Emotional Avoidance in Modern Men - Live Coaching Session

All right, my friend. Welcome, welcome. How are you doing today?

I'm great. How are you?

I'm good. I'm good. Thank you so much for joining me again and happy to dive back in. Tell me a little bit about why you're here, what you could use some support with, what you need to address.

Sure. I'm here to talk about grief primarily. Had a lot of loss in my life. Starting with parents and then my stepdaughters out of my life, and then a sibling passing away. It's just been a lot. Just that compartment of my life has been a lot, and I don't think I've processed really any of it, quite honestly. So I just hold it, and it sort of acts as an anchor for me, and I'd like to address that.

What have you done with all that grief?

I internalized it and I allowed it to take me into alcohol pretty heavily for quite a while. Um, took me to really dark places with alcohol, and I finally decided I was done with that and got sober. It'll be 7 years this month, but I put down the drink, but the thoughts and everything are still there. I haven't done enough work around the healing part of it just yet, but that's in process now too.

Okay, good. Tell me a little bit more about your grief story. So, and hold on, pause, pause there for a second. I'll give you one more criteria. So take a breath for me.

Yeah, I'm good.

And just as you tell your grief story. Loss of parents, stepdaughter. Let yourself tell it slowly.

Okay.

And to the best of your capacity, let yourself be affected by what you're saying.

Is it okay if I give sort of like a— just an overview of the journey itself?

Yeah.

Okay. I can do that.

Great. Go ahead.

Okay. So again, grew up in an alcoholic household. My dad, alcoholic. He was out of the house when I was around 8 years old. I'm the youngest of 5, raised by a single mom. And growing up in an alcoholic home, I don't think I realized at the time all the impacts it was having upon me. Especially as the youngest, the one that was there. My siblings could leave the home and sort of escape that, but I was there all the time and internalized a lot of emotions and was told never to feel, you know, don't cry, I'll give you something to cry about, that kind of thing when my dad was around. And then when he actually passed away, I was 19 years old from complications from alcoholism. I thought to myself, that'll never be me. But at the same time, I remember drinking that night, sort of like a protest to him in some weird way. And then so that, that was one. And then I got married. My ex-wife had two daughters, 3 and 4 years old when I met them, and they became my entire life. I spent every moment I could with them, and I love them with all my heart. And after 14 years with them, I just decided that this was not right for me. And it was extremely difficult to do this for a number of reasons, but that marriage was toxic, and there was a lot of drinking in that marriage as well, among other things. And I decided it was time to go, file for divorce. And I never thought that this would happen, but my ex-wife severed my relationship with my stepdaughters when they were 17 and 18. And that led me back to a really hard place where I was— felt alone. I was receiving text messages from my ex-wife telling me how horrible of a human I was for leaving them, telling me I should kill myself. And I I came pretty close to that at one point just because I couldn't get a hold of them. I felt like my life was just gone. And now it's been 10 years and I still haven't heard from them and don't know what to do with that at all. It hangs with me every single day. Um, so that's a, a big loss that I've had and I've been dealing with for the 10 years. In that same time my mother passed away from cancer. My sister and I cared for her, my other siblings as well, until she passed. That was tragic, obviously. And then a few years after that, my oldest brother, my big brother, he also was— struggled with alcohol, and he was in a nursing home at 57 years old. He ended up passing away at 59. From alcoholism complications. And again, my sister and I and my siblings were in the nursing home with him. I was there daily, working from there, everything, and just watching this happen. And again, just put it away, you know. I, I needed to be there for my siblings and for those in my life, but it just started to pile up on itself. And then I met someone and I'm in a relationship now, and it's amazing, you You know, we've, we have a great relationship and she's super supportive and we help each other grow in immense ways. And she has two wonderful daughters. So it's great too. But I can't help but feel the pull to all the other loss I've had. And I don't know how to process it. And I don't know what to do with it other than make a choice lately of either be angry about it or just completely ignore it. Both of which leave me feeling empty and hollow. So, yeah, and angry, quite honestly.

That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Well, say what you're angry about.

I'm angry that my daughters haven't reached out. I'm angry that— I'm angry at myself for not doing more to reach them. I've just tried to respect their space and understand that they have their side of things as well, and that the things that were told to them by their mom, even though they're untrue, they're what they know right now. And I haven't felt the right to jump in and sort of force my side onto them. So I'm angry with myself about a lot of that. I'm angry with I think primarily with myself for how I've just ignored all of this and let myself go down the same path of drinking. You know, I watched my dad and then my brother die from this, and I was following right along. You know, I ended up having just atrial fibrillation surgery to repair my own heart. That's how close I was, you know, and it's a lot of regret, a lot of backward looking and wishing I could change things that I've done. I can't. So I don't know what to do with that. I haven't been able to forgive myself for it or even know how much I need to forgive, I guess.

Well, what would you need to forgive yourself for?

It's a great, great question. With regard to my daughters, I think I would— I just always tell myself that there's more I could have done. And that I could have sacrificed more. I could have made different choices and not left them, but I never thought by leaving I would be leaving them, ever. In my wildest dreams, I never thought that.

So, okay, what else?

The mistakes I made while drinking. I I mean, I hurt people. I've— not physically, but I know I've hurt people with my actions and made bad choices while drinking. And I always focus on the mistakes I've made and hold myself to the standard that I wouldn't expect anyone else to hold themselves to. Any of my friends, I would never expect them to hold themselves to these standards, but I do this to myself. I think to punish myself. I'm not really sure why.

Why might you not want to let yourself grieve?

I think I'm fearful of what is on the other side of that grief. Um, just recently started understanding emotions, how to feel them, how to sit with an emotion when I feel it instead of just immediately reacting to it. And that's all brand new to me. So to think about, you know, if I start talking about my daughters too much, I will well up and I'll immediately just pull it back in because I'm afraid of where that will take me. But logically, I think that will be super healing. I don't let myself go there.

Mm. Okay. What else? What else stops you from letting the grief come forward in that moment? You start to feel it. The tears start to come out or start to come up at the very least, and you start to pull it back even though you know it's good for you. What else gets in the way?

I think, I think part of me is concerned about looking weak. And even if I'm alone, that comes out. I feel like I need to be strong all the time for those in my life and for myself, I guess. But even if I'm alone and this happens, that's part of it. But certainly if I'm with my wife or Anyone else that I share this with, I immediately judge myself and say, pull that back in because you don't want to show that side. That's a weak side.

So, okay, what's the— what do you get from it? What do you get out of holding all this grief inside of you?

Control in some way. Controlling I don't get anything good out of it. I get nothing but, as I started with, anger and frustration and stagnation. I don't reach for things because of it. I, it keeps me, I keep myself locked in a box with this. I think probably out of fear of letting it out. I don't step outside of this protected area.

Mm-hmm.

And so I don't actually get anything good out of this. What I get out of it is just more self-containment, I guess, and more, more grief, more sadness.

Yeah, you get, you get what's familiar to you. You know, there's some people's lives that— well, I'm going to frame this another way before I say what I'm about to say. So you get what's familiar to you. You get the pattern that you've lived in for most of your life, and you get to continue to feel tortured.

Yeah, all those things. Yeah.

And it really sounds like you have lived a life that has had many different experiences of feeling tortured and stuck. Yeah, just say what's happening inside.

It's just when I think about all that, it's almost like you're talking to somebody else. I'm hearing it, but it's, it's almost as if there's two halves of me. One's hearing it and processing it and keeping it over here, and the other part doesn't even get to listen to it. I don't know if I'm doing a good job with that part, but that's kind of what it feels like.

Well, see if you can just make a little bit of room to let it land inside of you. And maybe just say it as a statement. I don't actually want to feel my grief because it lets me feel tortured.

I don't actually want to feel my grief because it allows me to feel tortured. I do feel tortured if I feel it. There's no resolution to this. There's no end. And very logical think— logically thinking, that doesn't compute for me. There should be a solution one way or the other, and I think there is a solution where I just accept the situation. Just haven't been able to fully do that for good reason.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So stay with it again. Take another breath. And I just want you to say it again, but go slowly. And if you're okay with it, to just close the eyes. And if you have a hard time closing the eyes, keep them open. That's totally fine too.

So I'm afraid to feel the grief.

Mm-hmm.

Because it allows me to feel I'm going to say the pain of it. Mm-hmm.

I don't actually want to get rid of the pain that I feel.

I don't want to get rid of the pain because part of me thinks I deserve to feel this pain. Yeah.

What were the 3 girls' names? Your 3 daughters?

It's 2. It's Emily and Bailey.

Emily and Bailey.

Yeah.

Okay. Are you comfortable to try one thing with me and we'll just see where it goes?

Of course.

Okay, so close the eyes. Take another breath in and just let your breath slow down. And you're going to take a deeper on the inhale, lengthening on the exhale. Really good. Another deep inhale. Lengthening on the exhale. And one more like that. And just say what's happening inside of you as you do that.

As I'm breathing, I feel calmness come into me.

Okay.

Bringing myself back into my body, actually. Feeling myself lifting up, sort of watching what I'm doing here from up above. Yeah, yeah.

So come back into it, close the eyes again, and just see if you can bring some of that awareness down into the heart. And maybe you feel your heart beating. Where you feel some of the heaviness or weight or energy in and around the heart. And if you can, let yourself make contact with some of that pain and that grief. Maybe not all of it, but just even a little bit of it. And breathe into it. Say what's happening. Stay with it. Keep the eyes closed and just say what's happening.

Just before that, I hadn't realized I had held my breath as I was trying to connect with Tom. Mm-hmm. Other breath.

Other breath. And you're just going to let yourself connect with— yeah, what did you say, Emily and Bailey? Yeah. So let yourself feel connected to them in some way in your heart. You can see an image of them, you can have memories come back up of time that you spend together. And let yourself be affected by getting to connect with them. You might see them running somewhere or talking, or there might be certain memories that come up, time that you spent with them. And just make a statement to them when you're ready, from that place inside of you.

I love you, and I'm sorry you went through what you went through, through the divorce and post-divorce. I'm always here for you. I know you know that. I just hope you at least come and talk to me so you can be heard. I hold space for you so I can hear you. It doesn't have to be more than that, but I'm always here. Good.

Another breath. Keep letting it come up. You're doing a good job. And just make a statement to them from your tears, the tears that are coming up, the grief that's coming up.

I'm not even sure Connor is— it's been so long. It's just— I just missed— I missed them so much. They are my heart, you know. They are my heart.

Say that last part again. Yeah, I feel like I lost my heart when I lost you.

I want them to be part of this life and I want to be part of their life. I don't mean it in a "I want" as a selfish way. Just, I know how much I love them and how much love they have for me too.

Yeah, well, it's okay for you to want them in your life. That's okay. Try and stay with it for one more moment. Good. Another deep breath. And just say what's happening inside of your chest and inside of your—

It's just tense. It's all tense. Yeah.

So just let it be tense. In fact, if you want, try and squeeze. Keep the eyes closed and breathe and just squeeze into it. Accentuate it. And if you want, just— you can make any sound on an exhale if you want. Just whatever noise that tension wants to make. Even just a little bit of sound right at the very end there.

It's just stuck. Yeah, I feel stuck.

I feel stuck.

Yeah.

Tell them that.

I feel so selfish telling them that because I don't want it just to be about me. I mean, it is about me, but I do feel stuck. Thanks.

You're doing good. Stay with it. Stay with it. I'm going to give you something to say to them. And you just notice what it feels like when I say it. Okay. Let yourself try and be— let yourself just be affected by it. So I don't want to let go of this pain because I feel like I'd really have lost you. This pain keeps me close to you.

I don't feel like I want to let go of this pain because letting go will make me feel like I've lost you. I don't want to lose you. Yeah, that's why I hold on to this pain.

Another breath. Let that really land. Let it do something to you. A lot of energy there. Say what happens when you said that.

I had to fight back, just complete breakdown just then. Just feel helpless to it.

So close the eyes again, connect with that pain. And it's okay for you to be resisting that breakdown because you're just trying to protect yourself. My book's resistance is just protection. And right now you're trying to protect yourself from helplessness, losing the—

around this. Yeah.

So just stay in contact with that grief, with that pain of having lost them, and make a statement from the pain itself.

It's just emotion. I don't have words.

Try, I don't want to go away.

I don't want to go away. Ever. Never wanted to. Never imagined my life without them. I never will imagine that.

Keep letting it come, buddy. Keep letting it come up. You're doing good. What's it been like to not have them around?

Extremely sad. The ups, the downs, the changes. Knowing what they're going through and what they've— what their experiences have been and not being part of that, just— I really don't have the words. It's just painful and sad and helpless.

Another breath. And now, another breath in. So just make this statement one more time. I don't want to let go of this pain because I feel like I'll really have lost them.

I don't want to let go of this pain because I feel like I've lost them.

What just happened?

Hit me. That's exactly it. Yeah, yeah.

Grieving them, grieving them not be around, not being around. Might be remembering them in a different way.

Say what's happening? It's just unfair.

Where are you going? What's unfair?

Having to accept essentially that they're not part of my life and they won't be, and I need to remember them in a different way. I can go on social media and see them living, experiencing, thriving, struggling. So I reflect back, what did I do that was bad, that's so bad to cause this? I never did anything but love them.

So maybe if I torture myself enough, then what? What'll happen if you torture yourself enough?

It'll be a, uh, torture myself enough I'm just deserving of whatever punishment they think I deserve. I just— I don't know what else to say, honestly.

Well, my guess is that that statement right there is more about how you felt as a kid growing up in your household—

also true—

than about them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So take another breath and just try and stay with some of the intensity inside. I know it's a lot.

It's there.

So try another statement on: If I grieve the loss of them— if I grieve the loss of them, they'll always be in my heart.

If I grieve the loss of them, they'll always be in my heart.

So just in your own way, take another breath. And again, just try this on. I know I'm, I'm kind of injecting and helping a lot because you need some help with this. You know, you need some help with this. So try one more thing on. Take another breath. So, I can grieve you. You're going to say this directly to them. It's Emily and Bailey, right? Emily and Bailey, I can grieve that you're not here anymore and still hold you in my heart.

Emily and Bailey, I can grieve that you're not here anymore, but I can still hold you in my heart. It's so painful to say that.

Say what's happening. I know, I know. Let it work you, because you've been torturing yourself to hold on to them. I got that. And doesn't seem like that's working so well for you. All right, guys, really quick aside. First off, thank you so much for tuning in to the show and to the channel. Uh, if you are wanting to go deeper, if you're a man that's working on himself in some way, shape, or form, you're wanting to be more self-led, you want to trust yourself more, you want to have a deeper level of self-worth, or maybe you're looking to improve your relationship, then I encourage you to check out the Man Talks Alliance. You can go to mantalks.com/alliance. We have over 1,000 men in this incredible community from around the world, men who are just like you, working to better themselves, to be a better husband, a better father, a better leader in your own life. So check it out, mantalks.com/alliance. So take another breath. With our change of location. Here's my guess, okay? People don't generally become addicts because they feel really good inside. And my guess is what you're dealing with right now is letting go of the lineage that you inherited from your family. Of torturing themselves.

Yeah.

Your father sounds like he was also tortured.

Yeah.

And battled his own demons.

I know he did. I never— didn't know him well, but have since learned, you know, a lot more about his life, and he definitely was.

Sounds like he knew his pain.

Yeah, perhaps. Or he just drank it away.

Was he in your life?

You know, 8 or 9 years old, and then just periodically when we saw him. But no, he wasn't involved. It wasn't like that at all, you know.

Yeah, well, yeah, well, 8 or 9 years is a long time to be around. Yeah, somebody battling addiction. Especially the first 8 or 9 years.

And then when he was— what I— as I got into teenage years in middle school, he was hospitalized quite a bit for the disease, and I spent a lot of time in the hospital, you know, with my mom or my sister, just visiting him and bearing witness to that.

I'm gonna say something to you that's hard, um, and, and then I'm gonna lay out why I'm saying that to you. Yeah, because there's a pattern, and part of it is I think you need to reconcile in part with the fact that And I'm almost hesitant to say it as direct as I want to because we don't work together on a regular basis. You tried to kill yourself in the same way that your father killed himself. And your older brother killed himself in the exact same way, right, that your father killed himself. And while you got rid of the method that you were trying to use, you haven't gotten rid of the pain that was pushing you towards that.

It's 100%, right?

And it's— and it's not that you get rid of it, it's just that you continue to allow yourself to feel it. See what that's like to hear what's happening.

It's validating in a way. I just, I have this tendency to say I don't know what to do about it. With most things, even if I know. And I have a great support system in my life, you know. I have— my wife is amazing, talks to me about everything, says very similar things to what you've told me.

Um, I just—

it's scary. And I guess I found another way to judge myself just in that moment too. So yeah. Mhm. Mhm.

So you do know what to do.

I think I need to do some work. You do know what to do on how to understand what the disease is for me and what my experiences have done to lead me to here. Other than that, I'm really not sure exactly what— I'd love to hear what you're thinking. Hmm.

Oh, well, I think it's much easier. I think it's that you've become so ingrained with torturing yourself and that that is just a lineage in your family that you are trying to break. And how you do that is by honoring the losses that you have, by letting yourself cry and letting yourself grieve and letting yourself be honest that you're sad. And that, that grieving allows you to hold those people in a different way. That you do not have to torture yourself to hold on to those people.

Yeah, I haven't thought of it exactly like that. So take another breath.

And another one. Keep going. I'm gonna breathe in, now think real hard.

Just too many thoughts, you just flood in, right?

Well, the thoughts are just byproducts of the emotion that's underneath and the intensity of it. And sometimes I think what happens inside of you is that you become acutely aware of all the grief that's always there right behind the surface. And then you deploy thoughts as a means of distracting yourself from what you already know is there. Because you have shown to me, at least in this conversation, in this session, that you're very capable and able to let yourself feel the grief. It's just hard for you to stay with it.

It's— yeah, it's very hard for me to stay with it.

My suggestion is that you find somebody that can help hold you with the grief, because there's a part of you, for lack of a better term, that wants to squirm out of it.

No doubt. Nope.

You want to squirm out of it. And you're— if there was work for you to do, it's to learn to just stay with it, to come back to it and stay with it, to come back to it and stay with it, to come back to it and stay with it for a little bit longer and a little bit longer and a little bit longer. Even on this call, the interesting pattern that I'll just say happens is that when I bring you to your grief, to that sadness and that energy inside of you, yeah, you want to eject and you come out and you disconnect. And I get it. I understand why. There's a lot there. Any human being that went through what you've gone through would have a tremendous amount of grief. Are you afraid of it?

I—

tell me about that.

Protect myself in a lot of ways by being in control all the time of things that— what I can. I don't know what that is. I don't know what's on the other side of this. I don't know what that'll look like or feel like. And when will it end? Can it end? Does it end? All of that comes into play, right? Right. Yeah.

Okay. So my good friend Dewey says that control is what we do when we don't trust. It doesn't work for us to control our grief. Period.

It doesn't. Just feel it is what you're saying. It'll work itself to a different level the more you feel it.

You— part of your, part of your path is to start to trust your grief as a kind of intelligence inside of you, instead of something that's—

you're—

that you should be afraid of, or that's going to you know, take a wrecking ball to your life that you're never going to be able to escape from, or whatever other story you hold inside about it. This is a very common thing with a lot of men that I've worked with over the years that have a lot of grief. They are worried that it's going to be like a riptide where they're going to get into the water and it's going to pull them out in the ocean and they're going to drown.

100%.

Right? And that's kind of the leap of faith, buddy. You know, there's that moment in Indiana Jones, I think it's the one where he's seeking the Holy Grail, where he comes to this canyon edge and there's, you know, he's told to take a leap of faith. And it basically means that he has to step out onto this invisible bridge and risk falling to his death. And he has to hold not from belief that he's going to be okay, but as an act of faith that he will be all right. And that's what you're in front of. You have to take a step of faith into letting yourself trust that your grief is not going to consume you or kill you. But that it's going to help you and serve you.

Can I add one layer to that real quick?

Sure.

I concern myself with what it will do to me, but also how it will impact those around me, because I don't want to be a burden.

I understand. I understand. That's a very modern thing to feel. My grief, who I will be when I'm grieving, is a burden to others. I can tell you, you're not a burden to me. You could have sat here and said nothing and just cried for the entire 55 minutes. You would not have been a burden to me.

I appreciate that.

So that's part of it.

I've said the same thing to my wife, and she says the same thing as you, but my brain's like, no, you don't know, you don't get it what this is. But it is just that. You just said— took the words out of my mouth right there.

And you have to make that choice. Nobody else can make that choice for you. So keep finding people and places that can hold your grief, that you can be in your grief in that space. It sounds like you have a marriage where that's possible. There are retreats that you can go to that are specifically about grief. You know, if you haven't come to a men's weekend, Come to a men's weekend. Your grief is not only welcome there, but can't hide from that place.

Well played, Connor Beaton.

As you've experienced on this call. Yeah. So that's it. That's all. It's not more complicated than that. The fear inside of you makes it more complicated than that.

Definitely my own worst enemy.

And I get that.

In those things. Right. Yeah.

Well, fear is everybody's worst enemy. You know, here's the thing about fear. I just said this to my son the other night. He's 5 years old.

He's getting—

he's going through the 'I'm scared of the dark' phase right now. Fear needs our belief to exist. We need to believe that the fear is real in order for it to exist.

Yeah, that's good.

When we stop believing that that's true, I'm going to get taken out if I let myself grieve, if I really let myself go into this fully.

Right.

And you did today. Maybe not full send, but you allowed yourself to come into real contact with the grief and let some of it come forward. So keep Practicing that. Stay in contact with the grief.

Okay.

Hold yourself there and find places and people that can hold you with it so that when you try and wiggle out, you're reminded that it's actually just okay.

Okay.

And nowhere else.

Right.

That's all I did in today's call. I just kept walking you back to it, walking you back to it, walking you back to it, walking you back to it.

And I went with it, which was good. I did not try to control and deflect, which was good.

Yeah. So walk back to the grief instead of walking back to the torture. Okay, because right now it's like weaponizing the grief to— yeah, because that's what happens, by the way, when we don't really honor our grief, right?

It comes out and I totally understand that.

Yeah. Any thoughts, questions, comments? What do you think?

I feel lighter, quite honestly, which is good. But this is also not uncommon for me to feel good in a moment and then I just turn back and jump into what, as you said, what's comfortable or what I know. And so it's on me now to keep that to the front of mind. And I'm just excited to look for ways to find that support outside of just here, you know. I don't think that's necessarily fair to only have that here. I think that— yeah, totally.

Yeah, find a place where you can say a couple of things. There's a couple of things I want you to practice saying. Number 1, I'm sad. Number 2, I feel the heaviness of grief. There's a lot of grief here right now. And I could use help. Yeah, I need help. And that actually is something that you can bring into the marriage to say, hey, I could use some help right now.

Yeah, it sounds great. Thank you.

Sound good? You got it, man. Thank you so much for, for trusting me in this space and letting me hold you and your grief.