Q&A: How To Properly Process A Breakup, Pick Up Culture, and Allowing When We Want To Fight

Welcome to the mantalks show. I'm Connor Beadon, and on this midweek mini episode, I'm just going to dive into a few questions that I have been getting through Instagram. So the other day I put out just an invitation for people to ask me their questions. Dive into a few of them here. Some of them are relationship related, some of them are shadow work related. So here we go. Ed asked, what's your thoughts on the culture of pickup artists? I'm going to keep this one brief. I have worked with many men who have been up in the pickup industry space, men that have been trained, men that have been teachers in the pickup space. And a lot of them have come to work with me after. Look, I think the pickup space creates pretend confidence, and I think that's part of the issue. It gives you tactics and tools to sort of put a veneer over your insecurities. It allows you to pretend for a little while that there aren't aspects of yourself that you feel are unworthy. And it creates a pretend version of masculine strength and masculine confidence, which a lot of guys want. But a lot of men aren't willing to do the real hard work to cultivate that deeper sense of confidence. They want the quick fix. That's the culture that we live in. And listen, dudes like guys, there's no shame. There is no shame in that. I'm not saying that to create any shame. The reality is that at some point it's going to break down. So for most men that go through pickup and they learn these sayings and they learn how to neg and they learn how to engage with the woman in a way where it's going to whatever, it's going to get her to engage with him eventually. What's going to happen is once you start dating one of those women, and if it's not just somebody that you go on a couple dates with or sleep with or hook up with or whatever, once you start dating one of those women, you get down the path where the true version of you starts to come forward. You can't hide those insecurities. You can't hide those fears. And so the propped up version of yourself that you've been giving her eventually fades and collapses and you fall back into these older patterns and tendencies of being a needy man or being too nice or not actually asking for what you need or whatever the case may be. And so she feels like she's been duped and that can cause her to bail out pretty quick and leaving you wondering what happened. So Authenticity is one of your greatest superpowers. And my perspective on the pickup industry, the culture around pickup artists, is that it is trying to teach men how to develop confidence through somewhat coercive means. That's not all pickup artists. That's not the entire industry. For a while there, I think it was pretty gnarly. But in actuality, what most men are looking for, and this is, I hesitate to go down this path, but I think what it does for a lot of men is it gives them the sensation and the air of alpha when they maybe feel like they're in a beta position. And I haven't often brought in alpha and beta context or frameworks into my podcast before or into many of my conversations. And so I'm not going to spend a lot of time here because I don't think it's worthwhile right now. But what I will say is that a lot of men that go into the pickup space, that enter into that culture, they often feel ineffective or insecure in some way, and they're looking to bolster that insecurity. Now, does the pickup culture support some of those men? Absolutely right. Some men will go in and they'll go through things like rejection therapy. And some, some pickup trainers will teach men to just get rejected. And for some guys, that is incredibly useful. They need a good psychological ass kicking by getting rejected. So there are some aspects to it that can be fruitful. But for the most part, the pickup culture is about hiding some of your insecurities, hiding these perceived weaker parts of you that when you get into a more long term, substantiated relationship, inevitably start to sabotage you. And so I think in the long term, it can do sometimes for some men more harm than good. But for other men, it's going to be this sort of getting out of their comfort zone that they needed to prove to themselves. So it really depends. I think that there are more, I guess the word that I'm looking for, there are more authentic or congruent ways to do it, right? You can go do normal Mr. Nice Guy and get into a men's group and you can still go through rejection therapy. But learning how to manipulate or nag or prey on a woman's weakness, I mean, it's neither here nor there. It's not for me to judge, but I think for most men, it is not going to leave them in a really deeply connected, authentic relationship when they get into a long term one. So, boom, there we go. Moving on to the next question Scott asked. Will you speak to the process not Process, because it's not being P R A W. I'm from Canada. We use the British English. Will you speak to the process of surrender? Surrendering to a difficult experience? Yeah. Okay, Scott, this is a great question. I think for a lot of men, we have been told that if we can't fix, solve, or build or sort of muscle our way out of a difficult situation or problem, that there is something inherently wrong with us as a man. And I've definitely fallen into that trap before where I have felt the need to be in complete control. And it's like the harder the situation becomes, the more stubborn I become. And I have had many different circumstances and situations sort of put me on my heels and force me to surrender. And there's a great saying that men come to therapy through circumstances and not through choice. Now, I don't think that that's entirely always true, but for the most part, it's an indicator that most men will not surrender unless it's the circumstances forcing them to surrender. And that's what I really hear behind this question. And what I would really challenge a lot of the men to look at that are listening to this podcast or the women that are listening to it that have that masculine sort of, like, stubbornness that they never want to let go, they have to prove themselves to be right, is where are you in your life right now, waiting for circumstances to infringe on you in such a strong degree that you are forced to surrender? This is really a sign that in some ways, you not only are hiding weaknesses from other people, but that you have rejected the vulnerable parts of yourself, that you've rejected the ability to be compassionate towards yourself, to be empathetic towards your own experience. So how do we surrender in a difficult experience, whether it's a breakup or a health issue or whatever the case may be? Well, the first thing is that we need to allow ourselves to grieve in some way. That might be grieving what we're losing. That might be grieving what we were trying to build or what we were trying to create. That might be grieving the direction that we thought we were going to be in or where we thought we would be. Whatever the case may be, we need to allow ourselves and give ourselves permission to grieve and to allow other people to support us in that grieving process. The next thing that we need to come into contact with is letting go of all the things that we can't control. So how we start to surrender in a very difficult experience is we start to notice. So this Is the second part, what is my relationship to surrendering? Right. When I think about surrendering as a man or as a woman, what comes up? What's the narrative? What's the story? Do I think that that makes me weak? Do I think that that makes me a failure? Do I think that that makes me less masculine? Does it feel emasculating, the idea of surrendering? And so once we start to flush out that narrative and that story, we can kind of see what we're up against, right? So what's the threat to our strength, to our masculinity in some ways? And then lastly, to come into contact with, identifying what about that hard or difficult experience you have control over, you have influence over, and what parts you don't have influence over? And I would just encourage you to look at this through the lens that you probably have less influence than you think you do. So look at, really be honest with yourself and say, okay, what can I actually, actually influence? And most of what you're going to be able to influence if you are sitting in the seat of grounded masculine essence, is you're going to want to move into a space of allowing, allowing the other person to react or respond or do what they need to do, and that you're going to start to embody a deeper quality of acceptance. And acceptance can be an incredibly strong masculine power. It's a force that not a lot of us have been taught how to actually utilize. But for a lot of men, when we can move into this space of allowing, allowing other people to go through their own process, allowing ourselves to acknowledge that what we're going through in that divorce or through that breakup is incredibly depressing or confronting, or that there's a part of us that feels like it's dying away. So we need to come into confrontation with how much maybe we feel helpless to, or we feel like we can't influence or we can't control, and maybe that's a part of the grieving process. And then finally, the last part that I would say about how we surrender to a difficult experience is we come into contact with and observe the part of us that is actually craving the letting go, that's craving the allowing, that is less interested in the battle or the war that we naturally want to engage in, and we come back to a more centered way of being within ourselves that allows us to say, okay, this is not what I expected. This is not what I wanted. But I can find strength in allowing and I can find a kind of resiliency. Right? It's like Bruce Lee said, be like water, right? What he was really saying is, you can go low, you can go high, you can expand. I mean, there's so many options of how water moves and flows. And so when we can be in that flow, which is what our modern culture is really asking us for right now, when we move into that flow, there is a tremendous amount of power within that allowing. And so practice the art of allowing without needing to cling to a rational or linear process of how things are going to unfold. Because that, my friends, is the hardest part of surrendering our masculine brains, our rational components to our minds. But will want to fixate and obsess and ruminate on how things are going to unfold if we surrender and we don't know. And this is the practice of being in our masculine core and being in awe and in wonder of the things that we can't control, of the things that we can't predict. And we come into a sense of wonder at the vastness of what we don't know and what we can't control, and at the vastness of what's outside of us. And there's a strength and a depth and a beauty and a resiliency that is hidden within that. So lastly, Ben asked the question. I'm processing a breakup, and I'm wondering how I can work through that breakup in a way where it doesn't impact my future relationships. So how do I process my breakup in a way that doesn't impact. Impact my future relationships? This is a big question, and I probably should have given it its own podcast. And maybe I will do that in another podcast and go much more in depth than what I'm about to do. But what I will say is a few things, and I'll try and condense this into their sort of tactical components. Number one, we need to allow ourselves to again, grieve the. The loss of that relationship fully, the relationship that we've gotten out of, and to give ourselves time and space to actually be with those emotions without numbing out. So what I want you to do is to, if you're going through a breakup or if you've ever gone through one, these are good to write down so you can look at. Number one, what do I normally use to numb out after a breakup? Do you use porn? Do you use booze? Do you use drugs? Do you use other partners and sex? Do you use social media? Do you sit and play video games? Like, what do you do to numb out? So get very clear on what your normal coping mechanisms Are secondly, allow yourself to fully grieve the relationship. That might mean that you're pissed for a few weeks. It might mean that you're angry. It might mean that you are incredibly sad. Right. And that there's just this sort of weight that sets in because it was tough, you know, it's tough to let go of a relationship even regardless of whether you're the one that broke up with them or they broke up with you or it was mutual. So allow yourself to grieve the loss of that relationship. What are you missing about that person? And then separately, what will you miss about the dynamic? Remember, there are three bodies in a relationship. That's your body, there's your partner, and when I say body, I mean metaphysical and all the different layers. But there's you, there's your partner and then there's the relationship. The relationship is the third entity or the third body. That's what makes relationships so powerful. They're a trifecta. So what are you going to miss about that person? What do you appreciate and are grateful for about that person? What did you learn about from that person? And what are you looking for in a future partner that that person possessed? Those are all really important questions to dig into. And then what will you miss about the relationship itself? Right. Sort of independent from the other individual? What will you miss about the relationship? What will you look for in a future relationship that this relationship had? And what about that relationship caused you to withhold certain parts of yourself? So how did you show up in an unsavory or non expansive or small or repressed hidden manner within that relationship so you can be cognizant of that in the future relationships. So that's what I'm going to share with you today. Thank you so much for everyone that asked the questions. I have more coming. There was a ton of, I think I got like a few hundred questions in the last Q and A. I'm going to try and do some live Q&As over the holidays. So stay tuned for that and until next week. This is Connor Beaton signing off and I will see you and talk to you next Monday. Bye.