absolutely and I still feel

52:44

resistant sometimes when I go to do Shadow work and I’m like I don’t really want to go there but it’s just part I

52:50

don’t think that goes any right yeah that’s just that’s just part of it and being in a good group that that you work

52:57

with over time you know just deeper and deeper trust starts to emerge and the deepest trust I’ve now had develop in

53:03

myself is oh I don’t have to worry if Shadow material comes up or conflict comes up I’ve moved through it enough

53:09

times where I know I can get through it so my as well turn into it faster now right and it’s just that process of more

53:16

and more moving towards that real time and reclaiming so much more

53:21

energy and vitality in in my my marriage in my relationship with my daughter and

53:26

my relationship with my friends um it’s just extraordinary and what I’ve seen with men you know come back online as

53:34

they go to these places that they’re often afraid to and deal with this stuff that sometimes we’ve been holding for

53:41

decades and sometimes isn’t even you know our own patterns in our nervous system or our family system that go back

53:48

to our father’s father’s father or our mother’s mother’s mother and we have this unique incredible opportunity and

53:55

time right now to have the resources to like actually tilt the karmic you know

54:01

needle so to speak in a different way of wow how that happened it it ends with me

54:06

like I’m ready to change this I’m ready to grieve I’m ready to get angry or whatever that might be and that’s you

54:14

know what I’ll just close with is the most the the most powerful way I think men can lead right now is just taking

54:21

responsibility and doing their inner work and that will change the world I

54:26

agree this is what the world needs and this is what men need so Jason it’s been a wonderful conversation where can people find you online if they want to

54:32

learn more about you or work with you or Join one of your groups yeah you can check me out at evolutionary dommen so

54:39

it’s not.com but dommen and on there you can find my social media profiles I have my own podcast you can also go to Heart

54:46

of shadow.com if you want to join the waiting list for our next um cohort of that which will be coming up later in

54:52

the year fantastic well all that stuff will be in the show notes if you’re listening um thank you again so much for

54:57

being on the show and if you’re listening and you think that someone needs to hear this please share it like it give it to other people I think many

55:03

need to hear this message especially this episode with Jason um just letting them know that they can they’re not

55:08

alone right and that they can plug into a community of men uh that need it um if you’re interested in seeing what we look

55:14

like we just start doing a video version of this podcast you can find that on YouTube um and our website www.menstherapypodcast.com so thank you Jason again for being on the show so great being here mark thank you

55:27

so much for the work you do and thank you listeners for tuning in and we’ll see you next week another episode of the men’s therapy

55:45

podcast