161. An Ode To Women (Who Compel Men Into Manhood)

WEBVTT

00:00.031 --> 00:07.782
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we all get messed up by the ideal of Disney because Disney is all about the falling in love and nothing about the loving part.

00:08.823 --> 00:29.312
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know a single fairy tale that really lives inside the love story, but there is the new relationship energy that's possible again, no matter how long people have been married or together, when men start to do the work because it's possible that the dream of something that has never been before comes alive.

00:30.119 --> 00:33.503
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Bridging Connections, formerly known as men this way.

00:33.783 --> 00:40.871
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Brian with the Y-Reaves, former U.S. Air Force Captain turned author and professional coach to men, women, and couples.

00:41.572 --> 00:45.836
[SPEAKER_01]: Alongside me as co-host, my lifelong friend of over 40 years, T.A.R.D.

00:46.357 --> 00:55.887
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we have the raw, real conversations we need to be having about the topics that matter most, relationships, purpose, health, spirituality, and more.

00:56.348 --> 00:57.989
[SPEAKER_01]: Please subscribe to stay connected.

00:58.350 --> 00:59.451
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's dive.

01:04.679 --> 01:07.263
[SPEAKER_01]: Dave, what up?

01:11.569 --> 01:13.371
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Brad, I'm trying to tell you, man.

01:13.391 --> 01:16.756
[SPEAKER_01]: This is always the most awkward part of every podcast episode to me.

01:16.776 --> 01:17.818
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean, what are you doing?

01:17.858 --> 01:18.498
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk.

01:18.519 --> 01:19.099
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, let's go.

01:19.240 --> 01:19.540
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go.

01:19.720 --> 01:21.282
[SPEAKER_00]: We were just diving in.

01:21.643 --> 01:21.743
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

01:21.763 --> 01:26.670
[SPEAKER_00]: Because today we got a, we got a special start to our message today, which is,

01:27.848 --> 01:35.737
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, really, we were talking about the title of this episode, and in some ways, it's, I'll just name it, owed to women.

01:37.018 --> 01:43.526
[SPEAKER_00]: This is our owed to women, because, oh my God, what a pattern we have been seeing.

01:43.546 --> 01:51.915
[SPEAKER_00]: The vast majority of the men who we come to work with are men, obviously, that have found your work.

01:52.688 --> 02:00.805
[SPEAKER_00]: But the vast majority of the people who have found your work have been introduced to your work by the women who love them the most.

02:01.186 --> 02:01.447
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

02:01.707 --> 02:01.948
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

02:01.968 --> 02:08.421
[SPEAKER_01]: Talking specifically, like, you know, men that that have that have, you've been in one of our elevator programs.

02:08.481 --> 02:13.532
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, how many times have we heard him say, you know, my wife got your book?

02:14.238 --> 02:16.461
[SPEAKER_01]: and put it on my bed.

02:16.541 --> 02:21.687
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, she was reading it and I didn't know what it was and eventually I picked it up and oh my God.

02:21.707 --> 02:31.959
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're, we've just launched into our new season for Elevate 2026, this is our sixth year offering this program.

02:33.561 --> 02:35.043
[SPEAKER_01]: We've already got five guys enrolled.

02:36.224 --> 02:38.507
[SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

02:38.487 --> 02:39.829
[SPEAKER_01]: It is fascinating.

02:39.889 --> 02:45.196
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so this is, I mean, we've worked with how many guys now through Elevate just the year long.

02:45.436 --> 02:48.600
[SPEAKER_00]: Fifty-three-year-long program exactly, fifty.

02:49.081 --> 03:03.179
[SPEAKER_00]: And then probably another 75, maybe fifty to seventy-five guys through the other work that we've been doing over the last five years through Elevate Your Relationship.

03:03.219 --> 03:03.499
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

03:04.340 --> 03:06.283
[SPEAKER_00]: So 100, let's just call it a 100 plus.

03:06.603 --> 03:06.843
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

03:07.645 --> 03:25.369
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it is pretty fascinating because over the years, I've been doing this work a long time and I reflect back on, you know, there's a common arc that some that many men go on with this with, with their, in terms of their own relationship to this work and, and the first part of his resistance, you know, this isn't for me.

03:25.501 --> 03:29.686
[SPEAKER_01]: I was looking back through some of the videos, the video testimonials that we collected from guys.

03:29.706 --> 03:35.592
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, one guy was saying how every time him and his wife gotten into an argument, he was like, it's her fault.

03:36.553 --> 03:37.714
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing for me to do here.

03:38.175 --> 03:39.456
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all in her.

03:40.718 --> 03:43.581
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's one of the men whose wives got my book.

03:44.121 --> 03:46.624
[SPEAKER_01]: And he found it lying around the house and started to read it.

03:47.605 --> 03:49.527
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's the first thing is it's resistance.

03:50.088 --> 03:51.429
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not the one that has to change here.

03:51.469 --> 03:52.150
[SPEAKER_01]: She does.

03:53.294 --> 04:02.984
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, I've had men even after they've gone through this arc, I've had men tell me when I first saw your work, man.

04:03.646 --> 04:05.532
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to punch you in the face.

04:06.102 --> 04:09.506
[SPEAKER_00]: I've wanted to punch you in the face too, but not for different words.

04:09.526 --> 04:10.428
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's fine.

04:10.448 --> 04:14.173
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, long time friends, you're supposed to want to punch each other in the face sometimes.

04:14.613 --> 04:15.014
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

04:15.594 --> 04:16.736
[SPEAKER_01]: Boys bond the bloody.

04:16.916 --> 04:35.080
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a silly, silly, always cracks up when we watch like TV and movies and you see two men just fucking each other up for, you know, physically and then they exhaust themselves and then they just, and then they just sit next to each other on the rock where they just, and they're just they're backs against the rock and they're just like,

04:36.848 --> 04:37.709
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, yeah, we good.

04:38.229 --> 04:39.791
[SPEAKER_01]: They're believing in mangled.

04:39.851 --> 04:41.532
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sylvie's like, what is that?

04:42.653 --> 04:43.354
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that?

04:43.574 --> 04:44.355
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I don't know.

04:44.375 --> 04:45.416
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't explain it, baby.

04:45.456 --> 04:49.760
[SPEAKER_01]: We men have to go through conflict, that's supposed to get to respect each other.

04:49.780 --> 04:52.082
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a respect that they actually at the end of the day.

04:52.102 --> 04:52.202
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

04:52.662 --> 05:03.052
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but this episode, we're wanted to really honor the women's role in men coming to this work.

05:03.072 --> 05:06.855
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

05:07.190 --> 05:16.842
[SPEAKER_00]: I recall my own personal story with that, which is also an eye had been married gosh, how many years have we been married at that point in time?

05:17.023 --> 05:19.090
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably six or seven.

05:19.745 --> 05:37.208
[SPEAKER_00]: Years at that point, 2000, 14, my daughter must have been around three years old at the time, and my wife came home and shared with me that she thought that we should go to couples counseling together.

05:37.248 --> 05:39.030
[SPEAKER_00]: You thought great idea.

05:39.070 --> 05:40.692
[SPEAKER_00]: This is awesome.

05:41.233 --> 05:48.182
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I got married to do definitely immediately resistant to it.

05:48.584 --> 05:56.236
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's like part of me was like, all right fine, you won't go therapy, let's go to therapy, fine, fine, fine, fine.

05:56.296 --> 06:03.406
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, immediately I thought I would get beat up in there, you know, we're gonna see a female therapist.

06:04.248 --> 06:05.890
[SPEAKER_00]: I just thought I was gonna get ganged up on.

06:06.351 --> 06:08.254
[SPEAKER_01]: And which to be fair happens a lot.

06:08.794 --> 06:09.475
[SPEAKER_00]: It does happen.

06:09.956 --> 06:17.848
[SPEAKER_00]: It did not happen, I did not, I did not get beat up by this therapist, she was fantastic and I still didn't wanna be there.

06:18.773 --> 06:27.890
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just remember, you know, this this pointed question at the very beginning, well, you know, do you want to stay married?

06:30.815 --> 06:37.828
[SPEAKER_00]: And it that should be like an easy question to answer, but if you're in a struggling marriage, which we were.

06:38.703 --> 06:48.381
[SPEAKER_00]: having a three year old another child was on the way, you know, we had fought fought fought because we wanted to don't know how to do relationship better.

06:48.421 --> 06:51.868
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't know how and I was immediately resistant to getting help for it.

06:52.355 --> 06:53.196
[SPEAKER_01]: make sense.

06:53.216 --> 06:55.439
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's very masculine logic.

06:56.180 --> 07:04.691
[SPEAKER_00]: But thank God that she was a stand then that we get help and I don't, you know, because it wasn't that initiative wasn't going to come for me, right?

07:04.831 --> 07:05.072
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

07:05.092 --> 07:13.683
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and I just to be really clear that my partner Elsa did not always, she wasn't always a stand for us getting help in a helpful way.

07:14.084 --> 07:14.264
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

07:14.364 --> 07:14.464
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

07:14.528 --> 07:14.848
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

07:14.888 --> 07:16.870
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like it was like an invitation.

07:16.930 --> 07:19.773
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a demand or it was a complaint in my mind.

07:19.813 --> 07:23.956
[SPEAKER_00]: But thank God for her willingness to be a demand and a complaint for it.

07:24.417 --> 07:30.542
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if she didn't have a way to do it as skillfully as I needed it to be, she was still a stand to get support.

07:30.782 --> 07:43.033
[SPEAKER_00]: And that I, you know, one of the things that I've really learned about my wife and I do believe this now after having, I don't know, shoot, three hundred conversations with men in order to find the 100 men that we were going to do work with.

07:43.655 --> 07:57.576
[SPEAKER_00]: that they too, the vast majority of them come to do work on themselves because the women were there was something inside of them that was calling off to the men in their life for them to be able to step into their greatness.

07:57.636 --> 08:00.921
[SPEAKER_00]: For my wife also to have me step into my greatness.

08:00.985 --> 08:09.673
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have great empathy for women in this regard because I found myself, you know, I've been working with couples for over a decade now.

08:10.154 --> 08:30.233
[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't, it doesn't happen in every, with every couple that I'm talking to, but it, it came up with one recently, where, you know, a woman is partnered with a man who doesn't really wanna take responsibility

08:31.327 --> 08:41.461
[SPEAKER_01]: of his choices, of the way that he's showing up and look, you know, in my model of relationship, everyone has responsibilities, not just the guy's fault, it's not just one partner's fault or the other, right?

08:41.501 --> 08:43.324
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my model is 100, 100.

08:43.364 --> 08:45.346
[SPEAKER_01]: You both have 100% responsibility.

08:45.527 --> 08:59.646
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think there is an epidemic in which men, because we don't have any rights of passage when we are young men, we don't have any

08:59.795 --> 09:03.520
[SPEAKER_01]: True, boyhood to manhood rights of passage.

09:03.821 --> 09:08.688
[SPEAKER_01]: We have pseudo rights of passage, you know, like, like getting hazed into a fraternity.

09:10.190 --> 09:12.053
[SPEAKER_00]: We're getting drunk for the first time.

09:12.073 --> 09:14.036
[SPEAKER_01]: Get drunk for the first time, right?

09:14.096 --> 09:14.697
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

09:14.777 --> 09:21.026
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, I know stories of men whose fathers took them to see a prostitute when they were a teenager.

09:21.126 --> 09:23.750
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is how, this is that was an initiation of sorts.

09:23.810 --> 09:29.498
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of a fucked up one, but it's a pseudo initiation.

09:29.478 --> 09:54.608
[SPEAKER_01]: Initiate a man into the higher structures of the mature of a of even the beginning of a mature manhood if anything it's it's fucking traumatizing Yeah, the way most men are brought from boyhood into into a manhood is traumatizing right I went through both fraternity also went through the military And it's traumatizing It's decapitating in a way, you know taking take especially the military takes your head right off your body

09:55.448 --> 09:56.309
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

09:56.329 --> 10:03.499
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what you know, you hear your stories and gangs of having people get beat in you get beat in to the to the gang, right?

10:03.519 --> 10:04.300
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

10:04.941 --> 10:16.296
[SPEAKER_00]: So acts of violence either externally or internally are the rights of passage of men these days and you know our fathers don't necessarily know how to do that.

10:16.517 --> 10:18.199
[SPEAKER_00]: The the the.

10:18.179 --> 10:25.249
[SPEAKER_00]: Boys in our lives don't know how to turn us into the men and and you know, I think about my own experience.

10:25.289 --> 10:44.457
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad was Love me as much as he knew how to love me and he was working a lot and he was not emotionally attuned to what was going on and so in my upbringing I didn't have my father as present in my life, but my mother was the emotional

10:44.437 --> 11:05.280
[SPEAKER_00]: anchor and she was the person that I could turn to and so what I started to do is look to my mother to validate me as a boy in the world but my mother has no knowledge about what it's like to be a boy in the world and later a man in the world and then so I just switched from turning to my mother to validate me

11:05.260 --> 11:12.169
[SPEAKER_00]: uh to turning to my wife or girlfriend's or a starting girlfriend and then turning to my wife to validate me.

11:12.749 --> 11:20.399
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when I'm getting feedback from her, that I'm not being the man that she wants me to be, it was fucking devastating.

11:20.459 --> 11:25.486
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just resisted it and numbed out and found other ways to just check out my life.

11:25.586 --> 11:26.627
[SPEAKER_00]: Because

11:26.607 --> 11:28.790
[SPEAKER_00]: because I didn't know what it meant to really be a man.

11:28.850 --> 11:33.697
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have the skills in relationship that were taught to me by a man in my life.

11:34.178 --> 11:41.729
[SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to figure it out myself and getting feedback from the only source that I was looking to to validate me in that way.

11:42.430 --> 11:44.413
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was telling me I wasn't doing it right.

11:44.663 --> 11:54.198
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I remember, because you and I grew up together, I remember when you started in high school, you started using like smoke and marijuana, right?

11:54.318 --> 12:00.487
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like you started experimenting with ways of escaping the boyhood innocence.

12:01.268 --> 12:12.105
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember I was so intrigued by it because I didn't have a dad around either, kind of helping initiate me into any kind of right of passage.

12:12.085 --> 12:13.987
[SPEAKER_01]: it goes underground.

12:14.608 --> 12:15.349
[SPEAKER_01]: It goes underground.

12:15.389 --> 12:28.947
[SPEAKER_01]: It comes out in these sideways ways, and to your point also, because our fathers aren't showing us thoughtfully into our own manhood, and our mothers don't know how to do that either.

12:28.967 --> 12:37.958
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a best a mom can be a model for how a woman wants to be treated by a man.

12:37.938 --> 12:47.334
[SPEAKER_01]: But you for a lot of boys grow up with moms that had their own issues with men and projected that on to the sons and Anyways, it's a shit show.

12:47.755 --> 12:55.529
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happens is yeah, we boys and then young men turned to women to to be the Proverbs of our worth as men, right?

12:55.969 --> 12:58.714
[SPEAKER_01]: And am I performing well enough?

12:58.694 --> 12:58.914
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?

12:58.954 --> 13:01.378
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like women in relationship with us.

13:01.418 --> 13:02.900
[SPEAKER_01]: They become our ritual stewards.

13:02.961 --> 13:25.495
[SPEAKER_01]: They're the ones who are by default then the initiators of us into a manhood and it's not their fucking job to be that it's not their job to be that and I think this is again where we're so much hostility arises mutually because we on on some level we boys and then we know it's not their job.

13:26.234 --> 13:27.616
[SPEAKER_01]: we know it's not their job.

13:27.796 --> 13:29.278
[SPEAKER_01]: They know it's not their job on us.

13:29.318 --> 13:31.461
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the absence of nothing.

13:32.502 --> 13:33.143
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all there is.

13:34.205 --> 13:35.386
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what there is.

13:36.007 --> 13:49.245
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the hatred, the despising that arises, you know, she's angry because she's, you know, I had a girlfriend that, you know, for five years, man, she would tell me this is my early 30s and, you know, you were there, you saw it.

13:49.606 --> 13:52.950
[SPEAKER_01]: She would say things like you're not a man, you're just a boy.

13:52.930 --> 14:16.187
[SPEAKER_01]: and it was so fucking hurtful and naturally I resisted that and I I fought back and and look she wasn't wrong but she also there was no kindness in it there was no consideration there was no because again it's not her fucking job and she was angry too that she did inherit a a 30 a 30 year old boy.

14:17.298 --> 14:31.697
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, I speak that to the, to the women listening, you know, I, I call this out sometimes and it's, it's very helpful and healing I find for a lot of women when they, they get acknowledged that way like, yeah, you're, you're right, it's not my job.

14:32.058 --> 14:39.087
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I don't, I want, I want a partner with, with a man, not, not that women don't have their own work to do, of course they do, they have their hundred percent.

14:39.758 --> 14:41.783
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, it's often, it's different from ours.

14:41.864 --> 14:55.540
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, so the relationships, you know, the book that I wrote, choose her every day or leave her, I mean, a title is so confronting to the male psyche and men love it, they hate it and they love it.

14:56.600 --> 14:59.423
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, because it is a call to courage, really.

14:59.463 --> 15:03.388
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what relationships become a stand for men.

15:03.428 --> 15:06.131
[SPEAKER_01]: And men that don't want to be called to courage, they run from it.

15:06.892 --> 15:08.694
[SPEAKER_01]: They get angry at me, for example.

15:09.435 --> 15:15.862
[SPEAKER_01]: They still want to blame women for how bad things are.

15:16.523 --> 15:25.813
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, the other thing I think about inside of this is, you know, you have this, again, sometimes women do it

15:26.080 --> 15:35.036
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a tendency to believe that most of the time women don't do it as skillfully, as would be helpful.

15:35.998 --> 15:46.637
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I'm grateful that Elsa and my life and other women are still willing to do it, because the alternative is to, you know, the opposite of love is not hate, it's apathy.

15:47.343 --> 15:59.019
[SPEAKER_00]: it's to be apathetic towards the men in their life to essentially say, I don't fucking just go be you, do what you do and let me just check out in their own way.

15:59.079 --> 16:14.481
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God that they just stick in and aren't apathetic and are a stand because because at the end of the day, it is what is I believe to be true, is that women want men to be doing the work.

16:15.305 --> 16:27.381
[SPEAKER_00]: They want men and know that when they see men in their life doing the work, they get hopeful again about about the dream of relationship coming alive.

16:28.883 --> 16:31.306
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we all get fucked up by Disney.

16:31.366 --> 16:39.237
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we all get messed up by the ideal of Disney because Disney is all about the falling in love and nothing about the loving part.

16:40.027 --> 17:00.786
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know a single fairy tale that really lives inside the love story, but there is the new relationship energy that's possible again, no matter how long people have been married or together when men start to do the work because it's possible that the dream of something that has never been before comes alive.

17:01.053 --> 17:05.747
[SPEAKER_01]: and women want, they want their partners to be in life.

17:06.850 --> 17:15.636
[SPEAKER_01]: There's one of the greatest complaints, one of the most common complaints is like, and they may not use this this language, but it's, I'm not getting his energy.

17:17.101 --> 17:18.804
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm not, I'm not getting his presence.

17:19.185 --> 17:20.607
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not, he's not present enough.

17:21.348 --> 17:26.918
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is one of the great tensions that men experience in relationship is, is we both long for it.

17:26.978 --> 17:28.460
[SPEAKER_01]: We, I think we need it.

17:28.521 --> 17:30.444
[SPEAKER_01]: We're, we're relational creatures.

17:30.945 --> 17:37.456
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we get into relationships though, and we, we die because we don't know how to, we don't know what's wanted of us.

17:37.556 --> 17:37.776
[SPEAKER_01]: The hair.

17:37.836 --> 17:38.738
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know how to,

17:39.241 --> 17:52.839
[SPEAKER_01]: we think there's a certain kind of performance that's wanted and then we get all these other all this other feedback and we don't understand it and we just, we just, all the energy comes out of us there.

17:53.720 --> 18:01.030
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is where the role of, of, you know, men's work is so vital.

18:01.212 --> 18:08.200
[SPEAKER_01]: because when we gather with other men, trustable men, and that's a key distinction, right?

18:08.220 --> 18:13.266
[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of men have drinking buddies, they have their fantasy football league buddies, they have their work colleagues.

18:14.327 --> 18:24.979
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, and you're making a point which is that I think one of the things that women are experiencing these days are that the men in their life either don't have friends.

18:26.201 --> 18:30.105
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was reminded of this article

18:30.389 --> 18:38.396
[SPEAKER_00]: read a long time ago as we were jumping on to do this and the article is called why men don't have friends and why women should care.

18:38.416 --> 18:59.316
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's this aspect of one of the impacts of men who don't who are largely isolated in a loan in their life are that they are living life alone and all of the emotional toll of life, the challenges of life, the stress of life that men are

18:59.296 --> 19:06.812
[SPEAKER_00]: And women cannot be the sole holders of the weight of the world that we men carry.

19:06.892 --> 19:20.139
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of the challenges I think women experience are that men don't have friends, or the second piece of it is what you're in some ways pointing to here, which is that the women in their life know that the guys have friends, but they might not be really good for them.

19:20.159 --> 19:20.460
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

19:20.440 --> 19:32.263
[SPEAKER_00]: that they really might not be serving him, that they're going out and they're numbing out with the friends that are there, or they're just with them, but they're not really clear about what's happening.

19:32.403 --> 19:35.108
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember times coming home.

19:35.560 --> 19:38.825
[SPEAKER_00]: with my wife and she's like, hey, so what's going on with with Seth?

19:39.025 --> 19:40.407
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I'll really know.

19:40.908 --> 19:41.028
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.

19:41.048 --> 19:46.096
[SPEAKER_01]: You and I, we, we are profession is to have real conversations with men.

19:47.077 --> 19:54.308
[SPEAKER_01]: And there still is this tendency when I, when I come back from hanging out with a buddy, Sylvie will be like, so tell me all the bottom.

19:54.789 --> 19:55.850
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been like, what do you want?

19:55.911 --> 19:56.091
[SPEAKER_01]: What?

19:56.932 --> 19:57.853
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, well, how is he?

19:57.954 --> 19:58.735
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, yeah, he's cool.

19:58.775 --> 19:59.135
[SPEAKER_01]: He's fine.

19:59.836 --> 20:00.798
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, but what about this?

20:00.838 --> 20:01.239
[SPEAKER_01]: What about?

20:01.259 --> 20:03.542
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

20:07.133 --> 20:12.060
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, shit, I didn't ask, and she's like, what do you mean you didn't ask how X, Y, Z was?

20:12.100 --> 20:14.524
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh no, I just think it didn't come up.

20:14.584 --> 20:16.567
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, you know, we've been talking.

20:16.948 --> 20:23.498
[SPEAKER_00]: Some guys, there's a difference between a friend group and a men's group, you know, men need friend groups.

20:23.638 --> 20:31.289
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, to do the fun stuff with to have, you know, did the fantasy football with to go watch a, the stock game with the shit.

20:31.350 --> 20:32.591
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk about what the fuck ever.

20:32.732 --> 20:36.297
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, yeah, helpful to have friend groups.

20:36.665 --> 20:47.539
[SPEAKER_00]: But to handle men's group, like that's the third alternative, which is that men are isolated and alone, or they have friends in their life, but they're not really utilizing them to the depth that they could.

20:47.659 --> 21:06.283
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's this third alternative that I think both men and women are longing for, and they might not even know that they are longing for it, which is to have men be surrounded by trustable men, who are a demand that they step up and into the life that they've created

21:06.263 --> 21:15.697
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking right now of, so just yesterday, we did one of our relationship group coaching sessions, right?

21:15.717 --> 21:29.478
[SPEAKER_01]: Where's where we get, we get men into, you know, typically anywhere from, you know, eight to 15 men in a online room talking about, you know, it's part of our program elevate your relationship.

21:29.498 --> 21:33.604
[SPEAKER_01]: And just yesterday, a man came in for the first time.

21:33.972 --> 21:39.625
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, and he was brought in another, he was invited and by another man who's been working with us for the last nine months or so.

21:40.827 --> 21:49.146
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just think this is such so illustrative, because try to track me here if you're listening.

21:49.295 --> 22:13.750
[SPEAKER_01]: So the guy that has been working with us for nine months who brought this other guy in and we went through this we did this session yesterday and we're talking about defensiveness and oh the the fear of being a feeling like a fuck up in relationship like that core masculine fear of of I'm going to fuck this up and and the defensiveness that arises from that anyway and so the guy is working with us for nine months right we did another session.

22:14.152 --> 22:24.733
[SPEAKER_01]: But within today, because he's in our longer, elevate program, and he's like, I was really worried that my friend that I brought in, he was going to be like, oh, this is bullshit.

22:24.874 --> 22:27.118
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this is, this is what, why did he do this to me?

22:28.301 --> 22:28.641
[SPEAKER_01]: What did he?

22:29.583 --> 22:34.894
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he said after the session, his friend reached out and he's like, dude, that was amazing.

22:36.038 --> 22:37.701
[SPEAKER_01]: That was so incredible.

22:37.841 --> 22:52.208
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt amazing to just talk about the things that I don't get to ever talk about that to say things I've never spoken for and I went back and I had a conversation with my partner that I hadn't had before and man it was like something with profound was different.

22:52.424 --> 22:57.409
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and also what that goes to show is how quickly it's actually, you know, time flies bride.

22:57.429 --> 23:04.497
[SPEAKER_00]: But first of all, that session was three days ago, and second of all, the guy was in the program for a year, not nine months, right?

23:04.517 --> 23:09.903
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but the point here is that I think change happens so much quicker than people realize.

23:09.923 --> 23:17.951
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's this guy who's only been working with us for a year, and now he's progressed so much in a year that he's looking at a session, you're like, oh, this is just average normal, right?

23:17.971 --> 23:21.435
[SPEAKER_00]: This is normal.

23:21.415 --> 23:27.223
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really not more normal for men to come into a session and to be true like yeah

23:27.507 --> 23:30.250
[SPEAKER_00]: This is life-changing information and connection.

23:30.330 --> 23:32.413
[SPEAKER_00]: And oh my god, I can't believe that these guys are expert.

23:32.593 --> 23:33.975
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not alone in this.

23:33.995 --> 23:47.831
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, that guy has said yes, because he went back to his partner to share, oh, I'm so excited to move forward with you on X, Y, Z, we're gonna buy this house.

23:48.412 --> 23:53.277
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like, actually, I think that the relationship needs to end.

23:53.458 --> 23:54.679
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he was like,

23:54.912 --> 24:05.742
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason why he ultimately made a decision to say, you know, being split between whether or not to do the work or not to do the work, the woman who he was planning on now, let's go and do this together.

24:05.782 --> 24:24.160
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what's necessary sometimes in order to weekman up into doing massive act taking massive actions like, is there sometimes the relationship has to end for him to realize what is actually important to had stake, what's at stake, yeah.

24:24.545 --> 24:44.325
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, this episode we're really wanting to speak to to honor the women in our lives who have been a stand and indeed often not from a skillful place, but from from a deep yearning place and a deep knowing.

24:44.305 --> 25:02.365
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, which, yeah, I mean, and you know, we, this is the, even the larger point that we want to make so first I, I big thank you to women, a big thank you to the women that are not only in our lives, but in the world of stand for the men and their lives and here's our message to men, we really want to just,

25:02.851 --> 25:22.767
[SPEAKER_00]: acknowledge you for being listening to a podcast like this, but also want to encourage you that the women in your life, it might sound like a complaint, it might sound like a criticism, it might sound like they're nagging, it might sound like frustration, and

25:23.455 --> 25:33.464
[SPEAKER_00]: I want, we want you to really see those emotions, those promptings as invitations for you to step into something greater.

25:34.084 --> 25:45.514
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a possibility for you to come to life more fully, more fully than what you realize you need and want and actually desire in your life.

25:45.814 --> 25:47.156
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

25:47.176 --> 25:52.180
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I do, you know, I think of most men,

25:52.160 --> 25:59.531
[SPEAKER_01]: listening to this, have in some way been deeply wounded by the women they've partnered with.

26:00.232 --> 26:15.775
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just want to acknowledge that I certainly have been, and, though, as I shared earlier, the woman that would say pretty cruel things to me, you're not a man, you're just a boy, and other things.

26:18.880 --> 26:20.462
[SPEAKER_01]: That's never okay.

26:21.674 --> 26:28.917
[SPEAKER_01]: and there was truth in it, and I wasn't able to see it during that relationship, that relationship had to end.

26:29.015 --> 26:33.500
[SPEAKER_01]: but boy, I mean, I'm quoting it back today because she was fucking onto something.

26:34.761 --> 26:35.602
[SPEAKER_01]: She was onto something.

26:36.523 --> 26:55.123
[SPEAKER_01]: And my marriage with Sylvie today, it only is what it is because of doing men's work, because of being around trustable men regularly for the last, I think I started doing men's work like a year before I met Sylvie.

26:56.015 --> 26:56.897
[SPEAKER_00]: my god.

26:56.917 --> 26:58.140
[SPEAKER_00]: What are the chances Brian?

26:58.340 --> 27:04.194
[SPEAKER_00]: What are the chances that you'd still be married if you haven't hadn't been doing menswear?

27:05.217 --> 27:11.391
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think two things, if I hadn't been doing menswear and silvi hadn't been doing therapy, we would not be together.

27:12.620 --> 27:19.290
[SPEAKER_01]: If Sylvie, who is a therapist, if she wasn't also seeing, you know, getting her own support in the ways that she does.

27:20.111 --> 27:21.293
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wasn't doing that work.

27:21.373 --> 27:21.894
[SPEAKER_01]: We wouldn't be good.

27:21.914 --> 27:31.549
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe a follow-up question is, what skills wouldn't you have that you do have as a result of doing men's work?

27:31.569 --> 27:40.703
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think one of the biggest things is we mentioned this early on is I would be

27:42.016 --> 27:47.424
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, she'd be the only one that I have who could say you're a good boy.

27:49.386 --> 28:04.227
[SPEAKER_01]: And by having other men who are my peers in meaningful ways, and with whom you and I stand for four pillars of accountability, right?

28:04.207 --> 28:07.672
[SPEAKER_01]: witnessing, challenging, supporting, and celebrating.

28:07.932 --> 28:31.986
[SPEAKER_01]: If I didn't have men who were witnessing, how I show up, both in the ways that I, the grief that I carry, the frustrations and struggles, if I didn't have men who could witness that and hold that, if I didn't have men who could challenge me in the ways that actually caused me to rise, invite me to rise, and not also have my wife's back.

28:31.966 --> 28:37.453
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they're not just about me rising in the, in the, in the, like with a fuck you world energy.

28:37.473 --> 28:37.894
[SPEAKER_01]: No.

28:38.014 --> 28:46.966
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about, you know, challenging me in ways that really Challenged me to show up more fully in the life that I'm living, including in my marriage.

28:47.807 --> 28:56.539
[SPEAKER_01]: Same, you know, supporting me in the ways and you, to be supported and then celebrating me, you know, even in the small winds, even in the ways that maybe my wife wouldn't celebrate me.

28:57.717 --> 28:57.897
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

28:57.937 --> 29:02.785
[SPEAKER_01]: If I didn't have men mirroring all that to me, then all of that would fall on my wife's shoulders.

29:03.345 --> 29:03.646
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

29:03.666 --> 29:04.627
[SPEAKER_01]: It would all be on hers.

29:04.808 --> 29:06.370
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is not hers to hold.

29:06.971 --> 29:21.312
[SPEAKER_01]: Not to say that there's no role for her to be seen, to see me, to, to, to, to, to at times challenge me respectfully, but if it, if exclusively it's hers, oh, man, that's a burden that our marriage can't bear.

29:21.798 --> 29:47.822
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me let me ask one follow-up question, which is, you know, because one of the things that we talk about a lot in our work is that there's only two things that men need in order to step into the future that they've never known, which is that they tend to need new skills, which is the question I just asked, and then the second thing that men need are is new support, so I guess that's the, you know, that second part of that is what what's support.

29:48.528 --> 29:55.536
[SPEAKER_00]: have men in your life given to you that your wife couldn't have been giving to you.

29:55.556 --> 30:08.389
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you've been going through it, you know, for the last few years, and I'm on a number of fronts, what role of support have could you only get from the men in your life?

30:08.490 --> 30:12.474
[SPEAKER_00]: And where do you think you would have been without a given all that you've been going through?

30:12.994 --> 30:18.180
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, yeah, my wife and I have been carrying a lot of grief the last number

30:19.409 --> 30:35.950
[SPEAKER_01]: given the nature of the grief sometimes, sometimes you know, especially I think in early days like I had to be I had to be more the strong one for us, right, to to we couldn't both fall apart.

30:37.162 --> 30:40.485
[SPEAKER_01]: and though I still needed a place to fall apart.

30:42.127 --> 31:04.148
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think you, I mean, that happens in big moments like when we learned that we couldn't have a child together, I think, but it also just happens in moments where maybe she's just going through something and she's on that wild feminine emotional roller coaster and which can give me a fucking whiplash.

31:04.128 --> 31:15.962
[SPEAKER_01]: and I can take a deep breath, you know, having these men at my side at my back, it's like, I know that I'm supported by these men.

31:16.422 --> 31:19.986
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can hold space for my wife, let her go through her her things.

31:20.306 --> 31:21.388
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to get hooked in it.

31:21.868 --> 31:23.010
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to make it about me.

31:23.030 --> 31:33.021
[SPEAKER_01]: It's on about my character, which is what I think a lot of men, we make there are our partners, upsets, make it

31:33.001 --> 31:54.915
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I know that I have these men that I can go talk to I can say guys am I reading this right like what's my role in this I can get that reflection that I can ask my wife that Not if I want to use my answer You know things like that so it's just you know having that I call like a council of kings In my pocket in my my back is just man.

31:54.935 --> 31:56.397
[SPEAKER_01]: It's price is cool.

31:56.638 --> 31:57.439
[SPEAKER_01]: That's cool, man

31:58.077 --> 32:08.338
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, look, I doubled down on the way we began, which is just this is an ode to the women in our lives that are stands for us to be standing and stepping into our greatness.

32:08.899 --> 32:11.905
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether or not you do it skillfully or unskilledfully, we need it.

32:12.346 --> 32:15.834
[SPEAKER_00]: We encourage you to do your own work so that you can do it as skillfully as possible.

32:16.074 --> 32:18.499
[SPEAKER_00]: We think you'll be more effective in doing it.

32:18.833 --> 32:36.329
[SPEAKER_00]: And thank you, thank you, thank you for helping this world get better because we believe that when men get healthier and when they are standing in their greatness, that the things that they care about are more likely to improve and thus improve our little pocket of the world.

32:36.629 --> 32:46.258
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the last thing that I'll say because we are in our invitation period to elevate

32:46.238 --> 32:52.287
[SPEAKER_01]: is, you know, for women listening, I've, I know I've heard it out of women's mouths saying, I really want my husband to do this.

32:53.228 --> 32:58.135
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the thing that I'm often a stand for is, is to be an invitation, not an obligation.

32:59.317 --> 33:03.483
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the, elevate 26 is not, it's not for everybody, it's not for every man.

33:04.624 --> 33:13.697
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would encourage you if you're one in listening and you know, there's a man who would be served by this to just, just make the invitation, just let them know

33:13.913 --> 33:17.463
[SPEAKER_01]: right put it in is put it in is awareness whether he does something about it or not.

33:18.647 --> 33:29.037
[SPEAKER_01]: You know that that that's on him but um yeah thank you Brian with a why rives.com slash elevate thank you for listening to another episode of bridging connections and we'll see you in the next one.