Fixing Anxiety and Addiction from Childhood Confusion - Live Coaching Session

All right, my friend, welcome to the ManTalks show. How you doing, buddy?

I'm good. I'm good. Glad to be here.

Likewise. Thank you so much for diving in. I've been doing more of these coaching style sessions, you know, these like live sessions, and it's really cool to see how effective they are and how helpful they can be. So I appreciate you and every man that sits in the hot seat and gets in the arena. I love it. Tell me a little bit about why you are here. What pulled you here? What are you wanting to address or resolve or confront?

Yeah, kind of several things. I think going back to last year, it's been, you know, the last 9 to 12 months have been one of a lot of transformation, a lot of ups and downs. Hit what I would call kind of a rock bottom last summer, a combination of struggling with addiction, unresolved anger, resentment, attachment trauma from childhood, and all that certainly created a lot of issues in my marriage. Thankfully, in a much better place today, you know, my wife and I have a great relationship. A lot of that's due to some of the work that I've done and certainly her. Mm-hmm. Patience, extreme patience, loyalty, and just commitment to us as a unit. So, you know, very fortunate that, you know, things could have gone south there pretty quickly. And, you know, fast forward to today, I feel like I'm in a good place. But discovered your work in the fall. Similarly, I mean, you know, every podcast episode, every chapter, I just, I felt like I was like, is this about me? Like everything was resonating. And I knew, I knew I was onto something. Started, started going to doing the work, ended up taking. So, so back to late August, early September, took medical leave from work and started a 90-day kind of rehabilitation program, treatment program. And within those first few weeks, I was like, wow, okay, I need to be here. This is crazy. I actually understand for the first time what's going on. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, I've continued to do a lot of that work. You know, the North Star for me really is sobriety. As much as that scares the shit out of me, I know that that is ultimately what my heart is calling me to do. My head wants to rationalize it, wants, you know, "Are you really going to give up alcohol?" Like, among, you know, the long list of other things I've kind of been working away at in terms of vices and just, you know, unhealthy habits. But, um, that's kind of high level. Um, you know, just real quick on sort of my childhood, uh, grew up in a pretty chaotic, unstable environment, you know, two emotionally immature parents, only child. Um, you know, love both my parents, they're alive, um, they live around the corner. Wife and I have our first kid on the way, due later this year. So they're, you know, we're excited. They're excited to be grandparents. We just moved back to North Carolina about a month ago. And when I, when we left several years ago, I knew that there was something that I needed to address. I just didn't know what that was. And there was a lot of anger and resentment there that I think was eating away at me. So like I said, Yeah. In a much better place today. I know there's more work to be done. And as far as, you know, getting on here with you today, um, would love to kind of dive into some of that, talk about some of the work that I'm already doing, and would love, you know, your perspective on what am I not seeing, um, what bias do I have in sort of this narrative that I created. I almost feel like in a sense I have a very clear understanding of what's wrong with me, but I feel like that can also box me in and prevent me from hitting certain breakthroughs. So, hopefully, that's helpful and makes sense.

Yeah. Thank you so much for telling me about what you've dug into and what you've addressed so far in some of the work that you've done. Sounds like it's been a pretty intense last year specifically. Maybe can you speak to— I know one of the things that you talked about before we kind of jumped on was this idea of struggling with self-worth and a deep feeling of not being enough. And I'd like for you to maybe just unpack that a little bit more, talk about how, you know, you see it show up in your life and if you have any inclination of, you know, some of the things that have contributed to that?

Yeah, so, you know, I know you, you know, in the Jungian sense, you talk a lot about sort of these, the mother-father wound and how that shows up in adulthood around self-protectionism. You know, I wore a mask for a really long time. I was good at it. I think it served me well. You know, always attuned to other people's moods and desires and, you know, putting my needs aside. Again, that I recognize that served me very well in a personal and professional sense, but it's also has held me back from being like my true, the true authentic version of me that I know is psychologically healthy.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I think early childhood, my parents just simply did not have the emotional aptitude, if you will, to meet my emotional needs, to meet me where I was at. Everything was conflict, from big decisions to what I was gonna wear in middle school, to what restaurant we were gonna go to. It was just constant stress, anxiety, you know, depression runs on both sides. There's just a host of issues. And I, you know, I not having a close support system, you know, no siblings, pretty small family, don't have any first cousins. And it, you know, as I got older, I think there was a deep sense of like loneliness and isolation that I that I filled and escaped from through partying, women, music, drugs, right? Kind of all of the above. And that worked for a really long time. It did. I, you know, my 20s, I was truly happy. I had a lot of success early in my career. And, you know, as I look back on last year, love what I do. I get paid well for it. I have a beautiful, loving, supportive wife. All the boxes that you would think would make someone happy. And yet I was broken inside and miserable inside. And I think, you know, that's probably a pretty common theme that you hear for men hitting that threshold or that wall. And for the first time, I truly understood, you know, I had—

Yeah.

I think I've had this longing for deeper meaning, purpose, connection that I simply did not get growing up with my family. And so I've tried different ways of filling that somewhat artificially based on what I think was gonna do it. And, you know, I think what really sparked— you know, I've always been a curious person, but what really sparked a lot of diving into some of this work was my wife and I deciding that we wanted to start a family at the beginning of last year. Was in a really good place and then just spiraled. And I didn't understand that. I really didn't understand like that was my system kind of like, okay, dude, you're not okay. You're not ready for this. And I'm going to show you why. And so I have a lot of— I don't know if respect's the right word. I've just got a lot of— I don't know. It's a beautiful and ugly process that I've been through. And I understand that facing that pain and moving through it is the path forward. Yeah.

Good. Yeah, there's nothing like having a kid to stir up all your shit, as it usually does for a lot of guys, you know. Okay. Talk to me a little bit more about what the conflict was like growing up as a kid, and how you internalized it.

Yeah, so it was, I'd say the relationship between my parents was always very toxic. No healthy communication, no healthy emotional regulation. I did not see a lot of romance at all. I would describe it as codependent and You know, looking back now, I also recognize there was, you know, there's a lot of generational trauma too that hasn't been resolved. Like, this goes back multiple generations. I've had conversations with my grandparents to really understand how bad things were. And so, you know, it was tough because I'm a naturally very, I think, like, compassionate, empathetic person. And that was the view I always had towards my parents. I'm not gonna, uh, I'm not gonna create conflict. I'm gonna be the mature one. I'm gonna hold it together. And so, you know, I think having to constantly manage their emotions, and it, it for sure, like, my nervous system never had a chance to ever relax as a child. And so Even today, it's constant restlessness. And I've done a lot of work to, to be better about, you know, healthy, healthy ways of regulating, but it's something I still struggle with.

Hmm.

So you really struggled to have something bigger than you hold you and help you and give you a place to just relax and rest.

Yeah, I definitely felt like it was a me against the world mentality. Um, and I, you know, I think in my late teens and early 20s, like, I had a lot of pride around that, a very, like, a big chip on my shoulder, a big middle finger towards authority. And yet at the same time, you know, I did all the things I was supposed to do. I went to class, graduated somehow— that was a miracle— you know, started a you know, a career in finance and private equity that has been intellectually challenging. I, you know, I love what I do, but I think there was always a subconscious desire for approval and validation from my parents that looking back, I don't even know if they were capable of giving that to me. Um, Mm-hmm. you know, the, the brand, the status, the title, the salary, you know, who I ended up with. It just, it was never enough. And I think it just, I think that just, it just crushed me. Um, there was, you know, um, like I said, kind of looking, reflecting back on last year, you know, I had on the outside looking in, my life was good. And so that was a very confusing process when all that kind of came unraveling.

Tell me what your dynamic was like with your father growing up.

Um, like I said, good, good dad. He was always physically present, emotionally absent. Um, emotionally bankrupt for a long time, angry. He did, you know, I remember him drinking, but it was very controlled. It was very regimented. It was, you know, 6 to 8 beers a night, never get behind the wheel of a car, not doing anything reckless.

Um.

And when I was maybe 13 or 14, in a matter of weeks, a matter of several weeks, he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes just overnight. You know, I have a lot of respect for that. I think, you know, I can remember in a last year when I was just— this stuff was just like pouring out of me, all this anger and resentment.

Yeah.

You know, I told him, I was like, "We've never been friends. Like, you have no idea who I am. You've never seen me. You don't understand me." And so I was, you know, there was really this deep lack of respect because, you know, he didn't have a lot of self-respect and, you know, unfortunately neither did my mom. And so They were always like demanding respect, which I was like, that's not, that's not how that works. And so, you know, it was a constant battle. His father, my grandfather, died when I was maybe 7 or 8, and I know that that left a pretty big void in him. You know, probably never, never truly addressed some of that pain as well.

Mm-hmm.

Um, he grew up with, um, similar environment— chaotic, unstable. Grandmother was, was an alcoholic for a long time, created a lot of, a lot of issues. Um, you know, I'm close to my aunt, his sister, and I've had some really good conversations with her over the last 6 to 9 months. She's been in a similar spot in terms of addiction rehab therapy. And, you know, we've certainly had a good laugh about just how crazy things are and how, you know, it's good to hear that, okay, I'm not crazy. There's really something deeper going on here.

Hmm. When's your baby due?

August 11th.

Okay. That's coming up right around the corner.

A little more than halfway, yeah.

How are you feeling about that?

Good, good. Yeah, I have, yeah, all the above, you know, super excited, nervous. You know, my wife's pregnancy's going very well, like almost too well. I would kind of joke, I'm like, "Are you sure you're pregnant?" You know? Like no, no nausea. She's going to the gym with me a couple days a week. She's sleeping great. Um, so, you know, I'm very fortunate and grateful for that. Um, I'm excited. I'm excited to be a father. I have— Like everything I just described to you about my childhood, like I'm so excited to get, to get right and to truly rewrite the legacy. And, you know, I want my parents to be involved. I want them to be active grandparents. I think, you know, I'm fortunate that they're still alive, they're still healthy. And I realize that I've got to accept that there's a lot of things I'm never gonna be up there, that they're never gonna be able to change. And that just kind of is what it is. But kind of taking responsibility for, you know, everything in my life and kind of focusing on what I can control.

So. Hmm.

Okay. So where does the lacking in self-worth and not being enough show up? Is it in your internal dialogue? Does it show up in your marriage?

Definitely internal dialogue. Very harsh inner critic. You know, one thing I've wanted to stop doing for a really long time is like biting my nails. I've done that religiously for since as long as I can remember. Really struggle to sit still. You know, I've been journaling a lot. I've been meditating. I exercise a lot. I've removed alcohol from my life entirely with a couple of slips along the way. And that has really helped. You know, I think when I look at the way that I'm spending my time today, you know, I wake up the next day and I look back on the week or whatever. There's, there's, again, there's a lot of really good things and I feel good about that. There, I know that there are some things that aren't fully healed in terms of some of the things that we've, you know, we've talked about today. I have been seeing a therapist. I've, you know, we've been on and off, not this new therapist, but, you know, I've been on and off with a therapist for several years. Took me a while to finally find someone that I click with and that understands me and that is kind of meeting me where I'm at. Wow. While also, like, pushing me and challenging me.

I think—

I'm a very, like, structured person. Like, I have everything laid out for me. Like, when I go to the gym, for example, strength training program, like, I've got everything in front of me. And sometimes I just don't do it, right? With like diet, you know, binge eating at night. It's some of those little things that just keep eating away at me. And rather than just like settling into life and not taking everything so seriously, I just struggle, you know, of it, you know, there you go again, not doing what you say you're gonna do.

Yeah.

I think for a long time, I just spent so long not keeping promises to myself that I realized I'm just— there's a lot of repairing there to do. And I'm working at it, but it's been a struggle.

If you're like so many men right now, you're probably struggling with some form of self-worth. And you might not even know where it came from or how it started. The reality is, is that if you're a guy that's harsh with yourself, you're beating yourself up, super critical, super judgmental, or you just feel deeply insecure and you're not able to figure out how to get out of the spiral, I want you to know that there is a way out. I've been working with men for over a decade, and I have helped so many men develop a deep foundation of self-trust, self-respect, and ultimately self-worth.

Mm-hmm.

And I've packaged it up into a free guide for you. So if you are interested in doing some of that work, having practical tools and direction to build self-worth again within yourself, then go to mantalksinfo.com/pod. Again, it's mantalksinfo.com/pod to pick up your free guide. There's practical tools in there, questions and prompts for you to answer, and actions that you can take. Enjoy. Great. Let's start to dig in a little bit. First, it sounds like a lot of self-controlling behaviors to try and get outcomes that you want. And the— here's the hard thing. Pretty much every man that I've ever worked with who struggles with feeling like he's enough or struggles with a sense of self-worth is dealing with the exact thing that you just described, right? The way I talk to myself is brutal. It's terrible. The way I try and get myself to do things is by controlling, right? I lay things out. It needs to be super structured. And The challenge is that it doesn't allow for trust to emerge. And so, what I really hear is I've cultivated an internal system of control, but it doesn't actually feel like I trust myself. And so, every single time I do something that I think, you know, if I don't do something that I said I was going to do or that I've wanted to do or I don't do it a way that I've wanted to do it, it reinforces that I need to control myself more, and that I do not trust myself. Okay? Is that— you with me so far?

Yeah.

Okay.

So, that is okay, but that's very much a product of your environment. Doesn't sound like there was really a lick of trust. You couldn't trust mom and dad to be emotionally regulated and grounded. They didn't treat you with any type of trust. Respect and trust go hand in hand. They're kind of bedfellows in a way. They're business partners. And so, when trust goes out the window and trust isn't present, it's very hard for respect to to enter into the room, period. So, I think all of that's there. The bigger thing that I want to get to— and that's just sort of like frameworks for understanding for you— the bigger thing I want to get to is the intensity that exists inside of you that no one in your life has known what to do with, you included. Yeah. Mom and Dad didn't know what to do with it. Mom and Dad also had their own intensity that it seems like neither of them were equipped to deal with. So you grew up with a family system where there was a lot of intensity, emotional intensity, energetic intensity, psychological intensity, relational intensity. No one knew how to deal with it. And for a kid, that puts a child into largely a chronic state of feeling overwhelmed. They're stressed. They don't know if and when they can relax. And sometimes, depending on the intensity of the conflict that they're in with their environment or the intensity of the environment that they're in, their system might not even know what relaxation and rest even feels like outside of just sleep. Mm-hmm. Okay, so take a breath in and out. And first, does all that feel true?

Yeah. Yeah.

So just in your own words, make that a statement. So close the eyes again. Take a breath in, connect to that intensity that lives inside of you, because it feels pretty present so far, all the time. Like, I, I haven't interacted with you so far without that intensity just being right behind the surface. It's like right there.

Yeah, well, there's a lot of, a lot of emotion surfacing right now that I didn't expect.

Yeah, let them surface.

That's okay.

Just make a statement about what's happening inside.

It feels good to be seen and heard and understood.

Say what it was like to grow up in an environment with so much intensity.

Just confusing. No wonder that you wanted to escape all the time.

Say first person, "No wonder I wanted to escape." No wonder I wanted to escape all the time. Well, it also sounds pretty scary. It also sounds like there was a lot of fear, because when there's a lot of conflict and there's a lot of intensity, Kids are afraid. And I think my guess, buddy, is that you've lived with a lot of fear that you haven't really known how to deal with because nobody knew that you were afraid.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not sure that I ever really thought of it or understood it as fear before. It's a really interesting way of looking at it.

Well, take a moment, take a breath, and just imagine your kids here. 3 years in the future. You got a little 3-year-old running around, and that 3-year-old is throwing food on the ground. And then you and your wife start yelling at the kid. And then the 3-year-old gets down and it starts trying to take its diaper off, and Mom comes over and smacks its hand. Mm-hmm. And then the kid is playing with toys and bumps it into the wall and dad starts screaming. Say how you think that kid would feel.

Just terrified. Confused.

Vulnerable.

Unsafe.

So another breath. And again, just say what's happening inside of you so I'm with you.

Those, um, the intensity of those initial emotions of kind of subsided.

Mm-hmm.

You know, reframing, just reframing the script as, you know, putting myself in the shoes of the parents.

I just—

I can't believe the way that they treated each other for so long.

I just could never—

yeah, no trust, no respect. And compassion for the impact that that would have on A really young kid.

Mm.

So take another breath and just let yourself enter into your childhood home, or one of your childhood homes if you guys moved around, and see yourself in that space. Maybe the kitchen or the living room, and see little you sitting on the ground, maybe 3, maybe 4, but he feels pretty little. And let yourself make contact with him, really be in connection with him. And say what it's like to see him and connect to him.

Yeah, I see a happy kid with a lot of charge, a lot of intensity, you know, excitement for life and sports and—

Just make a statement to him. What do you want to say to him as if he was your son? That boy who's stuck in a house with a lot of conflict and a lot of intensity.

I love you. You're good enough just the way that you are. Things are going to be okay. You have so much potential, and I see you.

Thank you.

Just keep letting that hit you.

Good job.

Now let Mom and Dad enter into the room. So there's little you, and Mom and Dad are standing on each side of him. Can be behind him, can be to the side. Just notice wherever they go, but in some way he's kind of in the middle.

Say what that's like.

Yeah. Physically, metaphorically, he was always in the middle, always the mediator.

So make a statement to them, the adult version of you. Make a statement to them.

You guys were never on the same page about anything. Constant battle. How was that kid ever supposed to feel safe? I know you love that kid. I know you love me. I always have. The reality is you fell short.

Take another breath. Are you okay if I help help you out a little bit. So just try this on. If it fits, take it. If it doesn't fit, throw it away or alter it however you need.

Okay.

Your conflict was too much for him to handle.

Your conflict was too much for him to handle. That little boy needed That little boy needed a safe place.

And he needed you to be safe.

He needed you to be safe.

Good breath. And just say what's happening inside.

It feels good to speak that truth.

Good. So now you make a statement to the boy.

Son, this was, this was never, never your fault. It's never about you. You were not the problem, even though it felt like that.

Try I'm not gonna leave you here with them anymore.

I'm not gonna leave you here with them anymore.

And I'm not gonna keep speaking to you the way that they spoke to you.

And I won't continue to speak to you the way that they spoke to you.

Just let him reply back. What would he say?

I just— he stood up and smiled and ran towards me.

So just do whatever comes natural, whether it's getting down on a knee and giving him a hug or picking him up. Notice what it feels like he's wanting from you.

Yeah, just down on a knee, meeting him where he's at, holding space, being okay and grounded and present so that he can be okay, grounded, and present.

Yeah.

So just make one more statement to him, something along the lines of, "I'd like for you to come with me," or, "I'd like to take you out of here. Do you want to do that?" because he's been trapped there ever since.

Yeah.

Say what just happened.

Yeah, just heavy in my chest and heart.

What's heavy? Say, what's heavy?

That pain and loneliness you've been holding on to for so long. You can finally let it go.

I can finally let it go.

I can finally let it go. I cannot be defined by it.

It's a part of you, but it's not all of you anymore. You're not stuck inside of it. So ask the boy again, "I'd like to take you out of here. I'd like for you to come with me.

Do you want to come with me?" I'd like to take you out of here. I'd love for you to come on a journey with me. Would you like that?

Let him respond.

It's very enthusiastic.

Good.

So in your own way, find your way out of the house. Pick him up, hold his hand. Again, whatever feels real and genuine for you. And make your way out and find yourself in the safest place in your current home. Maybe it's in your bedroom. Maybe it's in the living room, wherever it is. It's all— doesn't matter where it is, whatever just feels safe. And just make one final statement, something along the lines of, You're safe here and you're going to live with me now.

You're safe here.

You can begin a new journey, a fresh start here. I'll be here for you whenever you need me.

Good, so take another deep breath.

And out.

Another deep breath. And just keep the eyes closed. I'm gonna make a statement for you, okay? My guess is that a lot of this kicked off when you found out that your wife was pre— because your inner child was having a meltdown. He's needed somebody to father him, and that's you. So your journey to fatherhood has already begun, and you can practice being a father by fathering bothering the boy inside of you.

Now, deep breath.

And what that's going to look like specifically is standing up against the voice that wants to yell and criticize and shame and blame. And to give that part, which is just a soldier, it's just a loyal soldier, it's just, it's been doing what it's trained to do. And that soldier was trained at a very young age to beat the crap out of yourself. Yeah. And so your first assignment as a father is to retrain that loyal soldier so he doesn't keep harming the boy. Because I bet if I dug in, that voice of your inner critic sounds a lot like that. Dad, or says similar things, or has a similar tone, or shows up at very familiar times. Is that true, or am I way off?

It was— it was Mom mostly.

Aha, okay, Mom.

Yeah, great, even better.

So take a breath and out and just let everything settle inside. And just make contact energetically with the child that's inside of your wife's womb. And really let yourself be affected by their presence.

Yeah, that's a lot.

And just make a statement to them.

So, so excited to welcome you into this world. I'm gonna be the very best version of myself for you.

It's okay, buddy. Take your time. Let it come. Let it come. Let it work you.

And our family. You're going to be perfect just the way that you are.

I'm going to be somebody that you can feel safe with and trust because I'm learning how to be safe and trust myself.

I'm gonna be somebody that you can feel safe with and trust and look up to because I'm working through doing those things for myself. I won't project my insecurities onto you. Create a safe space for you to grow and thrive and learn and make mistakes.

Take another deep breath and say what's happening inside, so I'm right there with you.

Yeah, just—

it's heavy, but a sense of optimism and joy. That relief.

Good work. Good work.

So just let all those, all those experiences, let them settle in. Let them take up more space.

Okay.

And you can, in your own way, find a sense of just letting your body and your mind remember this state, this experience. I call it a somatic screenshot. Like, you can let your body be imprinted with, oh, this is what safety feels like. This is what trusting myself feels like. It's right here.

Yeah, that's, uh, the, the, the The fathering myself is, I think, something that I knew was going to be a part of this process. And I think I just had a lot of animosity and maybe shame around that.

Hmm. So I'm going to give you a couple of things. We'll just begin to wrap up here. I'll give you some tactical things. First, I just— I think you're doing great, man. I think you're doing great. You know, what you've already confronted and been through and moved through, your willingness to kind of dig into what you dug into today, it's really solid. It really, really is solid work. And I'm going to give you a, a question that I want you to use as a filter for your actions and your decisions. Okay, super simple. Uh, if you have a pen and paper, you can write it down, or you can just listen to this after and, and take it, you know, so all good either way. But the question is as follows: is that going to— is this action, decision, or choice going to help me trust myself more or not? And the second one is, is that action, decision, or choice going to help me feel more safe or less safe? So just those two questions. Is that going to help me trust myself more or less? Is that going to make me feel more safe or less safe? And for right now, This isn't going to be something that you need to do forever. This is just something that for right now, I want you to use as a tool for a lot of what you do.

Right?

You show up at the gym, you've got the plan in front of you. Is executing on this plan going to help me trust myself more or not?

It is. Okay.

I'm gonna do that. And it's a very simple decision-making, like, matrix, essentially, frame, where it's just, if it's going to help you trust yourself more and cause you to feel more safe, that's what you're gonna do. And you don't have to think about it. You don't have to worry or stress. It's like, yeah, actually, that is going to make me feel more safe. Yeah, that is going to help me I trust myself more. Great. That's what I do. I'm just a person that follows through with doing what I know is going to help me trust myself and feel safe.

Yeah. And I've— it's, it's interesting. That's really helpful. And I've been doing like some version of that recently where, you know, I'll catch myself, get some anxiety or tightness. And that, that father kind of steps in. And, you know, these last couple months, like, I've felt a pull away from that. Like, I will literally, you know, whatever it is, right? The choice to drink or not drink, choice to stay up late or go to bed early. I know deep down what the answer to most of those questions is going to be. And yet there's a part of me that's like, hey, you're fine, dude.

Like—

Yeah.

Well, again, I actually— it's funny timing because last night I just finished an article that I'm gonna be putting out about confusion. And I'm gonna be doing a little episode on it because we— I think the confusion in childhood is one of the most underrated disrupting factors to a child's development. I think that it can be incredibly disruptive to our development, and specifically to the development of our sense of self, to our sense of trust, and to our sense of safety, which is pretty much the foundation of who we are and how we relate to ourselves. Yeah. Right? So, when you grow up in an environment where you don't know what's gonna happen or where the bar is or what's gonna get you love and affection or what's safe and what's not, that type of confusion within a child's psyche is too much for a child to handle. And it puts a child into a, a pretty chronic state of stress and fear. And that disrupts our, the— it disrupts our ability to find cohesiveness within our sense of identity and our sense of self. And so it never really fully comes into coherence. And so there's just these big question marks that we live with. Can I trust myself? You know? Do I actually have worth and value? And those things just linger, they just stay as question marks. So this process I'm giving you, while it might seem simple on the surface, is going to help to solidify some of those parts. Oh, I can act in a way that trusts— that creates trust for myself, with myself. I can operate in a way— here's what safety looks like. Because in your environment, those two things were not given. They weren't present. And so it's been challenging because in some ways I think what happened is, you know, and this is— many things happen, but the— your wife gets pregnant and there's a huge upswell of unconscious content, fears, emotions, everything that was sort of laying dormant or had been been pushed down, all of a sudden it's just like a geyser, just straight through into the conscious mind. Am I going to be good enough? Am I going to be able— am I going to repeat the patterns? Fuck, I don't want to put my child through what I went through. All comes spewing out into the conscious mind. And then the maladaptive behaviors that you had in place to kind of keep things in a state of equalization equilibrium all go to shit, right? Because all of a sudden you need way more alcohol to deal with the dialed-up intensity of emotional unconscious content coming up into the mind. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it's spot on. And, uh, I mean, 2 days after I found out about the pregnancy, I got laid off, so that just— the dial just—

perfect time. We're pregnant, you're fired.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, do this practice. The other thing is really around that inner critic. And, I want you to focus in and what I want you to do is a little bit of a writing exercise of what would it look like because what a lot of guys do with their inner critic when it's hostile or volatile or harmful is they go on a kind of mission, a war mission to try and kill it off. Let me eradicate this part of myself. And that does not work. That creates more damage, more harm. It also empowers that inner critic more. And so it just locks us in this kind of eternal battle with this part of us that is just doing a job that it was given early on in life that's no longer serving us. And so we need to retrain that part to do something generative, to do something that's congruent with who we are, to do something that reinforces value and worth instead of eradicating and destroying it. So, part of it is you're going to have to start to set some boundaries with that part. When it starts to show up, when it starts to chirp, "Enough, I'm not going to speak to myself like that." I actually want you to say that inside of your head, "Enough, I'm not going to speak to myself like that." Yeah. I don't talk to myself like that anymore. And then, and I want you to also see that boy, right? See that boy because that's who you're really protecting. I don't talk to myself like that anymore. Just like you would interrupt somebody if they were shit-talking your son or daughter as a 3 or 4-year-old or criticizing them heavily, you wouldn't tolerate that.

Yeah.

So don't tolerate it inside of yourself. So that's step 1. Step 2 is re— not repackage, but repurpose it. Enough, don't talk to me like that. Your job is to look for what I'm doing right. Your job is to give me acknowledgement. Your job is to help me recognize what it is that I'm doing right. So instead of it being this chronic here's what you're doing wrong, here's what wasn't good enough, here's, here's the litany of everything that you could have done better. Its new task and mission and role inside of your psyche is to be the evidence collector for what you are doing right.

Okay.

Because it can serve a very valuable purpose in your psyche. It can either tear you down or build you up. But it needs to know that that's its new mission. And so for a period of time, you're going to need to go through a pretty rigorous process of starting to train that muscle. When you follow through on the plan at the gym— Ah, I did that. That felt really good. And you need to start to cultivate an internal environment of recognition. Recognition.

Okay?

That's the method. That's the path. That's the real work is that you have an internal mechanism of self-recognition. And it doesn't mean that when you get things wrong that, you know— still sometimes when I mess up, like I remember a couple years back, I— We were in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and we left and drove to Spokane to take an airplane out first thing in the morning, packed my son up in the car, you know, wake up at 4:30 in the morning. And for whatever reason, when we left the Airbnb, I left my backpack with my, my wife's computer, my computer, and all of our passports in the Airbnb 45 minutes from the airport. And we got to the airport and there's no way that we were driving back and coming back and getting our flight at 7 o'clock in the morning. And I was just like, what the fuck was— you know, what was I thinking? And, you know, it was a real big moment where I ended up sharing with my wife, like, I am really struggling to not lay into myself, which was foreign. And I realized how much work I had done and how much better things had gotten because I realized I hadn't talked to myself like that in years. So cultivate and foster this this environment internally of self-recognition. And what you'll notice eventually is that over time, as you do this and you start to really recognize yourself every day— small things, big things, and everything in between— that eventually the dialogue inside of how you speak to yourself will really shift. It'll really shift. And you're your kid is going to need that. Your kid is going to need a parent who isn't chronically beating themselves up because that is going to get amplified with your kid. And I, I really think that if I could make a prediction, if I was Polly Market right now, uh, that probably— Maybe very early on, but probably 6 to 8 months in of being a parent, this voice is going to start to really get activated. And especially as your child starts to become defiant, they start to find their own independence around 18 months, they start to individuate. It's, it's going to come online. And so it's going to be good for you to start this work now. So that when your kid does start to push boundaries and say no and talk back and throw shit on the floor and drive things into the wall, touch things they're not supposed to touch, try and jam forks into electrical sockets, that you're able to navigate your own intensity, but you're also able to speak to yourself in a positive way if you get something wrong. Make sense?

Makes perfect sense. Incredibly helpful, you know, on the endocritic piece. It's like you can't fight fire with fire.

Totally.

And I absolutely have been doing that. Um, and yeah, like, as I reflect on my, you know, I really don't have a lot of negative core memories from early childhood. It was really into my teens and early 20s is that my mother's just ambivalence, um, constantly rating, constant questioning, lack of trust in every decision that I made. That was the confusion that I think you alluded to earlier, that I was just like, dude, what the fuck? I'm doing all of the things that I thought you wanted me to do and it's still not enough. So I— Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. That lack of an environment of recognition would be super important.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yes to all of that. That sounds very true. But my guess is that that theme started very early, right? If you notice where you, your inner child was, he was in between mom and dad.

Yeah.

And it's very confusing for kids. Kids personalize everything that happens in the house. They're little balls of ego.

They're—

they think that the world sort of revolves around them in an almost narcissistic way.

Sure.

And so everything that mom and dad do, if they see a lot of conflict, even if it's not about that child, it's— the child is still going to personalize it. They're still going to internalize it. What did I do to cause this? How come I can't stop this? Something must be wrong with me that I can't stop them from fighting, or something must be wrong with me that they are fighting. So I think that started very early on, and then in your teenage years was just— you had this big in-your-face example where, you know, it kind of got amplified. But okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining me. Please keep in touch and let me know how things unfold as things gear up for August 11th. I'd love to see a picture and or, you know, just share with me how the birth has gone and how you're feeling once the, you know, once your child comes into the world. And so please do keep in touch through the platform. And for people that are out there tuning and if you, you know, if you know someone that could really use this episode for whatever reason, don't forget to man it forward because these are the, these are the things that can really have the power to shift men's lives. So thank you for joining me today. And as always, until next week, Connor Beaton signing off.

Thank you.