Josh Trent | The Art of Masculinity, Authoritative Playfulness & Rites of Passage | Wellness Force

So the art of masculinity for me is how do I adapt my shoreline to the capacity that the feminine energy I love is asking for? How do I do that? Well, the only way I can change the geography of my shoreline is by doing a rite of passage that will actually change my shoreline forever. Sam.

Welcome back to the Art of Masculinity, guys. I have probably one of my favorite people on this planet. You know, I love his podcast. We've had the opportunity to jam out on here before, but I had the honor of actually hanging out with Josh in Austin for a little bit. Went on a beautiful hike, and just amazing to have you on, brother. Love having you on again and just love the insight that you bring anywhere you go.

Thank you, man. Thank for. Thank you for having me on the Art of Masculinity. And I love that title because, man, is it an art form? I mean, it's constantly changing what it means to be a man, how men operate, how we can relate as men, how we relate to each other as men, how we relate to our women, how we relate, however we relate in a relationship. Right? Woman. Woman, man, man, like, the art of masculinity is a constantly moving target. So I'm excited to share. I'm excited to share what I' through in the past year. I think maybe two years since I came on your show last.

Yeah, brother. I'm actually loving this because how you just started that off, that evolution is beautiful because you're going through that right now. I actually just want to dive a little bit. Have you even come to terms yet with being a father, man?

I've come to terms, yes. And it's great that you said that, because there really is a term, right? And we're used to, like, terms and conditions. Terms and conditions is like a legalese standpoint. It's like legal words. Terms. Coming to term with being a father is knowing that my time on Planet Earth is a term. My ability to hold an hour with you on a podcast is a term. We're always signing up for terms, whether we want to admit that or not. And me being a father, I signed up for the term when I chose to plant a seed inside of my woman. That was me choosing to sign up for a term. And a lot of men abuse that power, Johnny. A lot of men just, you know, basically, they put their cock wherever they want. And that was my story earlier in life before I got my ass kicked and I grew some spiritual and emotional maturity. And so, yes, dude, long answer to your short question, I'M absolutely ready. Is there a part of me, like multiple layers of my onion that have had to be peeled? For sure. And you know what happens when you peel an onion? You cry. So I've had to cry. I've had to cry and mourn the, the loss of the old self, the single free, like no child, man. But now I'm like, I'm excited about it. I'm excited for these new terms.

That's awesome, brother. And it's just beautiful because I can't wait to watch you grow into this next season of your life, this next man in this next season. It's going to be amazing. You and I had some great conversations about it and it's just beautiful even to hear you speak about kind of this past life and having that peeling that onion back, crying and the fact that you've gone through ego death too, Quite a few times, right?

Quite a few times. I just got back from a 10 day Native American vision quest with Tim Kakorin and Mark Tollefson. And I was actually introduced to Tim by a man named Aubrey Marcus here in Austin. And I was like, you know, he's the founder of onit. I'm sure you're familiar with the brand and I'm sure maybe even people across the world are familiar with that because they really, they've really put a ripple in the normal fabric of what it means to be a man with that brand and what it means to be a woman and just like questioning the normal status quo. Anyways, when I got introduced to Tim, it was an immediate soul calling Johnny. Like, it was like right away, I am going to do this. I didn't really know why my soul was calling me there, but holy shit, when I got there and when I really started to understand what a true vision quest is, it's a rite of passage. It's a piece that many men miss and they miss it because their fathers, their fathers never received this rite of passage either. And so what we have, Joni, is there's millions and millions of men walking around in this earth that have never been through rite of passage and that really have never grown up. It's a bunch of, as Gillette and Moore talk about in King War, Magician lover, it's a bunch of high chair tyrants or weakling king archetypes that really haven't fully embodied their masculinity. They really haven't gone to the dance of the art of masculinity because they were never shown the way. And so it's not to shame these Men, they were never shown the way. And so this Native American vision quest was actually built for young men that are 13, 14, 15 in their adolescence to have them touch death. And when you touch death, you bring back the gifts of gratitude for life. And that's the gift that I just received about two weeks ago. I just got home. So it's pretty wild, man.

That's beautiful, too. And I've talked about that on the show. I think that's something that's big that men are missing in society today. So I actually want to dive a little bit into that with you, since you just came out of it for all these guys out here. Like, I've done my rite of passage. I grew up hard, right? Like, let's kind of dive into a little bit of what you mean by a rite of passage.

A true rite of passage is where you go from one way of being to another. And a way of being always shifts like tides, right? Tide comes in, tide goes out, but there's always a shoreline. And when you go through a true rite of passage, you are literally changing your shoreline. You are not just changing the tide. You know, I'll go do ayahuasca. I'll go to a ceremony, I'll go to mit. I'll go to ala. I'll go to any of these programs. And these are all phenomenal programs, right? It's nothing. Nothing to knock these programs. But a lot of times people will go and do a program or a training or they'll read a book or they'll start journaling, but it's not a true rite of passage. Rite of passage is built so that a man, and even now, so that women. Women's rite of passage is powerful, too. So that actually changes the geography of who you are. It changes the shoreline of your being. And when you change the shoreline of your being, the tide never comes in and out the same ever again. And the reason for that is because if you want to hold more spaciousness in your life, then you have to expand your shoreline, right? Water is feminine, and so water always wants to test boundaries, just like the feminine does. You know, the feminine always wants to test boundaries. And so as. As the masculine energy and however you relate in relationships. But like, I consider myself to be a masculine man, so. So the art of masculinity for me is how do I adapt my shoreline to the capacity that the feminine energy I love is asking for? How do I do that? Well, the only way I can change the geography of my shoreline is by doing a rite of passage. That will actually change my shoreline forever. And rite of passages have been commonplace in all different cultures across the world. Some of these can be pretty brutal, honestly, and I don't agree with all of them. But what I love about the Native American tradition is there is a ego stripping process. There's a sweat lodge and a purification. There's four days in nature. And in nature, all you get, Johnny, is four gallons of water, your sleeping bag, cold weather clothes, and a tarp. That's it. You don't get any food, any fire, any flashlight, nothing. I mean, you're just out there in the wild 30 minutes from camp, and then camp is another 45 minutes from town. So if something happened to you, like you are in control of your own destiny and there is nothing and no one that is going to come save you. And there is something fucking liberating about that, to know that your life is in your own hands and no one is coming to save you. That is the kind of rite of passage that many men need to accept and many men need to go through.

That's beautifully said because I think in today's society we have two rites of passage in the United States. And the closest things to rites of passage, and that's gangs and the military. And neither of them are very good for our psyche or for building us into being actual good men in this world. There's a lot of breaking down in that that's very negative and there's a lot of just ripping apart, but it's not building back up in a way that we serve ourselves in our ecosystem, right?

Yep, 100%. Because those, those are a shallow cry to a true rite of passage and to true brotherhood. True brotherhood is something that is built on peace, because peace. And this is something that hit me in the heart when I was out there in the wilderness. It's. It's great timing for us to do this. You know, two weeks ago, I was literally in the forest, touching the edges of life, holding death with two hands, having conversations with great Spirit, connecting with Mother Earth in a way that I had never done in my whole life since I was like 13 years old. And just really going back to honoring the mystery. These groups, these gangs, this violence, it's not honoring the mystery. It's not creating brotherhood from a place of peace. It's creating brotherhood from a place of war. And you cannot have true power from a place of violence and war. You can only have true power from a place of peace. Because peace and the power that it yields can be trusted. We all know what it's like when we have a dogmatic boss or a dogmatic partner, just a dogmatic person that's barking at us, and it's violent. Yeah. We might be forced to do what they say, but we don't respect them. We actually start to grow resentment for them. And in these groups of gangs and these groups that are the shallow cry of masculinity and of true brotherhood, true rite of passage, there is an infection in these gangs and in these violent groups of men, and the infection is resentment. And when you have resentment in brotherhood, it unravels the brotherhood. Because you cannot lead from any other spaciousness than peace. Because again, in that dichotomy, peace and the power that comes from peace can be trusted. But force that comes from dogmatic views and power by authoritarianship breeds resentment. And that is really the infection that. That. Honestly, the patriarchy, the old school patriarchy has operated from for millennia, and that's what's being shifted now.

Yeah. So there's something here I want to kind of expose, and I'd love to hear your perspective on is when we talk about that. Okay, guys are sitting here. We're hearing about peace and love. You know, this is the balance between masculine and feminine today that we. The evolution of man, if you will. Right. But then they're like, well, what about this vigilance, though? If I'm just in peace and love, am I exposed? Am I vulnerable? That's not really a man. What do we say to these guys?

That's an awesome question. Because exactly what you're talking about is the fluidity of the polarity of masculine and feminine. And that's the key. Notice how I said fluidity. It is impossible and it is honestly foolish to think that evil doesn't exist. Okay? It's foolish because in the world, there is high, low pressure. There is fear and love. There is chaos, there is order, There is dark and night. There is always opposing forces. Because in the singular, singularity of us, of God, because all is God, there is a dichotomy. There is duality within singularity. So it is extremely foolish for us as men to think that we just need to sit around a circle and cross our arms and wear a big purple gem and sing Kumbaya. You know, that's not real. But what is real is to have. I guess, really the term that's coming to me now is to have authoritative playfulness. Authoritative playfulness is what men need to cultivate, because if we can be authoritative and playful, that can be trusted. Authoritative means you take care of your body. You take care of your mental health. Maybe you learn how to. How to use firearms properly. Maybe you learn how to protect yourself and your family. Maybe you learn how to grow food. Maybe you learn all kinds of skills that can protect from a place of peace and love against evil, because evil is real, just like love is real. And so evil is real because we are at the consciousness level where we are still carrying out the wishes of evil. And the wishes of evil come from greed, resentment, betrayal. They're all ego wounding. It's all these deep, bloody ego wounds that we are still uncovering from thousands of years of people being mistreated and people. Honestly, Joni. Trying to be led from dogmatism and trying to be led from these wounded groups and the patriarchy. So what you're creating with your show, which is so awesome and just who you are as a human being and also who I am, is we are creating a new shoreline of a tide that can hold more spaciousness for this feminine energy. But we do it knowing that we get to be authoritative and we get to be playful. We can't just be playful and loving, because then when evil comes, we'll get mowed over. But we also can't just be a jerk and be authoritative all the time, because then we're never gonna have any fun. We're not gonna be loving. So there has to be both. We have to work on both. And that is the art form. That is the art form of being authoritatively playful. And that's really what us men have to embody, like today, right now. And of course, it can't happen that fast because there's a natural learning curve. Right. So we're all learning and doing the best that we can.

Yeah, brother. That's. That is. I love the way that you picture that for us, because I can vividly see what you're talking about. And that authoritative doesn't allow the people in our ecosystem to feel safe.

That's.

That's not like it's not acceptable for men to be that way because, you know, to feel if you want to be, you know, quote unquote, the warrior, the war, or the protector, but nobody feels safe with you because they're scared you're going to pop off on them. That's not being a good masculine figure in this world.

Right, agreed. Because think about this. If you. You yourself have been in the military, and so you understand what it's like to receive orders. Did you ever receive an order that you didn't want to carry out? Oh, sure, yeah, maybe all the time. But there was something in you that you knew because you were in that structure, right? And you were in the hierarchy. You had to carry it out, otherwise you would lose your position. And so that is what I'm talking about where there's, there's the authoritativeness, but there's not enough playfulness, there's not enough lovingness that's coming through in situations like that. And so that's the challenge that we are all facing. It's like we're trying to. Society is round, the earth is round and we have square thinking, the earth is round. And so we are trying to apply a linear, logical, box type thinking, authoritativeness without playfulness to a round existence. Spaciousness is outward in 360 degrees. So we cannot use box thinking, linear, logical, line thinking to live here in this world. And of course, that example, that metaphor that I gave you, it ripples out into almost every single question I think you explore on your show. Because we are in a round 360 existence. We are not in a square, logical, authoritative, dogmatic existence.

That's so good because I think we can all picture this in masculinity today with the fact that we feel almost like we're in a box. And this kind of leads me to, my next question with you is, well, why do men, or why does it seem like. I don't want to generalize too much, but why does it seem like most men fear this new evolution of masculinity?

Because anytime in life that you're way of being is challenged, your ego is going to fight sometimes to the death against change. One of the greatest resources I can give to you and the Art of Masculinity is a book by Dr. Vernon Wolf and it's called Holodynamics. And in Dr. Vernon's book he talks about holodynes. And holodynes are, and I'm going to give a few examples. Holodynes are microtubules within our cells. This is a massive PhD with that served in Russia and wartime. His credentials are vast. But he's, he's interesting because he doesn't have a massive website presence. He doesn't have all the trappings of a, quote, influencer. But this is a man that's really the guy behind the guy, right? You know that movie swingers? The guy behind the guy, that's what, that's what Vernon Wolf is. He's the guy behind guy. He's the guy that's making things happen. So he talks about holodynes and in his clinical research, he found that beliefs actually live in our body. And those beliefs are passed on to us by our fathers and mothers. And guess what? Their beliefs are passed on to them by our grandparents, by their father and their mother. So why am I saying this? Your question was, why is it so hard when we're presented as men with a new way of being? It's so hard because we are fighting biology. Steven Pressfield calls it the resistance. So what is resistance's number one job? What is a holodyne's number one job? What is a core belief that got installed almost like a microchip in a computer? What is its core job? Its core job is to function without change. In the same way that when I touch a keyboard and I type in the word Johnny on a keyboard, I know that when I hit the J, it's going to show up as a J on the screen. Well, our beliefs function, dude, exactly the same way. When I am presented with new information that goes against the construct of the programs that were installed in my mind that activate the holodynes and the beliefs and the way of being, there is going to be a system error, right? There's going to be a 404 in my soul. It's going to flash up and it's going to say, error. This is not our way of being. What are you doing? This is not real. So that is when your soul has to come in and override the programming. So your soul has to come in and see things from an observer perspective and look down and go, okay, I understand that this is a new way of being. I'm going to pause for a moment. I'm going to learn about the art of masculinity. I'm going to learn what it means to truly be a man right now. The reason that all of our computers get updated every day, the reason that Zoom gets updated almost every day, is because the world is always changing. Technology is always changing. Humanity is always changing. Human evolution is always changing. We must meet the demands of the modern, modern world in the current moment, dude. Because if we do not, our programs will actually pull us away from evolution. And guess what word is in evolution? There's love there. The word love is found in evolution. The love is always calling us forward. If we are willing to change the programs and update our programs and really let go of the holodins and the belief systems that are holding us back. Now, this is not an intellectual thing. I know I'm using words and we're speaking to people's minds through their ears, connected to their hearts. But what I'm talking about is a spiritual and emotional shift that can only be done through rites of passage, through direct spiritual work, through emotional intelligence work. This is not heady, this is heart. So that's, that's what men need to do right now. And that's, that's what's going to make the old ways of being die so that the new ways of being can live.

So, so good man. This is where I think, how do we break down the obstinate that men have to say, well, I'm fine the way I am, or to accept like, okay, I do need to get in touch with love and spirit.

That's a deep question. I know. Really, it's good man. It really comes to a decision point. So Malcolm Gladwell, in his work, he has a book and he talks about the tipping point. And the tipping point comes when all of us have experienced a way of being that is creating pain. We change through pleasure and pain. It's an axis. And the reason that dark comes really strong right before light is because every day we're in a tipping point. We're in a tipping point. Every single day. Every single day you and I can choose to show up based on, on our awareness. Right? I believe in the military community there's a, there's like a map for situational awareness, right. Mark Devine calls it the Ooda loop, the loop of awareness. And so every day we as men, we're constantly scanning our environment and being aware of what's going on. How do we show up in our environment as a true leader, as an authoritatively playful man? Well, the only way we do that is by first being aware. So number one, dude, and I know you've talked about this and I'm still going to say it again because sometimes it takes to hear the truth 55 times and on the 56th time, something sinks in. Number one is, and let's just take a breath here, First you have to choose that you want to be aware. That is the first step. Choose that you want to be aware of what's actually going on in reality. Not the reality that's subjective, but the objective reality. From you looking 30,000ft, what's really happening? Then after that, what is your decision making faculty about how you're going to adapt and serve in that awareness, in that observation. So how are you going to adapt? How are you going to serve from a place of love being an authoritatively playful man? How are you going to do that? That's the work. So those three things is how you do it. Now obviously there's many, many tools that need to be unpacked. Once you've made the decision, you have the situational awareness and you're there. One of my favorite tools is breathwork. I love breathwork because it cuts away all the chatter. The monkey mind is really the default mode network. The default mode network is programmed from trauma. Ages 0 through 7 is where we all take it on. Many people that are in wartime, they also experience PTSD from mortar shells going off and just from, you know, doing the ultimate sacrifice, which is going to war. I mean, I can't even imagine so much reverence and respect for people to do that yet. When we're in life, life sometimes can be asking for peace and asking for playfulness. But to the degree we're programmed and we're not aware of our awareness, right, we're not observing what's going on, we can actually come into a situation and be like ready for war from a nervous system perspective. And so our work is multi pronged and multifaceted because once you make a choice from 30,000ft to observe, then you actually see in your OODA loop like what's happening here. How can I adapt and be loving in this situation? What tools do I need to adapt? Then you actually have to go execute, right? What I call you have to gather, you have to apply, and then you have to embody. And these are the three phases of intelligence that we talk about with wellness for us is like, I need to gather because as a man, I have to gather, I have to hunt, I have to apply, I have to do the breath work, I have to have the hard conversations, I have to practice my breath work. And then as a man in that final phase, I have to embody. Because a man that embodies virtues and a man that truly from his heart is speaking something that he believes and he's being what he's speaking, well, then he's embodied. And then that kind of peace can be trusted. And when you're trusted with your peace because you're being honest with yourself at your current level of development, then really no one and no thing can get in your way. And that's how you can really be an embodied man here in the world. I unpacked an incredibly challenging concept, but that's really, it is simple. But just because it's simple, like, does not mean it's easy, right? No way.

No, absolutely not. But I think this is a great start to getting guys that are kind of fighting or not really looking at evolution as a priority in the sense of how do I just even start on this path to say, hey, I'm accepting, to be aware, to look at that 30,000 foot view and say, let me actually understand what's going on with me and what's actually the big picture here before I jump into reacting, before I jump into kind of taking on the old programming and saying this is continually the way.

Yes, you said it yourself, it's awesome because many times our answer is inside of the question. And the question was about the old programming. So if, if it is quite simple and to observe is really just to be a witness. So when I'm observing something, I'm observing it without judgment, right? I'm just witnessing what's going on. So when I'm observing a situation where let's, let's say, let's give an example here. So my woman is crying, she's upset about something. What can I do without judgment to just observe her so that I can have greater situational awareness? The first thing is to do this. Put your hand on your belly and if you're really upset, put your hand on your heart and breathe through your belly like a bellow, like, breathe horizontally instead of vertically. And I Learned this from Dr. Belisa Vranich, who's worked with many special forces and many people in the military. Breathe horizontally when you're in situations of stress, when you're experiencing old programming, breathe horizontally, don't breathe vertically. So if I return to the site here and people are watching this on YouTube, my belly is actually going to go out when I breathe in through my nose. So it would look like this. So you can see my hand goes in and out, not up and down. And that is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves and to our partner in those moments where we're like, oh shit, an old program's coming through. The authoritativeness is here, but there's no playfulness, you know, like that. That's how we can really shift is by doing six of those and in our Breathe program. So I have a program called Breathe, Breath and Wellness. And in that program you can find it at breathwork IO and in that program we have a specific module where we talk about relationship conflict and breathing for relationship conflict. And so the best thing you can do is you ask your partner. Because when you ask your partner, you're actually turning off the old programs. The biggest gift and what was awesome in your question, that I can touch on quickly here, is the biggest gift that we can give to ourselves and our partner and just to our space, you know, as a man is. Can we ask permission to our space, to our woman, to our team? Can we ask permission as a leader for us to learn? Can we ask permission as a leader so that we can learn and be a better leader? And so the best way to do that is just to go, huh? Six deep breaths. Inhale, nose, exhale. Mouth in a circle. State what you're observing. Hey, baby, I notice that you're crying. Can you share with me how I can support you? Can you share with me what's wrong? Or if you're in a team environment and you're in a team environment and you notice your team is out of whack, take a deep breath and you ask your team, hey, guys, I'm noticing that the energy's off in the team. Would anyone have the courage to share with me any stress you might be experiencing or any issues you might be experiencing? Or when you're at work? Same thing. You see what I mean? We're asking for permission after we take our breath to reset our nervous system, and then our team is going to respect us or our woman's going to respect us because we took the time to get out of our fucking head to turn off our bullshit programs so that we can be in our body because we have to be embodied in order to truly lead. Then we can learn. We're meant to learn as a leader. Leaders aren't, like, on the top of the mountain that they have it all figured out. A true leader is vulnerable enough to ask when they can learn. And that's what this is all about. That's how we get rid of the old programs.

Yeah. And so how much of this is tied into. In your perspective, to us being better at emotional intelligence as men as well? I think that's a struggle with many, many men in society today.

Well, like I mentioned, man, and it's. And it's an awesome way. It's really a beautiful question on top of your last question. So I love. I love where we're going in this, because true intelligence has an arc, right? Most people think intelligence is like, hey, how smart is this guy? Wow, that person's really intelligent. You know, they. They can articulate, and they have the PhD on the wall and they have all the things. But, dude, true intelligence has honestly not much to do with how smart you are at all. Like. Like, it really doesn't matter. True intelligence is our capacity, dude. Our capacity. Our ability to gather info. Right? Read all the books and then apply, do the journaling, do the breath work, have the conversations apply, and then have the courage to embody. And the only way we can embody on this arc of intelligence, which is essentially what I'm describing, you know, how do you asked, how do we get more emotional intelligence? Well, in order for us to, to embody greater emotional intelligence, we have to live the arc of intelligence, gather, apply, embody, and as we embody, whatever's being installed creates spaciousness and kicks out the old programs that are blocking us from embodying true emotional intelligence. I know I'm taking a really complex thing and making it simple, but that actually is one of the facets of being intelligent is being able to take radically complex things and use honest, real conversations, conversational language in order to describe them. I don't need to tell you about the afferent and efferent nerve endings in the brain. When we experience trauma and what's going on in your vagus nerve and all this stuff, that's fine. If you want to know that, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with science, I think science is great. But people need real language that a 10 year old can understand. And that's what the world needs. And that's how we get greater emotional intelligence, is being committed to taking super complex things dropping into our heart, getting out of this monkey mind, default mode network brain activity and really being able to speak with honest language. That's how we embody greater emotional intelligence.

Yeah, no, and that's, I think one of your biggest strengths, which that's why I love your show personally and I listen to it regularly, is the fact that you do take complex situations and break them down for us. Because at the end of the day, especially for people, for us men, we want to just, we want to get the information and we don't want to have to go research more information on top of information, it's calories.

Well, our brain is a super calorie hungry engine, right? I think, quote me if I'm wrong someone, but I think our brain is like 50 to 70% of our calories. It's a massive hungry organ that we expend all day long. And so anytime in marketing or in messaging or in conversations, if people can stop with the blah, blah, blah, long winded stuff and just, and just get to the heart of the matter. The reason why people are relieved is because we're saving them mental calories. We're saving people mental calories because they don't have to process and think. And that's why we have a guide, right? And it's called the M21 guide. Took me three months to build, research and test and trial. And that guide is free. People download the guide not just because it's free, but because it would take them three months to gather that information. So I gathered it for you so you can apply. You can get right to the application and then move on to the embodiment. And so that's@wellnessforce.com M21. It's six practices that I pulled from, like, almost 400 shows now. And it's just the six things that I think are the most potent for you to do every day so you can start embodying greater emotional intelligence, embodying more, More physical intelligence. So, yeah, we gotta save them calories, man. We gotta save people mental calories.

That's. I'm gonna market this episode. We're gonna save you mental calories. Take a listen.

Hell yeah. I mean, it's real. It's real. It's good. It's good stuff.

That's awesome. But anybody that's listening right now, go download that M21. I'm gonna go do it. Because obviously, like, through everything that you've learned and you're putting that into something that's synthesized for us to apply and embody, like, that's insane, man. So appreciate you actually putting that out there. We'll put all this stuff in the show notes as well for everybody. But as we're kind of continuing down this path, I know a lot of people today are hearing, and you're probably one of the best people to talk about this, but a lot of people are hearing about the importance of breath work, but I don't know that everybody really understands that and really what this means and why it's so important. So if you could kind of break that down for us, because I know this is something that's been part of your practice that you're integrating very, very vigorously right now. What is it that we can look forward to for breath work? And how does this change even our chemistry to think differently?

Did we do breath work at my house or. No, I forgot when you're.

When you came over, we were going to.

We were going to. And then we didn't get in the sauna. The next time you come over, we have to do the seven minute practice because it's so potent, it's so powerful. It's. It's. I can just describe it to everyone here. It's 21 warrior breaths or priming breaths. Two rounds of box breath and then an exhale hold. And that's the most powerful way to do it. So breath work in a nutshell is this. It is your conscious control of your respiration and your conscious control of your respiration is that it's you being aware of how you're breathing. That is breath work. Right. Breath is the only automatic, otherwise known as autonomic process that we have in our body. You can't digest your own food, your body does that for you. You don't think about blinking your eyes or about excreting salivation from your mouth. Your body does that for you. You don't beat your own heart, your body does that for you. These are all automatic autonomic things that occur in our nervous system and in our physiology. That, yeah, if you're a Shaolin monk, you could probably control because you have a super high level of awareness. Right. Remember that 30,000 foot view? They're like 60,000ft, 90,000ft, the Shaolin monks. So they're just witnessing everything. They're just like bah. They're like outside the Matrix. But we're here in the Matrix. And so in the Matrix, the only way that we cannot become a slave to the Matrix is by using our breath. And it's the only autonomic automatic lever e brake that we can pull. So right now, if I'm talking to you or if I'm talking to a partner and I can remember it. And I can really pull in through my nose. Conscious respiration means pulling in through your nose, which is your sympathetic activation. Exhaling through the mouth is your parasympathetic activation. What that means is sympathetic is fight, flight or flee. Or I'm sorry, fight. Flight. Fight, flight or freeze. Right, so get frozen, fight or run. Right. A lot of people use that phrase, deer in the headlights. Well, that's, that's freeze, that's sympathetic nervous system. On the other half, through our breath, when I exhale, it's parasympathetic. Parasympathetic is your ability to rest and digest and to be calm and to be playful. Right. Authoritative. Sympathetic parasympathetic. Playful. Authoritatively playful. So we have to balance both of these things. And how do we do that? We join them through the bridge of breath. And when we use breath consciously, that allows us to not be a victim to the Matrix. That's essentially a very short definition of breathwork.

Yeah, but that gives us such a great picture of what we're trying to gain through breath work that it helps us even at just the base Level again helps us to understand, well, why am I going to implement this into my life and how is it going to help me? Because we don't want to be stuck in that sympathetic nervous system all the time, right? Like that's just so detrimental to us physically and mentally.

Yes. It's what drives disease, it's what drives divorce. It's what drives, it's what drives complacency is being in constant sympathetic. So let's, let's go over this. Like what are the things, the big things that cause people to be stuck in, in the sympathetic? Sympathetic is trauma, capital T, like sexual abuse, physical abuse, even wartime, right? People can come home and they're just shell shocked, they're just stuck in sympathetic. The ways that we get out of sympathetic are vast. Right? Hugging an oxytocin, being in nature, exercise, conscious relation. But what are we all doing here? In all of these things, the one determining factor, the one through line in all modalities of removing oneself from the sympathetic, there is always the pulse of the breath. No matter what tool you're using to get out of sympathetic, you are always using the breath, whether you're using it or whether spirit is using it for you. So that's the key in the through line, in all these things. And it's so simple. Like I was reflecting the other day, I'm like, damn, I teach people how to breathe properly and how to open their hearts. Like that's really, that's like all that I do. I just take all these situations and I'm like, are you breathing? Are you loving? Are you being responsible? I guess that's the third thing. Are you being response able? Right? Are you breathing? Are you loving? Are you being response able? Those are the three things that we do for Wellness Forest. That's all we do. And of course the arc of intelligence is part of that. And the gather apply, embody model that I built is part of that. And it's just fascinating, Johnny, because gosh, we forget such simple things because we get stuck in the mind. We become victims of intellectualization where we think life has to be this crazy hard, gnarly complex. I need to get 4 PhDs so I'm worthy type thing. And it's all fucking bullshit. It's all programs that have been installed. Alan Watts calls it. It's all wretch and no vomit. People are going, I don't feel good. I want to get rid of my mom's programming. I don't want to be like my dad. But nobody ever throws it up. Nobody ever gets it out of their system. Because they either don't know how to or they haven't cultivated the courage. And that just takes time. It takes time and the choice. This is the big one. You have to choose. This is your earlier question. You have to choose. Do I want to observe? Do I have the courage to observe and to be witness to what's transpiring? This is why our current world breaks my heart. Because I do have the courage to see what's going on from an objective place. Without my wounding, without my projections. The reason it breaks my heart when I'm at the airport. I mean, I was. I was coming home from Idaho from the vision quest. And I'm sitting there, stretching on the floor in the airport. And as soon as I go through the security line, I rip that mask off. It's not a fuck you. It's just like, this is my sovereignty. I'll play your little game. I'll put on the mask so it makes your ego feel safe. But I rip that mask off as soon as I come through security and nobody ever says shit to me. I just walk through the whole airport. Everybody's in fear, looking at me with their mask and their eyes like, what's he doing? And I'm sitting on the floor with no mask on. And this woman's there with her mask on. And her baby comes up and starts touching my pack. And I'm like, oh, this baby's so curious. And we're starting to talk in the airport and she looks at me with, like, almost, like, redness in her eyes. And she just stares at me and she says, I wish I could take my mask off. And I took a breath and I was aware of my situation. I just turned to her and I said, you can take your mask off right now. And it was a glitch in the Matrix because when she looked at me, there was a part of her that got excited. And I felt her go, oh, yeah. And then I felt her programming kick in. Boom. And then I felt her do what most of us do when we're being programmed is the uncomfortable laugh comes through. She went. Instead of responding to my truth. And that. That is what breaks my heart about what's going on in our world. It's not. It's not just the mask wearing. That's a metaphor, dude, for how we're all living in program. The mask is really just a physical representation of the programming. We haven't thrown up yet. That's what's truly transpiring right now. So it broke my Heart. Because there she was in the choice point. And by the way, she's a reflection of me. Where in my life am I wearing a mask Still? Still, even on this podcast? Like, where am I trying to be perfect and communicate to you from perfection and say the perfect thing at the perfect time instead of just being real? When I take an inventory of our time together, I feel like I have shown up real today. I feel like I have shown up honest. And I don't need to say the perfect thing because we're friends. We're here in the art of masculinity. We're all learning about the art. There's no pressure here. This isn't like, you need to do it perfect. So when there's. When there's a lack of pressure, which goes back to your earlier question, how do we change? How do we let go when there is a lack of authoritativeness, right? Like, I don't need to be my authoritator. In my mind, like, you got to be perfect with Johnny. You got to say the perfect shit. You gotta fucking do everything per. No, then I can bring in spaciousness for playfulness, and that can be trusted. Then I'm being myself. Then I'm not wearing a mask if I'm in pure play. And it goes the other way, too, Johnny. And thank you for letting me riff here, dude, because what's. What's coming out is great. Like, we can go to the other side and we can be like, everything's fine. Good vibes only. All there is is love. Blah, blah, blah. And that's bypassing in fear, too. Sometimes fear wears a smile. And so I can go to the other side of the coin and be like, everything's fine, you know? And that's. And then I can go to the other side of the coin and be, like, authoritative. Like, when I come up to Johnny's podcast, I need to be perfect. I need to have all my notes ready. I need to. It's like, no, there's a middle. There's a middle because in the middle, that's why a river can flow through. And I use the laws of nature, because nature is so wise. She is so wise. Oh, my God. She's always showing us what's true. A river can only flow when there's two shorelines. That's why there needs to be playfulness and authoritativeness, because that way, energy can flow. If there's only one shoreline, the water is just going to recede and evaporate. But if there's two shorelines, if there's Authoritativeness and playfulness. Then water can flow, then we can live. But we can't live if there's only one or only the other. And that's the wisdom of nature. Coming through.

Wow, man. That was just like mic drop right there. It's freaking amazing what you just kind of exposed us all to in that.

Whole and myself at the same time.

It's so good, brother. But it's like, yeah, you have that, you know that, that smile that like, oh, life is great, everything's cool. But that becomes basically masking your fear of not being compliant with societal expectations. And then the other side is being that authoritative. Could be, well, am I being a rebel just to be a rebel? Because I don't want people to tell me what to do or society. Right. So it's taking inventory of both. But I love the way that you painted that, too. Very, very awesome, man.

Thank you for giving me the spaciousness there. Yeah. This is why I love podcasting. Right? Because I don't know what I'm gonna learn from you, from the questions you ask. You make me learn more. That's what great podcasts are. And that's why people are loving this longer form conversation is because aren't we just kind of sick of the three minute, seven minute? Like, what's the five greatest mental hacks you can learn in three minutes? Shut the fuck up. Like, get the fuck out of here with your authoritative bullshit. You know, screaming at people online like, you need to do that. Like, you know who's the worst? And I'm going to single him out. Gary Vaynerchuk has caused more pain in this world than a lot of people that are on social media because his mentality. And you look at how he's aged, Johnny, look at how much that guy has aged in 10 years. He looks 40 years older. And the body keeps the score. So like all his hustle, grind, get it done. There's some truth to that sometimes. Because sometimes we do need to do that, but not all the fucking time. You're gonna kill yourself. So he's killing people. He's killing people, dude. That's. We're not meant to go 24 7, 365 forever. You're gonna. You're gonna kill yourself. That's not life. That's not playfulness. So I forget why I was even saying that, but that had. That had to be said. Oh, it's.

No, no, it was good.

It's because of what we're learning. Yeah. Yeah, we're learning. Yeah.

Oh, man, this has been A beautiful conversation. Brother, I'm so happy that you were able to carve some time out and come on the show with us. I know how busy you are these days, but, brother, I'm never too busy for you, man.

I'm never too busy for this spaciousness. Right? You're creating spaciousness for people to learn about the art form. That's why I love the title of your show, the Art of Masculinity. Because it is an art. You don't go and paint and be like, I'm gonna paint the perfect picture. You fucking enjoy the painting.

Yeah, you enjoy.

Enjoy the art of masculinity. Enjoy it. You guys, enjoy it. Doesn't have to be so serious all the time.

Oh, I love that.

Doesn't.

I do love that. It doesn't have to be serious all the time. I think we get that wrong a lot of the times, but we do. No, brother, this has been amazing. Before I let you go, man, can you just tell everybody, we'll get all this in the show notes, but just let everybody know what you got going on right now and how we can support and love on you and your mission, brother.

Well, if anyone is watching and they got a lot out of the breathwork section, just go to Breathwork IO. I want to give the Art of Masculinity half off the program. I want to make it, like, really approachable for you. So just enter the code podcast50. So breathwork IO, enter the code, podcast50. The program's already super affordable, but you can get half off podcast 50. Thank you for having me on. Thank you to anyone that wants to walk this journey of breath. And by the way, in that program, it's three weeks long, right? Week one, guess what we do, we gather. Week two, guess what we do, we apply. And then week three, you actually embody it. You can learn. And I promise you guys this, in three weeks, you will learn how to embody your conscious control of your breath so that you can be a better lover, be a better husband, be a better father, be a better human being so that you will actually embody the knowingness and the awareness of how to breathe, when to breathe, how it works in situations. Like that's what you get in three weeks. And it took me almost four years to come to this decision point of me going to, like, Thailand and Costa Rica and Sedona and all these places to learn from all these masters, to bring it into, like a little tight three week learning curve. So that's my gift to you and to your audience and Then the podcast is the Wellness Force podcast. So just Google that or search that on itunes. Wellness Force, Yeah.

Everybody jump on board with whatever Josh is doing. I'm a huge, huge supporter of Josh. And seriously, just even before you and I became friends, man, you've been a guiding light, even for me with your podcast. The way that you approach this world, the way that you approach people, just absolutely beautiful, brother. So love what you're doing. Everybody jump on board. If you're not already with Wellness Force, jump on board with what Josh is putting out there and offering. And, brother, love you, man. Thank you for showing up. I'm so excited for you and Carrie with the baby coming pretty soon, so looking forward to it, man.

Thank you for having me. And I just want to acknowledge you as, like, a very curious learning leader. You're. You're so curious. And your. Your. Your questions are all about learning. And so that's why. That's why your people are with you, is because you have the humility and the vulnerability to ask, hey, how can I learn more? You know, not everybody's like that. Some people come on a show and it's all ego, right? I'm not going to name you guys, know, but. But the way that you. The way that you run your ship, man, it's. It's an honor. So thank you for having me.

Well, thank you, brother. I appreciate you. And to everybody listening, as always, remember to drop the ego and stay humble. Until next time, guys.