The Transformative Power of Men's Group Work: Embracing Authenticity and Inclusivity - IRL Men With Brian Thompson and Troy Piwowarski

Mental health is important to everyone. And this week's guests, Troy Tywakowski and Brian Thompson are the co founders of IRL Men. It's a men's group where they, as licensed therapists, help bring a group of guys together to be vulnerable, to talk about feelings, to break through the scripts that were taught from family and friends and society to show up as our authentic self. So in this episode, what to listen for is what are those common points that will help you unravel the authentic you? It's really the same lessons for everyone, even though this particular group and the work they do caters to men in particular. But ultimately, what I loved about this episode was hearing about their partnership of going through this process individually, meeting during a process similar to one they teach in IRL Men and then going and creating a company. So if you're an entrepreneur or in a loving relationship with some other human, how do you navigate those tough and intense situations that arrive from living together or running a business together in this particular instance, or the idea that we need to push ourselves in order to grow? And as a certified high performance coach, it's a message very near and dear to my heart because it can be challenging to share your feelings, it can be challenging to share what you're thinking, and it's that vulnerability of expressing your full self with the people that are important to you in your life that can determine a quality of life for you. Because if you feel constrained, if you feel like you're not accepted or you feel like you're being judged for being your authentic self, that will cause a lot of suffering. There are social cues and family cues and expectations from others that that can stifle that authentic self. So if you have a more authentic you in you and you would like to learn how to communicate it more, we have a couple of points to talk about that, but that's the big theme of this episode, is how can you show up as your authentic self no matter who you are. With that, let's get over to the interview with Brian and Troy and enjoy. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast. I'm your host, Sean Butner. Today I have the co founders of IRL Men and IRL Therapy, Brian and Troy. And we're talking about a lot of mental health issues today. They're very open, fun guys to talk with. And so I'm really excited to be having you guys on the show. So welcome Brian and Troy.

Thanks for having us.

No, thanks.

Of course.

My first question is, so ask the co founders of IRL Men could you tell the audience a little bit of what is IRL Men and maybe we'll get to the story of how it came to be created. But what is IRL Men.

Gonna start, Brian?

Sure. IRL Men is a partnership that Troy and I formed about six years ago now that is very busy working weekly with currently eight different groups of men. Our groups range in number. Usually there's six to nine men in a group, but. And we meet for 90 minutes a week. Some of those groups are considered support groups which have more structure. And most of those groups are process groups which have less structure, are designed for longer term runs and. And what am I missing, Troy? Anything you would add?

Yeah, just that they're the process groups in particular are a little bit of a living laboratory for people to work through relational patterns, relational issues, get to know how they're. How they impact people and how. And also like their own reactions and get to know their own kind of emotional world through mirroring from the group. So it's a, it can be an incredibly potent space for people. Especially as Brian said, those are. Those tend to be longer term. Say two to five years is the average that folks stick around and look.

Wow. So I guess, you know, it's called IRL Men or in real life Men. I. I'm assuming there. Is it predominantly men's groups or is it only men in the groups or.

Yeah, so we say men and male affiliated peoples had trans men in the group. We've had non binary people in the group as well. Generally we're again like people who are affiliated with the male experience in some way is the standard. Yeah.

And since the pandemic, we're. We're online and in person and then actually we have a few groups that are a hybrid model where we meet online and then we also meet in person. So a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Right on.

And we have for some of our groups an annual retreat that lasts three days. Okay, cool, cool.

Podcast is called the Meaningful Revolution, which is talking to people about what they nerd out about, just what you're. You're passionate about. So I know that IRL Men and the these Men affiliate groups are passions of both of yours. Could you describe maybe how it came to be, how you got how that partnership came together and then maybe your experiences with similar type groups. Maybe we'll get to that next. But so first off, how do you. I'm trying really hard not to do the compound questions. I tend to ask a bunch and then confuse people. Think it back how did this partnership come to happen?

I could give a bridged long version of the story, which is for me, when I was 21 years old, I was studying abroad in India and I was in Hampi, which is this beautiful place where the Jungle Book actually takes place. And I was in this men's circle around a fire that. That had intergenerational men. And I realized that night I got something from that evening experience that I'd never gotten in my life before, around, like, intimacy, intergenerationally. I walked away from that feeling more connected to my grandfather as like a human being, not just like an archetype, even though my grandfather was not in that circle. And then years later, a colleague at a karaoke bar turned to me and said, do you want to. You ever think about starting a men's group? And I was like, yes. And really partnered with him, seriously. And we started this peer led men's group, which a few weeks into that group, Troy walked in the door. And so we met in a men's group circle. And then many years later, maybe five years after that or more, we were both licensed clinicians and we. The process repeated itself. But one of us, I think maybe I turned to Troy and said, do you want to start a men's group? And Troy said, yes, let's do that. We started our first group in San Francisco, I think it was 2017. And we quickly realized we needed some more support and the complexities we were opening up in group that our previous format felt limited. So we went on the pursuit of some mentorship and pulled in some great mentors and. And it expanded from there. We. We realized this is our. Our favorite part of our week is sharing in these groups together. And so we went from one group to four groups pretty quickly. And then it was slowly built up from there.

Yeah. And I'll say, just to add a little bit my. My experience early on in that group with Brian is interesting. We've talked about this after the fact that we weren't initially drawn to each other so much and. But then there was. We had an outing, actually, that we went on with some of the men from that group. And we had a. We were playing a board game. Brian and I were. Were part of it and some other guys. And we ended up like, having a. Having an argument over, like, how he. I didn't like the way that he was playing, like, fast and loose and in a different style. Like, I'm a little bit more by the book about fairness and. And we ended up getting into a squabble about, about that and there was a recognition of like brotherhood and being able to fight with each other. And, and I think that's been like part of the glue, I think that's made us a good partnership over time is that we're, we really enjoy each other. We're. I think we're quite symbiotic in a lot of ways, but we're also quite different and we can also get into difference with each other, we can get angry with each other, we can fight and, and come through on the other side deeper and stronger. So I think that's a, to me, that's a big part of our origin story as, as co leaders of co founders of this.

And just to be clear, in case it wasn't Troy's referencing the original men's group that we met in, not the ones that we were running together.

Thanks for clearing that up. So I imagine having started a business myself, it's really stressful and hard in that way. A lot of partnerships in general and business, especially small businesses, fail because partners can't get along. Do you guys. Maybe we're jumping too deep. Let me know. But have you guys had to navigate some of those kind of tougher periods as entrepreneurs? Cause I imagine this work is actually the best way to maybe work through some of those relationship issues. But. So it could be a good example, a good teaching point for the audience. But could you talk about maybe your entrepreneurship journey together with this group a little bit and maybe how some of the skills you've picked up in your career and the work that you do have helped you find a way through to make sure that it doesn't tear the organization apart.

Yeah, maybe it would be interesting. We could actually weave one of the models that we use in our groups into our own individual journey, which is that we view the group development that happens in phases. So first phase one is, are we a group? And then once everyone's determined, yeah, I think I can get my needs met here and there's someone in the circle that I relate to and I'm in. Then a group will quickly, unconsciously, but inevitably move into a different phase, which is is there space for me to be different from the group? So is there is difference okay here. And what we observe in culture at large is that's usually where relationship ends. We see that in our political system. It's like Republicans and Democrats have their differences and so then they start to scapegoat each other is kind of common response on a, on a national level. And then you see that in the family too, with estrangements and ruptures that can't get repaired. And what we do in group is we help people take ownership over what they're feeling with the difference in the room. So we don't try to fix the differences in the room, but we ask people to really own. What would you have to feel if it was okay for. I'll use the political analogy for the Trump voters to be members of this group or the Biden voters or the non voters or whatever. There's all these differences here. Like, what would you have to feel if actually we weren't going to change them? And we're still a family, we're still a group here. And, and that, that usually gives rise to something therapeutic, something vulnerable, something deepening and something that everyone can relate to, which moves us into the next phases of group, which we could talk about in more detail, but those are. That's a crucial moment. It's, can we have rupture and repair? Can we make more space for difference rather than needing to squash it out? And I think that Troy and I have had a similar journey initially just being like, wow, we're running these groups together. This is so great. What could go wrong? Big dreams about what we're, what we've been creating and what we've been manifesting. But along the way having to over and over again kind of revisit our differences and as we do and wrestle over those or survive. Survive our fights or. Yeah. Work our way through it. There's a deepening intimacy, a deepening safety. Each go round.

Yeah.

Troy, do you want to say anything?

Yeah. It's almost like we have to. We go through that phase again and again. Yeah. And then each one is a deeper cut, but a lot of it is we have a mentor that talks about that. Depth therapy is like the spiral staircase that you circle a lot of the same issues, more or less like the same motifs over and over again, but each time you're, you're in a descent, a slow descending process. And I think that's been the case for us. But I was thinking, I don't know if maybe a specific example would be interesting to get it to. And the, the big one that comes to my mind was, and I, I don't know if it was our first one necessarily, but it was definitely a big one, was around. Around the pandemic and Brian moving to Grass Valley, which is about two and a half hour drive from the Bay Area. We were a hundred percent in person groups prior to the Pandemic. We had to go a hundred percent online during the pandemic. And that kind of freed Brian up to. To explore. And while he was doing telehealth and while we were all having to do telehealth, getting to explore other places and working from other places and then falling in love with Grass Valley and deciding to stay there even after. After we were able to come back. I think it was a big. It was a big crisis for us for a time that we really had to go through a lot of rounds of pretty vulnerable. I think it started off as more. As a lot of those conversations do, it started off more heated, more angry, more probably more judgmental, at least on my part, about. About that decision. And. And it definitely, I'll speak for myself, kicked up a lot of my own attachment wounding around trying to get people to stay, stick around and. Yeah. And then eventually we dropped into the more. More vulnerable parts of it. And it helped a lot. We had having a mentor or consultant helping us in those. Navigate those conversations. We would spend as much time sometimes in our consultation, doing couples therapy, so to speak, with our co partnership as talking about our groups, which would normally be what we would be focusing on. Right on. Yeah. Anything you would add to add to that, Brian?

Yeah, I'm also aware of, like, in our groups there's these meta arcs. Like we say people stay two to five years, but sometimes people stay for more than five years. And we have a group eight that the membership's been really steady and the guys are starting to talk about, like, hey, like, why would we. We don't have to ever stop doing this. We could be. This could be a lifelong faith, which is really beautiful. And in. In those kind of groups where it's where people stick around for a long time, we find compounding rewards and there's a way in which we weave closer to each other. There's meta arc conversations and I've been appreciating at the time of the pandemic, I felt really freed up by the online work. Troy felt really constricted by it and that created a crisis. Cause we wanted different things. Here we are a few years later. I'm fantasizing about coming back to the bay and getting more back in the office. And Troy just bought a house, which is inconveniently a little far from his office, and he shifted for the time being to more online work. And that feels like classic. Like we're taking our stance, we're getting into it, and then we're finding where we can Land which we found a nice happy medium I think from that difference with our retreat model was born. Okay, we'll spend more time online, but then we'll have three days a year just full on with the guys. Which has been a real net positive I think like overall. And now, yeah, years later we're finding ourselves crisscrossing and oh, I can more deeply empathize with Troy's position of I need to be in the office more. Troy's can more feel like, oh yeah, it's nice to be a little free and untethered from the commute. And those same things happen with really tough conversations in groups. I can think of some really, it's not always like this, but we've had some new members that have come in and had some allegations thrown their way from women in their lives, for example. And then there's like a big trust issue in the group. Even though it's a men's group. It's do I believe the man or do I believe the woman who. Of course you never meet the woman. But that's a heavy conversation and one that culture is trying to deal with. American culture and I think globally we're trying to deal with who, who's to whose side to take in these he said, she said situation. It caused a lot of. It's not a conversation you're going to have and complete in an hour and a half. It was a three year conversation and we really got to see it evolve and I think everybody grew a lot from it, including me being, being privileged to hold space for that conversation and watch it grow and evolve.

Yeah. What you're reminding me of, Brian, is the, the idea that everything that's human is, is in us, is in all of us and that we tensor, we. What we noticed. And I think this has been really fruitful in like being in, in partnership with you and as you said, doing those crisscrosses and finding, finding ourselves on the other ends of the polarity really speaks to that. Both of us have a need to be free and untethered and both of us have a need for like kind of security and constancy and closeness. And I think that's true with our groups as well, that we see that. I think that's the value that you get to see like people speaking to things that you would never, I would never say or endorse about myself. And suddenly I'm resonating with this in some way. It's, it's striking a chord. It's, it's vibrating the string in me, the freedom string that I maybe I don't normally pluck too much on my own. So I think that's definitely something I feel, feel a lot of like passion about and get really excited about when that happened.

And I'll say one more thing to circle back to the what's. I think the heart of what you're originally asking Sean is how do we deal with our partnership? I think we're saying in a lot of ways, but to, to answer more directly, I think it really helps that we're. We have a good sense of humor. We shared humor. It really helps that we're both reasonable, I think. And what I mean by that also is we're therapists that are really committed to doing our shadow work. To really seeing like, all right, what's my part in this? And I. And we. And then we have a community around us. We've brought in mentors who lucky for us, are also therapists so they can hold us as a couple and get us, help us navigate through our. Our work. Often in couples work, the same can be that couples come to couples therapy seven years too late. And I think that's true with partners is in business. It's like they never go to couples therapy. They don't even think about it. And I would recommend this to all the entrepreneurs who are listening. If you're in partnership, I already know that it's going to be hard whether you know it or not. And you probably already know that because you're in partnership. Find a mentor that can help you A. A third party that can help you deepen with your partner. It's. It can be a alchemical, transformative work. So I, we're both married and I always say to people, I have two marriages, one to my partner Joanna and the other's Detroit. And they're both a pain in the ass and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. Like it's really pleasure and forces me to look at myself more honestly.

Right on. As this brings up an exciting question. I think so. As a high performance coach, I'm constantly trying to connect people's work lives and personal lives together. And this is a great, I think segue into personal belief that I have as a married guy. Also that the. Any work that you can put into relationship building and relationship skills, I guess is maybe a way to phrase it will help you in all areas of life if you like. My wife and I have a couple therapists that we go in for maintenance and it's more of a, A Preventive. It's like going to the doctor before you get sick. It's like, hey, how are the vitals? Like, what's going on? What are you seeing? Because you're in it and everyone. Like, when you're both in it, it's really hard to really see the issues or blind spots. But that perspective is super valuable I found in dealing with working on teams. Right. It's another kind of family environment where a lot of times, unless you want to leave, you're stuck and how you show up and those skills that you can bring from your personal life translated into that way. Could you, I guess, at a personal level, could each of you share one or two things that maybe you've learned about relationships in general, either from the men's groups or your personal relationships that could really help people? If there was one thing that you just could think to yourself, if I only would have known this when I was like 25, what would be that one thing that. That really resonated with you now that you wish you would have known?

I'm not sure if it's something I could have groked at 25, but I will say that, yeah, it's a learning of that I think has been as much personal as in the groups that just. That life is really hard and that the people come by their defenses, their ways of protecting themselves, their resistance is to growth honestly. And that the thing that usually helps, I think more often than confrontation or pushing or holding people's feet to the fire is. Is compassion, is warm, loving embrace of saying, I see you and I see your. I see you and your struggle. I see how hard this is for you. And I think I really needed a lot of that and just didn't have that maybe modeled for me so much. And so I didn't have a lot of it in myself to give myself either. And I feel as I. The more that I. With every year that I practice as a therapist, I think I'm bringing more heart and more compassion, more understanding and empathy for. For people's resistances. Ways of. Yeah, even the patterns that are very distancing are hard to get, hard to deal with.

Yeah, I've really seen that in. In you recently, Troy. That's been a point of leadership in our partnership and groups we like Troy has been. Yeah, really leading the way. That's often another nice thing about working with Troy is the boomerang effect we can have on each other. One person might be one step closer to the. The wise heart of things than the other. So we can Share leadership of who's driving the boat and on. Yeah.

Awesome.

How about you, Brian? Is there one thing about relationships that you could maybe share with folks that you've learned from the groups? Personally?

Yeah, I mean, for me, I think about. I've been working with the theme of not enoughness and I tend to wager on the side of too muchness. I'm.

I'm the.

The more is better guy. And I didn't realize when I was younger the ways in which I was running from something that there wasn't in that there isn't an inherent truth to more is better. I was really trying to avoid having to face limits, avoid having to face what I have to feel when I. Which is vulnerable when I have to reckon with, oh, I have limits here. I can't do it all and can't just always be pushing more. Which is a lesson I think we all have to learn as we age. But there is. There's a psychological piece around what I could was embracing and can feel really good. And I like that I'm ambitious. I'm like that I'm high energy and passionate and can build things and get things done in the world. And there's like a softness or a slowing down that I can do and notice like, oh, I also have some more vulnerable needs which, which helps me relate to all of humanity. As Troy is saying, like, all of humanity is in us. And when I was younger, I had a. My impulse was to scapegoat essentially. Oh, there. I. I take the not enoughness that I didn't want to feel on myself and I see it in the world and say, oh, my partner's not enough versus like doing the harder work, which is like, oh, what. Which is what we do in group. What do I have to feel if my partner is enough? Her limits and her accepting of her own limits are, are okay. So that now I'm in. Now no, I'm in my work. And if I do that work, I. It leads me to more whole places. That's.

Those are both really powerful realizations and I want to honor and just call that out because that's of course I'm trying to. Trying not to now reflect on it. We'll take notes and think about it more going ahead. But yeah, definitely I believe in compassion and like the parts where I've been able to be really successful in my work as a software engineer has been showing compassion to people, not especially people that don't understand technology. And just when doors opened or people were friendly with me when I needed something from a project. It was because of that compassion component. And always more isn't always better. I think maybe we all struggle that to some degree. So I see that in myself too. So I just wanted to share that. So thanks for sharing that. That's awesome.

You're asking.

And I think it proves like that that the question of how would I have to feel if my partner was okay with who they were and if they felt they had enough. But I'm paraphrasing here. I felt the power and the shift of that question too. Just in how deep it goes. Like that is not what they're going to be like. Here's my five minute explanation. That's a lifelong pursuit.

So yeah, it's a path that more than an answer. Yeah.

Yes.

A journey. A question that and thinking about right now is part of any community or any human relationship. I believe at the very center is love. And if we're gonna. You guys are so vulnerable and share itive. Sharative. That's a word here. For me growing up, the lesson I would have is that it's okay to. To be angry and actually release it before it accumulates. It's something I've struggled with myself. And that anger isn't necessarily bad. It's something you. But it's trying to tell you something. And to be like hey, this really made me upset before it turns into a big head explosion is something that's very important. But. And I say that point to say that in groups and relationships I think love is key central binding glue to anything. And like love in the like ancient Greek sense of like fraternal love. Like I can love my friends. I can love my acquaintances or people in my community even if I don't agree with them. Curious. How does especially for men's groups where I guess if you go from like a stereotypical thing like it's met showing love is maybe providing or it's very restrictive. How have you guys seen that topic kind of show up in your groups or communities as you guys have gone along?

I have a fun answer to that. And actually it's kind of on two sides of the spectrum. I mentioned earlier I'm speaking directly to the groups we work with. On the one hand we have the group that you mentioned earlier that's pretty been is our most stable in group membership. No one's left in a long time. And so the membership's really stable. So the group identity's able to deepen without interruption. And one of the guys in that group has recently raised that question, like when are we going to say we love each other? Like when are. It's on the verge of that. Which I was mentioning the phases of group earlier. That's more of a phase. What is that, Troy? Is that phase four? It's phase four, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's. And then that also phase four leads to phase five, which is like the morning after. Oh, I said I love you. No. Done the deed. So back to that. What Troy was describing as that need for safety or facing.

Yeah, facing the. Now that we've got. Now that we've gotten intimate with each other. That also means by definition we're going to get to know all of each other's limitations and peccadillas and all the stuff that irritants and so reckoning with that in a deeper way. Yeah, yeah. I want to. Were you done, Brad? Did you want to.

I'll just say the other side of this is I have a group that is the point of kind of teasing themselves because early on they were really quick to say I love you. So that's the other thing is I love you as a. As a way of managing anxiety about the uncertainty, as a way of trying to avoid phase two. So we're a group. This is great. This feels really good. And I wanted to stay feeling good. So I love you. Like what? There's. There's nothing that we really have to deal with here that wouldn't be loving or good or positive. And so it's a fleeing from something. I just noticing two sides of it that it can show up early too as a. As actually a mask of. Masking the anxiety of difference. That's not actually the usual thing that happens, but it can. Cause if one person starts it, it's like now it's in the group and then somebody else says I love you too. And it like there's almost a peer pressure to now be the loving group. And in. Inevitably there's group leaders that we refer to as the defiant leaders that then help the group slow down. I don't want to have to kumbaya with you all. And so they hold the role in the group of we all get to change at our own pace in time or get closer at our own pace and time. But yeah, I'll pass it over to you, Troy.

Yeah. Something that comes to mind about working with men specifically. And I would say not everybody in our groups identifies as straight, but. But many do. And. And I. I think even for folks who are gay or identify as queer or bisexual, that everybody. I Think all men who have grown up in this society have to reckon at some point with the homophobia that comes up around male closeness and that there's. Where men are so entrained to not say I love you, to not share when they feel close to another man for fear that it's going to come off as gay as a. Or as a. As an erotic or a romantic gesture of some kind. And so what we notice we've referred to as the bro code, that there's a lot of. There's a lot of bro code that. That comes up in. In these groups where that we have to help. We have to help them unpack a lot of that sort of societal stuff around essentially what's homophobia? And it doesn't always show up obviously as homophobia. Sometimes it'll just be somebody using the word weird. There's something weird about saying, I feel too close to you. Okay, let's unpack that when you mean by weird. And inevitably, what we get down to at some point is under underlying weird is some kind of fear around coming off as gay. Or the other side that's very closely related is feminine coming off as feminine. Which again, like, culturally we're entrained to. To equate when. When men are holding femininity as weak. So, yeah, so there's a lot. Yeah, so there's a lot of that culture training that we have to unpack.

I want to say one more thing about this, which is one of the beautiful things about group is that they all have their own different identities. So it's easy, I think, when talking about this to. To imagine that it's, oh, okay, that shows up in group. And that's what the group is. It's like, there's a bro code group, but actually there's always these other subgroups. We work with the different subgroups in the group. So some subgroup is actually kind of holding the bro code. And then there's usually. It's like intelligent systems, like a one or two or three or even four guys more depending on the group. This, the. This pro code group could be a smaller subgroup than the majority of the group. But in many of our groups, it is the majority of the group kind of are used to bro code culture. What I'm trying to say is it's. There's all these different subgroups that kind of balance each other out. So there's usually one or two that can speak for it. Who on that boomerang. Boomerang effect I was talking about earlier who are like, maybe A step closer to the wiser heart of things or seeing something a little bit more clearly with a little bit more wisdom. And we try to help them give voice.

It's.

If we're doing our job well, over time, the groups doing our job for us in a certain way. Okay.

I guess to be clear, when you say bro code, it's like rules about expressing feelings and closeness and intimacy. Or is it like a secret way to say I love you in a way that's. I just want to make that clear as I wasn't clear on that.

Yeah, I think it's these kind of unspoken rules around. You don't. Yeah. You don't talk about your feelings. Definitely don't talk about your feelings with other men. You don't let somebody know that you care about them or that you feel close to them or that you love them. If you do, you gotta put it. You've gotta put bro or man or brother something at the end of it to soften it, make. Make it clear that it's. That it's not a romantic gesture. So there's just like a lot of little things that just show up consistently again and again. And we find the. We find them in the organic exchange.

Right on. Okay, thanks for clearing that up. Once I was doing a little bit of research, and one of the statistics I found about friendship, and I was trying to find a connection to friendship and mental health and particularly to. To men. The probably the biggest statistic I found was that instead of 20 years ago was like, what was it? I know what the statistic is now is that one out of six male identified and whatever the statistics are, whatever that is, don't have someone that's close to them where they feel like they can talk or on the contrary, I think it was also that they think that they're the best person that they know, which I found to be sad. So I was wondering, in these groups, I'm sure you talk about friendships. Part of being intimate is being able to say, hey, I respect you. I love you, in my belief. And maybe that we could go into that at another time. Maybe. But how does friendship and community come up in your work? I'm just curious.

Different groups have different models at this point. We run a lot of different groups. Why don't I just talk about the groups that go on the retreat? Maybe I'll start with that, because that feels like. The best example is we have four of our groups that go on an annual retreat together. So there's the four pods that meet weekly together as individual groups of about eight guys. And then once a year we bring them all together. So it's about 30 men and we're camping out and food served. And it's a whole different program than our weekly 90 minute ritual that we do, which really diversifies the year and brings men into much deeper, longer contact with each other. And since we started doing that, we've said we've handed over the reins to the guys to choose how they want to be in relationship with each other. Prior to that, we ran these groups originally and as a traditional psychotherapeutic process. Groups which traditionally said that the group doesn't have outside contact. So people would come for these 90 minutes and we'd be doing deep work of trying to help make the unconscious processes more conscious. But over time and actually pretty quickly we realized there's something that doesn't quite feel right about this. In the context of modern day crises around men in isolation, they're getting something from our group so they don't get anywhere else in their life. And there was a craving for more contact and to bring them friendships outside of the group. So community shows up in a huge way in our annual retreat. There's song, there's dance, there's tug of war, there's competition, there's play, there's a lot of deep circling which over, over the course of a few days, people's defenses get worn down and they can have bigger breakthroughs that they than they would have even in a year in our group. Sometimes it's like in that weekend we. There's tears, the whole gamut of human experience. And that's super enriching for the men and I think really supports their relationships throughout the year. And with that said, everybody gets to choose like how close or distant they want to be. It's okay to just come to the retreats, okay to just come to group weekly and not hang out outside a group. But yeah, I'll stop there just to give Troy some space.

Yeah, I. And I think the opening that opening the groups up to the possibility of outside contact has also really illuminated, I think the ways that you know that it's like you bring yourself everywhere. Right. It's not only now are they bringing showing up as their relational self inside of group. They're also showing up in their. As their relational selves outside of group with each other. So folks who are maybe struggle with social anxiety, for example, when they shut down, when somebody reaches out over text, they get confronted about it in group next week. And there's a Cha. There's actually an opportunity. Opportunity that's unique to. To being in group, where I think probably nine times out of ten, socially speaking, unless you have a pretty, like, forward, confrontational friend who's willing to like, let you know that how that impacted them, you're not going to get that feedback. And I think it's really been. I've seen that as being really important and almost like we're creating like a. Almost like a. A new vision for what authentic community could look like if people were more transparent with each other, if people communicated more openly about. About their feelings and about how. Yeah. Impacts. And. And I think that, again, that. That comes back to Brian and I's relationship work. You and I have figured out how to do that, how to form a friendship with each other that's like that. And I think that makes it possible. It's the foundation for these guys to then be able to build that kind of community with each other. And it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of time. This kind of genuine community takes a long time because people. People have different hangups. They have different, very different kinds of experiences of community, of family, of individual friendship. And not all of them are great. And so we're working through those ones that aren't so great. Live as it's unfolding, as we're trying to get closer. What happens when we try to be more authentic? Each other.

Yeah, that. That makes me realize I want to highlight one of the elements of our groups that we both love, which is. It's really real. I think sometimes people think of like, men's groups or therapy groups as just like a Kumbaya kind of a place or just empathetic relating, which I think for a lot of men out there, they're like, no, I'm wanting something more. I'm wanting some more contact. I don't want to go pay and just be nice to each other, which. There's nothing wrong with that. But there's something that. There's a fire in our groups where we're not. We're really. We're not messing around. We're really seeing each other. You can't hide. And you're allowed to say, I'm not up for it today. I'm feeling sick, so I'm gonna be quiet. No problem. Come as you are. But the fact that you can't really hide makes it really transformative. And. And so the issues you're having at work, the issues you're having with your wives, those will show up in group, guarantee it. I actually was slightly skeptical about this when I was in training. I was like, really though? Would it really show up in a group like and across the board? A hundred percent of the time we carry ourselves wherever we go and our hangups are included in that. It's not a fight club. It's not like bully it out of you either. It's just a, we're seeing you. This is real. And that's really confrontative. Which brings up the Bro Code piece that sometimes needs to be unpacked. Which is part of the Bro Code is don't. We don't look at that together. We ignore these things together. We siphon them off. And so that can get in the way of us actually being mature men who actually see, have vision. I'm not allowed to see that or I'm not supposed to see that. So we're going to pretend like it's not here. That phenomenon is really strong.

Yeah. I'm not supposed to feel jealous of two other guys friendship with each other, for example, let alone acknowledge that out loud.

As I was listening, the word that I kept held onto is it's. The work is challenging. Right. It's a challenge to take a look at those things that Bro Code says we can't or we're conditioned not to in order to be a masculine energy out in the world. I just want to commend you guys for that work of helping build a community where that challenge is encouraged and accepted. Because I think that's. We all need that in our lives universally. Because that's how you grow. It's not from doing the easy things. It's from confronting the things as they are and then being like, okay, it's my responsibility to go now what? And I'm sure that's why a lot of people end up going to a group like this is to step up and grow. So I wanted to acknowledge that. One more question I wanted to get to before we start wrapping it up is you did mention a couple of times in the conversation. I was trying to find a way to work it out into the conversation. But maybe it's not a men's group. It's like a masculine energy group to be more inclusive to non binary or people in the gay community or whatnot. My question is how it's like, how tricky is it to navigate that in today's social environment? Because it could be. There could be a lot of you say the wrong thing in society. You could get whacked from multiple angles. Conservative, more progressive. There's not a really we don't have a good common language socially to talk about the stuff, which can make it really confusing. How have you guys navigated that in your work?

Yeah, first I'd say. I wouldn't say that we're necessarily even a masculine energy group. I think we're. What to be inclusive. We're a people's group and we're taking the segment of people who identify as men or are affiliated with the male experience and saying, if you're interested, come join us. We're going to do some work that's in that subgroup of people. Um, and so I. Actually, the way I loosen it up for myself is to not too. Put too much pressure on it. There's a lot of social stigma and pressure to get it right. And I think that's. That can be scary. And so I. Maybe I'm bypassing something, but it's good for my nervous system to say, like, yeah, we're putting the call out, if you're interested, come join us. Because there's something important and primal and traditional about circling up as men. And that's. I'll pause there. I'm sure Troy had some things to share.

Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking about our last retreat and we. So we also, as facilitators, we bring in some outside facilitators who bring in other perspectives and our kind of work from different models than us. And some of the. One of the guys in particular that we brought in as a facilitator was bringing in some language at the retreat around that that is more definitively referring to everybody as. As men and, and men's work. And. And it kicked up a lot actually for the group. And there were like a sub. There was a subgroup of. Of people who some of them were maybe identified as non binary or maybe just felt less. Less polarized. As in the category of man. It's identified strongly with that and. And then some other folks who were just more empathizing. I think with that perspective. I think it's. We're open to. To the conversation that comes from that and, and that there's. We're inevitably working with polarities of all kinds. Cause we live in a very polarized society. So it's like we, we. The short answer is that we welcome it all in. We're actually like really interested in having those conversations and not just around sexuality or gender, but also around race and around money and class, privilege, all those kinds of things. Nothing's off the table.

Yeah, I'll say. Yeah, we. We've had really interesting Conversations around men's groups. Some people being like, I put this on my dating profile. And when I go on dates and I say I'm on a. I'm in a men's group, I feel like it's rapport building. Like, women tend to say thank you or really like it. And then others who are like, I'm. I find that I'm in a men's group. I feel really uncomfortable with being in a men's group. But. But inevitably they're showing up and getting value from the group. And their relationship with the group itself might be a totally different thing from their relationship with the word men's group. And then there's this other thing we've been wrestling with, which is there's this idea of men's work, which I'm recognizing. I have a certain, like, a little bit of a hang up with this idea of men's work. On the one hand, it's great, but I don't identify as necessarily a men's work guy. I think because it's. It sounds. I think because it feels overly prescriptive, there's a specific work that we need to do. And again, I. We're in. We're doing humid work where we're making space for what is. Can we put language to what is most authentic in the room? Whether that's good, bad, ugly, indifferent, dissociated. Bro, coding. I love you. I don't want to hear that word in this room. Whatever it is. We're like, oh, wow, can we welcome that in too? So the full gamut. Feminine, masculine. Don't like either of those polarities. Feel limited by them, feel contained by them. Locate myself on the. On the spectrum or not. So that feels more freeing to me that we're. We're a group that gets to just be human together.

Right. Thanks for explaining that. Just because. Well, yeah, we're limited by the English language a lot of the times and that particular conversation. And so it's always. I'm always just curious to hear when other people think about that. Okay, final question, and then we'll get to how to follow up with y'.

All.

If there was one thing that you've picked up through this human group work, what if you could put it on, like, a bumper sticker or plaster it on a billboard? Like, one message from the work that you've done up to this point that you think would help all of humanity will make it super big. What would you put on that bumper sticker or billboard?

I would say risk being deeply who you Are.

Well, what do you mean by that?

That would be my message would be that take the risk to be deeply who you are. And. And that I think the subtext is that we're ever deepening, you know, that we're never a finished product. And so that's. Yeah. That. That's what kind of keeps me engaged is the deepening and the risking over time. That's awesome.

And my. Mine might be like a two parter. I've always been drawn to this statement, the truth will set you free, which helps me feel courageous and in the eyes of intensity of a group experience, of being exposed. But then I've also been working with this. The thought of the truth ends as a collective experience. Actually not as a one thing. Like the truth will set you free. Sounds like there's one truth. And so maybe the truth will set you free. And the truth is most. I don't know. I don't know the next part, but I'm working on it. Like perhaps the truth is most true as a collective. The truth is more true through the eyes of the collective.

Yeah. It's like the truth is multivariate.

Yeah. Yeah.

Multifaceted. Yeah. That's a thing we. We talk about in. In group is there's no master narrative in the rip. Okay. Got a lot of room for a lot of different stories about what's happening here.

And there's a lot of important truth in the room. Yeah. It's really powerful when somebody's not seeing something about themselves and it's obvious to five of the guys and they're feeling aggravated. And on a one on one basis, you can tell your friend, like, hey, I'm noticing you do this thing. No misunderstanding. It's much harder to do know in the eyes of five guys who see you weekly, know you deeply, and five of them are saying the same thing. It's okay, maybe I should take this medicine. Maybe there's a truth here that will actually set me free.

Right.

Yeah. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with Ted Lasso TV show on Apple Plus I have the quote that the truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off is maybe another part of it. But it's something I definitely think is true too. Absolutely love it.

Yeah. I've had. Personally, I've had experiences leaving group pissed as a participant. Troy and I are both in a group process together. We practice what we practice. So we're participants who have a. Yeah. Couple mentors who hold space for us in a group process. And the Most valuable ones is when I leave super pissed with the group. It's not that common, but when it happens, I'm usually confused, feeling misunderstood, and there's some truth that's trying to get through the group to me and I'm sure say I wouldn't be able to grock it when I was 25. Something I'm not quite. I'm on. I'm not quite ready to grok and so I need to get pissed about it, talk to other people about it. And it's. But it's a fast tracking. Like I think you probably were ready when you were 25, Troy, if you had the right group around you telling you it over and over and you fighting with it until you surrender. Maybe at age 26, you're like, I see what they're saying.

No, my ego suit was too strong. It would only fortified it further.

Fair enough. Yeah. Well, it speaks to the importance of having professionals in the room too. We can work with the places that it's too much. There's too much pressure coming in. There might be too much truth. We can help. Help make sure the space is productive. And like I said earlier, we're not a fight club. We can fight. Sometimes we have to fight, but we're not fighting for the sake of fighting. That's not the point.

Right, right, right.

Gentlemen, it's been a fantastic conversation. I'd love. We'll put this in the show notes. But where can the good folks follow up with y' all if you. If they were interested in learning more about IRL men or IRL therapy? Maybe you could talk about the difference real quick too about that.

Sure. Yeah. So our website for the men's groups is. Com. And that if you're interested specifically in. In joining a men's group, either a support group or a process group, that would be a place to reach out. We have a contact form on the homepage there. And then more of a recent addition is IRL therapy. And that's. We have a couple of other practitioners that we're partnered with and that's a therapy center. So we offer individual couples therapy as well as group therapy.

And we can offer family therapy, although.

And families.

Anybody's currently working with any families, we're available for it. And that's in real life. IRL is stands for in real life for those who are unfamiliar with that one, which we've before used to mean like in the flesh. And it's evolved with the pandemic around. Like we get real. This is in real life. Even when we're on Zoom. Very real contact.

Yeah. It's the realest Zoom call you're. You'll ever be on.

That's right. Maybe that's our bumper sticker.

There you go.

Yeah. Yeah.

We. We also have a group that is led by Tom Kim, our friend and associate and colleague. That's a group, a process group for East Asian men. East Asian American men. And so that's the group that Troy and I do not lead.

Right on. That's awesome.

Oh, and one other thing is that we also have a daytime group that's open to everyone in the country. We practice primarily in California, but there's a daytime group that's just a men's group. It's not a. It's not a therapy group. And. But it's. And therefore it's open to the world. And it takes place 2:30 Pacific Time on Thursdays.

Awesome. Good. Folks, if you are looking for a little bit of help in your life, definitely check out these two fine gentlemen. It's been an honor having you guys on. Thank you for being so open and honest and thank you for the good work that you're doing out in the world. I know it's making a difference, and I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I'll have to go back through my notes to process it more as a little bit more focused, but, yeah, you guys are great. I hope you guys will come back sometime. Love to talk with you more in a future episode of the Meaningful Revolutions. Thank you guys for being on.

Yeah, thank you. Sean and I. Yeah, appreciate the work that you're doing here and getting. Getting voices out there and just helping people to connect with these kinds of resources so the people know where to go.

All right, that, folks, we'll see you in the next episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast. Take care, guys.