Male Dignity... What Does It Mean to Be Worthy? | S01 E05

This is When Kings Unite, the podcast where we journey with our mantra, masculinity as medicine. Join Freddie, yours truly, Smith, Wes, and Chris, as we give voice and reverence to the divine masculine within us all. Self-initiated, purposeful yet warm, powerful yet playful, Strong yet loving, emotionally intelligent, and deeply present. Together, we join forces, brothers in arms, creating a space for deep love, vulnerability, and the embodiment of dignity. Are you ready?

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Whoa, whoa, whoa. I am really, really excited about this episode. Our topic today is one that's very near and dear to my heart. And just to get us kicked off with a little bit of background, so 2 years ago, I started I started cultivating a humanity model called DAISY, spelled D-A-I-S-Y. And it stemmed from my work in DEI and working with DEI professionals, but it takes it much deeper than DEI. And the first pillar of this DAISY model Is dignity. And that's our topic for today, is male dignity. So I think it would be good if we first define the term. So how I define dignity as part of the DAISY model is my innate sense of worthiness, enoughness, and self-esteem. My innate sense of worthiness, enoughness, and self-esteem. So when I say, I am worthy, what I'm saying is, I am enough. I am worthy of the full spectrum of the human experience, light and dark. I am worthy of making mistakes because that's how I learn. That's part of the human learning process. So I would love to hear from all of my brothers, all of my kings here. What does worthiness and dignity mean to you?

Yeah, thanks for opening up that space, man. Um, for me, it really means self-respect. Like, the things that are coming up for me right now is speaking the truth without Belittling somebody and offering compassion, but also honoring myself. And also something else that's coming true in my life right now is honoring boundaries without shaming or attacking anybody else that may be in my space as well too. But at like the core of it, it's like true self-respect for not just other people, But also myself.

Love that.

Yeah, I think, you know, you talk about dignity, you talk about worthiness, you know, right there in the word worthy is worth, right? Is value, is the meaning, what it is that we bring into the space, into the world, how we can support or better the people around us, right? The value that we can add. And I think that Uh, it's oftentimes misconstrued because we think that that comes from outside of us, right? We think that someone tells us, oh, you're worth something, you're— you added this value here, you, you know. But when worthiness and dignity is something that, you know, we generate from inside, and it's something that, you know, we're, we're frankly born with, and then we forget that we have it.

Exactly. Exactly. And that, that's a great, great segue into, uh, this amazing distinction that I came to when I really started diving more deeply into this work around worthiness. And it's the distinction between worthiness and deservedness, because often we collapse the two and sort of use them interchangeably. But, you know, one of the key words in my definition of dignity is innate. And you just spoke into it, Chris. You know, it is innate. It's our birthright. I was born worthy. So if I was born worthy, there's no working for it. There's no earning it. There's no proving it to anyone. It's already mine. My worthiness is already mine. My, my internal value. It's already mine. But over time, it— I forget, we forget, you know, our own worthiness. We forget who we really are. And so I think it's important to make that distinction between worthiness and deservedness. And how I sort of interpret it Is that worthiness, because it is innate, it's an embodiment, whereas deservedness is more of a performance. How does that land for y'all?

Uh, yeah. Can you tell, can you talk a little bit more about the distinction between those 2? I'm curious how you hold those. Yeah. The embodiment, embodiment versus, um, performance.

Yeah. Yeah. I believe worthiness is a way of being. I move. I move through the world with that innate sense of worthiness, and that sense of worthiness is what we call dignity. And I think some of the other letters in the DAISY model speak to it. You know, like the full acronym of DAISY stands for dignity, agency, integrity, stewardship, and intimacy. And all of those words sort of root back to and are grounded in the dignity piece. It's grounded in the sense of worthiness. When my sense of worthiness is at a high frequency, then my sense of agency, my sense of sovereignty, my sense of choice and say-so in my own life is that much higher. My sense of integrity, my sense of wholeness, embracing the light and the dark of me is at a higher frequency. You know, my sense of stewardship, my sense of oneness with all of humanity is at a higher frequency. My intimacy, my ability to, and my sense of visibility, and my ability to make myself more vulnerable and to be more vulnerable and in connection with myself and others is at a higher frequency when I move with a higher sense of worthiness. It's all interconnected. It's directly proportionate with my sense of worthiness.

Yeah. So this is a really beautiful topic. And I remember the first time that I really discovered it was about like, A year and maybe like 2-ish months ago. And it was actually off a conversation that you and I had where you threw out the word worthy. And I was like, oh, what the fuck's the difference? Like, it all feels the same to me. And as I was like exploring it more, I think the thing that I was experiencing is the thing that most people experience at that point was they end up conflating the two. It almost feels like, or I remember being in that moment and being like, oh, I need to chase being deserving of something to try to actually feel worthy. I need to, like, do all these things so I could feel worthy of it. And it was— it felt like, as you said, like performative. Like there's a lot of doing in it. There's— it has everything to do with what I've achieved or what I've proven to people. But I think that, yes, being deserving of something can be a valuable concept, and we can still take a look at it, and we can see how we can actually, like, create the things that we want to with the people in our lives. But it doesn't mean that I'm not worthy of something. Just because someone else isn't giving me something doesn't mean that I'm not worthy of it. And honestly speaking, it was super confusing. when I first learned at it, uh, or learned the concepts around it. And now that I'm taking a look at it and it's becoming more part of my practice, it's so much more powerful.

Yeah.

Yeah. To me, deservingness is transactional. It's like, hey, I did this thing, so I deserve this kind of reward. And as You've said, Smith, like, it's a, it's a tough place to be, to be kind of searching for that sense of worthiness through being deserving. Like, hey, I'm doing all these things, so at one point then I can be worthy. And that's, it's just a losing game. It's, uh, You know, you'll never really get to that destination. And so I really like how you framed it as a, uh, Freddie, as like a way of being. It's not something I need to get or achieve. It's something I can just be and know.

Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, this, this reminds me of this sentiment shared numerous times by Brené Brown when she says, and it's something along the lines of, don't move through the world looking for evidence that you are unworthy or insufficient or that you don't belong or that you are not enough because you will always find it.

Right.

And so when we move through the world, you know, seeking approval, seeking something externally, something outside of ourselves that we could source for ourselves, then we're always going to be in that perpetual state of needing to prove that I am deserving of something. Like, it's never-ending. And at what point is it ever enough? And that's the, that's the, the rub. It's never enough. So we're always feeling unworthy. We're always like, there's never a point where it's like, oh, I'm worthy now. As long as we tie it to the deservedness. But when we accept that, oh, this is my birthright. I don't have to work for it. I don't have to hustle for it. I don't have to earn it. It's already mine, and I get to decide to claim it. Oh, therein lies my power. Therein lies my freedom.

Man, I'm just letting that one soak in. Like, for a very, very, very long time in my life, I was always really chasing after something, whether it was someone else's approval, validation, a piece of paper. And honestly, it's getting me pretty, pretty emotional, um, over here on my end, because at times that I really tap into my worthiness, like, I just feel the weight let go. And I have actually— I actually now have evidence in my life where when I feel worthy, the doing And all the things that I want to have become easier. It's actually when that I'm chasing after deservingness, I fall back into the same cycle. But when I am truly tapping into I'm already worthy, what would a worthy person do? That's typically my question that I ask for myself. The doing is already way more locked in. I get more results, I get more aligned action, my relationships are better. It's so much more powerful for me. And I'm just remembering like all the hurt that has had happened because I believe that deservingness was all that it was like. I had to always feel deserving in order to feel joy and happiness.

Hmm. Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that, Smith.

And I can't help but see how empowering that is, right? You don't have to wait for someone else to grant you the approval or the deservingness, or you don't have to reach that high bar, which, Freddie, as you said, it's like the bar keeps— bar keeps moving. Like, we're never gonna get there. But you just get to decide, yeah, you know what, I'm worthy of this. And you can step into it and own it and really claim that way of being. And what a difference that makes in the energetics of how you show up, as you said, to everything that you do and your relationships and the things you're trying to generate for your life. Um, Yeah, super, super powerful. And it all comes back to another one of your daisy words, agency, right? Making that choice to step in and just claim that dignity and claim that worthiness.

Yeah, really sitting with Smith's share about the weight of having to prove that I'm worthy. And I had this experience recently where— so I help lead this life coaching program. And I've been doing it once a month for the past 2 years. And, um, I realized my friends— it's such a huge part of my life, and my friends, like, haven't— they just have no idea what I'm doing once a month. And I wanted to invite them into that so they could see, yeah, just be a part of this world for me. Um, And I invited them to the the graduation weekend of this program that I'm leading, like not that I was facilitating for these participants who were graduating. And when I was acknowledging them in front of our you know the whole group, I said something like man, like I was wondering earlier why. I didn't have them come to my graduation or visit when I was going through this program. And the truth is, I just didn't feel like I was worth it, or I thought that it was too big of an ask to get them to fly somewhere to show up for me, when in reality they've always been willing to do that. They've always been willing to show up for me, and I just couldn't let it in. And so later that day, I was like just on break by myself, just crying, sitting with the weight of that. Like, wow, like I've been putting this shit on myself my whole life, um, when all I had to do was let the love in and just— be, embody my own inherent worthiness. Still practicing shedding that, that kind of default fear process and, yeah, just believing I'm worthy as I am.

Yeah. Beautiful, Wes. Thank you for sharing that. And that share and that story Brings up a very interesting piece of this conversation around how our own stories, our own narratives, our own beliefs, like we, we, we diminish our own sense of worthiness and then project it onto other people and make it about other people needing to, in some way, affirm us or— give us some form of approval or validation, and that is directly tied to our sense of worthiness. Yet, in that moment, you recognized, oh, wow, I'm doing this to myself. This isn't about anybody else. I'm doing this to myself. And so my question now is, like, how does our dignity get diminished over time? Like, when we're born, when we come out of the womb as little babies, little cute little babies, we're already worthy. We're born worthy. There's absolutely no reason why, as an innocent little baby, why we would not be worthy. But at what points in our lives does our dignity and our sense of worthiness get diminished.

I love that. I love that metaphor, that analogy, that example of that truth of when we come out of the womb. If you ever spent any time with a newborn or with a toddler, they have no question about their dignity or about their worth.

Okay.

Like, they will take up as much space as they want unapologetically because they own their shit. They're like, I'm going to eat this now. I'm going to play with this now. And if you like, if anything's in my way, I'm going to throw a fit like I am. Literally going to have a meltdown because they're completely unaware of any limitations on their worthiness. And not to say that we should all go around the world acting like infants or toddlers and throwing fits anytime we don't get anything we want. It's not what I'm saying. But having that sort of mindset and that sort of understanding of our own worth Separate from entitlement, right? But understanding our worthiness, how do we lose it? That's a great question. Is it biological? Is it conditioned? I think it might be a combination of all of it, right? As we go through emotional and physical and mental maturation from the time that we're born until we become actual adults, well after our teenage years, because if you know any teenagers, none of them are actually close to being adults. But, uh, um, You know, there's some maturation that happens there where we begin to empathize and understand the world around us. The world doesn't revolve around us, right? And that we, we, we have a part to play for ourselves and for others. Um, and then I think there's also a lot of really subversive and corrosive conditioning that happens by our parents who are doing the best they can, by the education systems who are set up with a specific agenda, by, you know, when you get out of school and you get into the, into the job force and it's all about performance. There's a reason they call it performance management because you're there to perform. They don't care about your dignity. They don't care about your worth. They just say, hey, can you earn this paycheck? That's what the— that's the measuring stick there. So I think there's all these social cues as well that just continue to reinforce that you have to earn it and that it's not inherent. Where exactly that happens, I don't know. But I think there's so much power in realizing And grasping and stepping into embodying, right, this innate worthiness that we do have.

Yeah, I think the world revolves around me. I don't know what you're talking about.

100%, Smith.

Yeah, yeah, it's all around me. No one else is there. Um, yeah, for me, man, like, I think there's a lot— like, I agree with Chris, there's so much like how our society has been created that sometimes ends up dimming our light. And to no degree am I saying that any of those things are bad. Like, there's value in all of it. And if I'm looking at, like, the root cause of those things, I think it's like what we make those things mean when someone gets upset at us, when someone has a reaction, when someone wants something. Like, I know for me, I create stories. Like, I am a human. I create stories. That is what I do in order to feel safe. And like, I want to have belonging and worthiness and also my curiosity. That's part of the equation. And I think what happens, because it's natural for a lot of us not to go through the feelings of feeling like we're messing up. Or that we haven't gotten the thing that we wanted to, or whatever else that we can conjure up, that we start to create stories about who we are. And I think that kind of goes back to like the worthiness thing is like, no, that doesn't need to change. But I do it. I do it myself. And even right now in this moment, one of the things that I kind of came up against that I actually had to breathe out was that I can be in process and still lead and Say something about a topic and not have it mean anything else. Like I'm in process, and that's actually the thing that creates like it makes me trustworthy. It makes me worthy of it. And the story is still there in the back of my head of like oh, but then you're not going to be good enough. No one's going to want to listen to you until you're perfect, or you're going to mess up and they're going to hate you. Whatever those stories are, like I think those are the things that hurt us. And when I don't actually take a look at those stories. and love them and honor them and tell them sometimes, like, hey, that's not totally true, they end up running the show for me in the background. And I think that's what happens for us in society.

Yeah, I— to me, I think it kind of comes down to deservedness and conditional love as for how the conditioning happens. Like, for me growing up, I was praised a lot for being smart, and especially being Chinese growing up in a capitalist society, it's like that's that's the fucking thing. It's like you got to be smart and you got to be obedient. And so over time, I'm like, oh, my parents seem to love me more when I'm like. Getting 100% on every fucking test or whatever. Dude, it got so bad that when I was like 6, if I got like one question wrong, like a 99, 95%, whatever on a test, I would like rip it up and cry because my self-worth was so fucking tied to being this perfect smart kid. And then you enter— what is it? It's, yeah, it's school, the workforce, as you mentioned, Chris. It's all deservedness. It's all transactional. It's like, if I do or achieve this thing, then I deserve this reward. And like, that just gets drilled in subconsciously, and it becomes a huge thing to unlearn. And some people never really unlearned that, which is really sad. But coming into the inherent dignity, the innate worthiness, coming home to that birthright is a really, really beautiful process.

And I, and I love so much what we talked about in our conversation so far has been, you know, about the human condition. Regardless of whether you identify as male or female, masculine or feminine. And I also think, you know, Sumit, to, you know, the stories that you talked about that generate, that come up when things happen, you know, some of those are self-generated. I think a lot of them are also the society-level storytelling around masculinity, right? To kind of dive in a little bit on the purpose of our podcast here is there's so much storytelling and mythology that we've already touched on in previous episodes about what it means to be a man. And so much of it has to do with his worthiness, right? Am I enough of a man? Am I showing up as a man? Am I doing the things? Am I earning the respect and the worthiness? Am I deserving of what I get because of how I show up as a man in the space? For me, that's a really, really powerful source of storytelling that I tell myself. And I'm just now starting to realize that, hey, this isn't— some of it is my own story and some of it is the story that, that, that is generated from the world around me. And I get to realize that, I get to distinguish that, identify it, and then choose whether or not I'm going to carry it.

Yeah, I really, really love that, Chris. And, um, one of the phrases that I've, um, borrowed from John Wineland is that he oftentimes says simple but not easy. So I'm like really trying to practice that everywhere in my life. And I was taking a look as I was journaling the other day around, all right, if I had to like distill down masculinity, like what is it for me? And what I realize is that it's just being authentically me and leading from that place. That's what I believe masculinity is for me right now and how I wanna show up in the world. And like, what's more powerful than leading from 100% me?

Yeah.

Like that for me is the true masculine presence. And we all get to like discover what that means for us. Like that part gets me so freaking excited is that everybody else gets to create their own version of what that means and how we choose to show up and lead.

Yeah. You don't have to fit in a box. Like who created that box anyways?

Right.

We all get to kind of decide for ourselves. Um, how we're authentically gonna show up as men. Love that. Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you, Chris, both Chris and Smith, for bringing the masculinity piece into the dignity conversation. Really, really, really profound. And it reminds me of something that Wes and I talked about just a couple of days ago. Um, I can't remember who it was that I heard say this, but they said, As males, we are not taught how to be men. We're taught how to not be girls.

100%.

Yep.

I love that.

I feel that one.

Yeah. And, and so I would love for us to take a moment and just reflect on, like, how does that, how does that impact our dignity and our sense of worthiness? as men and our sense of enoughness as men?

Yeah, I can speak to this one first. So your question actually arose another question, so I'm going to answer my question. Uh, and, uh, the thing that I'm, I'm like super aware of is like, you know, this idea, this concept that we're talking around, like masculinity, is for everybody. Like literally everybody has masculine and feminine qualities. It's just like what we choose to do with it. And I'm thinking I was thinking about it through, like, the lens of, like, well, if everybody is worthy, then how would we show up? And I think if everybody realized that if they were worthy, they would just show up as themselves, like, the authenticity piece. And I also believe that we would show up with more ease. And when we show up with more ease and more authenticity, like, anything is possible. That already ties into the self-respect. Like, it's already just there when we take a look at worthiness. And that's true for everybody. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for letting me answer my own question. Yeah.

And I think not only would we show up with more ease and more authenticity, We would show up with more love. Love would, love would be— I mean, love is already all there is, but because there are so many, to Wes's point, there's, you know, it's so transactional and there's so many conditions tied to what we call love, you know? Yeah, I think, I think y'all get where I'm going with that.

Yeah, man, totally.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I can't— it's also integrity, right? It's that wholeness, it's the completeness. You know, there's no more, no more powerful way to step forward in integrity than to actually claim your own dignity and your own worth, right? If we're born with it and we have it, but we continually deny it or we choose not to pick it up, how can we show up in integrity if we don't bring all of ourselves, including our full dignity and our full worth, into the conversation? I love how it's all connected and so empowering.

Yeah, I was thinking of that exact quote, Freddie, that you mentioned of boys are not taught to be men. They're taught how to be not like girls. And yeah, it's such an imprisoning box of like, These are the things you get to be. All this other shit, that's girly, that's feminine. Don't do that. And male dignity ends up becoming like this very, like, this kind of muted bucket of things of like, we get to be angry, we get to be stern, we get to be dominant. Um, all these other emotions, whatever, like, nah, you don't get that. That's not male dignity. And I feel like a huge part of our mission here is expanding what it means to have male dignity beyond the 2 or 3 things we get on the, the preloaded list.

Yeah, man, that, like, When you were speaking about that, I just got like a huge smile on my face. It's like, I am way more than just, you know, those few first few things that you said. Like, there's so much more to me than that. And what is for me more powerful than just like showing up, right? Like, that's the thing. And I am more than just those things. Like, I need to be more. And I think that we get to actually create a space that's different out in the world. We get to redefine our society because we're having these conversations. We're leading from our truth or being honorable. Like, yeah, man. Thank you for sharing that.

Beautiful, beautiful. And there's also this, and I've sort of alluded to it earlier when I talked about, you know, I am worthy of making mistakes. And I'm intentional about separating those syllables. They are mis-takes, right? If I do a mistake, I get to do another take. I get to do a retake, and I get to do another retake, and I get to do another retake, because that's, again, that's part of the human experience, you know. So if, if I, you know, say or do something as a man that, you know, society doesn't like, or that goes against— you know, whatever boxes or constructs they have, you know, with regard to what it means to be a man. It's like, hey, that, that's, that's part of my process. And if I, if I in any way do something that is, um, harmful to someone, I could— I get to take ownership of it. But it doesn't mean, like, we live in this cancel culture now, right? Where If a man specifically does or says anything that, again, falls outside of that construct, cancel him. You know, like, there's no room, there's no reverence for humanity, for the human process that I get to— like, where are we afforded the room to make a mistake? And then— That, you know, that the space for, you know, some type of rehabilitation or healing Or whatever is involved in getting us to a point where we can do a retake. You know what I'm saying? Like, where, where are we afforded that? You know, and so, so this dignity conversation and the sense of worthiness conversation is, what if we grant ourselves? What if we grant ourselves that permission? What if we give ourselves and expand ourselves and give ourselves that room? To be in our process, in our human process. You know, I don't believe in imperfections. I think there is human process. There's a human process. If we— the moment we slap the label of imperfection or flaw on it, that makes it bad. That makes it wrong. But if it's part of my human process, oh, okay, that's a mistake. I get to learn from it, do another take, keep learning, keep growing, keep evolving. And then, and then we get to, you know, just to sort of piggyback off of Smith's earlier point, when we all show up with that sense of worthiness, then we all show up allowing each other to have that room to make errors and to make mistakes. And to learn, and to learn from each other, and to learn from each other's mistakes rather than, you know, putting us all in this box where we all have to conform and be uniform and be the same. Sameness is boring as fuck.

Say that one again for the people in the back, dude.

Sameness is boring as fuck.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, dude, like everything that— I could just listen to you talk about this. Like, it's really bringing up something for me. Um, the thing that I'm experiencing right now and how it goes for me when looking at feelings or thoughts or emotions, it's almost like pre-recorded tape, but then someone went back and kind of like deleted sections of it. Like, the impact of how society sometimes works that of like Hey, I can't, like, be messy sometimes. I can't make mistakes. I can't show up like this, right? Like, all of that has me feel like I don't belong, has me feel like I'm not capable. I am not ever going to be successful. And it has me really feel a certain way.

And it—

And it's actually super sad. Like, it is super sad to not have a space to be. And, um, I think this really connects to a conversation that I was having with, uh, Chris over like a, a voice note text. I was gonna say iMessage, but he doesn't have an iPhone and everybody else here does.

Uh, Droid baby.

Yeah, whatever. Uh, but, uh, one of the things that, um, I just recently experienced is I was in a group of people and an ex— of an experience I'm about to partake in, and I was just feeling super unsafe. Like, I had to really show up in the same way that everybody else was showing up. I am kind of like an outlier in the group in terms of, like, my age and my race and my identity and all this other stuff. And I realized that In that moment, I was kind of doing the thing that I, I talked about before. Like, I was creating a bunch of stories about how this space wasn't gonna hold me. And what I got to take a look at and claim responsibility of in that moment is like, I get to create the safety. I get to create my space.

Mm-hmm.

I get to choose that. And yeah, I think it's super shitty that like most of our culture, from a large point of view, at least from my experience, is cancel culture. culture. And I would also like, like to also empower me, the viewers, all of us to recognize like we also have the power to change that. Like we actually get to create that. And I get to be sad that our culture is like that, like by a large sum. I've experienced that and I get to do something different about it.

Yeah, you get to be something different about it.

Yeah, man.

Yeah.

Beautiful, beautiful conversation, man. Um, I actually think now would be a great time for us to talk about how men can begin to challenge these stories, these narratives, these beliefs around unworthiness, insufficiency, not enoughness. Um, if you have any thoughts on that, uh, Just now, I'd love to get your shares, and I want to play a game. So—

Love a game.

Yeah. Dude, I'm pumped. I don't know what this game is, but I like playing games.

Hell yeah. I'm here for it.

So what do y'all want to do? Y'all want to play the game first and then talk about Ways to challenge these, or you want to—

Uh, I made a mistake before one time in my life. Wes needs to decide. I noticed that if Wes is not— I, uh, I, I think Wes just needs to decide for us. That's all I'll say about that.

Uh, sure. Yeah, I'll take the game.

Let's do the game.

Let's play the game.

So, so I need, I need one volunteer participant who would like to play.

Sorry, let's do it.

US? Okay. Awesome. All right. So this game is called the Dignity Autopsy. And spoiler alert, I'm going to give you a cheat code at the end. Okay. And this cheat code will be for, for everyone listening and viewing.

All right.

So, Wes, what area in your life do you feel not enough?

Yeah.

Hmm.

Man, it's hard to— it's hard to answer with a specific area, um, because we've had conversations about this. It's almost like the not-enoughness has been this kind of fuel for me of like If I believe that I'm not enough, like, then I can go out and like fix myself essentially. Like, that'll be my motivation to actually go out and achieve things and improve myself so that I can be enough. It's fucking exhausting, but. Yeah, it's almost like this kind of fear of like, if I, if I really believe that I am worthy, that I am enough, like, will I have any motivation to do anything? And there are times I believe in my enoughness, my worthiness, uh, more than others. Uh, but I would say, yeah, it's kind of this— I, I feel I have like a reasonable level of dignity and self-worth and self-love. And there is this kind of latent subconscious, like, fuel going on by default of, like, clearly I'm not enough. How do I prove that I am?

I hear you.

Um, for, for the sake of the game, though, maybe, maybe one area or one situation that you're currently experiencing Where, where you feel the sense of not enoughness?

Yeah, I would say in romantic relationship. Um, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So what is the, what's the fear-based thought or belief that's at the root of that area?

I think it's really that, like, if I If I'm not constantly providing value, if I'm not constantly, like, helping us deepen our relationship and relationships to ourselves, like, I'm gonna be abandoned.

So if I synthesize that down, The narrative is, and the belief is, if I'm not providing, I'm going to be abandoned.

Yeah. And when you put it like that, sounds like a very masculine thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So if that's the root of the fear, which is the root of it is insufficiency. If I'm not providing, then I'm not enough, and therefore I'm going to be abandoned. Would that be accurate?

Totally, yeah.

Yeah. Is that thought loving?

Sorry, can you say that again?

Is that thought loving? Is that belief loving?

Absolutely not, no.

Is it intelligent?

No, it's pretty dumb.

Is it true? There's your cheat code. Is it loving? Is it intelligent? Is it true? What does that acronym spell?

It's LIT.

If the belief ain't LIT, then either reframe it, replace it, or relinquish it.

Yeah. Yeah, it's powerful. I mean, I think I'm left with the question of, like, what do I replace it with? And It feels like a, a place of self-love, of knowing that my highest self will always love all of me. My guides, my ancestors, the universe always loves all of me. And that it's unconditional. That can't be taken away from me. Even if people don't actually like me, like, that's, that's a them problem, because I do.

That part. And you know what makes that reframe loving, intelligent, and true? Is because it's based on real and accurate data. Not made-up shit. Not the stories. Not the fictitious stories and narratives we make up, that the ego is making up. Your higher self knows the truth. Your higher self always knows that you are worthy. It's the ego self that comes in with all these fear-based, fictitious stories and narratives to try to convince the higher self that it's not enough.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's really easy for the, the ego to be looking for that evidence of like, oh, like all the ways I'm not worthy, or all the ways I need to prove my worthiness. And yeah, it's much more loving, intelligent, true to Just be with the love that's already there.

Beautiful. Thank you for playing, Wes.

Yeah, thanks for hosting. My pleasure.

Wes, you get 100% on playing the game.

Well done.

Nice. Yeah, I've, I've earned a little bit more love for the day.

Beautiful. So, us having played that game, what are— what are your thoughts on how we as men can, um, encourage each other and ourselves to challenge and release these narratives of insufficiency and unworthiness?

I'm really left with How, like, love is always the answer right now. That was really beautiful. Um, Wes and, and Freddie, thank you guys for, for being the example for all of it. It's, um, yeah, I see this for men. I see this for people. I see this for humanity, that, um, the more that we are able to be with the love and also be open to receiving it, How that is actually like the healing part. And I'm also really noticing right now that shame or judgment that I think other people may be holding on me or I have on them actually doesn't really matter. Like, we're all just on our own journeys and we're all just doing the best we can, and we get to keep, keep being adventurous. And that part for me feels super lit. Yeah.

Yes. Oh yeah, yeah. I, um, kind of my takeaway from— and again, thank you both, Wes and Freddie, for, for kind of modeling that. Um, such a powerful game to play, such a, such a cool exercise. Um, the power, the power of slowing down, right? The power of really taking a beat to stop and to get intentional and to look at what's going on. I can't help but notice that when the question was first asked, Wes just kind of said, oh, all the things, right? But once we kind of stopped and Wes had the courage to slow down and to kind of take a deep look and to actually put a pin on the board and say, this is the thing, and then to really sit with it and be with it, I think that's a practice that especially as men, you know, so much of the conditioning and the storytelling is around being in action, constantly being kinetic and in motion and So I think kind of breaking that narrative and taking the time to slow down and to be with ourselves and to really question, to see whether something is lit or not, is, is a big part of the, of the practice of just slowing down, taking a beat, breathing, noticing, and then having the courage just to be true about what it is. Like, yeah, this is what's so in my space. This is what's actually happening. And then I can choose whether I want to to reframe it or replace it or relinquish it or not. Like, you can choose what you want to do from there, but it puts you in that place of agency and power. It's a really, really cool exercise.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. And you, and you bring up a really, really important point in how we can begin, you know, sort of turning this tide. It's awareness. It begins with awareness. We are oftentimes as men, we're taught to you got to go, go, go, go, go, go, go. 100 miles an hour, 200 miles an hour, nonstop, full throttle. We get to slow down. We get to disrupt the autopilot. We get to disrupt the automaticity, right? And get our bearings. You think think of like a NASCAR driver. If a NASCAR driver is going 200 miles an hour on the straightaway, and he tries to continue going 200 on the curve, what's gonna happen? He's gonna—

He gonna blow the fuck up.

Exactly. Or blow somebody else the fuck up.

Yeah.

So yeah, we get to slow down. We get to pause and check in. Check in with ourselves, notice what is happening, what is occurring with our own bodies. You know, like, we're— as men, we're sort of conditioned to, in many ways, betray our own bodies. You know, we're taught to repress, oppress ourselves. Which more often than not leads to depression.

Yeah. And I, I'm re— what's coming up for me right now is the need for support. Like, it doesn't have to be a solitary endeavor. Just in what was just modeled in playing this game, Freddie, you held such powerful space and asked the questions and synthesized the responses. You were such a perfect mirror and sounding board for Wes as he was working through that process of inquiry. We don't have to do it alone, right? Men, find someone. It's a coach, it's a men's group, it's a friend who you know will hold space, but find someone to be with that can hold that space and kind of work through the process with you in a loving way. We don't have to do it alone. In fact, we probably will be far less successful if we try to do it alone, as is prototypically conditioned as men to do everything alone, right? But if we can break free from that and really find someone to lean into and to lean on through this process of slowing down, man, what a powerful support that can be.

Yeah. Beautiful. Well, gentlemen, we are coming up on our time. Any final thoughts?

I'm just really grateful for the conversation around worthiness versus deservedness.

It's a—

it's something that I struggled with for a long time, and I'm just at the ripe old age of 47 years old starting to get to the point where I see the distinction and the difference, and you know I still feel that tug, that that that drive or that impulse to try to have to earn or to deserve something. And it's about it's really cathartic for me to hear from you men and to share with you men. And it's I'm very early in my journey of worthiness at 47 years old. I'm grateful for this space. I'm grateful for the conversation, and I'm really hopeful that this is. valuable for so many other men out there. Because I know that it's, it's a big part of the mythology of masculinity is worthiness. And this is one of the most powerful conversations we can have. Thank you, Freddie, for bringing it in.

My pleasure.

Love y'all. This is beautiful. That's all I gotta say.

Love you too, brother.

Love y'all.

All right.

Well, as we wrap up another powerful journey, I'm reminded of a popular song that was originally recorded by George Benson, but definitively covered by the late, great Whitney Houston. And the lyric says, No matter what they take from me, They can't take away my dignity. And that, my brothers, is the greatest love of all. Join us next time as we continue exploring our experiences, expressing our hearts, and expanding our connection to support, uplift, and empower one another, to show the world what's possible. When kings unite.