July 24, 2025 • 68 mins
Want a deeper emotional connection with your male partner? Embodiment coach Speed Weed shares his struggle with isolation, and how he guides other men to connect with their hearts and their vulnerabilities in more meaningful relationships.
He tracks his unexpected journey from being nicknamed Speed as an infant to aspiring actor to educator, to advance man for the Clintons in their White House years to screenwriter and producer of hit TV shows.
Life in the fast lane thrust him into mid-life lonely, unfulfilled, and looking to be a better man for his family and in his marriage. But without male role models he wanted to emulate, Speed didn’t know where to start.
An embodiment workshop where men modeled open-hearted masculinity and honest communication initiated the deep connection with others (and self) he had been missing. Determined to help other men develop the same intimate knowing that had shifted his perspective so profoundly, Speed embraced his new calling as a practitioner.
We discuss the power of mentorship, men’s circles, and embodiment and polarity practices to teach presence, open listening, and mindful sharing and boundaries. Speed then offers his takes on relationship dynamics, what really holds men back from identifying and expressing their emotions, and the key problem with traditional masculinity.
This conversation isn’t about perfection or mastery. It’s about humility, devotion, service, and having the courage to slow down, speak less, and feel more. To be led as much as lead.
TESS’S TAKEAWAYS:
- Men have to learn embodied masculinity from other men.
- Open-hearted vulnerability modeled by men offers a way out of emotional isolation.
- Embodiment practices cultivate a deep sense of self and support intimate relationships.
- Polarity exercises lead to greater presence, understanding, and compassion.
- Awareness of your nervous system’s capacity helps draw healthy boundaries.
- Exploring the wrong road is often how you get on the right road.
- If you don’t have to explain, justify, or analyze your decision, it’s usually right.
- We speak and write and live to figure out what we know.
ABOUT SPEED
Speed Weed is a leader of embodied polarity work for men who want more depth and connection in their lives.
For over 20 years, he worked as a writer and producer on TV shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, NCIS: Los Angeles, Arrow, Haven, and The Summer I Turned Pretty.
He found his calling outside entertainment, in coaching other men in embodiment and toward generative, loving masculinity. Speed immersed himself in the healing arts.
Having graduated from teacher training in masculine embodiment with John Wineland and Kendra Cunov, Speed continues his study with other renowned teachers to build his knowledge and strengthen his practice.
Through coaching, men’s circles, and workshops, Speed guides men and women into the deeper wisdom of their hearts and bodies.
The nickname his parents gave him as a baby is misleading. Speed values the slow pace of presence and the deep clarity of sobriety.
CONNECT WITH SPEED
Website: https://www.workingdeep.com/it-has-to-be-me
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workingdeep/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tess Masters (00:00):
Oh, Speed. I'm so excited to talk to you. When Bo
(00:04):
said, You guys have got to knoweach other, he was right. I
gotta ask you, where speed,where? Where that came from, how
your family gave you thatnickname.
Speed Weed (00:14):
So I was born in the early 70s, and my parents were
convinced for the invention ofultrasound, they were a girl,
and so they had these early 70sgirl names picked out. I was
going to be sunny or Daisy, andwhen I popped out a boy, they
didn't have a name ready for meand not knowing what to do, and
(00:37):
presented with the embossedbirth certificate from the state
of New York. They gave me myfather and my great
grandfather's name. So legally,I am William Henry weed, the
third my dad was a, was a, was amad man. He was an advertiser,
and he just he didn't like that.He had given his son a normal
(00:59):
name, and he didn't want he wasBill. He didn't want me to be
called bill. Everyone's namedBill. And so the night I was
born, like hours old, he itpopped into the back of his
head, let's call him speed, andhe went to my mom, and she loved
the idea. And I've been calledSpeed ever since. When I turned
(01:19):
13 and told my parents that bothby names have drug connotations.
They were like, oh yeah, wedidn't think of that.
Tess Masters (01:32):
Now you're so committed to the clarity that
comes from being in sobriety.Beautiful, full circle story. So
tell me about your firstexperience being embodied as a
young actor. A
Speed Weed (01:54):
great question. It wasn't an acting moment, but I
was certainly acting at thetime, I remember taking an
afternoon nap in my bed in myfreshman year of college, and I
woke up in that sort of liminalspace, and I had this deep
feeling in my heart, space ofthe Divine, and I could feel it
(02:19):
like a like a warm blanket, orlike a, almost like a liquid
warm blanket in my being, and Ifelt deeply at peace, and there
was no thought associated withit. There was just a deep
knowing that all is right withthe world. That's probably the
first time there's, I'm surethere are moments that are pre
(02:41):
they're much younger, right? Ithink you see five year olds.
They're totally in their body.You see seven totally. That's
the one I remember as a youngadult that sticks with me,
Tess Masters (02:52):
yes, so then going into acting and having embodied
experiences as an actor playingcharacters, why did you not go
down that road of being an actorwhen that was very fulfilling
for you?
Speed Weed (03:09):
My dad said, No, I remember him asking me in my
senior year of college, what areyou going to do next year? And I
was shocked by the question,because I I thought you knew, I
mean, I was so, yeah, neither.I'm gonna move home. I grew up
in New York City. I'm gonna movehome and I'm gonna I'm gonna
(03:30):
act. And he said, or not. And Ireally was so taken aback by
that I really had had a lot ofsupport from my parents up until
that point for my acting, and Idon't know if it said I didn't
have the balls, I didn't havethe runway, I didn't have enough
time to figure out what else todo. And one thing led to
another, and I I got a jobteaching high school English at
(03:53):
the American School of TangierI'm like, well, that's super
cool. That's cooler than actingthan waiting tables in New York.
I'm gonna go do that. And thenone thing led to another, and I
had a lot of cool jobs in my20s. Tell
Tess Masters (04:04):
me about some of your cool jobs.
Speed Weed (04:07):
Let's see. I taught high school English at the
American School of Tangier. Iimported hundreds of Moroccan
rugs to the United States. Iworked for the Clinton White
House for two years as anadvance man leading the
President and First Lady aroundthe country or around the world.
Tess Masters (04:24):
Oh, I love it. How you just pop that in, like,
it's, you know, the same asselling rugs.
Speed Weed (04:31):
They were kind of all the same to me. They were
interesting. I was, I wasfascinated. And still am, by,
like, the end of the road, by,I'm a very experiential learner,
and I love doing things notreading about them, yeah. And
then I started writing forscience magazines and writing
plays on the side. And theneventually I found Hollywood,
which became the main focus ofmy career,
Tess Masters (04:56):
yeah. What is it about words? I. And about
writing that feels right foryou, that's a
Speed Weed (05:09):
question that's, I'll be honest, is still in
process for me. And I think eachwriter and you, I'm sure you've
got an answer to this too, thatI'd love to hear is their own
relationship with anarticulation of that which can't
be articulated. There'ssomething really fascinating
about being able to communicatethrough words, something to
(05:31):
yourself and something toanother human being. I'm
reminded of a I think it's EdithWharton.
Tess Masters (05:37):
Oh, I love Edith Wharton. She
Speed Weed (05:40):
was asked a question by an interviewer, and there and
she heard an implicit, animplication in the question, and
she stopped the interviewer, andshe goes, hang on a second. I
think you're asking me. Why do Iwrite to say what I know, and I
don't do that, I write to findout what I know. And that's
(06:04):
definitely true for me too. Iwrite to find out what I know.
So words are a way of gesturingtoward the ineffable, gesturing
toward the totality ofexperience, which is so much
larger than we can put intowords. And yet we do, we try, I
think we speak and write ashuman beings the way spiders
(06:26):
spin webs. We can't, not. We'remeant to,
Unknown (06:29):
yeah,
Tess Masters (06:32):
take me inside writing for episodic television.
You know, if we think about thearc of story, and the beginning,
the middle and the end. And yousaid something really
interesting to me when we werespeaking previously about the
fact that you don't think likethat. So what was, what that
like for you when you were inthat container where there was a
(06:55):
formula like that that you hadto adhere to,
Speed Weed (06:59):
sure and movies have beginning middles and ends.
Television shows do sort of butthey actually don't right. When
you create a good televisionidea, it is like a bear trap
that you can spring and reloadand spring and reload and spring
and reload again. Yeah, yeah.And a well wrought television
(07:20):
show is about relationaldynamics that repeat themselves.
And I am fascinated byrelational dynamics. I'm now a
coach in the sphere ofrelational dynamics, and I love
relational I, you know, I wasthat kid in high school, I was
that boy in high school, and theunusually straight boy in high
(07:41):
school who, like, gossiped withall the girls about all the
relationships that were going onby masculine feminine
relationships my whole life, andTV was a chance for me to figure
out what I know about those onan ongoing basis.
Tess Masters (08:00):
Yeah. What was it like for you, the decision to
move away from that world whereyou were in a very, very
successful career, you know, youwere working on law and order,
and the Summer I Turned Prettyand these huge hits, you know,
on top of the mountain, so tospeak. You know, some people
would say, and then you realizethis wasn't for you.
Speed Weed (08:28):
I've had a beautiful run of it. I've been incredibly
blessed in my career to work ongreat shows with great people.
And I should say, I'm not deadyet. I'm not completely out. I
do still have my tethers inthere. And when some really
interesting project comes up, Ilove doing that. I have a
mastery in it, and I'm happy todo it. And when I found this
(08:49):
work a number of years ago, Ifelt a deep calling. It was
choiceless. I have to do this.It changed my life, restored my
life restored my sense of self.It restored my relationships. It
restored the deep knowing at theback of my heart, and as I
(09:12):
looked around in the in thegroups that I was in, in men's
embodiment work and otherarenas, I really could feel the
suffering of people. Here I amtrying to write out loud to say
what I know I don't have thisfull and that what had been
(09:37):
taught me, and what I hadlearned, and what I had come to
learn how to embody was veryquickly helping other people
really change their lives, savetheir marriages, change their
relationships with theirchildren, and in a way that um.
(10:00):
Thing that I think is I've cometo understand is quite a maybe
age appropriate is a good way tosay it. Richard Rohr talks about
the two halves of life. He wrotea book called Falling upwards,
that in your younger years,you're really interested in ego
consolidation and like plantingyour flag on a hill and going,
This is who I am, and this iswhat I'm going to do. And when
you get older, littler thingsmatter, and it's less about what
(10:25):
do I get and what more aboutwhat do I give? And so I could
really feel in my body thatthere are episodes of television
of mine that have been seen by400 million people across the
globe over time, and one mantelling me that I saved his
marriage, that working with mesaved his marriage, was far more
(10:47):
important. I cared about it muchmore deeply. And so though you
know, my agents still send mestuff, and I still occasionally
go out on meetings like thisdeep, quiet, person to person,
transmission of a of a way ofloving, of a way of being in our
bodies. It's deeply meaningfulto me. And so when I wake up in
(11:11):
the morning, that's what I wantto do, and I see that it is of
service. And I
Tess Masters (11:18):
so we've we've skipped forward, and I want to
fill in some of the the juicybits on this journey. So you're
working as a writer, and whatwas it that led you into the
work before you claimed yourrole as a teacher or a
facilitator or a guide, or Idon't know what word you would
(11:40):
feel comfortable with, yeah,where were you that led you to
doing that work with JohnWineland and your other coaches,
Amir, was your first experiencewith this. What led you to join
that workshop? Yeah,
Speed Weed (11:59):
I was in a marriage that we were all suffering. In
me my kids full ofmiscommunication and
disembodiment and shadow andpattern, and not for lack of
trying, there was a lot of love,but also just a lot of
dysfunction. And I felt a coupleof things that are important to
(12:21):
name. One is I felt hopeless. Ididn't know a way forward. I
didn't know a way out. I didn'tknow what to do. My experience
of that time in that marriagewas that no matter what I do,
she'll never be happy. No matterwhat I do, it won't be enough,
(12:42):
and map onto that a lifelonghistory that's very common among
good men my age, give or take 15years, is I knew that I didn't
want to be like my dad. I knew awhole bunch of role models what
it meant to be a man that Ididn't want to do. I had a front
row seat on a television show toa me too moment. That was
(13:05):
awesome, but it also put me inthis place of of, I don't know
how to be a good man. And I cansee two choices in front of me.
I can see the Trump choice,which is to claim privilege and
and, you know, screw everybodyelse which is odious to me and
(13:27):
remains odious to me and to me.And then I also saw on the
liberal side a real, likeAbnegation of masculinity, an
internalized misandry, like I'ma man, so I must suck, and I
could feel that in my body, I'min this marriage. I'm getting a
(13:48):
ton of criticism, and I don'tknow how to carry myself as a
man right now. In addition, Ilooked around and I didn't have
any male friends. I had them usebut I I'm not alone. Tess, the
data on this is really clear.Most men don't have good male
(14:10):
friends that they can share withopenly and vulnerably. Most men
put all of the weight of theirdifficult relationship with
their own emotions on theirpartnership, and that doesn't
work. And I was like that. Andso when I went to my first men's
group, and I saw 25 men shareopenly and vulnerably and from
(14:35):
the heart, and what I would nowcall in a masculine manner,
meaning they had themselves.Their hearts were open, but they
were they were grounded. I feltlike an anemic, discovering
iron. I'm like, oh, been all mylife. I need Yeah,
Tess Masters (14:57):
oh, you said before that. That you knew what
you didn't want to be with, thethe men in your life and the the
role models that you had hadpreviously. And you touched on
it a little bit about ISOC, orgoing into what we as women
would call toxic masculinity,or, you know, for want of other
(15:18):
words, what
Speed Weed (15:20):
do you call it? Yeah, what do you call it? I
call it in the Trump vein, Icall it that too. That's
absolutely toxic masculinity.
Tess Masters (15:27):
Yes, yes, absolutely. What are some of the
other behaviors and the otherthings that you saw in the men
in your life prior to going intothat workshop that you didn't
want to be. Can you just fleshthat out a little bit for me?
Speed Weed (15:47):
Sure. I do mean to build out that when, as a
culture, at least on the liberalside, when as a culture, we have
talked about men for severaldecades now, and certainly at
the end of the 20 teens, it hasbeen very negative. Men are like
this. And so there is the actualmen that I saw, like this guy in
(16:11):
the who got me too out of thetelevision show I was working
on. He's a jackass. He He usedhis privilege to try to get
people to sleep with him, andwhen they they didn't, he fired
them. Right? So that's a veryglaring, obvious thing. But the
bigger problem for me, and Ithink now that I speak to you
know many hundreds of men, formost men, is just sort of a
(16:36):
vague assumption that men can'tbe open hearted, that men can't
be loving and grounded andassertive, that men can't be
either they're a taker and toxicor they're like all in their
feminine, ecstatic dance flowboys. And then there's all the
(17:01):
dudes on LinkedIn right who arejust like scrubbing up their
resumes, their their outer thenotion that there is a masculine
interiority that is beautifuland whole and available and
there to be gifted to the world.Nobody ever showed me that.
Tess Masters (17:24):
So what were you shown then, as a child, as a
teenager, as a young man in your20s?
Speed Weed (17:31):
Sure, it's a great question. My father was a
beautiful, gracious, kind man,but when he was growing up, it
was discovered that he had aheart defect, and he was told
that he was going to die by thetime he was 12, and his father
(17:53):
pulled away from him, fearingthat he was going to lose this
boy. And my father grew up witha programming that I'm broken
and full of shame. Now it turnedout that that diagnosis was
wrong, and he lived to the ripeold age of 84 but he carried
with him this wound that I'mbroken and my heart is no good
(18:16):
like that literally mapped ontoa metaphor that that he carried
in his embodiment. And so myfather never said anything to me
that he wouldn't have said in aroom full of strangers at a
cocktail party. He had nointeriority.
Tess Masters (18:38):
So you mean that there wasn't a lot of emotional
intimacy, but there was noemotional intimacy. There was
love, but not intimacy.
Speed Weed (18:47):
Love, support, kindness, even a kind of seeing,
but no Depth.
Tess Masters (18:55):
Depth is enough. How did he see you without the
depth? What was your experienceof that?
Speed Weed (19:03):
He saw that I was creative and wanted to be an
actor, and so he supportedCollege, and then pulled the rug
out from underneath. Yeah, itwas very surprising. Yeah, he,
he, I think he was a littleconflicted about his support for
me. I think if I'd gone andinterviewed at Goldman Sachs, he
(19:23):
actually set up one for me thatthat that would have really
delighted him.
Tess Masters (19:31):
So what I'm hearing, and correct me, if I'm
misinterpreting this, is that,because I like to pair things
down to one sentence from onewriter to another, what I'm
hearing is that you had a deepdesire to be seen, and
(19:56):
ultimately that was at the core.Of what led you to that men's
group with Amir, and that beingin that work you felt seen, is
that one way of of saying or orsurmising your experience,
Speed Weed (20:19):
I'd, I'd adjust it ever so slightly. I felt vaguely
that I had a depth, but I didn'tsee it mirrored in any other
men, with the notable exceptionof gay men in the theater in my
youth, but I didn't have anyexperience of straight men being
(20:42):
deep, and so I didn't know howto carry my own relationship
with my own depth. And what Igot in that meeting right away
was, oh, there's a deep man, andthere's another deep man and
there's another deep man. Soit's less seeing though that is
important and more mirroringmodeling.
Tess Masters (21:09):
What did gay What was your experience with gay men
mirroring that? What were theymirroring that you felt at home
with
Speed Weed (21:22):
coming of age, you know, in the AIDS crisis, at a
time after which many, if notmost, gay men were out, because
I can remember when theyweren't, and I smile with such a
joy on my face that youngerpeople Today don't remember how
hard a struggle that was.
Tess Masters (21:42):
Yes, it's good that they don't well in our in
our circles, in our circles, inLiberal circles, Yeah,
unfortunately, there are manycircles where people still do
not feel Yeah. They are free todo that. Unfortunately,
Speed Weed (21:58):
in order to be themselves, they had to ask hard
inner truths of the cost ofbeing who they were. They had to
be at depth and in alignmentwith their deepest hearts truth.
And they modeled that to me inin their sexuality, in their
(22:18):
orientation, and they modeled itto me in their fierceness, for
creativity, for for sparkle andjoy and play in the theater. And
I needed that to be the creativeactor and writer that I was as a
young man, and so I deeplyvalued like they taught me how
to know my own heart at an earlyage, it's just that I never had
(22:44):
a model until I until I found amirrors group, I never had a
model among straight men. Ididn't think straight men were
capable of it.
Tess Masters (22:56):
Thank you for opening that portal for me.
Speed Weed (23:01):
Can I just add one thing there?
Tess Masters (23:03):
Yeah, please.
Speed Weed (23:04):
This is, I think, where the problem lies. It isn't
so much that we all have allthese negative role models of
masculinity. It's that we havean absence of depth of role
models at depth in masculinity,and I think most it's this,
(23:26):
what's the right analogy of likea game where everybody's in the
same position, if they'd onlylike open up, we'd see, oh my
god, we're actually all thisway. Every man I've met that
I've either LED or beenalongside to as he found his own
depth. All men are deep. All menare deep, each in different
(23:50):
ways, but we run around in aworld where nobody's showing it,
so nobody thinks anybody else isthat's an exaggeration, but it
was my experience across my 30sand 40s,
Tess Masters (24:02):
yeah. So what I'm hearing again is permission.
Yes. Is that there's so many menthat are not giving themselves
permission to express all theparts of themselves. And you
know, we could get into Jungianphilosophy here and Shadow Work,
(24:23):
and that when we're not givingourselves, we give ourselves
permission to only expresscertain parts of ourselves that
are acceptable within the rulesof our family of origin, and
then the rules of the societythat we place ourselves in, and
so forth. So when you enteredthat men's group and you saw
(24:44):
other men giving themselvespermission, and by extension,
each other, to give expressionto whatever was coming up for
them and to receive it from eachother, What did that feel like?
Like, for
Speed Weed (25:00):
you, like, I said, like, an anemic discovering
iron, right? Yeah,
Tess Masters (25:04):
you said that before, like, but, but in your
body, like, anemic discovery isvery cerebral to me. I can't
place that in my
Speed Weed (25:12):
mind. Like coming home. Like coming home, yeah,
and I do want to, just in caseany listeners hear, it the wrong
way. It's not that we men arenot giving ourselves permission.
(25:33):
We don't know how we're wired
Tess Masters (25:37):
to distinction,
Speed Weed (25:40):
modeled as a species to be modeled by elder men into
our depth. We're not supposed tojust show up in middle life and
go, Oh, I know how to do this.Now. That's not natural. Any man
who thinks he can do it on hisown can. That's a strong
opinion, but I'll back
Tess Masters (25:59):
it up. No, but it's a really important
distinction, and thank you formaking that because as as a
woman who is in relationshipswith men and has been in
marriages, well, he's justdoesn't want to, he just doesn't
want to. He just doesn't hedoesn't want to tell me. He
(26:20):
doesn't want to speak to me, hedoesn't want to share openly. He
doesn't want to or he can't. Islanguage that we would use, and
I hear my friends use andclients of mine use when they
express outrage or despair beinginside of their relationships.
And I know you work with men andwomen and you see this, it's a
(26:40):
really important distinction. Sowhen you were in these groups,
and then you went and studiedwith John Wineland, and this
world opened up for you, and howlife became this juicy world of
so many more possibilities, takeme inside of that, it has to be
(27:02):
me. Where you went from studentand participant in the group to
claiming your role as leader andfacilitator or Shepherd. Is
that? Is that a good word foryou? What words would you use
for what your calling,
Speed Weed (27:23):
yeah, teacher, maybe leader, yeah, not yet, but
someday, elder, I'm still insearch of my own elders before I
can claim that title.
Tess Masters (27:35):
Yeah, you're in the spring of the crone phase.
So am I? We're knocking on thelittle door wanting to be let
in, but we're not quite thereyet. Yeah, so So you had a
calling, but we often havecallings that we don't listen
to, just like that young boywanting to be an actor, you
know, and then not doing that.And I have had many of those
(27:56):
moments as well. This time youreally listened. So what was it
in you that when I've gotsomething unique to offer, this
space, this world, other men,what was it in you that leaned
into that there
Speed Weed (28:15):
were a couple of moments that happened in fairly
quick succession where and mytraining is both co Ed and among
groups of men. You know, mycertification from John Weinland
is in masculine embodiment, butthat was a three year program
with men and women and in in apolarity practice, I was deeply
(28:41):
in my practice across from awoman who is full of, like,
feminine, feisty Goddess energy.And when I opened my eyes in the
practice, I'm like, Oh man, I'min for it, because she's like,
got so much juice, she's so muchand she's a couple years older
than me, and, like, she's gother feminine Goddess Kali thing
(29:03):
going on. I'm like, in troublehere.
Tess Masters (29:07):
And and not I want to, I want to absolutely stay in
this. But for somebody listeningthat doesn't understand what
polarity work means, can youjust explain to us what, what
that process was? Sure,
Speed Weed (29:25):
the framework of the lineage that I study is
ultimately rooted in Taoism, andthe notion that the yin and the
yang, the feminine and themasculine move through all of
us, just in differentproportions. And if you sit
across from another human being,and one of you consciously takes
on the masculine pole and theother one consciously takes on
(29:46):
the feminine pole. You can movea lot of energy through your
body and between your bodiesthat you can't do in any other
way, and it gives you like aradar into your own embodied
system that is phenomenal and.This is not it can be an erotic
practice, but it's not a sexualpractice. And as an example in
(30:08):
this practice, my job was tohold wide grounded, open hearted
space to whatever my femininepractitioner partner wanted to
bring. And I could hear aroundthe room that other feminine
practitioners were bringing joy,or like sultry arrows. My
(30:30):
partner was bringing fury. Shestarted beating on my like
literally wailing away on mychest. And the practice was to
be to get wider and get deeperand be a yes, and I breathed,
and I I used all my embodimenttraining, and not that that was
(30:52):
it wasn't a strategy. There's nostrategy in this. This is
embodiment work. We're not likethinking our way through
anything. And at a certainmoment, I could feel like a hand
reaching from behind through me.This needs to end. And I grabbed
her by the hands, and I said,stop it with my heart open. And
she looked at me like this for amoment, and then she burst into
(31:15):
tears and lay her head on mychest, and she said, I needed a
boundary. Thank you for theboundary. And then a little
while later, maybe a couplemonths later, on another
retreat, I had a conversationwith a man who had come to me
some time before with somereally deep issues in his
(31:39):
marriage that were very personalthat I won't get into here, and
I gave him some coaching that Idon't know. Where it came from.
It came from intuition. It camefrom my own embodied sense of
what he needed. And he wascoming back to me, and he said,
it worked. You saved mymarriage. We have done in two
months based on what you said,more than 10 years of couple
(32:01):
counseling, more than any of theprocessing, more than the MDMA
journeys, more than all of that.Thank you. And so I had this
sense that in ways that I didn'tfully understand or need to I
was holding a space oftrustable, grounded, open
(32:22):
hearted masculinity to both menand women. That's what that
polarity practice told me, andshe said as much afterwards, and
that's what I had wanted, that'swhat I had needed, that's what I
had lacked, and I didn't. It'snot like I made a decision. I
(32:46):
really didn't, but I felt like adecision was made for me. I
Tess Masters (32:56):
want to ask you about words again, because you
have lots of good words andyou're so articulate and express
yourself so beautifully. Andthat's part of bringing people
into the work, explainingthings, making them feel safe.
(33:17):
You know, our mind wants tounderstand things. That's how we
feel safe, or we think that'show we feel safe. That's the
construction that we're we'rebrought up in in the world. But
we do need words as human beingsto relate to each other and kind
of get on the same page and soforth, until we have embodied
practices in place where we canfind that other, knowing with
(33:39):
each other and develop that andbut until we do, the words are
an entry point. Totally agree soso often when we think about
embodiment, I should I say we?I'm going to say me and I, you
know, love somatic practices andembodiment work. I love words,
(34:02):
too. So I'm asking for myself asmuch as for you dear listeners,
we often want to pit the wordsand the body against each other,
or I do sometimes, you know, Istruggle with that intersection
point. So for you as someone whohas a lot of beautiful words and
(34:27):
then now being in an you know,having embodied practices, where
do you find that relationshipfor yourself? Where with the
words and the embodied knowing,and then being able to hold that
space or shepherd that space forother people like myself, for
(34:49):
example, where I'm sort ofstruggling to kind of express to
you what's going on in my bodyand my mind and my words right
now. Does that make
Speed Weed (34:57):
sense? It's a beautiful question. I love it.
It's actually very
Tess Masters (35:01):
long winded question. I'm sorry it took me a
minute to find my way into it,
Speed Weed (35:05):
but that's okay, right? You've actually opened a
line of inquiry that I've nevermade. So thank you for that. Oh,
please
Tess Masters (35:14):
share that with me. Yeah,
Speed Weed (35:20):
most of the time in my work, let me just put this
in, and then I'll come back tothe question. Most of the time
in my work, at first blush, I'mup against a man who is so
trained to make logicalarguments and solve problems
that it's keeping him fromgetting in his body. And so I am
trying to wipe aside the storiesand the analysis in order to
(35:45):
clear a space for him to sinkinto his body. And so in that
moment, which I spend a lot oftime in, words and embodiment
are at odds, but there's no weare embodied beings with
language, and there's noconflict there at all. There's
no zero sum game. Let me I thinkyou, I think you answered your
(36:09):
own question in the queue up,which is that if our minds are
racing in circles because wedon't feel safe, then they're
not helping us. We'll never getthere that way, if our thoughts
and words are up regulating ournervous system, if our heart
rate is getting faster, we areon a train of the monkey mind
(36:35):
that's taking us out of ourembodied moment. If we are in
our bodies, which I experiencedyou as in that long question,
where I felt you as gesturingtoward an articulation of
something that you could feelbut couldn't quite articulate.
Nothing wrong with that at all.That's beautifully deeply
(36:57):
embodied speech. And again,we're in the Edith Wharton
territory of using words tofigure out what we know, which I
think is deep and beautiful. Andthen the last thing I'll say on
that is that we have this veryold phrase in English. I don't
know how old, speaking from theheart, that's an embodied
(37:20):
experience. It's not a metaphor.And when we speak from the
heart, we speak in very shortutterances.
Unknown (37:31):
I know I love. I'm not going to do that.
Tess Masters (37:42):
Hmm? So for, for when your heart feels so hurt
and raw and the inclination isto completely close off instead
of open. How do you shepherdsomebody into taking that leap,
(38:13):
even when they're terrified andfeel like they they don't feel
safe? Basically,
Speed Weed (38:19):
sure, what you just described as a good portion of
what I do with men is they
Unknown (38:25):
are.
Speed Weed (38:28):
Nobody taught them right, like we were saying
before, they are in touch withtheir hearts, or they're
starting to get in touch withtheir hearts, and they're
feeling feelings and they don'tthey want to close the short
technical answer to yourquestion is eye contact. Show
me. I'll say show me to a man,but what I mean is, look at me.
(38:49):
Show me with your eyes. Show meI've got you right here. I'm not
going anywhere. Show me and thenI'll close and look away. Show
me again. Show me that makes somuch sense. I got you, yeah,
(39:10):
it's a, it's like, it's like afox on the other side of the
water. It, it takes stillnessand presence and time
Tess Masters (39:26):
and so much trust in yourself and and you as the
teacher. How do most men findthemselves to you.
Speed Weed (39:51):
I wish there were a common answer. There isn't. Men
come because. Because they havea sense in mid life that they've
done everything right, andthey're not happy. Their
partner's not happy. Like Ichecked all the boxes. I did
(40:13):
everything I said I was going todo. Why? Where's the deeper
meaning? There's a pain pointaround depth. What we've been
talking about, they haven'tarrived at depth. So they'll
come, you know, whether theycome into one of my drop in
circles, or whether they come toa discovery call, they'll find
(40:37):
me through a friend or, youknow, through Instagram,
something like that. I i Thetruth is, I get most of my work
these days from word of mouth,and that's important because you
mentioned trust. Men are deeplyskeptical, and they have every
right to be and the the thingthat feminine partners don't
(41:01):
often understand is how muchcourage it takes, right? Like we
said, you said before, oh, theyjust don't want to right, so
having heard that message for avery long time, or they're not
capable like actually steppinginto this work requires an
immense amount of bravery, andthat bravery is helped by, hey,
(41:22):
I know this guy, also, mengenerally as a marker, like, we
like the thing that's hidden. Wewant to go to the back room of
the speakeasy is the godfather.And then we were let in. And
(41:42):
then many men come to me becausetheir partners have said, have
laid down a law of some sort oflike, hey, I really need you to
do this. And the trick there isthat so many women I know think
they can make their partnersbetter. Got bad news for you,
(42:04):
ladies, that's my job. It's notyours.
Tess Masters (42:08):
Well, it's the man's job, and it's the ladies
job to do her work too.
Speed Weed (42:15):
That's right, what we're talking about here. Like I
said, in terms of modeling, hasto come from other if you're if
your partner is a masculinebeing, if your partner is more
masculine than feminine, we allhave both, then that modeling in
my book needs to come from othermen, and from not just any men's
group, from a well held men'sgroup. Because this can be done
(42:38):
wrong.
Tess Masters (42:39):
How can it be done wrong, in your opinion,
Speed Weed (42:46):
in the eaching, and I used to remember which
hexagram It was, however many1000 year old book, it says, the
responsibility of yin in theuniverse is devotion. The
responsibility of Yang in theuniverse is trustability. And if
a leader of men's work hasn'tdone the work on himself, or if
(43:10):
a group of men haven't done thework on themselves to know where
their own shadows are or how tospot them when they come up, if
they haven't learned tometiculously hold space for
another human being, which isreally what a John Wineland
training is about, that'scertificates on the wall over
there, like, that's, that's whatit's for. Is you can come to
(43:34):
that moment of exposure and getbetrayed. And I do get refugees
in my practice, from from othermen's groups. Now, I should say,
by the way, there are, there's alot of great men's work out
there, and it's only serving asmall sliver of the population
that need it. I think it's agrowth industry.
Tess Masters (43:58):
Oh gosh, we can only hope it's just such a
beautiful practice. And knowingquite a number of men who are in
masculine embodiment circles,oh, it leads to rich, beautiful
relationships, ladies and othermen, listen. Would you? I'd
Speed Weed (44:18):
love to hear your experience of that, like, what
do you see in those guys thatthat that give a testimonial,
Tess Masters (44:25):
yeah, and an openness, a presence and ability
To express, to see and be seen,vulnerability, deep listening
from the heart and not just thehead, and ability to take
(44:49):
personal responsibility in themoment and respond, as opposed
to react being more mindful incommunication. Conversation,
recognizing the signs in eachother's body, in presence with
each other, not just hearing thewords, oh gosh, I could go on
(45:12):
and on and on,
Speed Weed (45:14):
lines up exactly with my own experience. Yeah,
Tess Masters (45:17):
yeah, it's really beautiful. And also, you were
talking before about mirrors,putting a beautiful mirror in
front of me. That is aninvitation to continue doing my
own work, so I can continuemeeting men who are also doing
(45:38):
that beautiful work, so that wecan meet in a place of trust.
It's a gorgeous, incrediblething, which is one of the many
reasons that I wanted to speakto you, to celebrate the work
that you're doing, to invitemore men to do this work, I want
(46:04):
to ask you about something thatwas coming up for me as I was
listening to you, if we acceptthe premise that we're always in
training, that we're alwayslearning and growing, that we
never arrive, You know, in thatway of knowing everything, what
comes up for you as a teacherthat serves when you're working
(46:27):
with others, that serves as aninvitation or A mirror to keep
expanding into your ownpractice?
Unknown (46:40):
Hmm? Two
Speed Weed (46:51):
things come to mind, though it's, I know it's bigger
and wider than this. One is asmy offerings have grown, and as
the number of men I serve grows,pure and simple, my nervous
system capacity has to growbecause I am we use the word
(47:11):
holding. I am holding a lot ofpeople. They're relying on me to
see them and to feel them and touse, uses the wrong word,
because it implies an agencythat's not there. But to to to
offer them my embodied intuitionfor their growth and betterment.
(47:36):
And in order to do that in inthe John Wineland world, we talk
about nervous system capacity,and so I continually need to
expand my capacity in order toremain grounded, still present
and knowing in front of the moremen that I serve than I used to,
(47:59):
and that's been beautiful. Andlike you say, is never ending. I
never expect that to end. Everynow and then, I'll give a 1.5
answer, every now and then, likeand this happens, full
disclosure, like a man, willtrigger me, and I need to be
(48:20):
very clean about that. I need todeal with that immediately. That
cannot come back to the man. Ithappens much less now than it
did when I was starting out andbut I'm told by, you know,
people who are much farther downthe road that that actually
never ends. Just have to, you'rehuman, to put systems in place
(48:42):
where that never becomes yourclients problem, it becomes your
men's group problem, like themen's group that holds you. So
there's that. And then thesecond piece I was going to say
is
Unknown (48:57):
like, like
Speed Weed (49:00):
Crohn's and training. I think we got a TV
show there. Tara Tess, Crohn'sand training. I really am
craving, in my own work elderspace. I'm craving men who are
(49:20):
in their 70s, and I'm hoping towork directly with Bill Plotkin
this fall, and he's wrote soulcraft, and they just have an end
of life depth that that I feelcalled to to learn from. I I
(49:40):
want to
Tess Masters (49:43):
ask you about something was coming up for me
as I was listening to you aboutthis pressure that I imagine or
that I perceive, that men takeon to have the answers, to have
it figured out, to be. Expert tofront load that part of
(50:05):
themselves, particularly whenthey are taking on the role of
teacher or elder or facilitatoror whatever words we're going to
use. How do you hold thatconstruction or that pressure?
And rebalance, so to speak, sothat you can hold space in a way
(50:28):
where you're not taking that onas much.
Speed Weed (50:32):
It's a great question, and it's a
sophisticated question. So it'san understanding question of
what I do. And when I startedtwo years ago, I would get
frustrated if a guy didn't getwhere I thought he could get.
I've definitely let that go. Myjob is to give it my best shot.
But the premise of this work isany man sitting across from me,
first of all, there's nothingwrong with him. Any growth he
(50:55):
wants, he has to want, andthat's why, what depends on the
container. Either I'm leadingthe container, but often I'm a
coach, right? I'm a coach. I'mnot the athlete. If, if he
doesn't do the work, I can't gethim there. I'm not I'm not
carrying him across the finishline. And there are, there are
(51:20):
times when the process of goingdown the wrong road is the only
way to get to the right road.That happens with some
frequency, where we need toinvestigate this valley in your
being and realize, Oh, that'snot actually what the issue is
here. But that's not wastedtime. I'm definitely not in the
(51:45):
results business. Mytestimonials are in the results
business, but my showing upevery day for the men that I
show up for is not in theresults business. It's not my
job.
Tess Masters (51:58):
Well, it's bringing something else up for
me that's really important is toacknowledge your place in the
process and to allow yourself tobe present with yourself while
you are in process, which Iwould argue is every minute of
the day. So as you are a humanbeing in process, how has this
(52:32):
work that you've done inworkshops as a human being and
now as a teacher, how has thathelped you be a better father
for beautiful friendships inyour life with other men, yeah.
How has that played out for youin your life? Now? Give me your
(52:55):
own testimonial.
Unknown (52:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speed Weed (53:00):
Most of the time I speak from the heart, and I'm
fairly quick at knowing when I'mnot, and so I feel a depth and a
authenticity to therelationships that I Have with
my daughters and with my friendsand it occurs to me as like, as
(53:27):
an embodied feeling that I have.I have it right now that my
heart is falling back and downin my chest settling back like
like in a recliner. And it has apiece a down regulation, a sense
(53:50):
of rightness that I didn't feelacross my 30s and most of my
40s, and when, as with a childor with a friend, someone comes
to me and says, Hey, I'm I needYour counsel on this. There's a
(54:22):
there's a two way street oftrust in that that feels really
good. You know, if, if theresponsibility of Yang is
trustability, then I'm justdoing what I'm put here to do,
and it feels right and onpurpose and very relaxed.
There's no charge to it, right?That's a young man's game. I'm
(54:43):
going to charge, I'm going to,I'm going to, I'm Babe Ruth, I'm
going to hit the home run overthere. There's none of that.
It's just, there's an there's apresence, and I mean that in the
other like, nowness to it. Yeah,and a right? To it that needs no
explanation or justification oranalysis, to come back to that
(55:08):
word
Tess Masters (55:12):
I love when you say it just feels good to be
this way and to be relating withother people in this way. So do
you find that you are lessattached to your words now in
(55:33):
the sense of needing them asmuch to justify your experience?
Speed Weed (55:41):
I'm a son of an advertiser, and I'm actually
working on an essay right now.Don't advertise like
Tess Masters (55:54):
and I do love your blog posts. They are great. I
Speed Weed (55:58):
appreciate that from one writer, that's a high
compliment to another. Yeah,across my 20s and 30s and in my
early 40s, not knowing who Iwas, feeling a depth inside me
that I didn't know where to putor how to mirror. I was
constantly telling people howgreat something was going to be.
(56:19):
You know, especially my ex wife,and that really didn't work.
Turns out my words were empty,and she had reason not to trust
me. So I am, it's it. I thinkwhat I might say is a little bit
what I said before about workwith clients. I'm unattached to
(56:41):
outcome at the risk of intensevulnerability. I have one of my
kids who is having a really hardtime with me right now, and I
suspect that's a result ofsomething that went on when she
was very young, and I hadn'tdone this work yet, and it's
(57:05):
sort of coming to the surfacenow. So it's not the
relationship I want right now,but that doesn't matter. It's
the relationship that is. And somy role, my I don't have words
for it, like it's just to bewith what is as it is. Feel my
(57:28):
feelings about it for sure. Putthose feelings in a container
that can hold them, which is notmy daughter and and and carry on
in right relationship withreality. As the Buddhist would
say, Oh,
Tess Masters (57:45):
I love that right re right relationship with
reality.
Unknown (57:53):
Oh,
Tess Masters (57:54):
speed. I could talk to you about this all day
long. I always close everyepisode with the same question,
which is, as someone who has adream in their heart and doesn't
feel like they have what ittakes to make it happen, what
Would you say to them? Tellpeople
Speed Weed (58:20):
recruit allies. Don't do it alone. Find the
people, let me qualify that.Find the people who see you
clearly.
And if they see you clearly,chances are they'll know that
(58:44):
that dream is right, and they'llwork with you to make it happen.
Tess Masters (58:52):
Thank you. We think that we have to do it
alone, and so much of whatyou've been sharing with me is
so much of what I teach in mycommunity, as well as that,
we're not supposed to do it onour own. We can't do it on our
own. We need support. Yes. Thankyou for the the way that you
(59:20):
show up in the world and and howyou are teaching and helping
other people to show up withtheir hearts. Oh, I look forward
to more conversations. It's been
Speed Weed (59:35):
so much. Thank you very much. You.
Oh, Speed. I'm so excited to talk to you. When Bo
(00:04):
said, You guys have got to knoweach other, he was right. I
gotta ask you, where speed,where? Where that came from, how
your family gave you thatnickname.
Speed Weed (00:14):
So I was born in the early 70s, and my parents were
convinced for the invention ofultrasound, they were a girl,
and so they had these early 70sgirl names picked out. I was
going to be sunny or Daisy, andwhen I popped out a boy, they
didn't have a name ready for meand not knowing what to do, and
(00:37):
presented with the embossedbirth certificate from the state
of New York. They gave me myfather and my great
grandfather's name. So legally,I am William Henry weed, the
third my dad was a, was a, was amad man. He was an advertiser,
and he just he didn't like that.He had given his son a normal
(00:59):
name, and he didn't want he wasBill. He didn't want me to be
called bill. Everyone's namedBill. And so the night I was
born, like hours old, he itpopped into the back of his
head, let's call him speed, andhe went to my mom, and she loved
the idea. And I've been calledSpeed ever since. When I turned
(01:19):
13 and told my parents that bothby names have drug connotations.
They were like, oh yeah, wedidn't think of that.
Tess Masters (01:32):
Now you're so committed to the clarity that
comes from being in sobriety.Beautiful, full circle story. So
tell me about your firstexperience being embodied as a
young actor. A
Speed Weed (01:54):
great question. It wasn't an acting moment, but I
was certainly acting at thetime, I remember taking an
afternoon nap in my bed in myfreshman year of college, and I
woke up in that sort of liminalspace, and I had this deep
feeling in my heart, space ofthe Divine, and I could feel it
(02:19):
like a like a warm blanket, orlike a, almost like a liquid
warm blanket in my being, and Ifelt deeply at peace, and there
was no thought associated withit. There was just a deep
knowing that all is right withthe world. That's probably the
first time there's, I'm surethere are moments that are pre
(02:41):
they're much younger, right? Ithink you see five year olds.
They're totally in their body.You see seven totally. That's
the one I remember as a youngadult that sticks with me,
Tess Masters (02:52):
yes, so then going into acting and having embodied
experiences as an actor playingcharacters, why did you not go
down that road of being an actorwhen that was very fulfilling
for you?
Speed Weed (03:09):
My dad said, No, I remember him asking me in my
senior year of college, what areyou going to do next year? And I
was shocked by the question,because I I thought you knew, I
mean, I was so, yeah, neither.I'm gonna move home. I grew up
in New York City. I'm gonna movehome and I'm gonna I'm gonna
(03:30):
act. And he said, or not. And Ireally was so taken aback by
that I really had had a lot ofsupport from my parents up until
that point for my acting, and Idon't know if it said I didn't
have the balls, I didn't havethe runway, I didn't have enough
time to figure out what else todo. And one thing led to
another, and I I got a jobteaching high school English at
(03:53):
the American School of TangierI'm like, well, that's super
cool. That's cooler than actingthan waiting tables in New York.
I'm gonna go do that. And thenone thing led to another, and I
had a lot of cool jobs in my20s. Tell
Tess Masters (04:04):
me about some of your cool jobs.
Speed Weed (04:07):
Let's see. I taught high school English at the
American School of Tangier. Iimported hundreds of Moroccan
rugs to the United States. Iworked for the Clinton White
House for two years as anadvance man leading the
President and First Lady aroundthe country or around the world.
Tess Masters (04:24):
Oh, I love it. How you just pop that in, like,
it's, you know, the same asselling rugs.
Speed Weed (04:31):
They were kind of all the same to me. They were
interesting. I was, I wasfascinated. And still am, by,
like, the end of the road, by,I'm a very experiential learner,
and I love doing things notreading about them, yeah. And
then I started writing forscience magazines and writing
plays on the side. And theneventually I found Hollywood,
which became the main focus ofmy career,
Tess Masters (04:56):
yeah. What is it about words? I. And about
writing that feels right foryou, that's a
Speed Weed (05:09):
question that's, I'll be honest, is still in
process for me. And I think eachwriter and you, I'm sure you've
got an answer to this too, thatI'd love to hear is their own
relationship with anarticulation of that which can't
be articulated. There'ssomething really fascinating
about being able to communicatethrough words, something to
(05:31):
yourself and something toanother human being. I'm
reminded of a I think it's EdithWharton.
Tess Masters (05:37):
Oh, I love Edith Wharton. She
Speed Weed (05:40):
was asked a question by an interviewer, and there and
she heard an implicit, animplication in the question, and
she stopped the interviewer, andshe goes, hang on a second. I
think you're asking me. Why do Iwrite to say what I know, and I
don't do that, I write to findout what I know. And that's
(06:04):
definitely true for me too. Iwrite to find out what I know.
So words are a way of gesturingtoward the ineffable, gesturing
toward the totality ofexperience, which is so much
larger than we can put intowords. And yet we do, we try, I
think we speak and write ashuman beings the way spiders
(06:26):
spin webs. We can't, not. We'remeant to,
Unknown (06:29):
yeah,
Tess Masters (06:32):
take me inside writing for episodic television.
You know, if we think about thearc of story, and the beginning,
the middle and the end. And yousaid something really
interesting to me when we werespeaking previously about the
fact that you don't think likethat. So what was, what that
like for you when you were inthat container where there was a
(06:55):
formula like that that you hadto adhere to,
Speed Weed (06:59):
sure and movies have beginning middles and ends.
Television shows do sort of butthey actually don't right. When
you create a good televisionidea, it is like a bear trap
that you can spring and reloadand spring and reload and spring
and reload again. Yeah, yeah.And a well wrought television
(07:20):
show is about relationaldynamics that repeat themselves.
And I am fascinated byrelational dynamics. I'm now a
coach in the sphere ofrelational dynamics, and I love
relational I, you know, I wasthat kid in high school, I was
that boy in high school, and theunusually straight boy in high
(07:41):
school who, like, gossiped withall the girls about all the
relationships that were going onby masculine feminine
relationships my whole life, andTV was a chance for me to figure
out what I know about those onan ongoing basis.
Tess Masters (08:00):
Yeah. What was it like for you, the decision to
move away from that world whereyou were in a very, very
successful career, you know, youwere working on law and order,
and the Summer I Turned Prettyand these huge hits, you know,
on top of the mountain, so tospeak. You know, some people
would say, and then you realizethis wasn't for you.
Speed Weed (08:28):
I've had a beautiful run of it. I've been incredibly
blessed in my career to work ongreat shows with great people.
And I should say, I'm not deadyet. I'm not completely out. I
do still have my tethers inthere. And when some really
interesting project comes up, Ilove doing that. I have a
mastery in it, and I'm happy todo it. And when I found this
(08:49):
work a number of years ago, Ifelt a deep calling. It was
choiceless. I have to do this.It changed my life, restored my
life restored my sense of self.It restored my relationships. It
restored the deep knowing at theback of my heart, and as I
(09:12):
looked around in the in thegroups that I was in, in men's
embodiment work and otherarenas, I really could feel the
suffering of people. Here I amtrying to write out loud to say
what I know I don't have thisfull and that what had been
(09:37):
taught me, and what I hadlearned, and what I had come to
learn how to embody was veryquickly helping other people
really change their lives, savetheir marriages, change their
relationships with theirchildren, and in a way that um.
(10:00):
Thing that I think is I've cometo understand is quite a maybe
age appropriate is a good way tosay it. Richard Rohr talks about
the two halves of life. He wrotea book called Falling upwards,
that in your younger years,you're really interested in ego
consolidation and like plantingyour flag on a hill and going,
This is who I am, and this iswhat I'm going to do. And when
you get older, littler thingsmatter, and it's less about what
(10:25):
do I get and what more aboutwhat do I give? And so I could
really feel in my body thatthere are episodes of television
of mine that have been seen by400 million people across the
globe over time, and one mantelling me that I saved his
marriage, that working with mesaved his marriage, was far more
(10:47):
important. I cared about it muchmore deeply. And so though you
know, my agents still send mestuff, and I still occasionally
go out on meetings like thisdeep, quiet, person to person,
transmission of a of a way ofloving, of a way of being in our
bodies. It's deeply meaningfulto me. And so when I wake up in
(11:11):
the morning, that's what I wantto do, and I see that it is of
service. And I
Tess Masters (11:18):
so we've we've skipped forward, and I want to
fill in some of the the juicybits on this journey. So you're
working as a writer, and whatwas it that led you into the
work before you claimed yourrole as a teacher or a
facilitator or a guide, or Idon't know what word you would
(11:40):
feel comfortable with, yeah,where were you that led you to
doing that work with JohnWineland and your other coaches,
Amir, was your first experiencewith this. What led you to join
that workshop? Yeah,
Speed Weed (11:59):
I was in a marriage that we were all suffering. In
me my kids full ofmiscommunication and
disembodiment and shadow andpattern, and not for lack of
trying, there was a lot of love,but also just a lot of
dysfunction. And I felt a coupleof things that are important to
(12:21):
name. One is I felt hopeless. Ididn't know a way forward. I
didn't know a way out. I didn'tknow what to do. My experience
of that time in that marriagewas that no matter what I do,
she'll never be happy. No matterwhat I do, it won't be enough,
(12:42):
and map onto that a lifelonghistory that's very common among
good men my age, give or take 15years, is I knew that I didn't
want to be like my dad. I knew awhole bunch of role models what
it meant to be a man that Ididn't want to do. I had a front
row seat on a television show toa me too moment. That was
(13:05):
awesome, but it also put me inthis place of of, I don't know
how to be a good man. And I cansee two choices in front of me.
I can see the Trump choice,which is to claim privilege and
and, you know, screw everybodyelse which is odious to me and
(13:27):
remains odious to me and to me.And then I also saw on the
liberal side a real, likeAbnegation of masculinity, an
internalized misandry, like I'ma man, so I must suck, and I
could feel that in my body, I'min this marriage. I'm getting a
(13:48):
ton of criticism, and I don'tknow how to carry myself as a
man right now. In addition, Ilooked around and I didn't have
any male friends. I had them usebut I I'm not alone. Tess, the
data on this is really clear.Most men don't have good male
(14:10):
friends that they can share withopenly and vulnerably. Most men
put all of the weight of theirdifficult relationship with
their own emotions on theirpartnership, and that doesn't
work. And I was like that. Andso when I went to my first men's
group, and I saw 25 men shareopenly and vulnerably and from
(14:35):
the heart, and what I would nowcall in a masculine manner,
meaning they had themselves.Their hearts were open, but they
were they were grounded. I feltlike an anemic, discovering
iron. I'm like, oh, been all mylife. I need Yeah,
Tess Masters (14:57):
oh, you said before that. That you knew what
you didn't want to be with, thethe men in your life and the the
role models that you had hadpreviously. And you touched on
it a little bit about ISOC, orgoing into what we as women
would call toxic masculinity,or, you know, for want of other
(15:18):
words, what
Speed Weed (15:20):
do you call it? Yeah, what do you call it? I
call it in the Trump vein, Icall it that too. That's
absolutely toxic masculinity.
Tess Masters (15:27):
Yes, yes, absolutely. What are some of the
other behaviors and the otherthings that you saw in the men
in your life prior to going intothat workshop that you didn't
want to be. Can you just fleshthat out a little bit for me?
Speed Weed (15:47):
Sure. I do mean to build out that when, as a
culture, at least on the liberalside, when as a culture, we have
talked about men for severaldecades now, and certainly at
the end of the 20 teens, it hasbeen very negative. Men are like
this. And so there is the actualmen that I saw, like this guy in
(16:11):
the who got me too out of thetelevision show I was working
on. He's a jackass. He He usedhis privilege to try to get
people to sleep with him, andwhen they they didn't, he fired
them. Right? So that's a veryglaring, obvious thing. But the
bigger problem for me, and Ithink now that I speak to you
know many hundreds of men, formost men, is just sort of a
(16:36):
vague assumption that men can'tbe open hearted, that men can't
be loving and grounded andassertive, that men can't be
either they're a taker and toxicor they're like all in their
feminine, ecstatic dance flowboys. And then there's all the
(17:01):
dudes on LinkedIn right who arejust like scrubbing up their
resumes, their their outer thenotion that there is a masculine
interiority that is beautifuland whole and available and
there to be gifted to the world.Nobody ever showed me that.
Tess Masters (17:24):
So what were you shown then, as a child, as a
teenager, as a young man in your20s?
Speed Weed (17:31):
Sure, it's a great question. My father was a
beautiful, gracious, kind man,but when he was growing up, it
was discovered that he had aheart defect, and he was told
that he was going to die by thetime he was 12, and his father
(17:53):
pulled away from him, fearingthat he was going to lose this
boy. And my father grew up witha programming that I'm broken
and full of shame. Now it turnedout that that diagnosis was
wrong, and he lived to the ripeold age of 84 but he carried
with him this wound that I'mbroken and my heart is no good
(18:16):
like that literally mapped ontoa metaphor that that he carried
in his embodiment. And so myfather never said anything to me
that he wouldn't have said in aroom full of strangers at a
cocktail party. He had nointeriority.
Tess Masters (18:38):
So you mean that there wasn't a lot of emotional
intimacy, but there was noemotional intimacy. There was
love, but not intimacy.
Speed Weed (18:47):
Love, support, kindness, even a kind of seeing,
but no Depth.
Tess Masters (18:55):
Depth is enough. How did he see you without the
depth? What was your experienceof that?
Speed Weed (19:03):
He saw that I was creative and wanted to be an
actor, and so he supportedCollege, and then pulled the rug
out from underneath. Yeah, itwas very surprising. Yeah, he,
he, I think he was a littleconflicted about his support for
me. I think if I'd gone andinterviewed at Goldman Sachs, he
(19:23):
actually set up one for me thatthat that would have really
delighted him.
Tess Masters (19:31):
So what I'm hearing, and correct me, if I'm
misinterpreting this, is that,because I like to pair things
down to one sentence from onewriter to another, what I'm
hearing is that you had a deepdesire to be seen, and
(19:56):
ultimately that was at the core.Of what led you to that men's
group with Amir, and that beingin that work you felt seen, is
that one way of of saying or orsurmising your experience,
Speed Weed (20:19):
I'd, I'd adjust it ever so slightly. I felt vaguely
that I had a depth, but I didn'tsee it mirrored in any other
men, with the notable exceptionof gay men in the theater in my
youth, but I didn't have anyexperience of straight men being
(20:42):
deep, and so I didn't know howto carry my own relationship
with my own depth. And what Igot in that meeting right away
was, oh, there's a deep man, andthere's another deep man and
there's another deep man. Soit's less seeing though that is
important and more mirroringmodeling.
Tess Masters (21:09):
What did gay What was your experience with gay men
mirroring that? What were theymirroring that you felt at home
with
Speed Weed (21:22):
coming of age, you know, in the AIDS crisis, at a
time after which many, if notmost, gay men were out, because
I can remember when theyweren't, and I smile with such a
joy on my face that youngerpeople Today don't remember how
hard a struggle that was.
Tess Masters (21:42):
Yes, it's good that they don't well in our in
our circles, in our circles, inLiberal circles, Yeah,
unfortunately, there are manycircles where people still do
not feel Yeah. They are free todo that. Unfortunately,
Speed Weed (21:58):
in order to be themselves, they had to ask hard
inner truths of the cost ofbeing who they were. They had to
be at depth and in alignmentwith their deepest hearts truth.
And they modeled that to me inin their sexuality, in their
(22:18):
orientation, and they modeled itto me in their fierceness, for
creativity, for for sparkle andjoy and play in the theater. And
I needed that to be the creativeactor and writer that I was as a
young man, and so I deeplyvalued like they taught me how
to know my own heart at an earlyage, it's just that I never had
(22:44):
a model until I until I found amirrors group, I never had a
model among straight men. Ididn't think straight men were
capable of it.
Tess Masters (22:56):
Thank you for opening that portal for me.
Speed Weed (23:01):
Can I just add one thing there?
Tess Masters (23:03):
Yeah, please.
Speed Weed (23:04):
This is, I think, where the problem lies. It isn't
so much that we all have allthese negative role models of
masculinity. It's that we havean absence of depth of role
models at depth in masculinity,and I think most it's this,
(23:26):
what's the right analogy of likea game where everybody's in the
same position, if they'd onlylike open up, we'd see, oh my
god, we're actually all thisway. Every man I've met that
I've either LED or beenalongside to as he found his own
depth. All men are deep. All menare deep, each in different
(23:50):
ways, but we run around in aworld where nobody's showing it,
so nobody thinks anybody else isthat's an exaggeration, but it
was my experience across my 30sand 40s,
Tess Masters (24:02):
yeah. So what I'm hearing again is permission.
Yes. Is that there's so many menthat are not giving themselves
permission to express all theparts of themselves. And you
know, we could get into Jungianphilosophy here and Shadow Work,
(24:23):
and that when we're not givingourselves, we give ourselves
permission to only expresscertain parts of ourselves that
are acceptable within the rulesof our family of origin, and
then the rules of the societythat we place ourselves in, and
so forth. So when you enteredthat men's group and you saw
(24:44):
other men giving themselvespermission, and by extension,
each other, to give expressionto whatever was coming up for
them and to receive it from eachother, What did that feel like?
Like, for
Speed Weed (25:00):
you, like, I said, like, an anemic discovering
iron, right? Yeah,
Tess Masters (25:04):
you said that before, like, but, but in your
body, like, anemic discovery isvery cerebral to me. I can't
place that in my
Speed Weed (25:12):
mind. Like coming home. Like coming home, yeah,
and I do want to, just in caseany listeners hear, it the wrong
way. It's not that we men arenot giving ourselves permission.
(25:33):
We don't know how we're wired
Tess Masters (25:37):
to distinction,
Speed Weed (25:40):
modeled as a species to be modeled by elder men into
our depth. We're not supposed tojust show up in middle life and
go, Oh, I know how to do this.Now. That's not natural. Any man
who thinks he can do it on hisown can. That's a strong
opinion, but I'll back
Tess Masters (25:59):
it up. No, but it's a really important
distinction, and thank you formaking that because as as a
woman who is in relationshipswith men and has been in
marriages, well, he's justdoesn't want to, he just doesn't
want to. He just doesn't hedoesn't want to tell me. He
(26:20):
doesn't want to speak to me, hedoesn't want to share openly. He
doesn't want to or he can't. Islanguage that we would use, and
I hear my friends use andclients of mine use when they
express outrage or despair beinginside of their relationships.
And I know you work with men andwomen and you see this, it's a
(26:40):
really important distinction. Sowhen you were in these groups,
and then you went and studiedwith John Wineland, and this
world opened up for you, and howlife became this juicy world of
so many more possibilities, takeme inside of that, it has to be
(27:02):
me. Where you went from studentand participant in the group to
claiming your role as leader andfacilitator or Shepherd. Is
that? Is that a good word foryou? What words would you use
for what your calling,
Speed Weed (27:23):
yeah, teacher, maybe leader, yeah, not yet, but
someday, elder, I'm still insearch of my own elders before I
can claim that title.
Tess Masters (27:35):
Yeah, you're in the spring of the crone phase.
So am I? We're knocking on thelittle door wanting to be let
in, but we're not quite thereyet. Yeah, so So you had a
calling, but we often havecallings that we don't listen
to, just like that young boywanting to be an actor, you
know, and then not doing that.And I have had many of those
(27:56):
moments as well. This time youreally listened. So what was it
in you that when I've gotsomething unique to offer, this
space, this world, other men,what was it in you that leaned
into that there
Speed Weed (28:15):
were a couple of moments that happened in fairly
quick succession where and mytraining is both co Ed and among
groups of men. You know, mycertification from John Weinland
is in masculine embodiment, butthat was a three year program
with men and women and in in apolarity practice, I was deeply
(28:41):
in my practice across from awoman who is full of, like,
feminine, feisty Goddess energy.And when I opened my eyes in the
practice, I'm like, Oh man, I'min for it, because she's like,
got so much juice, she's so muchand she's a couple years older
than me, and, like, she's gother feminine Goddess Kali thing
(29:03):
going on. I'm like, in troublehere.
Tess Masters (29:07):
And and not I want to, I want to absolutely stay in
this. But for somebody listeningthat doesn't understand what
polarity work means, can youjust explain to us what, what
that process was? Sure,
Speed Weed (29:25):
the framework of the lineage that I study is
ultimately rooted in Taoism, andthe notion that the yin and the
yang, the feminine and themasculine move through all of
us, just in differentproportions. And if you sit
across from another human being,and one of you consciously takes
on the masculine pole and theother one consciously takes on
(29:46):
the feminine pole. You can movea lot of energy through your
body and between your bodiesthat you can't do in any other
way, and it gives you like aradar into your own embodied
system that is phenomenal and.This is not it can be an erotic
practice, but it's not a sexualpractice. And as an example in
(30:08):
this practice, my job was tohold wide grounded, open hearted
space to whatever my femininepractitioner partner wanted to
bring. And I could hear aroundthe room that other feminine
practitioners were bringing joy,or like sultry arrows. My
(30:30):
partner was bringing fury. Shestarted beating on my like
literally wailing away on mychest. And the practice was to
be to get wider and get deeperand be a yes, and I breathed,
and I I used all my embodimenttraining, and not that that was
(30:52):
it wasn't a strategy. There's nostrategy in this. This is
embodiment work. We're not likethinking our way through
anything. And at a certainmoment, I could feel like a hand
reaching from behind through me.This needs to end. And I grabbed
her by the hands, and I said,stop it with my heart open. And
she looked at me like this for amoment, and then she burst into
(31:15):
tears and lay her head on mychest, and she said, I needed a
boundary. Thank you for theboundary. And then a little
while later, maybe a couplemonths later, on another
retreat, I had a conversationwith a man who had come to me
some time before with somereally deep issues in his
(31:39):
marriage that were very personalthat I won't get into here, and
I gave him some coaching that Idon't know. Where it came from.
It came from intuition. It camefrom my own embodied sense of
what he needed. And he wascoming back to me, and he said,
it worked. You saved mymarriage. We have done in two
months based on what you said,more than 10 years of couple
(32:01):
counseling, more than any of theprocessing, more than the MDMA
journeys, more than all of that.Thank you. And so I had this
sense that in ways that I didn'tfully understand or need to I
was holding a space oftrustable, grounded, open
(32:22):
hearted masculinity to both menand women. That's what that
polarity practice told me, andshe said as much afterwards, and
that's what I had wanted, that'swhat I had needed, that's what I
had lacked, and I didn't. It'snot like I made a decision. I
(32:46):
really didn't, but I felt like adecision was made for me. I
Tess Masters (32:56):
want to ask you about words again, because you
have lots of good words andyou're so articulate and express
yourself so beautifully. Andthat's part of bringing people
into the work, explainingthings, making them feel safe.
(33:17):
You know, our mind wants tounderstand things. That's how we
feel safe, or we think that'show we feel safe. That's the
construction that we're we'rebrought up in in the world. But
we do need words as human beingsto relate to each other and kind
of get on the same page and soforth, until we have embodied
practices in place where we canfind that other, knowing with
(33:39):
each other and develop that andbut until we do, the words are
an entry point. Totally agree soso often when we think about
embodiment, I should I say we?I'm going to say me and I, you
know, love somatic practices andembodiment work. I love words,
(34:02):
too. So I'm asking for myself asmuch as for you dear listeners,
we often want to pit the wordsand the body against each other,
or I do sometimes, you know, Istruggle with that intersection
point. So for you as someone whohas a lot of beautiful words and
(34:27):
then now being in an you know,having embodied practices, where
do you find that relationshipfor yourself? Where with the
words and the embodied knowing,and then being able to hold that
space or shepherd that space forother people like myself, for
(34:49):
example, where I'm sort ofstruggling to kind of express to
you what's going on in my bodyand my mind and my words right
now. Does that make
Speed Weed (34:57):
sense? It's a beautiful question. I love it.
It's actually very
Tess Masters (35:01):
long winded question. I'm sorry it took me a
minute to find my way into it,
Speed Weed (35:05):
but that's okay, right? You've actually opened a
line of inquiry that I've nevermade. So thank you for that. Oh,
please
Tess Masters (35:14):
share that with me. Yeah,
Speed Weed (35:20):
most of the time in my work, let me just put this
in, and then I'll come back tothe question. Most of the time
in my work, at first blush, I'mup against a man who is so
trained to make logicalarguments and solve problems
that it's keeping him fromgetting in his body. And so I am
trying to wipe aside the storiesand the analysis in order to
(35:45):
clear a space for him to sinkinto his body. And so in that
moment, which I spend a lot oftime in, words and embodiment
are at odds, but there's no weare embodied beings with
language, and there's noconflict there at all. There's
no zero sum game. Let me I thinkyou, I think you answered your
(36:09):
own question in the queue up,which is that if our minds are
racing in circles because wedon't feel safe, then they're
not helping us. We'll never getthere that way, if our thoughts
and words are up regulating ournervous system, if our heart
rate is getting faster, we areon a train of the monkey mind
(36:35):
that's taking us out of ourembodied moment. If we are in
our bodies, which I experiencedyou as in that long question,
where I felt you as gesturingtoward an articulation of
something that you could feelbut couldn't quite articulate.
Nothing wrong with that at all.That's beautifully deeply
(36:57):
embodied speech. And again,we're in the Edith Wharton
territory of using words tofigure out what we know, which I
think is deep and beautiful. Andthen the last thing I'll say on
that is that we have this veryold phrase in English. I don't
know how old, speaking from theheart, that's an embodied
(37:20):
experience. It's not a metaphor.And when we speak from the
heart, we speak in very shortutterances.
Unknown (37:31):
I know I love. I'm not going to do that.
Tess Masters (37:42):
Hmm? So for, for when your heart feels so hurt
and raw and the inclination isto completely close off instead
of open. How do you shepherdsomebody into taking that leap,
(38:13):
even when they're terrified andfeel like they they don't feel
safe? Basically,
Speed Weed (38:19):
sure, what you just described as a good portion of
what I do with men is they
Unknown (38:25):
are.
Speed Weed (38:28):
Nobody taught them right, like we were saying
before, they are in touch withtheir hearts, or they're
starting to get in touch withtheir hearts, and they're
feeling feelings and they don'tthey want to close the short
technical answer to yourquestion is eye contact. Show
me. I'll say show me to a man,but what I mean is, look at me.
(38:49):
Show me with your eyes. Show meI've got you right here. I'm not
going anywhere. Show me and thenI'll close and look away. Show
me again. Show me that makes somuch sense. I got you, yeah,
(39:10):
it's a, it's like, it's like afox on the other side of the
water. It, it takes stillnessand presence and time
Tess Masters (39:26):
and so much trust in yourself and and you as the
teacher. How do most men findthemselves to you.
Speed Weed (39:51):
I wish there were a common answer. There isn't. Men
come because. Because they havea sense in mid life that they've
done everything right, andthey're not happy. Their
partner's not happy. Like Ichecked all the boxes. I did
(40:13):
everything I said I was going todo. Why? Where's the deeper
meaning? There's a pain pointaround depth. What we've been
talking about, they haven'tarrived at depth. So they'll
come, you know, whether theycome into one of my drop in
circles, or whether they come toa discovery call, they'll find
(40:37):
me through a friend or, youknow, through Instagram,
something like that. I i Thetruth is, I get most of my work
these days from word of mouth,and that's important because you
mentioned trust. Men are deeplyskeptical, and they have every
right to be and the the thingthat feminine partners don't
(41:01):
often understand is how muchcourage it takes, right? Like we
said, you said before, oh, theyjust don't want to right, so
having heard that message for avery long time, or they're not
capable like actually steppinginto this work requires an
immense amount of bravery, andthat bravery is helped by, hey,
(41:22):
I know this guy, also, mengenerally as a marker, like, we
like the thing that's hidden. Wewant to go to the back room of
the speakeasy is the godfather.And then we were let in. And
(41:42):
then many men come to me becausetheir partners have said, have
laid down a law of some sort oflike, hey, I really need you to
do this. And the trick there isthat so many women I know think
they can make their partnersbetter. Got bad news for you,
(42:04):
ladies, that's my job. It's notyours.
Tess Masters (42:08):
Well, it's the man's job, and it's the ladies
job to do her work too.
Speed Weed (42:15):
That's right, what we're talking about here. Like I
said, in terms of modeling, hasto come from other if you're if
your partner is a masculinebeing, if your partner is more
masculine than feminine, we allhave both, then that modeling in
my book needs to come from othermen, and from not just any men's
group, from a well held men'sgroup. Because this can be done
(42:38):
wrong.
Tess Masters (42:39):
How can it be done wrong, in your opinion,
Speed Weed (42:46):
in the eaching, and I used to remember which
hexagram It was, however many1000 year old book, it says, the
responsibility of yin in theuniverse is devotion. The
responsibility of Yang in theuniverse is trustability. And if
a leader of men's work hasn'tdone the work on himself, or if
(43:10):
a group of men haven't done thework on themselves to know where
their own shadows are or how tospot them when they come up, if
they haven't learned tometiculously hold space for
another human being, which isreally what a John Wineland
training is about, that'scertificates on the wall over
there, like, that's, that's whatit's for. Is you can come to
(43:34):
that moment of exposure and getbetrayed. And I do get refugees
in my practice, from from othermen's groups. Now, I should say,
by the way, there are, there's alot of great men's work out
there, and it's only serving asmall sliver of the population
that need it. I think it's agrowth industry.
Tess Masters (43:58):
Oh gosh, we can only hope it's just such a
beautiful practice. And knowingquite a number of men who are in
masculine embodiment circles,oh, it leads to rich, beautiful
relationships, ladies and othermen, listen. Would you? I'd
Speed Weed (44:18):
love to hear your experience of that, like, what
do you see in those guys thatthat that give a testimonial,
Tess Masters (44:25):
yeah, and an openness, a presence and ability
To express, to see and be seen,vulnerability, deep listening
from the heart and not just thehead, and ability to take
(44:49):
personal responsibility in themoment and respond, as opposed
to react being more mindful incommunication. Conversation,
recognizing the signs in eachother's body, in presence with
each other, not just hearing thewords, oh gosh, I could go on
(45:12):
and on and on,
Speed Weed (45:14):
lines up exactly with my own experience. Yeah,
Tess Masters (45:17):
yeah, it's really beautiful. And also, you were
talking before about mirrors,putting a beautiful mirror in
front of me. That is aninvitation to continue doing my
own work, so I can continuemeeting men who are also doing
(45:38):
that beautiful work, so that wecan meet in a place of trust.
It's a gorgeous, incrediblething, which is one of the many
reasons that I wanted to speakto you, to celebrate the work
that you're doing, to invitemore men to do this work, I want
(46:04):
to ask you about something thatwas coming up for me as I was
listening to you, if we acceptthe premise that we're always in
training, that we're alwayslearning and growing, that we
never arrive, You know, in thatway of knowing everything, what
comes up for you as a teacherthat serves when you're working
(46:27):
with others, that serves as aninvitation or A mirror to keep
expanding into your ownpractice?
Unknown (46:40):
Hmm? Two
Speed Weed (46:51):
things come to mind, though it's, I know it's bigger
and wider than this. One is asmy offerings have grown, and as
the number of men I serve grows,pure and simple, my nervous
system capacity has to growbecause I am we use the word
(47:11):
holding. I am holding a lot ofpeople. They're relying on me to
see them and to feel them and touse, uses the wrong word,
because it implies an agencythat's not there. But to to to
offer them my embodied intuitionfor their growth and betterment.
(47:36):
And in order to do that in inthe John Wineland world, we talk
about nervous system capacity,and so I continually need to
expand my capacity in order toremain grounded, still present
and knowing in front of the moremen that I serve than I used to,
(47:59):
and that's been beautiful. Andlike you say, is never ending. I
never expect that to end. Everynow and then, I'll give a 1.5
answer, every now and then, likeand this happens, full
disclosure, like a man, willtrigger me, and I need to be
(48:20):
very clean about that. I need todeal with that immediately. That
cannot come back to the man. Ithappens much less now than it
did when I was starting out andbut I'm told by, you know,
people who are much farther downthe road that that actually
never ends. Just have to, you'rehuman, to put systems in place
(48:42):
where that never becomes yourclients problem, it becomes your
men's group problem, like themen's group that holds you. So
there's that. And then thesecond piece I was going to say
is
Unknown (48:57):
like, like
Speed Weed (49:00):
Crohn's and training. I think we got a TV
show there. Tara Tess, Crohn'sand training. I really am
craving, in my own work elderspace. I'm craving men who are
(49:20):
in their 70s, and I'm hoping towork directly with Bill Plotkin
this fall, and he's wrote soulcraft, and they just have an end
of life depth that that I feelcalled to to learn from. I I
(49:40):
want to
Tess Masters (49:43):
ask you about something was coming up for me
as I was listening to you aboutthis pressure that I imagine or
that I perceive, that men takeon to have the answers, to have
it figured out, to be. Expert tofront load that part of
(50:05):
themselves, particularly whenthey are taking on the role of
teacher or elder or facilitatoror whatever words we're going to
use. How do you hold thatconstruction or that pressure?
And rebalance, so to speak, sothat you can hold space in a way
(50:28):
where you're not taking that onas much.
Speed Weed (50:32):
It's a great question, and it's a
sophisticated question. So it'san understanding question of
what I do. And when I startedtwo years ago, I would get
frustrated if a guy didn't getwhere I thought he could get.
I've definitely let that go. Myjob is to give it my best shot.
But the premise of this work isany man sitting across from me,
first of all, there's nothingwrong with him. Any growth he
(50:55):
wants, he has to want, andthat's why, what depends on the
container. Either I'm leadingthe container, but often I'm a
coach, right? I'm a coach. I'mnot the athlete. If, if he
doesn't do the work, I can't gethim there. I'm not I'm not
carrying him across the finishline. And there are, there are
(51:20):
times when the process of goingdown the wrong road is the only
way to get to the right road.That happens with some
frequency, where we need toinvestigate this valley in your
being and realize, Oh, that'snot actually what the issue is
here. But that's not wastedtime. I'm definitely not in the
(51:45):
results business. Mytestimonials are in the results
business, but my showing upevery day for the men that I
show up for is not in theresults business. It's not my
job.
Tess Masters (51:58):
Well, it's bringing something else up for
me that's really important is toacknowledge your place in the
process and to allow yourself tobe present with yourself while
you are in process, which Iwould argue is every minute of
the day. So as you are a humanbeing in process, how has this
(52:32):
work that you've done inworkshops as a human being and
now as a teacher, how has thathelped you be a better father
for beautiful friendships inyour life with other men, yeah.
How has that played out for youin your life? Now? Give me your
(52:55):
own testimonial.
Unknown (52:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speed Weed (53:00):
Most of the time I speak from the heart, and I'm
fairly quick at knowing when I'mnot, and so I feel a depth and a
authenticity to therelationships that I Have with
my daughters and with my friendsand it occurs to me as like, as
(53:27):
an embodied feeling that I have.I have it right now that my
heart is falling back and downin my chest settling back like
like in a recliner. And it has apiece a down regulation, a sense
(53:50):
of rightness that I didn't feelacross my 30s and most of my
40s, and when, as with a childor with a friend, someone comes
to me and says, Hey, I'm I needYour counsel on this. There's a
(54:22):
there's a two way street oftrust in that that feels really
good. You know, if, if theresponsibility of Yang is
trustability, then I'm justdoing what I'm put here to do,
and it feels right and onpurpose and very relaxed.
There's no charge to it, right?That's a young man's game. I'm
(54:43):
going to charge, I'm going to,I'm going to, I'm Babe Ruth, I'm
going to hit the home run overthere. There's none of that.
It's just, there's an there's apresence, and I mean that in the
other like, nowness to it. Yeah,and a right? To it that needs no
explanation or justification oranalysis, to come back to that
(55:08):
word
Tess Masters (55:12):
I love when you say it just feels good to be
this way and to be relating withother people in this way. So do
you find that you are lessattached to your words now in
(55:33):
the sense of needing them asmuch to justify your experience?
Speed Weed (55:41):
I'm a son of an advertiser, and I'm actually
working on an essay right now.Don't advertise like
Tess Masters (55:54):
and I do love your blog posts. They are great. I
Speed Weed (55:58):
appreciate that from one writer, that's a high
compliment to another. Yeah,across my 20s and 30s and in my
early 40s, not knowing who Iwas, feeling a depth inside me
that I didn't know where to putor how to mirror. I was
constantly telling people howgreat something was going to be.
(56:19):
You know, especially my ex wife,and that really didn't work.
Turns out my words were empty,and she had reason not to trust
me. So I am, it's it. I thinkwhat I might say is a little bit
what I said before about workwith clients. I'm unattached to
(56:41):
outcome at the risk of intensevulnerability. I have one of my
kids who is having a really hardtime with me right now, and I
suspect that's a result ofsomething that went on when she
was very young, and I hadn'tdone this work yet, and it's
(57:05):
sort of coming to the surfacenow. So it's not the
relationship I want right now,but that doesn't matter. It's
the relationship that is. And somy role, my I don't have words
for it, like it's just to bewith what is as it is. Feel my
(57:28):
feelings about it for sure. Putthose feelings in a container
that can hold them, which is notmy daughter and and and carry on
in right relationship withreality. As the Buddhist would
say, Oh,
Tess Masters (57:45):
I love that right re right relationship with
reality.
Unknown (57:53):
Oh,
Tess Masters (57:54):
speed. I could talk to you about this all day
long. I always close everyepisode with the same question,
which is, as someone who has adream in their heart and doesn't
feel like they have what ittakes to make it happen, what
Would you say to them? Tellpeople
Speed Weed (58:20):
recruit allies. Don't do it alone. Find the
people, let me qualify that.Find the people who see you
clearly.
And if they see you clearly,chances are they'll know that
(58:44):
that dream is right, and they'llwork with you to make it happen.
Tess Masters (58:52):
Thank you. We think that we have to do it
alone, and so much of whatyou've been sharing with me is
so much of what I teach in mycommunity, as well as that,
we're not supposed to do it onour own. We can't do it on our
own. We need support. Yes. Thankyou for the the way that you
(59:20):
show up in the world and and howyou are teaching and helping
other people to show up withtheir hearts. Oh, I look forward
to more conversations. It's been
Speed Weed (59:35):
so much. Thank you very much. You.
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