Connor Beaton: Self-Discovery Through Shadow Work + How To Find The Perfect Partner

Like it's easier for a man to say fuck you than it is to say I'm hurt. We often been taught as men to be very self sufficient. And so there's this notion that we should have it all figured out, we should know exactly what we want. There's not a lot of room for a man to say, I actually have no frickin clue what I want in a woman. And so by starting to pay attention to who you are as a man and what starts to show up in a relationship, your insecurities, your sabotage, you know, you becoming needy and all that bullshit that starts to bubble up to the surf, there's merit in understanding your own darkness because your darkness is still you. Your insecurities, your inferiorities, what you don't want other people to know about you. So when you start to turn towards your fears, your insecurities, your doubts, there's a chance that you're able to not only understand those parts of you, but welcome them back into your inner kingdom.

Because whether it's weight loss, whether it's personal development, anything that y' all want this year, it all is connected to this.

When you pay attention to that and start to work on those parts and accept it in and welcome those parts of you, what you'll start to notice is that you will gain an immense amount of clarity on the type of woman that you want to be with, because you will learn who the fuck you are.

I'm so, so inspired by what you've been creating. And I was just telling you before we hit the record button, like you have grown exponentially and it's a testament to your work. And you know, it's no surprise that Connor, the new book, Men's Work, right? The. The way that we can face our darkness and self sabotage and find freedom. And I know those were probably terms that your editor liked because they rhymed and all that, but there' some, there's some deep, deep meaning in there. And it's a reflection, brother, of where you've been, how you've been serving and how you show up. So just welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. I appreciate you and I appreciate you having me back on and I've been looking forward to this conversation for sure. And it's been an honor and pleasure to watch your journey as well from. From across the country, from the east coast, and just watch you grow and what you've been doing with the show. And it's cool to see you in the studio. It looks beautiful and I definitely, definitely want to get out there. Whether, whether or not we record at some point, I want to be out there, I want to walk in that studio and I want to celebrate with you.

Yes, well, this is a celebration to kick off the year. This is our first episode of 2023 and I think it was perfect because right now, Connor, people are focused on weight loss and becoming their best self. And it's like no matter what you want outside, all the answers are deep within. And that sounds like a very spiritual statement, which it is. Like any kind of work for men or women is very spiritual. And a lot of what I've gone through LA year in 2022, it was about allowing parts of myself to die that had been gnawing at me for quite some time. And I'm curious for you, man, five years in the making for this book with your son code being born in the middle of it and all the things that you've had to carry, you know, leading men across the world. What expansion did you have to face within Connor, within self to let maybe one or two big things die in order for this book to truly be birthed?

Yeah, I mean it was interesting because I put this proposal together years ago and it sort of evolved over time. And then when, when I was really ready last, I think it was last year or the year before, I ended up getting connected with an agent phenomenal agent, phenomenal agency. And I really was sort of set on publishing this book through a mainstream publisher. And that came. And this is, I'll tell you something about me that came on the other side of me having a few conversations with big publishing houses, like some of the biggest in the world, and them literally telling me, we love the concept, we love you and your work and your platform, but men don't buy books and men don't buy personal development and self help books. And I was like, well, maybe you're not publishing anything that they give a shit about, you know, have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought of the fact that it's like it's not that men don't buy books, it's like you're not producing content that they actually care about that's relevant to them?

Yeah.

And so it kind of lit this fuel under my asked to prove the, the publishing industry wrong, you know, and to put a piece of work out there that's that was literally from men for men and about men. And yes, women will learn from it and they can learn a lot about men from it, but it's really a book for men about Men. And so anyway, and so I ended up having my son, and the day that we got back from the hospital, so my son is born March 13. We're in the hospital for four days because there was some minor complications in the very beginning, and we wanted to make sure that he was all good. We get back from the hospital and I have two back to back interviews with major publishing houses. And a week and a half, two weeks later, you know, get offers and decide what to do and decide who to go with. Ended up going with. Sounds true. It was just a great publishing house. And I was off, you know, off to the races of writing this book. And so it's. It's definitely been an interesting journey to. To juggle. And then after that, my wife signed with the same agency that I was with, and then she got a book deal and then she started writing her book. And so it was like, you know, we. We recorded this podcast called Two Books and a Baby where we just talked about what it was like to be a couple who were both running businesses, having a new child, writing books, building a house, like just trying to smash all of life into one very finite period of time, which I do not rec end for. Everybody listening. I, like, we definitely, we definitely took on too much. For sure. We bit off more than we can chew, but we're ambitious people. So I think on that note, what I had to sort of let die was two things. The first thing was this old story that younger me had about not being good enough and not specifically not being smart enough. You know, I grew up in an environment where I was constantly told, you're a stupid piece of shit, you know, you'll never amount to anything. Guy literally heard those things constantly. And so I held that story as a young boy and as a young man that there, there was something fundamentally wrong with me and flawed with me. And as I was telling you before the show, like, I fail grade 12 English, I fail grade 12 biology, mostly because I was off with my girlfriend at the time and prioritizing partying and women. But also, I just didn't try. I didn't apply myself because I had bought into this story that I had held that I was not smart enough. And so part of that really got confronted when I started writing the book. And I had started writing this book years and years and years ago. I had the concept about five years ago. But then when I actually got the contract and signed the book deal and started writing the book, all of a sudden all of those older insecurities came back up Do I really know what I'm talking about? Are people really going to give a shit about this? You know, am I going to be able to convey my teachings and the messages and the lessons that I've learned along the way in a way that. That is going to really land for people and help them create transformation in their life? And so that old narrative just, like, came back strong, man. And I remember one night having a conversation with my wife where I was like, I'm. I'm struggling. You know, I was like, a month and a half in two months into writing this book. I didn't have a collaborator, so I didn't have somebody that was there, you know, having me speak to them and then them writing the words. I was literally writing the book. And I was like, I'm. I'm struggling. All these insecurities and all these fears are coming back up, and this feels like the most terrifying thing that I could do. And I can feel like, younger me just being like, dude, if you put this book out here, people are gonna hate it. And it was funny because in the moment, you know, she was a new mom, and she just didn't have capacity for it. And she's like, you'll be fine. Like, you need us to get over this.

She's dealing with so much at that point. I went through that too, where it's like, you're gonna have to handle your own.

Yeah, yeah. She's just got so much going on. She's like. She's like, you're gonna be fine. So she didn't have a lot of space, which was funny, because when she started writing her book, she had the exact same insecurity come up. But so I had to. I had to really let that go. I had to face and confront the fact that this old story was present and to create the possibility of something new. And so, as I wrote, I would send chapters to people in my life that I deeply respected. And I would say, tear this up. You know, give me genuine feedback. Love it, hate it. Somewhere in between, tell me what you like. And I ended up hiring the guy who helped me put my book proposal together, like, the structure of it. And he had been an editor at GQ and Men's Health magazine for, like, two decades. And I would. I sent him, like, I think, the first six to eight chapters. And I said, can you just tell me if this makes sense and is engaging and lands. And so I did all these things to kind of get external feedback where old me, because of the story that I'm not good enough. Would have avoided any feedback. You know, he would have avoided any feedback and any type of correction because he wouldn't have wanted to feel the shame. So I had to put myself in these positions of telling, you know, having people tell me, like, this part's great. This part's phenomenal. This part doesn't really make two sense, and it's, like, too intellectual and too heady and, you know, and so I could see this part of me that was also overcompensating. So that was the big piece as I went through this book of letting that die. I would say that's. That's the primary thing.

There's probably many more. There's probably many more layers to that, too. I'm visualizing what it must have felt like, because anytime Connor I've ever done anything new where I've really put myself out there, like changing the show name last year and, you know, having my son and doing my growth here in Austin, I always have that come up, too, every single time. And I think for me, it really stems around a father wound. You talk about this in the book. One of my most potent parts as I was reading the book was chapter three. And everybody's going to feel this because whether this is a specific book for men, but I think the women here with us can really feel this too. And this was the shadow of the father. So I'm just going to read this quick clip right here because it's my favorite. What was silent in the father speaks in the son. And often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father. And that was Nietzsche. You said, the shadow of your father is neither good nor bad, only inescapable. I mean, that is an entire podcast right there, you know, just what I shared. But how did that play out for you? Because I know it connects to my soul in a very expansive way, but in that expansion was a lot of pain, a lot of uncomfortableness. So why did you write that specific chapter? What did that quote mean to you? How did that play out in your life up to this point?

Yeah, I mean, in many ways I. I wrote, you know, I shared that quote and I wrote that sentence that it's, you know, our father's shadow is neither good nor bad because we often get caught demonizing our father, and we do get stuck in his shadow. Right. I think my father should have been this. He should have been nicer, he should have been kinder. You know, he should have stood up to my mom or. And we. We become a sort of judge of our parent. You know, we become a judge of our. Our father. And we sit in this righteous seat when we're hurt as, as young boys, as men, and we say, this is how my dad should have parented me. As if we know, you know, as if we have any context for his life and what he was going through and any of those other things. And so partly it's to remove the. The predilection towards pedestaling our fathers or, or trying to take them down a peg by judging them and their actions and actually seeing the man that they were. And that allows us to step out behind their shadow, behind the. The shadow of who they were and how great they were and how exceptional they were and how we'll never feel like we can, you know, live up to their expectations or live up to the man that they were or step out of the shadow of. They were a piece of shit and they treated me like shit, and I don't know how to forgive them. And so for me, you know, my. My parents were divorced when I was three. My father left, remarried another woman, and he started his own family. And so as I talk about in the book, you know, I really experienced this. This deep pain as a child where I wanted him to be around, but I couldn't see him and I couldn't understand it. And so it created this kind of hollowness like buried within my chest that I didn't know how to communicate, I didn't know how to express when I was a boy. But I just felt this like really deep pain because of the death of my parents marriage. And then my mom remarried and she married this man, my stepfather. And he and I did not get along. We did not have a good relationship. I did not want him around. I didn't like him. And I fudgeing let him know that. And he. And I.

Was it like a physical thing? Was it like physical or verbal or.

Sometimes, yeah, yeah, it was a lot of like verbal and emotional challenging and abuse sometimes. And you know, and then sometimes it was physical as well. And so, so he. And I would get into it and. And the. The challenging part for me was that he was my primary parent. He was the coach of my hockey team. He was the one spending the most time with me. And so here I was this. This boy who had lost his father, who had lost the one person that he really wanted to be around the most. Because what boy doesn't just love their father and want time with them, right?

Yeah.

And so I lost this. This sort of godlike figure in My life and had been replaced with this person who. Who was doing his best, admittedly, but. But was abusive sometimes, you know. And so that created this really sort of tumultuousness within me where I didn't know how to engage with either of them and I didn't know how to engage with men, made me not trust men or masculinity. And so what ended up happening is years later, I started to try and father. So I got out of high school, I didn't know what I was going to be doing. My stepdad had got me a job working construction. I'm in northern Alberta, working in gravel pits at like minus 40, minus 30, you know, in the winter. I hated it. I disliked my life. And so I started to try and pursue my dad and literally started to live in his shadow. And so he. He worked for the government, but he's saying part time in like the. The local opera chorus, you know. And so to try and get close to him, I started to take music lessons and I started to try and spend more time with him. And it was like the more I pursued building this relationship with him, the more vague and nebulous he seemed to be to me. And the more frustrated I was, the more angry I was because he had this whole family and it seemed like he was very dedicated to them. And so I. I literally had to let that play its course until my life sort of broke down and, you know, for a number of different reasons that we can sort of talk about if that's. That's valuable, and step outside of the shadow of both of these men that had raised me, one that I was chasing and one that I just vehemently did not want to be around. And so once I did that, once I started to step outside of that shadow and actually see them for who they were, there was a possibility for me to step into the man that I was capable of becoming outside of their purview, outside of who they were and who they wanted me to be and who I was trying to be to piss them off or appease them or any of that bullshit, but to actually, in a sovereign way, step outside of their confines and into the sort of formation of my own identity, unencumbered by them or their expectations or anything.

This podcast is brought to you by my friends and partners over at hvmn, otherwise known as Health Via Modern Nutrition. They make an energy and cognition drink called Ketone iq. I've been using it for many months now, not only for my energy. Here's the thing for My energy without caffeine. That's right, no caffeine, no sugar. Just clean, on demand energy for superior physical and cognitive performance. Now, if you don't know, ketones are nature's super fuel, proven to support energy, focus, endurance and more. Developed alongside the US military and top universities, HVMN's Ketone IQ delivers all those benefits in one shot, one little drink. One of the biggest benefits of ketones is taming my hunger hormone, ghrelin, the hormone that my stomach tells my brain, hey, I'm hungry. It turns that down, so I feel fuller for much longer. You might have heard of ketones before, but there's a big difference. There's ketones from the inside, known as endogenous, and there's ketones from the outside known as exogenous. But here's the kicker. They both work the same exact way, except for the one of them you have to starve yourself. And for the one that I use the ketone iq, you can just drink it and get all the brain energy and metabolic advantages of fasting, but without the hunger. And that's amazing. So this is where science is actually on our side. I've been using ketone IQ for over six months, since the founder Michael Brandt came on the show. And I'll tell you, it's better than a second or third cup of coffee in the afternoon because you don't get the jitters, you don't get the crash, just the energy and no crazy side effects. If you've been looking for a coffee alternative to make your brain and your body and your energy and metabolism improve, look no further than ketone IQ. Just head over to JoshTrent.com HVMN that's JoshTrend.com HVMN Enter code Josh. You get 20% off. You can take these little ketone IQ shots in these portable little containers, or you can buy the bigger bottles and get them on a recurring delivery at a recurring discount. Joshtrend.com HVMN use the code Josh for 20% off your order. Wow, there's two big ones. There's two big ones right there. You said sovereignty and actually truly stepping out of the shadow. So when you say sovereignty and stepping out of the shadow, those are easy words for the intellect to understand, but to actually have those embodied, that is sometimes for a lot of people, a lifetime of work. So let's e break that really quickly. Sovereignty and stepping out of the shadow involves looking at your own shadow, an emotional inventory process, a way to actually befriend I know it sounds counterintuitive to befriend your shadow and learn from it as a protector, as a teacher, as a guide. Go into that a little bit yourself and then also share Connor, how that's in the book, a big aspect of this book. And probably when people search for you online, there's a lot of connection between Connor Beaton and the shadow. So please talk about that, bring that all together for us. Because whether it's weight loss, whether it's personal development, anything that y' all want this year, it all comes to this. It all is connected to this.

So, you know, I'm going to approach this by just saying, like, there's merit in understanding your own darkness, because your darkness is still you, right? Your darkness is still a part of who you are, your insecurities, your inferiorities, what you worry about people knowing about you, what you don't want other people to know about you. There's merit in the reclamation of that psychological, emotional, spiritual, physical material, right? So when you start to turn towards your fears, your insecurities, your doubts, there's a chance that you're able to not only understand those parts of you, but welcome them back into your inner kingdom. And generally speaking, the. The process of doing that, the process of, as a man, admitting I feel hurt or I feel insecure and then beginning to work with that insecurity or that anxiety or that fear is the very act of strengthening that sends the signal to your psychology and your emotional body and your physical body. Like, oh, I can not only do hard things, but I can invite in the unsavory elements of who I have thought I am and really invite in the parts of myself that up until this point, I have thought if I let other people know about these things, they're going to reject me, they're going to break up with me and leave me and not love me and not give me the kind of sex that I want and all that other kind of bullshit that runs through our head. Yeah, right. And so. And in doing so, you become more sovereign. Because here's the. Here's the real kicker is a great saying by psychologist and a therapist, American therapist, named Francis Weller, who, I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's phenomenal. And he says, your pain has its own intell intelligence, your pain has its own intelligence. So your shadow has its own intelligence. And. And in Jung's framework, the man who invent invented the concept of the shadow. The shadow is the sort of psychological energy that's Working against you to shut off the pathways towards your goals, your aims, the change that you want, the love that you want, the connection you want, etc. So we have to be able to start to understand and invite in that intelligence to work with us to build a relationship with it. So it's not working against us, but with us. And when we can start to do that, we start to expand consciously, but we start to expand into a more robust version of ourselves. And we do the hard thing that up until that point, we've been rejecting and avoiding. And that creates sovereignty internally because we do one thing that so many people in our modern culture are afraid to do. We stop making other people responsible for how we feel. We stop doing that. That's what sovereignty is about, is to have a kind of reclamation of, this is what I'm experiencing. This is what I'm feeling. This is what I'm going through and thinking, and this is what I'm ashamed of, and this is what I don't want to talk about. And when we start to reclaim those internal truths and stop, you know, putting those on other people and making our spouse responsible for them, then we create a deeper level of sovereignty within our own sense of being other people can trust us more. And not only. Not only that, but maybe more importantly, we can trust us more. So I don't know if it'd be helpful to me give, like, a very specific example, but.

Well, I have something better. I have something better. I want to ask you how this played out with Vienna, because I know with Kerry, Michelle, and probably with all the male friends that I have that do any kind of work, our spouse or our partner is the greatest mirror for the sovereignty you're talking about. And I'm curious how this has played out with you and her, especially with the birth of code. Because when I went, when you were talking, Connor, I was almost visualizing if sovereignty was a rope, it's connected to this really solid foundation of knowing who you are, know thyself and peace. Right? Sovereignty is connected to peace. Otherwise there'd be no anchor for it to attach to. So our partners, in a way, it's such a paradox, man. They. They challenge our peace. But that's good because they test the foundation of our sovereignty, which is it's connected to. So. So maybe if you're open to it. I know I'm putting you on the spot.

No, no, you're good.

But how did this. How did this play out? How does this play out with Vienna? Maybe now or in the past? This concept yeah, I'll give you.

I'll give you a pretty clear example. So, and. And maybe just one thing before I give you the example, which is in the book, I talk about how, when I talk about our relationship to women, our relationship as men to women, I talk about how women reveal who you are as a man. So if you want to be in right relationship with a woman, it's not about trying to figure her out or win with her or get it right with her or get her validation or, you know, live the happy life, happy wife bullshit. That. That never works. What does work is beginning to see who do I become as a man in this relationship, whether it's with my wife or with a new girlfriend or with a woman I'm dating, right? Who do I become and what gets revealed about me as a man in relationship. Because you're the journey, brother. You're the journey. Your psyche, your morals, your ethics, your internal sense of code and direction, your purpose. That's the journey. And when we offload that journey onto a woman and project that onto her, we disempower ourselves and we disenfranchise ourselves as men. And that feels wildly unsafe for the women that we're with, because what we've just told them is, not only do I think I'm responsible for your happiness, but now I need to find my purpose through you. I need to find my function through you as a man. So by doing some of this work, we start to reclaim who we actually are and not only become sort of more quote, unquote, safe for women, but we actually become fundamentally more attractive to women. Because when we do that, they can see like, oh, here's a man on his path. Here's a man that has some form of calling and a purpose, and that's deeply attractive to the feminine, to women. So this specific example I'll give is when my wife and I first started dating, we have very different upbringings. I'm like the oldest of five. She is an only child. And so she grew up in this environment where things were high. Conflict, you know, lots and lots of it. Cops are called sometimes. Lots of sort of getting into arguments and disagreements and people needing to be right and et cetera. And I grew up where in one household there was no conflict, just didn't exist, didn't happen. And in the other household, conflict was violent or abusive. And so I had a pretty strong predisposition to avoid conflict. And I was sort of like the classic, classic nice guy, right? So when we started dating, some of those patterns started to reemerge, you know, because in. In past relationships, I had been the guy where, you know, I would get into a relationship, and when things started to go south, I would check out in some fashion by finding another woman for the side, you know, I was like a chronic serial cheater, just constantly, you know. And so in this relationship and. And in the ones before it, I've been really trying to not do that, you know, to step in, lean in, fully, ask for what I wanted, ask for what I needed. So when we first started dating, everything, you know, in the honeymoon phase was great. And then at some point, things started to shift, you know, when. When the veil falls, the honeymoon phase goes away. And we started to have these, like, little arguments and little conflicts that were starting to show up, and she was happy to engage with them. You know, she's no problem. She was sort of, you know, sort of in my face sometimes. And that was really jarring for me because no part of me wanted to deal with that. And every part of me felt like I was back in that conflict with, like, my stepdad, where I need to defend myself and fight and be louder than the other person and dominate the interaction. And so I started to notice this part of me coming into the relationship that had never been online before, you know, that wanted to dominate conversations and be right at all costs and get loud if I needed to and, you know, take up more space and sort of hostile. And after a couple weeks of that, after maybe like a month or two of getting into some of these arguments, I was like, what in the is going on? Like, what is happening?

Who is this monster inside of me?

Yeah, like, who is this monster? And why can I not, like, regulate myself and stay grounded in these conversations, you know, because in any other interaction at work, you know, in the work that I was doing with men, like, I can hold for some pretty deep stuff, you know, I can hold for. I mean, the work that I do is helping men in. In a lot of ways move through trauma, you know, and that's. That's a big part of the work that I do, and that's. That's. You have to be present in a very specific way for that. And so I was like, well, how come I can. I can be deeply present in those moments and grounded, and that's. That doesn't phase me. But when my girlfriend at the time, my now wife, is criticizing me for something, it's completely throwing me off and messing my up, you know, and causing me to become so reactive. And so I went back to the sort of core principles of the shadow, which is when you get reactive, it is a neon sign pointing towards your shadow. And I started to see how there was this hurt, younger part of me that thought that he needed to fight and defend himself and dominate the other person in order to provide safety, in order to prove that he could belong, in order to prove that he was worthy of being in that relationship. And so as I started to tend to that part of me, I could set much clearer boundaries about what was okay and what wasn't okay for me when it came to conflict, you know, with. With my now wife and say, like, this isn't workable. And, you know, I don't think that we should talk to each other like that and, and set some structure around how conflict looked. And that was one of the most powerful things that I. I think I did in our dynamic. Because as I talk about in the book, you. You want to find a partner that you can do conflict with. It's not that you don't want to find a woman that. It's not that you want to find a woman that conflict never happens. That's not real. You know, that's some, like, Disney bullshit that we've been sold in our modern culture that you should find this perfect relationship that's oneitis.

And it doesn't exist, but it actually exists only to make people feel inferior and to monetize them. From relationship courses to movies to jewelry and all this stuff like that. I feel like what you're talking about, there's an entire industry and world with segments that really feasts upon the insecurity that is created by finding the relationship that just feels good, brother. It just feels good, sister. Those don't actually exist.

Yeah. And. And what does exist is the reality of the human experience, which is sometimes it's going to be messy and sometimes it's going to be conflict. And so what I talked about in the book is like, find a woman that you want to do conflict with. Find a woman that you can trust enough to go through those hard conversations and hard times with, because you're probably going to do it anyways. You know, you're going to lose parents, you're going to lose family members. Shit's going to go wrong in your business or your career. And so, you know, if you can have somebody that's along for the ride with you, that you respect enough to move through some of that conflict with, you're much more likely to show up in a respectful way to want to prioritize, figuring out what's happening within you as a man, and then subsequently become somebody who's willing to move through that, that conflict yourself. And that's the really important part, because it's easy for us to point the finger at the other person and say, this. This is your doing. This is your fault. Yeah. As I write in the book, like, it's easier for a man to say you than it is to say, I'm hurt. And so practicing that in the relationship of, like, actually, I'm just. I feel hurt right now or I feel embarrassed or I feel ashamed that I forgot to do that, you know? Yeah, that's a much harder thing to do. But that's the thing that's going to not only develop your competence within a relationship and build trust, but it's going to strengthen your own sense of inner confidence, because you'll be sending a signal to yourself of like, oh, I can do the hard thing in my relationship and not buckle and not back away and not shut down and not point the finger and become blaming or defensive.

There's a couple really good things there. The first one is that Vienna was the type of human, the type of person that wanted to do that work. Right. I believe she's an mft, correct?

Yeah. She's a marriage therapist. Yeah.

So with her background, that was probably some of the tether. Some of the energy of y' all getting together is that, you know, your psyche felt, maybe in an unconscious way, oh, this person's really good to do the work with that. Was that part of the connection? That was.

That was part of it. I think the other part of it was that I just respected who she was as a person, how she operated, how she, you know, treated herself, her core tenants, her values. I just. I deeply respected her as. As a human being, as a woman specifically. She had values that I really appreciated. She had lived a life that I appreciated. And so I think that's a very important thing. I think we often underestimate how important respect is within the context of relationship. You know, like, I've. I say this all the time of, like, women want to be with men that they respect, and. And when women start to lose. And of course, I'm talking within a heterosexual context, but I think that's just a human being thing. You know, like, we want to be with people that we respect. And so, yeah, I think when I first met her, I was like, oh, here's somebody that I just deeply respect and admire and appreciate. And. And I can, you know, doesn't mean that she doesn't have FL doesn't mean that she doesn't have aspects of her that need work. But it was a little easier for me to. To love her through those hard parts when I could stay connected to. I respect this person.

It's a really big piece of the conversation because your ability to select essentially the right partner. So let's speak to the men. Right. And we're being heteronormal for. For a man to choose a woman, for a woman to choose a man and have it be challenging but also healthy at the same time. There in a way, Conor has to be this Goldilocks zone and of adaptability, of consciousness, of the acumen to do the proper work. So is there a formula or a recipe and I don't know actually if this is something that even guided you to write the book as well. Like how did, how as a man do we choose the right partner? What do we look for characteristics do we cultivate in stoke inside of ourselves and also look for, be on the lookout for in our women? Is there a unique recipe for that?

I mean I, I think what I talk about in the book again is, is paying attention to what a woman reveals about who you are as a man. Because I think we often underestimate, you know, we've been, we often been taught as men to be very self sufficient, kind of lone rangers. Like they're still very pervasive within our culture. And so there's this notion that we should have it all figured out, we should know exactly what we want. There's not a lot of room for a man to say, I actually have no freaking clue what I want in a woman or a partner. I just have no clue. And so by starting to pay attention to who you are as a man and what starts to show up in a relationship, your insecurities, your sabotage, you know, you becoming needy and all that, that starts to bubble up to the surface when you pay attention to that and you start to and start to work on those parts and accept it in and welcome those parts of you. What you'll start to notice is that you will gain an immense amount of clarity on the type of woman that you want to be because you will learn who the fuck you are. And that is that. That's the most important thing that I can say. If you don't know who you are as a man, how in the hell should you know who you want to be with? You can't. So that, that's part one. Part two is more so about women, which is a few things. One As I was saying before, find a woman that you can do conflict with. It's one of the most important things because you're going to experience it. The relationship's going to have conflict, and you need to have a partner that you can go through with. It's the number one most important thing. So, you know, and I say that because in attachment theory, one of the things that we can see in attachment theory is in order to have a secure attachment, two people need to go through a hard time and come out the other side, okay? It's one of the most fundamental, just sort of basic things that we as human beings need. So we need to go through a hard time, whether that's, you know, some minor betrayal or a rip or tear within the relationship where somebody's lied about something and. Or there's been mistrust or whatever it is, and come out the other side of that, okay? That the two of us can work through that. So I'd say that that's one of the most important things that you can look for in a partner. And then. And then secondly, and this is a little, maybe a little bit more hard to describe, but is that person someone.

Who.

Wishes isn't the right word, but sometimes challenges you to be the version of yourself that you know, you're capable of, you know, the man that you are trying to step into being, the man with the. With the deeper sense of purpose and direction, the father in you, the business owner, the career, whatever that looks like. But can. Is she somebody who's challenging you to step into that version of you? And I want to make a very clear distinction because a lot of men, I've said this before, and a lot of men are like, well, I don't want a woman to tell me how to be. And it's like, yeah, yeah. I'm not saying find a woman who's trying to change you into. Into who she thinks she wants you to be. That's very different. And we can feel the difference if we're tuned into our body. A woman who's trying to challenge us, to change us into who she wants us to be is likely not what we want to be around long term. Right? And, and nor should they. Like women don't want to be around men who are trying to control them and manipulate them into being who they want them to be. That's not how we feel loved as human beings. But if you can find somebody who, who's confronting you, challenging you, celebrating you, praising you for stepping more fully into the man that you've said, this is who I want to be as a man, a father, a husband, a business owner, a leader, a contributor, a friend, a son. And she can celebrate you along the way when you step into that. And she can challenge you a little bit when you step out of that. That is such a beautiful thing to have in a relationship. And I want to make it clear that you should definitely have good men in your life who are challenging you. And that's. That's incredibly important. But you want to have this, this kind of relationship with the person that you're dating, because otherwise a lot of people get in a relationship with people who are trying to get them to change, to be more like they want them to be and not who that individual has said that. That I want to be.

And a lot of times too. And I felt this before even having children with Kerri. Michelle is like, there's also a recipe that we can add in here that's an existential knowing. So what you're saying is so powerful. And I know in the book there's specific segments about regulation, like regulating ourselves as men is so important because without the proper regulation, one might kick out a partner who has the great qualities, who does push the man towards growth and maybe that man's navigational system around. Is this person pushing me because they want to control me me? Or is this person pushing me because they want my best? I'm curious. Let's drill just a little bit deeper. Man, you said it's harder for men or it's. You said it's easier for men to say you versus I'm hurt. Why is that?

So there's. There's two things that I, that I point to in the book. The first one is what I call the myth of separation. And the myth of separation is that you as a man are stronger by separating from the things that might make you look weak. So saying that you feel hurt or that you're embarrassed by something or you feel ashamed by something might make you look weak. Or at least that's how we perceive it. And so we try and distance ourselves from that thing. But the distancing from our. From ourselves, the distancing from that thing, from that shame, that embarrassment is the thing that makes us look weak. So it's sort of this paradoxical nature where the myth of separation tells men that if you just disconnect and hide from the. That that, that you think is going to make you look weak, you'll be a strong man. Won't do it. Right. Because you internally will know you're living a lie. It's why something like 70% of corporate executives, when they're asked, do you feel like an imposter at work, say yes, right? It's a huge astronomical number because so many of us are living in this way as to separate from the things that we feel make us weak. The second thing is we've sort of been bought into this notion in masculine culture that there is strength in suppression. That if you as a man feel something that's unsavory, or you've done something that is needy or insecure or whatever the case may be, and you don't want other people to know about it, then suppressing is the answer. And there's this sort of equation that exists within masculine culture, within the sort of traditional masculine culture that says the more that you can suppress things that you don't like your fears, your insecurities, your worries, your doubts, etc. The stronger you'll be as a man. And that's how we've operated as a collective within our western masculine culture. But if you look at things like stoicism or Buddhism or any really any of the philosophies, spiritually or non spiritually, what you'll see is that the act of admission, the act of admission that something is existing within you is the pathway towards strength. It is the pathway towards strength. And so we've bought into this sort of false notion many men buy. And I bought into it for a long time. You know, I was like, I'm not going to tell people about my, my porn addiction, the challenge I'm having with porn or the infidelities or the drug use or the alcohol. I'm not going to tell anybody about this. I'm not going to tell them about how I feel depressed and how I'm strugg struggling. I'm gonna withhold that from the men in my life. And so I got caught in this notion in my past that if I just suppressed those things hard enough and long enough that I would be okay and I'd be stronger and more capable and more successful because of it. But that was the exact thing that ensured my demise later on in life. It was the exact thing that created my rock bottom later on in life. And so we need to, to as men be able to turn towards the things that we are normally hiding and separating from and suppressing because those are the things that are disempowering us, disenfranchising us, and ultimately causing us to be impotent in some way, right physically. Mentally, emotionally, psychologically, within our career. It really is castrating us in some capacity.

Also impotent sexually. I mean, my journey with porn was over 20 years, so. And I've talked about this multiple times on this podcast and many others. Like, what really for me. And I want to know what helped you heal that? Because you talk about porn in the book, there's a specific chapter. This is something that if I had to throw a number on it, and who knows how we even figure out numbers? But if I had to guess intuitively, I would assume that it's probably upwards of 70% of men that have had either hard addictions with it or a challenge with it it without it becoming a massive addiction. So for me, what made the difference was actually being in a relationship where I had to be honest. I chose to be honest with her about the fact that I was struggling. And it was from that point, Connor. And actually a shared place we've been to around Plant Medicine, where I got smacked so hard, there was nowhere for my shadow to hide. It was fully illuminated, and it was like flicking on the light in a closet and see. Seeing all the shit that I just didn't want to see. And that that was really the culmination point of if I want intimacy with her, if I want my son, which now we have manifested, we've created in divine union, and our second baby on the way for April. So, like, there's obviously a result to the work that you and I are talking about, but for you, how did that unfold? What was your kind of flicking the moment with the lights on in the closet around porn?

Porn? Yeah. Well, mine was a battle for a long time, and it really was a battle. I mean, and I mean that, you know, I. I really struggled to give it up. And what I started to realize and what I talked about in the. In the book and I. I sort of actually, like, lay out the process that I. That I went through in order to sort of defrag myself and. And get sober from pornography.

And.

And this isn't to sort of demonize porn or make any sort of social commentary on it. I think when people talk about pornography, they get lost in whether it's good or bad. I'm not actually interested in that conversation.

Yes.

What's more interesting is if you don't want to watch porn and you can't stop, what do you do? Because that's where a lot of men find themselves. And so for me, what I started to realize was that I was always feeling something that I didn't Want to feel right before watching porn.

That's it.

Alone, right. Angry, disconnected, etc. And so I was always feeling some form of an internal charge in my body, in my mind, in my heart, in my soul that I didn't want to be with. And, and so porn was the way for me to regulate my nervous system. It was the way for me to rid myself of anxiety. It was a way for me to stop feeling lonely. It was a way for me to celebrate. It was the, I mean, it just, it sort of of. It replaced a lot of different things in my life. But the main function was to sort of help me feel better, you know, or pretend like I was feeling better.

Yeah.

You know, and get that dopamine dump. But I had to really start to get present to what am I feeling before, what am I experiencing in my body before I actually want to watch porn or I do watch porn. And that was really jarring because I, I would just started a very basic practice of like, okay, the moment that I feel like I want to watch porn, I'm going to set a timer for 10 minutes. I'm going to sit down, I'm going to my eyes. And I forced myself to breathe and feel. And I was going to nothing else for 10 minutes. And what I started to notice in that moment was that I hated that I really didn't like it. You know, my body, yeah, my body was just like, just stop being an idiot and go jerk off and watch porn. And like, you know, you're going to do it anyways after. And so I watch my mind and my body just like jumping through fiery hoops of. Of to try and get me to go watch pornography. And so it had become the external mechanism that I used to regulate my system because no one had shown me how do that as a man. Right. No one had shown me how to regulate my body and my nervous system and my mind. And so when it was dysregulated and I was feeling something that I didn't want to feel, that's what I would go and use. And for some men, it's weed. For other men it's alcohol. For the men, it's, you know, prostitution or I mean, gambling is a number of different ways that we can do that. Yeah, I think the easiest thing for men is pornography. Because there's no risk involved, right? Yes, for the most part there's no risk.

It's different than food. Food, you wear it. Eventually shopping, you have to come to terms with the bank account. Eventually porn, you can hide that shit for decades.

Right.

I mean, you can just stay in the shadow perpetually. So again, I'll circle back, dude, what was the moment, or maybe the culmination of moments that led you to the closet where you flicked on the light and you're like, there's Connor.

You know, I don't know if there was a kind of like, come, you know, come to God reconciliation, like, big aha moment for me because there was, there was so many tried and failed attempts along the way.

Yeah.

You know, and I think initially one of the first moments was probably in my mid-20s when the woman that I was dating, you know, like not caught me in the act of watching porn, but found out that I'd been watching pornography and we had a conversation about it.

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And she wasn't shaming or anything like that. But I realized very clearly in that moment that our disconnection, you know, the. The. The disconnection that I was feeling sexually with her was because porn was occupying space and territory in my existence. And that whenever. Whenever I felt that pull to initiate something sexually with her that was uncomfortable or, or, you know, even exciting or exhilarating for me, I would. I would tend to back off from that, that and just go and watch porn because it was easier to do that. It was, you know, risk free in some way. So that. That was sort of the beginning. And then there was just this, you know, a few years, honestly, of trying to stop watching porn and communicating with men in my life eventually about what was going on and the role that it was playing and what it was doing, and then really realizing over time that it was something that I was trying to avoid. And then it just became a practice. You know, I used. I used porn as a sort of a backdoor entrance into regulating my nervous system. And so every single time that I would feel the urge was the moment that I would go sit down and I would do breath work, or I'd go have a cold shower, or I go and work out, or I'd go and do whatever. And, you know, it did. It took some time. Like, it really took some time for me to kick it, because it. For me, it was. It was a problem. It was a really big problem. And in my early 20s, you know, it was like. Like five, six days a week and sometimes two, three hours at a time. Like, it was bad.

You talk about in the book too, Gary Wilson's work your brain on porn. And I love that because in the beginning of my journey, and by the way, this is a huge energy stealer for people's ability to let go of old weight, which is like a focus right now in the world. And that goes also to where it steals energy from work, from purpose. I can distinctly connect, Connor, that for me, it wasn't until I truly let go of it to a place where it didn't hold the charge anymore, or it didn't make me have the same neural pathways of reward where I know if I do that, I don't have to deal with my stuff. It was only at that place when my revenue tripled. And there's a clear connection, man, between money and porn, energy and porn, weight loss and porn. And porn is just an archetype of a place, like you said, a backdoor to regulate oneself. So now where you are as a Father. And how do you feel like you might educate code about this? You know, how would that play out? When the time is right. Obviously you're not going to talk to him about it now, but, but down the road, like, where do you think that conversation might lead you and him?

I mean, I, I think it's in, in some ways it's just transparency, you know, in, in terms of how I battled it, you know, and my, my struggle with it and talking with him openly about creating healthy intimacy and sexual. I mean, I don't know about you, but I definitely didn't get any talks as a child about how to create healthy intimacy.

No.

Or have a healthy sex life with a woman.

Like, I came home, I came home when I was like 13 and there was Playboys. I would go to my dad's couple times a month and there was like Playboys on the table. And that was the only, we didn't even talk about it. That was my only education.

I remember getting an Anatomy of Sex book. That was my parents birds and the bees talk. They gave me an Anatomy of Sex book.

They just handed it to you?

They literally just like dropped it off to me in my room one day and then just like didn't say anything.

I mean, it's funny, but it's sad.

It's, it's sad, it's funny.

Right?

But you know, and I think even, even when they busted me with porn. Not, not busted me watching porn, but they, you know, it was in the early days, I mean, I was, I was young enough that when we got the Internet it was like dial up Internet, you know, and so the photos would sort of load line by line.

Yeah.

If you remember that. But yes, I didn't know how to scrub browser history as a child. Right. I was like 13, 14 years old. And so they found the browser history and my stepdad, their conversation with me was to literally print off the browser history and sit me down and hand me the pages of the browser history of the porn that I'd just been watching. And I was like, well, I don't think that this is going to stop me because you haven't given me any conversation about what I should be doing instead.

You had that awareness then or you have that awareness now?

I, I had that awareness then. I was like, why? You're telling me to stop, but you're telling me how to stop?

Yeah.

You're not telling me why I should stop, you're not telling me why this is wrong and you're not telling me what the alternative is. You know, that there's actually something else that I could be engaged with or looking towards. And so I think that's the conversation that I'll. Because I thought about this a lot because I've talked very openly about porn. And so at some point in my son's life, he'll probably be able to go and hear me talk about my journey with it, you know, because. Just doesn't get it deleted off the Internet. That. Yeah. And so, you know, I think that's the conversation I'll have with him is like, look, this is what it is. It's entertainment. And it's. It can be as addictive as any other substance. And it's easier than actually going out and acquiring sexual intimacy and sexual interaction. Yeah, there's less risk. But that doesn't make it right. And it doesn't make it the thing that is going to satiate you. You know, I talk about porn in the book as being the supranormal experience, right? Super normal, being above normal. And so it conditions us neurologically and physically to expect a supranormal experience. An above normal experience. Right. So you were talking about weight in the body before. A supernormal experience is like what we just, you know, went through with the holidays of eating more food than you probably eat. That's just what happens over the holidays, right? You have turkey and ham and whatever. That's a supernormal experience. And if you do that, that once in a while, no problem, your body can adapt and handle that. But if you're doing that for every meal, then your body can't actually cope with the amount of input that it's getting and it starts to create deficiencies in different ways within your body. So porn is a super normal experience that over time you need more of it, hands down. Right. Research shows this you need more of it in order to get aroused. And you generally will need more fringe oriented content in order to be aroused. And so just imagine what that's doing to your intimacy in your sex life. Right? You want to connect with your partner, you want to engage in sex, but there's this idea and vision of what it needs to look like and how long it needs to last and what positions you do and what fetishes or fantasies you play out. And so all of a sudden going and initiating intimacy is crowded with this tremendous amount of expectation of the highlight reels of what you've been watching recently.

Sure.

Right. So it doesn't leave room for you, your body, your. Your natural sexual arousal, the other person, their desire Their fantasy. It's just, it has to look this way or I'm not performing properly. So for a lot of men, it, it, it actually in the long term or in, in a lot of, in too much use will cause them to experience, you know, erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation and all this kind of stuff.

It definitely did for me. I mean 100%. And actually I've had. So I can't countless number of women specifically message me on Instagram and say my husband's struggling with this, my husband's struggling with this. Where's the resources? What do I do? How do I. And I'm like, well it's not. The solution is a spiritual issue. It's a spiritual self knowledge issue. It's not what tactical thing do I do, to quote, heal my addiction. It's whatever people think it is. And I'm curious how you feel about this. Whatever people think it is, it's something that you wouldn't even know. It's unconscious incompetence. Like if the person could heal it, even if they didn't know what the solution was, they would at least have some path to go to. But if someone's with us right now, like a man is here with us, or a woman who supports a man, or just a human being that's struggling with this, know that it is definitely a spot in you that you don't even know. You don't know it's unconscious and competent. So when it comes to people actually beginning this healing path of this, what is the first step? I mean it's a staircase man. You said it took multiple years. What is the first step for people? And by the way, the same way they heal this is the same way that they're going to heal almost anything else.

Else.

Is there a first step? Is it just a self awareness practice like you said, laying on the ground and breathing? Like maybe it's different for everyone. But I'm curious.

There's, there's, there's a few, I mean the, the first line of the book, I say a man's work begins in pain. A man's work begins in pain. And it begins in how you relate to your own pain, physically, mentally, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, sexually, etc. And so, you know, Jung talked about how the first step in the therapeutic process and if you study any real religious process or spiritual process or any psychological or therapeutic modality, they all begin with relatively the same thing, which is admission or confession. Admission or confession. It's the unfortunate bridge that we have to cross or fortunate bridge that we have to cross in order for any type of transmutation or transformation or change to occur. It just is. And so you have to be willing to admit that there's something going on within you that you feel overpowered by, overwhelmed by, that you don't know how to deal with. You have to be willing to admit that at first to yourself and then maybe to somebody around you, right? To say, like, listen, I have tried to quit porn for months now and I don't know what to do. And there's a lot of forums out there where you can get that support. So that's, that's the first part. And then the second part is what I was talking about before, which is you're likely in pain in some way, shape or form and, and either aren't aware of it or don't want to feel it, right? So you are either feeling anxious or lonely or frustrated or, you know, bored or whatever it is. And you don't know how to be with the charge of that energy in your body and in your mind and the thoughts that come along with it. And so you're using porn as a means to numb out and escape it. And so the only pathway after that admission is to turn towards, rather than running away, right? To turn towards that pain, that internal experience in charge of anxiety or depression or whatever it is, and begin to feel into it, begin to befriend it and start to understand it and welcome it in versus I don't want to feel this way. And so I gotta have something to scrub it out, right? And, and that's kind of what we, that's kind of what we've been taught within masculine culture, right? It's like stuff it down or suck it up. You know, rub one out for good measure, pour a body, bottle of whiskey over the top and, and then maybe rinse and repeat, right? And so we have to move away from that methodology because it doesn't work for us and actually move into what am I actually experiencing right now. So I, I lay down in the book, you know, in terms of, of there's a couple very simple, clear steps that you can take, but it does start with set a timer, set a, A practice or a ritual for yourself. And this, maybe I'll just talk about this one thing. Every man has a porn ritual. And I write about this in the book. Every man has a porn ritual that I've ever worked with. They have a porn ritual. They watch porn at around the same time. They watch generally the, the same amounts of the. The same type of porn they watch in the same place they have. It's very ritualized. And so it becomes this sort of like, pseudo sacred experience for a man. He watches it in the morning in bed or standing up or whatever it is. And so get clear on what your porn ritual is and then get clear on what you're experiencing before that porn ritual. Right. What are you actually feeling before that? And can you recontextualize the ritual? Can you actually turn the porn ritual into something more generative? Right. A breathing. A breathing exercise, a meditation, a yoga, a tai chi, a working out, you know, a creative endeavor. Can you press that energy into something meaningful that you're not going to feel shame about afterwards or be disappointed that you, you know, you watched it or whatever. Whatever it is that you feel afterwards.

It's so good, because I think about what even led me to breath work. And, you know, we have over 1100 students in the breathe program now, and. And the majority of them that get success, that actually finish the program, they find pockets of energy inside of themselves that were actually feeding the beast sideways. And it's so easy for us to like, quote science and say, oh, okay, well, energy can't be created or destroyed, just, you know, moved and transmuted. And I think we all get that on some head level, on, like an intellectual level, but to actually know that, to feel how the energy is going sideways, and I'll speak as a man, right. And that's really what this men's workbook is all about. The energy that gets stuck in the pockets of self and how that energy makes us do things as men that we essentially, in our heart, don't want to do, but yet they still play out. Is there anything else that is a collective shadow? You know, obviously porn is a big one, but is there anything else for men that's a collective shadow that creates those pockets of energy that starts to dictate us to places that. That we don't want to go.

The feminine.

All right, we'll just stop the podcast right there.

The f. The feminine. The feminine can cause us to do all kinds of crazy all the time. Right. And if you don't like the word feminine or masculine, you can use. Use the word yin or yang or go or flow.

No, it's. I get it. It's energy. Yeah, I understand. I think we get it. Yeah.

You know, in. In. In. In the book, I talk about our relationship to women. I talk about our relationship to the. To the animals. Anima. You know, in the Jungian in the Jungian framework, the masculine, the feminine were the animus and the anima and the anima within us as men is our unconscious. And so I think one of the big things that, that sits in our shadow as men is our relationship to women, but to the feminine in specific, the embodiment of caring and compassion. You know, just as an example, I see a lot of men who have a really, really negative internal dialogue, really abusive internal dialogue. The way that they speak to themselves is incredibly harsh, condescending, judgmental, really violent sometimes. Why is that? Well, it's largely because they're disconnected from their own feminine nature of self compassion. They're disconnected from their own capacity to see the value in their own feminine ability to be self nurturing. And so we as men run around because we're very externally focused creatures. We like to look out into the world and figure problems out. And so we do the same thing with women in the feminine. We will look out at women and we say, I gotta figure her out. And then we scramble and run around and we get cause caught in all types of traps, right? And then the women that we're with don't really feel known or understood or safe because we're so busy in some ways objectifying them as an object that we need to solve that we don't see who they actually are. And so when we, when we realize that our ability to interact with women and our ability to interact with the feminine in the world is directly correlated to our ability to be with our feminine nature internally, our feminine qualities internally, there's a hope for us to be in right relationship with women and the feminine externally. Right? To actually have a more peaceful, grounded, loving, connected with the women that we are surrounded by, whether that's at work or at home, in our marriage, in our relationship, in our family system, that is, that's the process that we need to do to stop running around trying to figure women out externally or trying to. What is the feminine need? There's a, I see a lot of this content online, like the feminine needs this and the feminine needs that. And it's like you're never going to know what the feminine is until you start to experience it in yourself and in your life rather than trying to get it outside of you or figure it out outside of you. So you can go within and start to say, how am I deficient within this quality? Right? If you're somebody that's super harsh on yourself, and I see this a lot with nice guys who get in relationships with women who they become the like, needy, nice guy, right? I need you to validate me. Tell me I'm good enough. Tell me I'm good enough in bed. Tell me I'm lovable enough, I'm handsome enough, I'm funny enough, I'm. Whatever it is, is, he's doing that because he feels deficient in self nurturing, in the ability to praise himself, to recognize himself and to set some boundaries with the harsh inner dialogue that's self deprecating, that's tearing him apart internally. And if he could infuse some of his inner dialogue with care and compassion and to speak, speak to himself not only with respect, but with sometimes love and appreciation and admiration and to have some compassion for himself, he wouldn't so desperately need to go, go and get it out in the world. He'd actually be able to source that within himself. And by doing so he would become more sovereign. And by doing so he will trust himself more and be more confident. And by doing so, women will feel more attracted to him. Right. So we have to come into right relationship with the feminine orientation within ourselves as mental rather than trying to chase it externally. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges that we see right now within our modern culture for many reasons. Many, many, many reasons.

I feel like you just walked into a field of confusion and you just gently placed a 50 pound gold block of awareness. Like I've heard a lot of people talk about the anime and the animus and the masculine feminine and men, we know that if we are in touch with the feminine in ourselves that there's so much gold there, there's so many good things there. The way that you just said that was probably the best I've ever heard. So I really appreciate that because I know it comes from the work that you do with men. I know it comes from the relationship you're in. And I want to bring up this last point before we round out one of the things I heard you say. Maybe it was like a year or two ago, it might have even been during the pandemic. You wrote a letter to code, you wrote a letter to your son and you said you're being welcomed into a house with stubborn hearts. Why did you say that? And can you see that maybe in that there was a seed of truth for him that a part of you didn't even know why you were doing it or did you know exactly why you were doing that?

You know, I think I, I, I don't know if I know exactly or fully why, why I was doing that. But in. In many ways, like, my wife and I have joked about how we're both big personalities and stubborn. Right. In. In my. In my vows on our. On our wedding night, I wrote this sort of, like, poem or spoken word piece to her called Two Stubborn Hearts. And it was about our dynamic and that we are stubborn enough to love one another through some of the hardest elements of. Of our life, some of the hardest patches of our life that we've been going through, and to. To remain in each other's corner through those things. And so the stubbornness that we often vilify in our culture and see it as this negative thing. Oh, so stubborn. Oh, they're so immovable. Oh, they're so that it's sort of a. I don't know what the word is that I'm looking for, but. But almost just like a. A tipping the hat to the reality that we have flawed parts, you know, and sometimes we are going to be stubborn, but that doesn't always have to be a bad thing. That sometimes our stubbornness is the exact thing. The exact thing that needs to be loved.

Yeah.

And that if my son is stubborn, and which he probably will be, he's about to enter into the twos, you know, the twos and the threes. My son is stubborn. I'll love him through that. That. And if he's. If he's someone that becomes irable sometimes and immovable, I'll love him through that. And so in my family, this stubbornness is something that it's. It's a tip of the hat of, like, sometimes I'm not going to like that part about you, but sometimes it's the exact thing that I need. And it's sometimes the exact thing that you need. And sometimes it's the exact thing that I. I get to love. I get to love. I don't need to love. I get to love. Get to love. Because it's a reminder that in our world, we think that love should come in. In a sort of easy package and that love and relationships should be just the simplest thing in the world. And it's as false. You know, sometimes we have to be stubborn. We have to love stubbornly. We have to show up for ourselves stubbornly, you know, And I've had to love myself in a stubborn way because sometimes I didn't want to do that, you know, that my inner dialogue was harsh and mean and abusive. And so I've had to be stubborn in order to get through the. That first part of my life dished on to me. You Know, and that's just the truth. And that's a very enduring, loving quality that can also sometimes make me an.

Sure. Stubborn. Stubborn gets a bad rap. But at its core, you know, the etymology, I'm sure, is traced to persistence. So. So if I'm stubborn, it's like a hammer. You can build a house with a hammer. You can kill someone with a hand. Being stubborn inherently is not. Is not bad. I love that. And it brought up something for me where I was like, you know, even with Nova, he's 17 months now, and when I play with him and when he has his tantrums, he'll, like, spray back and he'll cry for five minutes. And one of the biggest challenges for me has been just to actually be there for him and not allow his anger, his intensity to make me feel like I need to go grab and hold him. I need to make things better, because I'm not okay with him being not okay. And that is a huge mirror, man. So for all the dads out there, gravitas, like, we feel you, we understand you, and as we say goodbye, man, think about this and really ponder this for us at the core of everything you're discussing in the book. And by the way, the link is right below the video here, so you all need to pick this up. If you're a man who's like, hey, I don't exactly know what this year is going to bring me, and I don't have a framework of how I'm going to regulate myself to handle what life brings me. This is the path. Also, if you're a woman in a relationship or if you just know a man in your life, that. That really needs a guide, a frame. That's what I really feel from your book. So kudos to you for writing this book at a time where it is most needed. And it applies to everything that people right now in January are so focused on, man. So thank you for that.

That.

And the big question is at the center of all this, you know, knowing ourselves, nourishing ourselves, putting all the pieces together that. That I call the wellness Pentagon, that I teach to my students, that the mental, physical, emotional, financial, spiritual, nourishing that we need, in the center of that, there is you, there is me, and there is this capacity, this switching capacity to lean into our feminine, lean into our masculine, lean into our shadow, practice, joy. What is that switching capacity for you? What is that switching power for you? And if you had to describe it in whatever way you want to describe it, where does it emanate? From that ability to go from dark to light, masculine to feminine, hard to easy. I find that to be a very big challenge for myself at times. The switching capacity.

You know, one of the things that I've learned over the years is this.

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You know, one of the things that I've learned over the years is, is the power of the breath and its capacity, its ability to act as a kind of not switch but modulator and dialogue between the parts of our nervous system that allow us to either be grounded, calm and relaxed, which is the parasympathetic dominant, or the sympathetic, which is the go cortisol stress attack. Get it? And, and so our I, I fundamentally believe, and I've seen this in my own life, that when I can connect to my breath, then I can connect to the energy in my Body more specifically the energy that's coursing through my nervous system. And so I think our ability to switch between that light and dark and oscillate between, you know, not having any space within us to have a conversation or engage in some conflict, all of that is first through the breath and then through the nervous system, right through the body. And for many of us, us specifically as men, we live in our heads. We've been, we've been sold a lie that the rational mind should be over indexed to the nth degree. And we've been told that like your, your rational mind can solve any problem, but your, your rational mind can't solve emotional problems. They just can't. And so we have to be willing to get into the data and the information that lives within the territory of our body. And so that's very hard to translate into a book. You know, I put a lot of frameworks and, and questions and, and exercises that men can do. But I think that that's part of the pathway is for us to actually return to a way of being in the body where we can feel the world around us and we can witness everything that starts to emerge. But all that, maybe now I'm answering the question actually all that requires awareness, right? We have to have awareness at the base of it, awareness of the breath, awareness in the body, awareness of what's happening internally normally. So that's what I would say it takes.

It's a great answer and people can get the book. It's mantalks.commenswork book also on Amazon, I mean basically everywhere. Amazon, Barnes and noble, indiebound, bookshop.org sounds true which by the way sounds true did an amazing job with Ken Wilber's work. I don't know if you've listened to some of the other work that sounds true is done. So is there going to be an audience audio? Are you going to do an audio version?

You know what? I was fortunate enough to get, they, they brought me out to Colorado to their head office and they're where their recording studio is where like Ken Wilbur, Eckhart Tolle, Wim Hof have all recorded their audiobooks. And I got to, it was like one of the highlights of this journey was I got to record my audiobook in the space where like legends have sat for the last three or four decades and actually be one of the last people because I think they're selling the space and shutting down office this and so wow, that is so.

That just gave me a chill. I'm like What a special moment.

Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty. It was pretty rad. So there'd definitely be an audio book coming out. And. And there's. There's a shortened link now. You just go to mantalks.com forward slash, book.

Easier.

I made it even easier.

Much easier. All right, man. So the Man Talks podcast, which I've been a guest on, We. We went deep into breath. We. We'll link that in the show notes. This podcast, it's an expression of you as a man, but now it's an expression of you as a father. Did anything really shift inside of you? And how does the podcast emanate from you now compared to when you started? I'm sure it's much different. Like, I know it is for me, the death and rebirth. So, Man Talks Podcast, what does it mean to you now versus what did.

It mean to you before, man? I've been. I've been recording the podcast for, like, seven years now, and I started it with somebody who I had never listened to a podcast before in my life, and somebody that was working with me and was like, you have to start a podcast. You have to have a show. And I was like, I don't even know what a podcast is, but now I love it. It's become a place for me to expand my own curiosity. And this year, I'm going to be having conversations with some very interesting people to go deep into some of the current topics of the world. What are men and women facing in d. What's happening, you know, between men and women in terms of relationships and marriages and earning and expectations and selection preferences and. And to go deep on some of those subjects. And so it. It's evolved into this. In this place of. It's something that I love as a tool and a resource for learning. And I found that the more that I can dig into subject matter that I deeply love, the more that people get out of it. And so. So I really want it to be a. Not to sound cliche, but like a legacy piece, you know, so that later on in life, like, I would love to podcast for the rest of my life, you know, and to have that be something that eventually my son can join me on. And so it's turned into something much, much bigger than I expected.

Oh, that's so cool. We had Nova in the studio, and out of nowhere, I don't know if he's seen me do it, he grabs the shure mic at the table back here, and he starts talking into it. And we didn't tell him to do that. So I'm like, the way that his brain is so moldable and so plastic. I absolutely love it. Man, I want to say goodbye. There's a quote that you posted about a year ago, and I think it's a beautiful way for us to reflect. Maybe you're watching or listening to this podcast for the second or third time. There's so many nuggets in here. So, Connor, let me say this as we say goodbye. Before I do, just give people the URL for the book and also for the podcast and just anything else where you want them to connect with you.

Yeah, everything you want to find is just@mantalks.com the podcast is there. If you want the book directly, it's mantalks.com forward slash the book. That's probably the easiest way to find it. And then all the links are in my bio on Instagram. At Man Talks, you can sort of follow along the journey.

All right, all right. It's right down below the video, or it's right down, wherever you're listening. So as we say goodbye. This is from Bruce Lee. Instead of buying your children all the things you never had, you should teach them the things that you were never taught. Material wears out, but knowledge stays. We'll talk to you guys soon. Thanks for being with us. Hey, thanks for watching this video. If you love this video, hit subscribe. That way you'll be automatically notified when new videos come out, new episodes. And also share this video with a friend. If you loved it, they're gonna love it, too. Check out some of the videos on this screen that are perfectly curated based on the video you just saw. Make sure you follow me, and I'll see you in the next video.