Sexual Integrity & Men's Leadership - with Mischa Byruck - Sex Upgraded

Episode Transcript
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Taylor Johnson (00:00):
Hello, friend, and welcome to this episode.
That deserves its own special,unique introduction, because the
conversation can get a littleintense at times, it can be
confronting, it can feelsometimes challenging to listen
to as a man, and I wanted tojust give this preface up front.
It's about sex, yes, but it'snot about how to be the best
technically skilled lover.

(00:21):
It's not about how to boostyour performance in bed,
technically skilled lover.
It's not about how to boostyour performance in bed.
It's about another reallyimportant aspect of sex that is
crucial to dive into if we wantto be truly strong, powerful,
integrated and positivelyimpactful sexual men.
Today I'm interviewing a mannamed Misha, who I found because
I was looking up informationabout ISTA, which is the

(00:45):
International School of TempleArts.
They're an organization thathas come under scrutiny and
criticism over the past bunch ofyears because of some of the
behavior of some of theirinstructors, and I found Misha
because he was somebody who wasdirectly involved with creating
repair processes for theorganization and the individuals
involved, and I thought, wow,this guy looks really

(01:05):
interesting and this is hisprofession to help people learn
from and integrate andacknowledge and heal the harm
that they've caused in the world.
And I thought, wow, this needsto be a conversation, this needs
to be on the podcast, becausethis is a crucial missing piece
for so many of us.
I just want to be clear that Iam not up here on some pedestal

(01:26):
saying you need to heal yoursexual harm, and I've never
caused sexual harm.
I've definitely caused harm topeople, even in my current
relationship with my currentpartner.
And it's a journey, it's aprocess of navigating it and
learning to create repair.
I learned a ton from thisepisode.
I learned a ton, lots of reallyuseful, practical, actionable

(01:48):
things in this episode that youcan take into your life, into
your current relationships, intoyour past relationships, and
create healing and navigate themwith much more ease and clarity
and create really positiveoutcomes.
And that, again, is socrucially important if we want
to be strong, powerful,positively impactful, sexual,

(02:11):
integrated men.
So thank you, thank you againfor being here.
Let's get into today's episode.
My basic understanding is thatyou're somebody who's come from
a unique background, who starteda lot of different big projects
in the world and andnon-profits and had a big impact

(02:32):
, and then at a certain point,you realize, oh, somehow I'll
speak as if I'm you, somehowI've been hurting certain people
in the process and my impacttherefore isn't as positive or
powerful as it could be.
Ooh, I need to examine this.
I went through your own processand came out the other side and
realized just how important itis to do integrity work and then

(02:55):
eventually got to the positionwhere you are now, which is a
man who supports other men,deepening into their integrity
so that they can be bettercommunity leaders and people,
etc.
Is that accurate and welcome?

Mischa Byruck (03:09):
thank you, yeah, oh yeah, let's start it.
I feel like it's the perfectway to start a leadership and
integrity podcast.
There's just so like such suchlofty and ambitious topics is to
is to talk about like, okay,like, how did I come to this?
It's what most people's firstquestions are curiosity, um, I
it what?
I didn't have a big call out, Ididn't have like someone who

(03:30):
was like, or or like a group ofpeople calling me out or do the
big cancellation thing.
That was never.
That was never my truth.
I did have moments, moments ofrealizing that that the way that
I was conducting myself,especially around sex, um, uh,
were, were out of my integrityand yet very, very much like

(03:50):
ingrained in me.
Um.
Moments when I realized that my, I I'd placed my agenda over
attunement in in in sexualrelations.
Moments where I realized, oh,my God, like I have been
willfully ignoring the realitiesof um, of what it would mean to
be an ethical human in the, inthis interaction, in this

(04:12):
dynamic, like kind of lettingmyself get away with fuck boy
dynamics.
Excuse me if I'm going to saythat.

You can say fuck , you can say pussy, yeah.

I mean, I try not to curse, but anyway, whatever,
but like, but yeah, like fuckboy.
Dynamics in the sense of justkind of saying whatever I felt
like, without thinking about therepercussions.
Engaging in inadvertent lovebombing, inadvertent
breadcrumbing dynamics withwomen Of course never

(04:42):
maliciously, but that's not thepoint with women, of course
never maliciously, but that'snot the point.
And just having these momentsof realizing, you know, again
and again, I am someone whoeverybody says I'm a good man,
everybody experiences me as agood man.
I get a lot of that feedbackand yet I'm still capable of
immense harm.
I'll also just name that I hadan episode many years ago, over

(05:04):
a decade ago, in which I was, inthe context of a very bad
breakup, hurt a woman like,actually hit her in the course
of a big breakup fight and weboth got physical.
Only time that I've gottenphysical, but it was it was a
huge wake up call for me to like, talk about, to, to like, to

(05:26):
realize how capable, sweet,conscientious feminist men, men
who like, like, have always beengetting this like feedback from
women of like, oh, you're sodifferent, it's so wonderful,
you're so involved, how capablewe are of harm.
And in fact, as I've gonethrough my career, I've really

(05:50):
ended up focusing mostly on menwho have a feminist bent, who
want to be good men in the world, who want to be men of
integrity, who want to beprogressive, and not just how
capable they are of harm, buthow much more capable,
interestingly, their feminism ortheir progressive stances make
them of doing harm.
Yeah, because we receive somuch trust, such that when from

(06:14):
this particular woman, such thatwhen we do do harm, it feels
like betrayal.

Yeah, thank you, yeah, so much for sharing that
intro and that that personalpiece from over 10 years ago.
And, yeah, thank you, yeah, somuch for sharing that intro and
that that personal piece fromover 10 years ago.
And I want to normalize alsothat, like all of us, I'll just
go ahead and say pretty much 99%of men at some point have hurt
people on intentionally, youknow, like that's just what

(06:41):
happens, and we're not badbecause of it.
If you're listening and you'vedone this, you're not bad
because of it.
You're not a bad person, you'renot worthless, et cetera.
But it's an opportunity to growand to evolve and then to come
into better relationships withpeople in general.
So I'd like to name that upfront and I also want to just
say, because you mentioned itand I'm sure some people are

(07:02):
thinking it right now Like yousaid, oh, in the heat of the
moment, over 10 years ago youactually hit your partner or
ex-partner.
Some people will probably thinklike, oh well, this means this
guy has no room to talk on therealm of accountability or
something like that too.
So I'd love it if you couldjust like speak to that for a
little bit.
Like what sort of systems haveyou set in place, how have you

(07:24):
worked to to address that withinyourself, so that you can then
help other people?

Oh sure, yeah, Thanks, and I mean, yeah, this
is a there's, there's unresolvedlike.
It's given me like a lot of alot to grow on, the biggest, or
there's many things.
That night alcohol was involvedand I'm now three years sober.

(07:55):
I don't do drugs or alcohol atall, but there's, that's a big
one, that's a real big one.
Yeah, um, there's also a lot oflike personal growth, learning,
work that I've done to likeevolve myself to the point where
, like, I can recognize thesigns of rage or anger, where I

(08:16):
can um mitigate that, where Ican catch myself way earlier in
any kind of like trigger process, where I can, um, and have very
successfully avoided the kindsof, uh the kinds of dynamics
that were present in therelationship that she and I had,
which was in many ways a reallyunhealthy relationship where we

(08:37):
were egging each other on in areally really unhealthy ways.
Um, and yeah, I've come to like,through therapy, through
coaching, through men's work,I've come to recognize those
dynamics and avoid them and makesure I'm not having any kinds
of giant incoherences in my life, right, where there are these

(08:57):
kind of like, like, just don'tlook at that part of my life
Like everything else looks goodright Like that the life is
genuinely, genuinely coherent,even even under a microscope,
and I could hold my head upabout that.
Um, I've gotten psychologicallyokay with um, my own sexuality
and my own shortcomings in a waythat, like, I'm much less

(09:18):
easily triggerable.
Um, I think part of part ofthat episode and and um a lot of
my own insecurities was wasabout um, yeah, anyway, without
getting too much into my ownpsychology, psychodrama like see
, like, what, like triggered alot of my own insecurities
around being a uh um from beinga failure um and being uh uh

(09:45):
being ultimately deeply callous.
I was really, really, reallyresistant against the idea that
I didn't care, and I'vereconciled a lot of that.
I'm 42 now.
I was in my 20s.
I've been on my own personalgrowth journey, but one of the

(10:08):
big takeaways and I really wantto name this First of all, I
want to hold the space foranybody hearing about this and
feeling their own pain, eitherhaving caused it or having been
hurt.
You've heard the expression thathurt people, cause hurt people,
cause hurt.
Right, um, hurt people, hurtpeople.

(10:31):
I mean that's, that's true, butI think we all hurt people.
I don't think you need to likebe able to like isolate a like I
was really well loved I I comefrom a really loving background.
I come from a financiallyabundant background.
There is a trauma of alienationin privileged people where that,

(10:58):
where, where there is there issome sort of a, a pain of being
divorced from the collectivehuman experience.
But ultimately, like I don't, Idon't carry a lot of trauma in
my body.
Like I've taken traumacertification courses as part of
my work with men, like I'vetaken abuse courses, like you
don't have to be someone who hasexperienced a lot of pain to be

(11:20):
capable of causing a lot ofpain.
Yeah, you know, like we're allpart of the human drama,
regardless of how much trauma wecarry in our body, how much
like whether or not we had niceparents.
I don't think that, like, thefact that you had nice parents
in immunizes you from from beingcapable of causing pain or from
having all sorts of weirdinsecurities that need to get

(11:41):
worked out.
And that was actually a biglesson for me and it's something
I've carried through of helpingotherwise very good men see
their capacity to do harm.

Yeah, awesome, yeah.
Thank you so much.
And also for context, I noticedon your website you referenced
that you have also likeproactive accountability options
for people and we can go intothat and like should anybody?
you know, I'd like to start adifferent in a different place
first, but I just want tomention like it seems like you
have systems in place that areset up to where, if there are

(12:13):
problems that arise, people canaddress them, and you want to be
addressed, like you.
You are, you're an open doorand reaching for this sort of a
thing.

Right and for mean and I mean and like.
Okay, so like, let's just talkabout that briefly, all right,
just briefly.
Yeah right, redundant systemsof support, men's group, coach,
therapist, psychiatrist, umsobriety, uh temple, uh rabbi,
like I have multiple overlappingand redundant systems of
support, I have cultivatedcommunity that like speaks to me

(12:43):
and that, like I can, um be inrelationship with in a way that,
like, I don't have to hide, um,that's critical.
Yeah, and yes, I have umsupervisory structure that I've
created for myself proactively.
It was not like demanded of meby my community, but it was
definitely something that I sawlooking around like needed to
happen.
So you can, I welcome feedback,even the saltiest, angriest

(13:07):
feedback.
I welcome people telling methat I've hurt them, and I
promise not to greet it withdefensiveness or minimization.
And I've proactively set up asystem for when people, like
don't think that I'm safe.
If people don't think I'm safe,they can go to two external
supervisors, who I trust but whoare not beholden to me, who

(13:27):
have their own independent jobsand incomes, and you can tell
them hey, we think, I thinkMisha's dangerous or I think
Misha's like, I don't thinkMisha should be doing his work,
and I never, I'm never, I'mnever immune to that.
I never think I'm above that.
I'm never immune to that.
I never think I'm above that.
And those people Marsha Bojinskiwrote the book Creating Consent

(13:48):
Culture and Angel Adioja hasbeen a transformative justice
facilitator for 20 years andthey now run Folsom Street Fair,
which is the largest leatherand kink event in the world.
And those two people have, youknow, have agreed to, like you
know, effectively be supervisoryin that right, and I also have
regular check-ins with them.
I go over, like ethicalquestions that are coming up.
You know, how did I handle thiskind of client, like what, you

(14:10):
know what?
How should I handle this issueor this, uh, this opportunity,
et cetera?
Yeah, um, yeah.

Awesome, cool.
Yeah, thanks for that context.
That's awesome, and I thinkit's really important to frame
the conversation, you know, likethis is.
We're looking at, ultimately,how to be a better man, right,
how to be a man who has?
positive impact in the world.
So some people will belistening to this and thinking
like, oh well, cool, that's coolfor him.
Like, how does that apply to me?

(14:40):
Right, and really like, reallyI want to.
I want to go into the realm ofspecifically talking about
people who are in some kind ofposition of leadership or power
or something like that.
And so, for example, like ifyou're somebody out there who
leads a class on something, ifyou're leading a workshop, if
you're leading an experience, ifyou've written a book, if

(15:02):
you're like hosting a show, ifyou're like X, y and Z, what
else, you know what, what a?
What is power?
You know?
Oh, this is the person thatdoes this thing.

(15:24):
Like this episode is is reallyfor you, you know, to become
better at that, to become moreeffective, and I think it starts
with a question of what ispower.
You know what is power?
Because all of those positionscome with a certain amount of
power, whether or not we wantthem.
Me, like, there I come, I havea certain amount of power.

(15:44):
Now, too, I have a very largesocial media following.
Like I'm a sexologist, I'm anestablished sex educator.
Like there are certainprojections and weights and
powers that people give me somethat I'm probably not even aware
of still and like that impactshow I relate relate with people
and interact with people.
So I'll just pause and ask you,like, in your mind, what is,

(16:06):
what is power in those contexts?

I use a really general, broad definition
because I found that the mosteffective way of thinking about
power um is is broad and ummalleable.
Um, I think power is theability to impact and influence
others.
Right in terms of, if we'retalking about interpersonal

(16:31):
power, which I think we are,yeah, um, you can also talk
about intrinsic power within.
You can talk about, like, oh,the power that we can achieve
together if we all unite, but Ithink right now we're talking
about interpersonal powerdynamics and mostly power over
yeah um, what does it mean forus to hold power or someone to
project power onto us?
um, the other thing I'll sayjust right up front about

(16:52):
dynamic power is that power isdynamic.
It's really easy in a um,politically progressive context
to think of power as static, asas like this is, you know, like
there's, he's the white guy inthe room, so he's got to hold
all the power, and that's justwhat it is.
It's really important, I think,to think about power as dynamic

(17:16):
and flowing that there's.
That power shifts even as theconversation goes along.
That power shifts as we all getolder or younger.
There's a great example that oneof my consent educator mentors
shared of like, uh, they they're, uh, they they work in, um, in,
uh, intimacy coordination forhollywood movies, and um, they

(17:37):
told a story of of a of a movieset in which a very established
actress, a very famous,established actress, was on the
set, but she was older.
And then there was a muchyounger, ingenue actress who
were both on the set and theyhadn't met, and they both were
like avoiding each other for thefirst day because both of them
had this intimidation right.

(17:57):
Both of them had projected thatthe other person held more
power.
Right, the young woman was likethis is like she won an Oscar,
and the old woman was like thisis like she won an oscar.
And the old woman was like thiswoman's about to replace me.
You know, this is where thiswoman is, is where all the male
gaze is going, all the attentionis going, and she represents
everything, I fear.
And so both of them had thisright.
So, like, power is also bothdynamic and also perceived.

(18:20):
Right like perception, it playsa role.
You were talking about theprojections that people might be
putting on you that you mightnot be aware of.
Um, I think it's reallyimportant to recognize, if
you're you, how much power thatconfers on you, whether or not
you hold a specific formalposition of authority over
anybody.
Right like um, informal poweris often far more relevant than

(18:45):
formal power.
Formal power is almost easierto spot.
Right Like, I know that my bosshas power over me.
Right Like got it.
That's pretty basic, right,informal power, like this person
knows everybody at this eventand I don't know anybody.
This person is a consenteducator and I am automatically,

(19:06):
without even consciouslyacknowledging it, giving them
the benefit of the doubt forthis kind of sketchy shit that's
happening right now sexuallybetween us.
That's the stuff that where,where, where.
I see a lot of clients,especially my male clients, um,
messing up because in the mindsof maybe this resonates with you

(19:26):
, taylor, or in the in the mindsof a lot of men that I've
spoken with when I'm, when Italk about power, they're like
well, I'm not Elon Musk, I'm notDonald Trump, I'm not the head
of a fortune 500, whatever.
I'm not looking like these guyson Instagram on private jets,
so I don't have any power.
What are you talking about?
I was unpopular in high school,you know.
What are you talking about?

(19:46):
You know, like I still have towork for a living.
How could I help?
How could I?
How could I hold any power?
Right?
So our self-conceptions canbetray us and this is where I
see a huge amount of harmoccurring generally is, yeah,
it's the failure to acknowledgeour own power.

Yeah, can you speak a little bit more to that.
Like I think that's super juicy.
Like, yeah, like, say more likethe, the failure to acknowledge
our own power, like so, so okay, there's consent consent
educator who here it is?
Here it is Like like peopledon't know.

Okay.
So, like what I doprofessionally is I support men
who generally are either tryingto prevent themselves from
causing harm from their positionof power or who have caused
harm in their position of powerand want to use it as a source
of growth and evolution, whichinvolves really engaging in the

(20:39):
work of understanding, impactand conducting like deep, deep
seated behavior change transferand like psychological
transformation.
One of the biggest sources ofpsychological transformation
that I help my clients to see isthe degree to which they hold
power, because universally notuniversally, but like 90% of the

(21:02):
time in my, in my work withclients, it isn't actually the
actions that they've done right,it's not like this person
assaulted in it, right and that,and that's the problem, it's
usually this person was just alittle pushy, but from a
position of power that they failto recognize.

(21:22):
And then when I, when I, whenwe all brought it to their
attention, they got defensiveand when we talked about the way
that, like the person that theywere being pushy to was like
intimidated by them, they deniedthat that was possible.
And it's in the denial, it's inthe defensiveness, it's in the
abdication of power that thereal harm tends to occur and

(21:47):
that, okay, I'm going to saythat again.
So it's not in the original act, it's in how they were, with
realizing the act it's.
And so, specifically aroundpower, around not being able to
see.
Oh, like I I talked to, I talkedto a client yesterday who was,
you know, has gone through hisjourney and the issues that were

(22:15):
raised about him had everythingto do with he doesn't get the
influence that he has and theresponsibilities that come with
that.
That it's even if all thepeople that he and this is, you
know, this particular client wasin sex positive communities,
there was a lot of like hookingup with lots of people.
Even if all those people feelgood about it, even if no one

(22:41):
feels bad about it afterwards,he's still impacting the broader
field.
It, even if no one feels badabout it afterwards, he's still
impacting the broader field inthe indiscriminate and power
ignorant ways that he'sconducting his own sex life.
I want, I want.
I'm actually going to put this,this point, up front, because I
always save it to the end, butI think it's so important,
taylor, like most of us areoperating right from a very,

(23:06):
very ingrained position aroundsex and power, which is you with
me.
Yeah, all's fair in love andwar.
And so long as it's twoconsenting adults, no one should
be able to say anything.
Consenting adults, no oneshould be able to say anything.

(23:27):
In fact, it's actually sexnegative and shamey right to to
critique someone's sexualchoices so long as it was two
consenting adults.
So a 55 year old man in aposition of power sleeping with
his 25 year old secretary solong as they're consenting,
right.
So long, well, right, let'sjust not even make it her
secretary.
Maybe it's just like a 25 yearold ingenue who comes into his
community, right, let's just sayit like that, right, there's no

(23:49):
technical position of power.
Even let's say that he's noteven a teacher.
Let's just say he's a communityleader, you know, and he's just
.
Let's not even say he's theorganizer of the space, let's
just say that he's really wellestablished, right, 25, 50, just
the age difference alone andthe experiential difference will
create a ripple effect aroundhim.

(24:09):
And now let's say that he is incharge of big communities.
Maybe that she is in or out of,but it doesn't really matter,
because everybody in hiscommunity now doubts his
judgment and he, she, this woman, doesn't have to be harmed by
him for people to doubt hisjudgment, and this is this, is

(24:32):
this runs against so much ofwhat we've believed about, like
being sex positive and beingopen and like saying, oh look,
it's all good so long aseverybody's consenting, the
whole consent framework.
This is one of the things aboutgoing beyond consent like we
have.
Like consent can't be our onlybarometer of harm.
If it is, we're lost because wewill ascribe harms that aren't

(24:56):
actually consent violationsusing the language of consent
violation, which confuseseverybody.
Right, I'm sure we've all seenthat, right where guys are.
I didn't consent violate andthree years later, like trying
to make sense of it, she'sputting it into the language of
consent violation.
You know we're trying to makeconsent do too much of the work,
like.
The point is that oftentimesthings are consensual but also

(25:18):
really harmful, and I think whatmost of us want is to prevent
harm.
I think when we're, when wetalk about consent, what we're
really talking about is let'sprevent harm.

Yeah.

And if we're going to do that, that's a.
That's a deeper question and aand, frankly, almost a different
question, because there'splenty of things that are
consensual that can still beharmful.
And this is not just my point.
I'm going to cite some reallybeautiful influences right now.
Amiya Srinivasan, an Oxfordphilosophy professor, who wrote
a very controversial and amazingbook called the Right to Sex.
She makes this point aboutteachers and students often that

(25:52):
like, yeah, the teacher andstudent might be having
consensual sex, but it'simpacting the ability of
everybody else to learn.
Everybody else in the classroomcan't learn as well from a
teacher who's sleeping withtheir colleague, with their,
with their fellow student, right, um?
Katherine angel um just came upwith an amazing book called uh,
quoting michelle foucaultcalled tomorrow, sex will be

(26:13):
good again.
She's also a british academic.
For some reason.
They're just.
That's where the some of themost amazing thought thinking is
coming out of for consenttheory.
Uh, she makes the point of uh,why?
Why would we believe?
Like?
Why, why would we think that wecan always know what we're what
we want?
Like?
Consent orients towardseverybody being these rational

(26:36):
actors and say and being able toknow exactly what we are all
gonna like, what we all want andwhat we are gonna want which is
the true like?
That's not how human sexualityworks, right, you, you work in
sexuality.
That's not how things are.
So, like um.
Also, uh, clementine morganfrom canada, she?
Uh has come up with theattunement model of consent,

(26:57):
which is amazing, right, and ittalks about, like um, it
contrasts itself with thecontractual model.
It says like um, thecontractual model is problematic
for its lack of eros right oflike, agreeing to every step,
but it's also problematic forits inability to prevent harm.
Right, like.
Again and again, let's comeback to this.
Let's as a place to orient yeahright like, yes, we should aim

(27:20):
for pleasure, but I think weshould also aim to prevent harm,
and I don't think consent as a,as it's currently construed,
gets us there.
It's important, god knows, yeah, but I don't think that we
should limit our conversationexclusively to it.
We should, we should talk aboutharm.

I can what.
I'm thinking of a number ofscenarios right now, uh, in my
own community, and examples thatI've seen where consensual
sexual interactions havehappened and technically it's
within the realm of consent, butmassive harm happened from it,
and then there was massivefallout.
But then, because it wastechnically consensual, it's

(27:55):
like I don't have responsibilityfor that.
And then, and then I can see,like I can see how that right
there, like that's the, that'sthe trigger point, you know,
like that's the incendiary, howthat right there, like that's
the, that's the trigger point,you know, like that's the
incendiary, like that rightthere is the shit that will blow
it up and actually create moreharm and actually create more
harm.
And so, yes, the defensiveness,the blaming, the reversing of

(28:17):
like, oh no, actually no, I'mthe victim because you're
accusing me of something when itactually was consensual you
said yes to, you know, like it'sa total head fuck and yeah, and
and we don't have language, wedon't have right, like so we
don't.

So there is, in many ways, like a legit there's,
there's a deep legitimacy in inthe harm.
Let's just like, let's startthere in the experience of harm,
of like this this wasn't okay.
Like yeah, technically I saidyes, but he was totally
unattuned and he can teach hisconsent.
And yeah, he's totallyunattuned, like he rushed the

(28:51):
consent conversation and thatmade me feel pressure, like yeah
, I technically said yes, butlike surely we're beyond that,
and yet I don't have thelanguage to articulate anything
beyond like I felt violated,right, so like I don't.
Like I see, and that's, let'sjust assume that that's
authentic and valid and real andlet's like not diminish it or
patronize it in any way.

(29:12):
In fact, let's orient ourentire communities around
validating the reality of thatpain and right.
And if we haven't made that jumpas a community yet and we're
still using collectively thelanguage of assault and crimes,

(29:33):
and you know, and like rape isthis kind of crime and comes
with this kind of punishment andthis kind of social approbation
and salt is this, and you know,then, using the language of he
assaulted me, right, which,which, which is about a crime,
will and I'm not I hate to evencome close to even just touching
on validating defensivenessbecause it's so destructive and

(29:55):
it's like the defensivenessreally is the problem.
But I do understand the senseof like being like, well, no, I
did not assault, I wasn'tattuned, I abdicated my
responsibility as a leader.
I caused harm.
I didn't assault, right, and wedon't really like, think about
it.
Like we don't even have this inour lexicon, even in super

(30:16):
progressive communities, right,we don't have a language which
is bananas to talk aboutconsensual sex that was harmful
and I kind of.
And I think we need to, like, Ithink we need to have that
language, yeah, that we can saythis was really hard and we can
treat it seriously, like right.
This is the other thing likelet's not diminish the harm

(30:36):
because it didn't elevate to thelevel of a crime.
Let's, in fact, take the harmincredibly seriously, even using
a subjective scale of severity.
Yeah, right, saying like calmis in the eye of the harm to
doer, can we be present with thefact that this impacted this
person?
And the fact that it was quote,consensual doesn't matter.

(30:58):
What matters is the harm.

Yeah.

It's a harder way to live.

It is, it requires it requires more.
It requires more presence itrequires more effort, more labor
and, as somebody myself oranybody else, you who's in a
position of leadership like itseems like that's a necessary
part of it.
You know, like right nowthere's there's all these
different like sex workshopspeople can go to for sexual

(31:25):
liberation, sexual expansion I'mthinking ISTA is one of the
main ones that comes to mind andI've done ISTA.
I've had great experiencesthere.
I know other people have hadnot as good experiences there,
but I've gone to play parties,I've hosted play parties.
There's all this stuff aroundsexual liberation and openness
and also this conversation Ifeel like needs to be more a

(31:49):
part of it.
And I look back on some of myprevious experiences in these
spaces and, yes, there was talkabout consent, but there wasn't
as much talk about all thesedifferent nuances.
And I think like, if we'rereally trying to actually
advance as a sexual society,like, this kind of framework
needs to be in there as well, inaddition to the like having
your wild experiences at theplay parties, sure, like D shame

(32:09):
, all the like puritanical stuffthat we've been programmed with
.
And then, how do you navigatethe reality that maybe maybe
three of your past partnersactually felt really shitty
after they had consensual sexwith you.

You know, like, then, what you know yeah, and it
gets to like are the values inthis community or in this space
that we're holding in this playparty?
You know we are here to avoidlegalistic crimes against each
other.
Is that our standard, right?
Yeah, or is our standard thatwe're here to um, engage in high

(32:46):
risk activity?
That, right, where all of ourtraumas and triggers are evident
and we're literally gettingnaked and doing sexual things
with each other?
Incredibly high risk, right?
High risk, physically stirelated.
High risk around pregnancy.
High risk around emotional harm, even physical harm, and like

(33:09):
what?
I really honestly this is.
Again, this is not my originalidea.
I'm simply borrowing thephilosophy of the drug community
, which is harm reduction.
Right, the progressives in thedrug community are like this is
a high risk activity.
We aren't going to pretend thatwe're doing drugs without risk.
We're going to say this is ahigh risk activity, like rock
climbing that we all like to do,and and we are going to orient

(33:31):
ourselves towards preventingharm, being hyper educated,
right, being responsible in ourengagement and um and
acknowledging the potential ofharm um in ways that we might
not have been able to predict orbeen able to, you know, easily,
easily predict um right now, Ithink a lot of what's happening
in sex positive communities isthat it's just like it's a.

(33:54):
It's a greedy little gold rushand we're all in our little
trauma responses coming fromscarcity and trauma and
insecurity and we're rushing atplay parties and we're rushing
it to ISTA and uh otherneo-chantra experiences, seeking
peak experiences.
And I, I hold myself at thistoo right.
Like I, I definitely have beenconsumptive and habitual and

(34:18):
almost compulsive in my in myexperiences of sex in the past.
It's one of the reasons I tooka giant step back recently.
I'm six months celibate as wellas sober.
You know like I really do right, because I was going to a sex
party a week you know what Imean and it was delightful and
wonderful and cool and like veryconsensual, but it was also
like, hmm, kind of too much, butlike we're not.

(34:39):
Yeah, so we need to actually bein a space of harm reduction
and centering the potential ofharms that we can't predict and
getting good at it.
And so I think one of the waysto be Formula One drivers with a
modicum of seatbelts andhelmets is to be really not just

(35:00):
consent, educated, which stillto this day, enthusiastic,
verbal, non-verbal, everythingmost people when they hear
consent is like right, don't berapey, are we good now, totally
right, or most people really,what they hear is don't, don't
rate, yeah, frankly, yeah, yeah,for sure you don't violently
rape, and like, no matter oflanguage around, consent has, I

(35:21):
think, really effectivelyprevented that from still being
the thing.
This is just the obstacle, andthe obstacle is like I guess I'm
supposed to ask, but no onearound here is actually asking
for every step.
So there's immediately oh,that's the other thing there's
immediately hypocrisy, rightaway.
Like you know, if you want tocome into, like a sex positive
community right now, yeah, youknow what's going to happen is
you're going to hear a lot ofpeople talking about how you
need to have explicit consentfor every step, and then you're

(35:44):
going to look around and seenobody doing that and you're
going to immediately have thisexperience, this embodied
experience of incoherence, whichis traumatizing.
Frankly, right and and right oflike these people don't do what
they say you're going to do,which is bad.
Right, trauma, education,one-on-one, you don't want your
words not to match your actions,right, so like, not good, right
, like we're, we're preachingsomething that nobody does.

(36:05):
Right, because you see peoplelike, oh, like this person feels
comfortable with him, like he'sa tune right, and then people
will come in to that communityand be like, oh, like, is it
okay for me to do?
Is it not?
Like?
What is what are these rules?
Nobody gets it.

Yeah, um yeah, there's a couple of different
directions we could go from thispoint.
It's super rich conversation.
There's, there's.
I was listening to a differentpodcast of yours earlier.
Uh, in preparation for thisconversation and because I think
this material is so interestingand you said something that
that resonated with me, at least, I'll just bring it personally
for a moment.
My own experience in community.
I think you said, um, when, ormaybe it was a mentor of yours

(36:45):
that said something to theeffect of as a leader, you know,
when this person lets theirguard down, other people have to
put their guard up in a certainway, and so like.

So I'm thinking, I'm thinking so last night.

right, I'll just use my life as an example.
Last night I went to an ecstaticdance in Asheville.
I love ecstatic dance.
I play in a live music ecstaticdance band.
Like it's a great way for me tofeel free, emotionally free,
physically free in my body.
I also love dancing withdifferent people.
I love dancing with men, withwomen.
I love sometimes exploringflirtatious, uh, sensual energy
in the space as well.

(37:20):
And also, like last night, the,the I was just I was thinking
more like what is my impact inthis space?
You know, like what do I wantto have happen here?
While I was dancing and I waslike man, I really just want to
feel like free in my body and Iwould like shake around and do
all this stuff.
And I'm aware, like I'm arelatively bigger guy, I'm tall,
like I'm strong, I have statusin this particular community and

(37:42):
I'm like I'm sure I'm havingimpact on people that I can't
even imagine right now.
And like I'm there was thislike real big desire internally
to just totally let fucking go,you know, and like go nuts, and
but then, like I was realizing,well, if I do that to that
extreme, like it's certainlygoing to make other people kind

(38:03):
of shrink down a little bit orfeel something.
You know, there's gotta be somebalance point there, or is
there?
And I did figure out there areways I could get that experience
in my body.
Uh, that felt good in the space,at least for me, and I think
had a, you know, net positiveimpact on the space.
But it's something that I wasjust like, yeah, I was just
aware of.
So when I heard you say thatthis morning, I'm like, oh yeah,

(38:26):
like I recognize the desire tobe wild and free and liberated
and also, as this particularperson, like what is the net
impact of that on space?
And then what will the rippleeffect of that be?
You know, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I love that you brought that up and I'm
grateful for you for using yourown life right Like, yeah.
So that was very much AngelAdioja, my one of my mentors and
supervisors.
They, they, they say yeah.
When people in power andtraditionally kind of centered
people let their guard down,it's often the case that others

(39:04):
have to put theirs up.
Well, let's take the shame outof this.
Everybody, right, just becauseyou're a white guy, listen, this
doesn't mean that you have tolike now, like, be ashamed or
like just none of that right?
The point is, as another one ofmy mentors said one time, that
the idea of a space in which youdon't have to think about your

(39:24):
own power and the responsibilitythat comes with it is a I think
they put it, they said it's awhite supremacist wet dream.
You know it's, it's.
It's a conceit.
It's a conceit that we couldever set down our influence and
our power.
It's a conceit and it's a very,very conveniently self-serving
one.
Right, where right, in fact, I,I know that for myself.

(39:48):
Right, I had to get checked onthis right because I would go to
these private, intimate playparties, mostly with people that
I knew and trusted and that Iknew, knew me, you know, and my
story was oh no, these are theplaces where I can let my hair
down, these are the places whereI can be like loud and
obnoxious and exhibitionisticand really take up all the space
in the room and be you know,and not have to think about
power.

(40:08):
And in fact it's actuallyhealthy.
It's good for everybody aroundme for me to have those spaces
so I can let off that steam andthere I can bring my power,
aware self to my professionallife, right, right.
So I told myself a narrativethat it was actually good for
the world for me to have thosespaces, and I think it's
wonderful for people to havespaces in which they can be

(40:29):
themselves.
But I don't think that thatnecessarily translates that now
you don't have to.
Now you get to.
Now you get to be free ofthinking about power.
Now you get free of thinkingabout consent.
I've seen this in my clients too.
They're like, well, I thoughtwe'd establish consent, I
thought I could just be myself.
Now, you know, I thought like,since she kind of indicated that
she was cool, like I thought Icould just, you know, gonna, you

(40:50):
know, maybe smoke my joint andlike not have to think about
attunement anymore, because it'skind of a burden Totally To
constantly be attuning to otherpeople.
It's so much nicer to just kindof say whatever the hell I feel
, like, and wait, you know,really, you know, make sure that
I'm with people who trust me,but, like, just say whatever I
feel.
And I found that that's not true.
I've just found that there isno place where, like, people

(41:14):
won't be affected by you.
Even your deepest friends willbe affected by shit.
You say, even the people thatyou love the most and maybe who
share identity, privilegeidentities with you, right,
other cis, straight white guyswith you, know you can still
hurt them.
You know, like, totally, youknow you can say really, cutting
, undermining things and, um,yeah, like there is, there is no

(41:34):
space and there shouldn't beright and we shouldn't be
waiting to find it in which wedon't have to think about our
influence and our power.
But doesn't mean that you can'tdance, or even dance cool and
crazy, right, but like, even asyou're dancing crazy in the
ecstatic space, like, be awareof your surroundings, right,
like, oh, like, am I makingeverybody around me stand way
back?

(41:55):
And if I am, am, like, am Ioccupying that kind of center,
right, this is.
I used to be in the house danceworld, right, and it's like, if
you're going to be the guywho's like moving your body and
creating space and almost likecreating the cipher around you,
then like, okay, but own thatspace, do your dance, be
expressed, and then be attunedto the collective and move out

(42:16):
of it so that other people canwin.
In fact, you can even use yourloudness to empower other people
and people will have thisoverall impression of you as not
like unattuned mr guy who needsall the attention on him all
the time, which turns everybodyoff, but like, oh, this guy like
created the cypher, likeinstigated some cool vibes,
energies, and then knew, right,he could attune to the

(42:37):
collective and knew when to passthe mic right and you went like
, yeah, yeah, so this is so.

I think I want to sort of riff on this dance
thing for a little bit, becauseit's such a, it's such an
interesting microcosm of society, right like in non-verbal space
where people are interactingwith movement.
You can clearly see, just topreface, also in the dances
around here there's theagreement you're not going to
stare, you're not going to watchpeople, but people still
witness the space.

(43:04):
People still see the impact thatdifferent people have on each
other, and you can see that somepeople have very clear patterns
of impact in the space, likesome people move around the
space and try to interact withpeople in a way that, like,
doesn't necessarily feel thegreatest for other people.
So there's kind of like thisbubble that expands around them

(43:26):
wherever they go and people like, oh, I'm just going to slowly
move away from this person, butthey're not actually violating
consent.
You know they're not doingsomething wrong, but the vibe is
a little bit iffy, whereasthere are other people and this

(43:57):
is part of where my curiositygoes there are other people who
seem like they can embody thissort of almost like a generative
seeding the space withpositivity and connection, and
they leave a positive impactwith whoever they dance with.
Even if they're dancing whatsomebody would label as sexually
, somehow they're doing it in away that that feels like it has
integrity, you know, and itdoesn't seem to negatively
impact the space as much.

It's just super, super interesting but you're
talking about energy, yeah, andto me, like a conversation about
power, harm and consent, thatends up in the conversation
around energy and attunement isa good one right, like, so I'm
really happy that we, that wearrive here, like I always try
to, it's important toacknowledge the degree to which
the esoteric energies, the kindof the ineffable, the difficult

(44:34):
to describe energies that wecarry with us, impact the people
around us.
And again and again, I've read,I've read like restorative
justice reports and likeaccounts that are all very like,
formal, when, like the, whatthe reports consist of is like,
his energy was so creepy, Ican't point to it exactly and
technically I did consent, butgod, it just made me feel so

(44:56):
gross the next day.
Yeah, you know, and like, oh,you know, so, like, and people.
So we're trying, we're in goodfaith, we're trying to put to
words what is like the ineffableright, the, the, that which
cannot really fully be named,and so there are, um, there's
science to attunement.
There is, you know, there's,there's uh, proprioception, like

(45:19):
an awareness of our body inspace and kinesthetic awareness,
awareness of what your body isdoing.
There's um, uh, there's theability, without getting into
too many other terms, there'sthe ability for us to like
attune to, uh, where my energyis really being welcomed and
invited, based on your bodylanguage and the body language
around me, and like reallytuning in, like, oh, this person

(45:41):
, this person had like a littlebit of an uncomfortable vibe, so
I'm going to give them a littlebit more space and maybe not
look at them and maybe like moveaway, or I'm going to like slow
my movements down to be lesslike energetically and unattuned
to the people around me.
And, at its best, ecstaticdance is an incredible petri

(46:04):
dish laboratory for witnessing,not just like like I think a lot
of people come to it originallyfor like radical
self-expression, but where itreally is is like this is an
attunement lab.
You know, and like, if you'renot already incredibly good at
this, and I hold myself very,very gently as someone who is
still learning- yeah you know,like I like to think I'm attuned
, but like I'm still always inthe process of inquiry and very
much in the process of observingpeople who are really good at

(46:27):
it, sometimes naturally,sometimes as a result of a lot
of practice and skill, of likesensing into the people around
them and like raising the vibesor doing their own thing in a
way that feels like generative.
Yeah, so like yeah, yes to that.
And if you're confused aboutthis, go go to ecstatic dance or
go to some dance and notice,like start observing what is

(46:51):
that, what is that?
And really you start withyourself, like, how do I feel in
this person's presence?
How do I feel in this person'spresence?
How do I feel in that person'spresence?
Like, how did that person make?
Like, did they make me feelcomfortable?
Did they make me feel excitedto dance more?
Did I?
Did I feel turned off?

Totally yeah.
And also, just to be clear,like I'm not sitting here saying
that you listener or viewer onYouTube shouldn't go dance
sensually or sexually orpowerfully with people.
I just like wanting to bringawareness to all the all the
layers of everything and I'dlike to like shift into a
possibly a practical lens.

(47:26):
Let's say, for example, there'sa guy, he comes to you, he says
, hey, I've gotten these.
There's, like you know, five orsix reports from these
different women who've said youknow, like you didn't violate my
consent, but like I feelawkward and uncomfortable around

(47:50):
you and I feel like I've beenharmed from our experience
somehow.
And then this guy says, well,it's not my fault, like I didn't
violate your consent, etc.
Like what do you?
What do you?
What would you say in thatspace?

yeah, I mean the the part of the inquiry right,
and I'll just I'll just namefirst of all that, like when I
work with men, this is important, this is I'm gonna, I'm I'm
going to be tangential and go ona slight divergent tangent here
, but only because it'simportant to answer the full
question.
I promise I will get back to it, cool.
The first thing I want to sayis that I am not a

(48:30):
proto-feminist wrist slap forwhite dudes.
What does that mean?
I come from a place of love,like my work in the world is to
support mostly cis, straightwhite guys to be their full,
loving selves and make thecontribution they're here to
make.
I am not here to punish.
I'm not here to condemn.
I'm not here to eveninadvertently, kind of use the

(48:53):
language of restorative justiceto punish or condemn.
I am here because I love men,because I'm honored to play this
role, and so, like, the firstthing I would do is is is create
the trust energy with this manthat I see him right and that I

(49:14):
accept that he isn't trying tocause harm.
I accept even that part rightand I might inquire with him
about his relationship to harmand about his relationship to
his ability to cause harm and wemight, in that process, start
to uncover some of the maybewe'll call them structures of

(49:35):
knowing right, might maybe we'llcall them structures of knowing
right.
That right, such as, so long asI didn't violate consent, there
is no viable valid claim ofharm possible.
It's a big one, right, which isa very understandable structure
of knowing to receive from thesociety because our legal system

(49:58):
asserts it.
Yep, right, our legal systemdoes not have a crime for creepy
vibes.
Right, our legal system doesnot have a crime for sex.
That is regretted.
Both of those things can cause alot of harm, right, both of

(50:18):
those things can cause a lot ofharm, right, um, so I I start
with an inquiry around hisrelationship to harm.
Well, and yes, like, sometimes,like that you know, childhood
stuff comes up, his relationshipto you know and um,
defensiveness whenever they comeup.
But, like, ultimately, what wetry to get to in this kind of
first, first wave of work willbe a sense of his own standards

(50:40):
of integrity, his own values and, specifically, how it's
important to him to conducthimself in the world.
Is it important to me that thewomen I interact with feel good
about my interactions with them.
You know, or is it important tome simply just to avoid raping?
You know, it's like all's fairin love and war.

(51:04):
I, you know, I'm a rationalactor in a capitalist, cutthroat
society and so long as I don'tviolate the law I'm good.
And you might think thatthere's a lot of guys like that.
But I have been happilysurprised to see that they're
like and maybe this is aobviously there's a filtration
bias here of like the only kindof guys who would come to me but

(51:24):
like most guys don't come to meof their own volition.
Most guys come to me becausethey're pressured to frankly,
but when I really investigatewith them, they want to be
contributions in the world.
They don't want to cause harm.
They don't want women to regrettheir interactions with them.
They want to be contributionsin the world.
They don't want to cause harm.
They don't want women to regrettheir interactions with them.
They don't want to create thosewaves, even if it's only
because they realize that that'sgoing to negatively impact

(51:46):
their prospects in their variouscommunities and their
professional lives etc.
But generally also because they, you know, I know they're men,
but boy do we have empathy, boydo we have compassion.
We just don't know how to wieldour power yeah and it's hard
because we also have raginghormones and testosterone and we
have a deep-seatedpsychological or sociological,

(52:07):
uh, imperative to initiate andyou know there's there's all
kinds of masculine, femininepolarity stuff and, like the,
the fear of being a cuck or betaor whatever you know.
You know, um, maybe gen z cantell you on their comments if
those terms are still relevant.
But uh, but yeah, I start with,I start with compassion, I
start and end with compassionand I start and end with the

(52:30):
inquiry into harm.
But generally the path is to,like, get to the place where the
man can see that he wasviolating his own standards of
integrity in those behaviors.
Right, get him to see that thisisn't the woke police, this
isn't the woke mob or the cancelmobs coming after him, this

(52:50):
isn't feminism run amok, this ishim acting out of his own
integrity.
But oftentimes it takes sometime to see that.
But once you do, it's a lotstronger a foundation than just
slapping him into conformitywith a set of standards that he
still, that at his core he stillbelieves are externally imposed

(53:12):
by the woke police.
Right, and I use that term witha lot of intention, that's how
a lot of people think.
That's how a lot of themespecially think.
For sure.
So I have to be cognizant ofthat dynamic.
But yeah, does that answer thequestion?

No, I think it does and I think it's really
important.
I like how you humanize it,because I see something in the
field and noticed myself likehaving certain judgmental
qualities, characteristicssometimes, where it's like, oh,
this person did this thing,they're bad, you know, or or
cancel, even if I don't want tocancel them, I'm like cut them
out, you know, danger,dehumanize, like that sort of a

(53:53):
thing, and I think for somepeople, especially people who
have experienced the harm,perhaps that's a useful strategy
for them to create safety, youknow, in their life.

And also like in the context of being somebody
who's helping somebody to sortof right the wrongs or like heal
the harm, like it's gotta,there's gotta be a meeting on a
human level, you know, and yeah,and I mean I, I, I think it's
gotta, there's gotta be ameeting on a human level, you
know, and yeah, and I mean I, II think it's huh, I think what

(54:24):
you're, what you're saying, isreally important and I I really
like that you're naming it, um,from both the perspective of
someone who's a directlyexperienced harm, like, say, a
survivor, but also from theperspective of someone who's
maybe a third party observer,like what you're talking about
you being right I'm a guy'sfriend, I'm in the same dance
community as him or right, like,I am her friend, right, and

(54:49):
that's the majority of us right.
The majority of the roles thatwe play are not harm doer or
victim.
They're observer, they'reperson impacted by what these
other two people did, and it'sreally easy to judge.
So here's a framing that Ithink is really useful.
If all of us are especiallyyour audience, I imagine are

(55:10):
really on board with acollective social or or societal
project of sexual liberation,yeah, let's go there Then I
invite us to also simultaneouslyembark on a project of

(55:30):
decolonizing our minds aroundjustice.
What does that mean?
It means not thinking in termsof there are objective standards
of harm that correspond to theobjective standards of crime.
It means understanding thatharm is subjective.
Right, it means not insistingon every harm being something

(55:52):
that needs a right to a fairtrial.
We've seen that that does notwork for sexual assault right.
Right that, like it, will neverresult in any kind of justice
or healing for our community.
Right that we can't be copswith each other.
Right that we are not equippedto investigate each other, that

(56:14):
demanding an investigation bedone in the context of quote
accusations itself is harmful.
Right that approachinginterpersonal uh disputes or
interpersonal harm, especiallywithin the context of community,
of intentional community,through the lens of a judicial

(56:35):
mindset, of a litigious mindsetof well, I should have the right
to face my accuser.
I should have the lens of ajudicial mindset, of a litigious
mindset of well, I should havethe right to face my accuser.
I should have the right to afair and speedy trial.
I should have the right to haveevidence presented against me.
You know I should have theright to a lawyer and an
advocate.
You know, and this personshould be.
You know I should know exactlywho they are.
None of that applies.
None of that is safe.
None of that is how a goodcommunity can function.

(56:58):
Why?
Because all of those systemsmight be a decent way to run a
country, but they're not a goodway to run community, and we
tend to recreate judicialsystems within community and we
run tribunals and we exertjudgment on each other and,
frankly, none of it works.
So when I talk aboutdecolonizing our sense of

(57:18):
justice, I'm talking about allwhat I just said, right, and and
also what you mentioned of notof training ourselves, literally
training ourselves.
This is the process ofdecolonization.
We have to train ourselves notto jump to conclusions when we
hear someone did harm, right.
I mean, how many of yourlisteners dismissed me when I
said that I'd done this harmfulthing 15 years ago?
Right, yeah, I mean and youknow, god bless, like I'm not

(57:40):
going to insist that you acceptme, but like, what does it mean?
Like to or like?
I hate it when people try toanswer questions with questions.
So I'll try to be more specific.
Um, we have to train ourselvesnot to assume that someone's bad
when we hear that they did harm.
And that often starts with us,with training ourselves not to

(58:04):
think that we are bad when we'vedone harm Right.
We have to train ourselves tobe like I did a harmful thing
and I'm still a good person.
Right, I did a harmful thingand all you know, and I can and
I have the ability to, to bewith it, to be present to it, to

(58:24):
be present to the consequencesof it.
You know it's incredibly braveand in, and we all have to still
exist in our hyper litigious,cutthroat capitalistic society
too.
So, like we can't pretend thatthat's not around us or pretend
that that's not the soup we'reall swimming in and what we're
bringing into our littleecstatic dance enclaves.

(58:45):
You know we are, we arebringing that world in.
So we have to consciously be um,in the process constantly of,
of, of, uh, kind of liberatingour minds from that perspective.
And it doesn't.
And what's great about that isthat when we do as we do, we
find space for compassion forpeople who have done harm, space

(59:06):
for nuance, deep space forhealing for the people who have
experienced harm but might nothave experienced a crime.
Right, I think it's reallyimportant.
This is a survivor centricmodel, like, like, just because
he didn't commit a crime doesn'tmean that you're not harmed,
doesn't mean that you're nottraumatized, doesn't mean that
there aren't consequences thatneed to happen in order to make
you safe, in order to supportyour healing.

(59:28):
Crimes don't have to be apresent for us to really take
things seriously Anyway.

Yeah, I really like how you just spoke to that,
because I imagine there are alot of people out there who have
experienced harmful scenarioswith somebody and they can't
really pinpoint the specificthing and so they feel maybe
isolated or scared or frustratedand shut down and unsure how to
proceed.

(59:56):
And it's almost this form ofpossibly possibly even self
gaslighting that can happen,where, like, maybe there's just
something wrong with me or Idon't know what.
Something's just weird about it.
But like, I like how you're.

Mischa Byruck (01:00:09):
Well, and gaslighting from the community,
right.
Like like a lot of a lot ofI've seen survivors friends will
like kind of try to like askquestions that get to whether or
not assault was committed, andthey'll either convince the
person that assault wascommitted when it wasn't, which
is also destructive, right, orthey'll be like, well, it sounds

(01:00:31):
like it wasn't that big a deal,or rather, it sounds like it
technically wasn't assault, solike, like you know, so deal
with it, that'll happen.
Well, yeah, we'll deal with it,right.
Like both of which are reallyreally destructive.
It's really important withanybody just to be present to
their experience yeah you know,um, and especially if they're,
if they're feeling really harmed, to be present, to present to

(01:00:53):
their experience and the and thework especially like, because a
lot of people who have doneharm then themselves get called
out and feel harmed.
So I it's tricky, tricky,tricky industry.
I think it's also important,like there's such nuance in
helping someone who is feelingreally indignant and defensive

(01:01:14):
at the nature of their call outto like relax into what, what
accountability there is therefor them to take, um, and that's
why I mean I've dedicated my,my career to doing that well and
to doing that effectively, andit's super, super hard.

Taylor Johnson (01:01:31):
That's super, super hard, Like I've witnessed
a number of folks over the yearsuh, get sort of publicly called
out on Facebook or something,and I have seen their nervous
systems just go totally intofight or flight, you know, and
like get completely overwhelmed.
And I guess I will justempathize for a moment in the

(01:01:53):
sense of like I imagine hundredsof years ago or even prior to
Facebook, like you would neverhave a situation where, all of a
sudden, there's 500 peoplesaying like horrible things
about you all at once.
Like you would probably be in acommunity with maybe 20 people
or some smaller amount of peoplearound you, ideally in person,
talking to you about this thing.

(01:02:13):
So, like the reality of theonline call out who knows right?
I guess I'm just thinking.

I'm not, I'm not, not sure.
Actually, public public shamingis a tried and true technique
and it's been destructive forthousands of years.
Fair fair.

I just yeah.
So I just I guess I'm just sortof thinking out loud about this
, like the I guess you saidsomebody causes harm and then
they get accused or they it's,it's brought to light that
they've caused harm and thenthey feel harmed in the process,
right, like and and so that,like I just I guess I question,

(01:02:49):
like is empathy for them feelingharmed, a useful step in them
getting to the point where theycan realize that they've harmed
somebody else?
Do you know what I mean by?

that.
I mean, I think that's a verylegitimate question.
Um, I I think I think I'll startwith by saying, huh, uh, you
know, I am generally a believerin public.
Like adjudicating this kind ofstuff in public as a not last
resort sounds too judgy, butlike as a a step that really

(01:03:23):
needs to be taken with a lot ofuh, a lot of careful awareness
and especially, usually not as afirst step, like if you've, if
you haven't, tried talking tosomeone, if you've never
literally tried saying tosomeone um, um, hey, this hurt
me and it's safe for you to doso, and that you've got support
to do so, then that's somethingthat I think it's important to

(01:03:47):
to name is is ideal, and I'llsay that like a lot of times
that men who get called out,it's not because the person
calling them out like was socallous as to not consider
talking to them directly.
It's usually because there wassome degree to which the man

(01:04:08):
getting called out created avery clear impression that he
was not going to be receptive toRight.
So oftentimes when I work witha man who's been called out, I
say, oh well, I can see twoharms right away.
There's whatever you're accusedof doing and there is the way
that you've been such thatnobody in your community felt
like you would take it well whenthey told you directly.

Yeah.

Right, which is that you've been projecting
defensiveness.
You've been projectingdefensiveness.
You've been projecting a, anopposition or or a high
potential likelihood ofgaslighting If you were to
receive feedback.
You have maybe receivedfeedback and dismissed it.
You have maybe receivedfeedback and been callous about
it, especially feedback that'scome as like a, a consistent

(01:04:53):
pattern, especially feedbackthat's common, so like a
consistent pattern, and I meanand there's nuance here.
You know, like, especially ifyou're a leader, like I'm sure
you lead classes, like you mightget some feedback.
That's kind of like you knowwhat.
I'm taking this feedback andI'm going to not listen to it.
Like I think that I teach fineand like 90% people love it.
One person out of a hundred waslike I don't like your teaching

(01:05:21):
style.

okay, well, okay , but that doesn't mean I'm
gonna like radically shift myteaching style because you know
it's like you have to be.
There's nuance here, right,yeah, but if 10 people said the
same thing independently, likethat's worth looking at exactly
there's right.

So the the energy here is not one side or another
, it's it's discerning right.
There's just skill anddiscernment.
It's part of the leadership,it's part of being a good leader
is being able to discern.
Oh shit, what is there for meto see?
And um, I think that I thinkand this, this needs to be
mentioned being publiclycanceled is a trauma.

(01:05:54):
It is no-transcriptOstracization is akin to death

(01:06:19):
psychologically.
You know, like um, and not fornothing.
But I've had three past clients, um, kill themselves or
overdose.
I've had four past clients, um,x, like, exile themselves from
their communities and completelystart over um because they
couldn't deal with the um, withthe intensity of their

(01:06:39):
ostracization.
And so, like I don't like partoh, here's another part part of
decolonizing ourselves around.
Justice is not believing inpunishment, and this is a really
tough one, right like, yeah, ifyou right, if you're a prison
abolitionist, you got to reallyembrace some really tough stuff.
Right, because your instinctwill be like he hurt her, punish
him.
Right and be justified.

(01:07:01):
Right, I'm righteous in myquest for punishment for him.
Right and right.
So, like is the call-out anatural consequence of him
ignoring every single like?
Is there a group of his friendswho have come to him and been
like dude, you really need tochange, you need to look at this
.
And he's been like fuck youguys.
You know, it's like the callout is the last resort.
We're going to call them out.
They haven't changed.

(01:07:21):
Like is to just got a big callout, like I get it.
You know, like thisorganization was not shifting
right and this is I'm sayingthis is someone, it is a client,
right then, just fulldisclosure, um, and that's uh
public knowledge.

Uh, like I let me just like riff on that for a
moment, cause I think that is,that is such that is one of the
most important pieces.
I remember a conversationprevious podcast I had with
puppy on a therapist who workswith sexual assault survivors.
We didn't go into as manynuances around the harm piece,
but what he said was that intalking with all of the victims,

(01:07:55):
the people who've experiencedharm, none of them wanted to go
public Like, none of them wantedto really like call out or that
sort of a thing.
And if people did somethinglike that, it was basically a
last resort because the feedbackthat they had given or the harm
that they had expressed wasn'treceived well and it was met

(01:08:17):
with a wall or defensiveness orgaslighting or something like
that.
And I think that's so, so, sofucking important.

It's so important and even if I won't say anybody
deserves it, but even if it wasthe logical consequence of a
woman who had both felt harmed,didn't feel like, didn't like,
saw that the guy wasn't going totake the feedback, saw that
there was, that there was, therewas ongoing danger, which tends
to be like the real rationale,like the person's going to rape

(01:08:45):
another person, he's going to dothis again.
I'm calling him out publiclyand warning other people about
him because I think that he'sgoing to do it again.
Yeah, even then it's stillharmful and I don't mean, oh,
this is real.
I don't mean that it's notvalid, but let's be.
Can we just all take a deepbreath and be with that nuance?

Yeah, it makes me think and question, is it?
It is so nuanced in my mind I'mlike, yeah it, maybe it is
harmful and also, is it a netpositive in terms of overall
harm reduced?
You know, Sure.

And it and it may be and like, people can do that
calculation and people willdebate it and know, and there
will never be a full agreementwithin the community.
There'll be his friends who arelike fuck you guys for calling
him out.
There'll be, like everybodyelse who's like, yeah, kind of
felt like it was necessary, I'mglad he did his growth work.
And there'll be people who arelike he's never done enough.
He should just chop off hiscock and never come back.
You know, and like shit getsreal right and like.

(01:09:53):
And I also don't think that,like, I think it's a dangerous
naivete to think that peoplearen't motivated in part by
vengeance, in part by the desireto punish and by the desire to
um equalize the playing field,in part by the desire to um very
reasonably like correct formillennia of gender-based uh,
inequality and gender-based harm, um to radically distrust men

(01:10:19):
in power, myself included, um toand and very reasonably so.
So, like I don't think thatanything is simple of these
things are simple.
I don't come down into a can'tlike anti-cancel culture camp or
a pro-cancel culture camp.
Um, I invite nuance, I invitethe, the you know and like, and
I like this is this is comingfrom and I think, feel very

(01:10:41):
confident saying this like, evenlike and I am friends and in
community with a lot of victimsadvocates, like people do harm
in the process of surviving,harm all the time, the time, and

(01:11:01):
if you've ever been friendswith someone who has experienced
a rape trauma, then you mighthave also experienced them being
them lashing out at you andthat's real.
Um, it doesn't.
I like I'm not making thatpoint.
To make a point besidesinviting us to sit with the
nuance and complexity of harmand of the ripple effects.
I'm not saying anybody's goodor bad or righteous or not.

Yeah, or they should or shouldn't do that
thing, it's just, thank you.

Yes, no, I'm not saying that Like I'm God, I
really try to avoid normatives,you know, like I've tried to
avoid shoulds.
I invite us, I invite us, Iinvite us to consider the harm
of all of our actions, includinggoing to a sex party when you,
like, are noticing yourself in acompulsive pattern of hunting.
Including going to an ecstaticdance when you notice yourself

(01:11:50):
as like hunting for the hotwomen and then like going
directly beeline into them andthen going to the next one.
Like I invite us to considerand notice, you know.
So yeah, yeah.
No judgment.

No, really no judgment.
This is.
This is such an interestingconversation, Um, I want to keep
going just for a little bitlonger, cause there's some
pieces I want to bring in.

Uh rock and roll.
Thank you, thank you for this.

So the it seems like one of the prerequisites
for growth and actual healingand change and and repair is
that we'll just use like, likethe man, like you work with men,
like the man needs to want tounderstand right.
Ultimately, it seems like theman will need to be able to hear

(01:12:40):
and receive feedback withoutgetting defensive, like
ultimately maybe.

I don't know what would you say to that Like
ideally, but like one of one ofone of the parts of doing my
work, is being satisfied andindeed thrilled with incremental
change.
You know, like a lot of peopleare, like great Misha, you can
crawl, create the transformationthat we all want to see in our
male leader who's reallyproblematic, and then like, if
he just works with you after 10or 20 sessions, like he'll just
never be defensive and never beproblematic and never have like

(01:13:06):
an politically incorrect thought, and that will be the indicator
that he's now safe and we canbring him back.
But, my friends, I'm here totell you that that's not how it
works.
I wish it were.
That would be cool if I had themagic wand, but it's not right.
Like people are complicated,they'll take two steps forward,
one step back.
They'll get re-triggered bysomething and then go back into

(01:13:28):
their defensive patterns.
Yes, I'd say the skills, yeah,the skills to build that.
We're all human, falliblepeople building the skills.
But the skills to take veryseriously in building are the
skills of proactively seekingfeedback, of being energetically
attuned to the invitation inyour body to feedback, so that

(01:13:49):
people feel energetically oh,misha will take it really well
and people around you will vouchright.
So one of my big kind of likesuccesses in this is when, like,
a woman had a problem with mefrom, like, a play party three
years ago where I was just alittle clingy with one of her
partners and she noticed it andfelt like, really energetically
misattuned, and felt like, oh,me, she were trying to get in on
the group thing and like, andshe was right, and she held on

(01:14:11):
to that for three years, youknow, and in recalling it I was
like, oh yeah, I was cling.
I was clingy that night, like,and I will own that and I've
done work on that since then,like, but like, the victory was
her friend, her going to peopleabout me and then being like you
should go straight to Misha.
I am confident that he'll beable to take it well and I've
done this for some of mine Like,and this is like really

(01:14:35):
honestly.
One of mine is can I, if awoman came to me to complain
about you, would I feelconfident saying, oh, you can go
directly to bob like.
I am confident that bob willtake your feedback well and
he'll take it seriously.
He won't gaslight you, he won'tminimize, he won't deflect, he
won't get defensive.
That's a standard for me, forfriendship, but I it's a skill

(01:14:58):
that I invite any man to work on, frankly, I invite any human to
work on it.
Defensiveness is beyond gender,but especially men, especially
men in positions of leadershipor power or authority or rank,
even if they're not formally inauthority.
Where do you hold influence andpower?

Yeah, that's such a big thing.
Um, yeah, that's that's such abig thing.
Yeah, I would, and I would liketo think that my friends would
say that to people if somebodywent to them, because that's
super fucking important to me.
Like, integrity is very, very,very important to me, especially
as a sex educator, as somebodywho is in explorative spaces on

(01:15:34):
occasion.
You know, like, yeah, I reallywant to be that guy, like yeah,
you know, yeah, and I think, andI think it's a way it landed
and maybe, and right and like,but like, will taylor be able to
hold it?

totally, hold, hold maybe, and maybe hold my
projection without flipping itback on me, like doing that
weird fucked up neo-tantra guruthing of being like, oh, this is
your stuff, totally, I hear youlike, just like, put like
putting the mirror right up intheir face and be you know which
is super fucked up and like notOkay, Right, you have to be
able to say oh, thank you forsharing Like let me look at what
is here for me.

And if people are looking for metrics, you
know, like measurable things,like I think what you just said,
like that is a metric rightthere.
Like that it should be astandard that, like anybody in a
leadership position ideally allpeople, but like especially if
you're any in any sort ofleadership position, like that
should be something you shouldbe striving for, I think.

Yes, I went on 100% Like.
I mean I I hesitate to use likekind of like table stakes
language because I feel it's tooextreme or ultimatum me, and I
think it doesn't take intoaccount our us as like, if I had
to say I'd say table stakes, isthat like table stakes for
leadership is like a proactiveapproach to feedback and a

(01:16:47):
ability to genuinely commit towelcoming it with curiosity and
gratitude rather thandefensiveness.
And if you're not able to,genuine right genuine right
because no matter what the wordsare right, like have you ever,
have you ever heard that Right?
There's like a great episode ofthe office where where Michael
Scott gets some feedback abouthis coffee breath and he's like,
well, I'll work on that Right,saying the right thing in to

(01:17:10):
make it be over with morequickly, you know, but then and
that's worse, and then that willhave an impact that people will
feel, and then it'll create theripple effect, et cetera et
cetera, and at the risk of beingreviewy or redundant, like it's

(01:17:34):
worse because it createsincoherence.
People like it is a verydestructive thing for the people
around you for your words notto match your energy right it is
.
It creates incoherence.
It's one of the core traumatriggers.
He's saying it's okay, but Ican feel in my body it's not no
good.

Yeah, so this is one of the pieces you said in
the other interview, somethingto the effect of like if if I'm
a leader, then I have to matchmy behavior with the projections
that I'm putting out into theworld.

Oh yeah, let's talk about projections for sure.
You mentioned this at theoutset too.

Yeah, yeah, like whatever I'm presenting myself
as my behavior has to match that.

it it's problems, problems yeah you know, yeah,
yeah, I think that's so right.
I think that's so right andlike, so, like you know how I
was saying earlier that the propthat the harm of being a
progressive and feminist man andthen doing some sketchy stuff
around sex is like exacerbated,like by an order of magnitude.

(01:18:38):
The harm of doing some sketchystuff around sex when you're a
fucking consent educator isexacerbated by multiple quarters
of magnitude.
The level of betrayal thatpeople will feel is intense.
Right, people come toalternative communities ecstatic
dance, yoga, burning man, uh,intentional communities, co-ops,

(01:19:00):
you name it right, churchesbecause they want to escape, in
part, the kind of moraldepravity of our capitalist,
legalistic world.
Right, they want to be incommunity where we can relax
into our trust of each other.
So when the person that they'veplaced trust in to be

(01:19:21):
progressive, to share theirvalues, does the same fucked up
shit as the default world, guys,it causes more harm.
And I needed to emphasize thisbecause, like, I've had a lot of
clients who are super confused.
They're like well, wait asecond, I'm a feminist, I've
done all this feminist stuff,I've like elevated women to like
positions of leadership, right,and why don't I get the benefit
of the doubt?
Like, why don't I get like, I'mnot going out there and

(01:19:44):
aggressively violating people.
But it turns out that, likewhen when a man that you trust
and love right takes advantage,or maybe let's just say when a
man that you trust and love likedoes a like cops a feel it's
actually often morepsychologically detrimental than
when that man that you didn'tknow at a nightclub in Miami

(01:20:08):
tried to assault you Becausethere was no trust in Miami.
You didn't expect that guy to beethical.
There's no betrayal.
It's like oh, that was just ascary, scary guy.
That was scary, but this wasbetrayal.
I trusted him.
I let my guard downenergetically.
This is also true for a lot ofmicroaggressions and racism.
Right, like a lot of raciststatements.
Right, like when your friendsright say something racist, it's

(01:20:39):
way worse than like when somerando says something racist,
right, like so, so, yeah, solike the.
The the more progressive youare, especially that you can
proclaim yourself to be, themore dangerous you are.

And the more responsibility you have.

Yeah, I mean I'm phrasing it in a little bit more
of an aggressive way, but yes,the more responsibility you have
.
Yeah, I do that intentionally,like to draw our attention.
You can't proclaim values andthen not live up to them without
causing a lot of harm.

Yeah.

So be careful about the values that you
proclaim.

Totally yeah.
And to me, like.
To me, this, like what we'retalking about right here, like
some people if you're stilllistening like you're not in
this camp, but some people willdismiss it and say like, oh well
, that's just like there's a bugflying around me.
That's just sort of like wokenew age, like people trying to
like figure out the best thingsto do or like how to judge
people, etc.
And also, but I really feellike, if I feel like, to me this

(01:21:32):
is a spiritual practice, likeit's, because it's really.
What is the impact that I amhaving on the world?
What's the impact I'm having onmy community?
What is it positive?
Am I causing harm, more so thanany state of consciousness I
can achieve?
What is the ripple effect thatI'm doing and creating?
And that, to me, is thepractice.

(01:21:54):
If I could make a spiritualpractice for everyone and
prescribe it like, that would beit, you know.

Well, I mean, and I for for, for my clients who
veer towards spirituality, Italk about this as a spiritual
practice.
I talk about this as a way ofconnecting, like you know, to
being a channel for divine lightand for grace.
And, you know, for my Jewishclients, I talk about Tikkun
Olam and the idea of healing theworld through our actions.
For my clients from a morepolitical liberationary bent, or

(01:22:25):
liberatory bent, I talk aboutthis as being praxis, as being
liberational praxis, especiallyfor white men, that this is
actually a form of revolutionaryaction, to like accountability
as revolutionary action,accountability as liberation.
For my more, uh, executiveclients, I talk about this as
leadership skills.
I talk about this as a way ofdemonstrating evolved 21st

(01:22:49):
century masculine leadership, um, of being a position, in a
position of power thatrecognizes it.
I use um examples of otherleaders that I that that are
deeply respected, and I talkabout how this um creates
stronger teams, like, sendsmessages downstream, um to
others that, like this, is thekind of place where it's

(01:23:10):
actually not just safe butencouraged to call out your
leaders, you know, and thattends to create a lot more trust
, especially if you're trying tobuild a team with um people
from a diverse variety ofbackgrounds.
Yeah, um, that trust each otherwith a white guy in charge.
You really have to be thinkingabout this.
Yeah, so I think it appliesacross across.
Yeah, I think thinking aboutharm and impact applies across,

(01:23:33):
um, across worlds yeah.

So I want to move towards closure here and
talk about one last sort ofthematic thing while we're doing
that, which is some amount ofgoing into repair and apology
and how to how to do that.
I think that's a superimportant piece.
You said something uh, it'smaybe a quote I think you said
something I don't think it'sactually possible to be

(01:23:59):
accountable without a whole lotof dignity, and I I love that.
And then you also said I don'ttrust the apology from someone
who hates themselves.

Yeah, I did say that.

Yeah, which, which which is interesting, but
also like what I think it pointsto what I, what I heard in that
is that there's, like there'sthis sort of generative place
you could get to.
If you're somebody who's beencalled out or you've been said
that, it's been said that you'vecaused harm, there's a place
where you can, you could go intoa shame spiral and maybe you do

(01:24:33):
that, maybe you have youremotional release, but at some
point you can transmute that orchange that into actually you
know what.
Like I want to be a really, Iwant to be a really integral
person in the world.
Like my integrity is importantto me, my impact is important to
me.
So then there's this dignitythat comes from that and rather
than saying, oh, I'm so bad, I'mso sorry, I'm horrible, you say

(01:24:55):
, wow, like I messed up, I amsorry, like I own that, et
cetera.

You know, like different, different, different
flavor, right, yeah, well, Ithink, actually, the dignity
comes from being committed toyour own integrity, but I think
the dignity actually comes froma place of.
There's this great, great quote, and I'm going to I forget the
the name of the Seth Godin nomatter what you've done, it's

(01:25:25):
still your responsibility tocontribute your gifts to the
world.
That's the dignity.
No matter what you've done,it's still your responsibility
to contribute your gifts to theworld.
You have a gift to give.
I guarantee you, every manlistening knows that they have a

(01:25:48):
gift to give to this world andmake a contribution in their
lives, and that they want to.

Yeah, and I imagine sorry, go ahead.
No, well, no, please.
And I imagine like the fear ofgetting called out or said that
you've caused harm is ultimatelytranslated into the fear that
you won't be able to give thegift and have the impact on the
world.
Therefore, better to shove awayand keep giving the gift than
actually deal with it and beable to yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
So I think part of the part ofthis, the fear that a call out
creates is oh my god, I had thisgift to give.
I know that.
I'm sure for you and me, right,if we were to get called out,
like part of the fear that wewould experience would be well,
I'm right, we've got thesepodcasts and these classes that
you run.
Like what if I don't get to dothat?
Like that was my dharma, thatwas like my, the thing that was

(01:26:36):
meant to do?
Yeah, it's deep, sorry, withoutprojecting onto you, like it
would be deeply hard for me tolike consider not being able to
speak on podcasts and like, dothe writing and the teaching and
the coaching and the consultingthat I, that I do?
I mean, it's like I finallyfound my purpose in life.
You know, yeah, um, so I holdthat with, with delicacy, um,
but yeah, there's a deep dignityin in, in knowing that, like

(01:27:00):
it's still my responsibility to,to, to, to contribute those
gifts and and and to do so in away that's an integrity.
So I think part of part ofapproaching repair, I think I
really want to emphasize whatyou said is doing your emotional
processing separately.
I don't have better like withyour therapist, with your coach,

(01:27:21):
with your best friends, youknow, like screaming, calling
them names, like I really am adeep believer in, like
politically incorrect emotionalprocessing done in safe contexts
and containers.

Yeah.

Like I really think that that's important.
Like none of the successes I'veexperienced with my clients or
my clients have experiencedthrough me would come if they
hadn't gotten some pretty toxicshit out at some point.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
And this like let it emergefrom their system without it
being like a logical thing oflike oh, like this is like
evidence that you're bad or thatyou have you have wrong, think,
you know.

(01:27:57):
But like, no, just like, andand then show up for the repair
from a place of having alreadyexpressed that and had it
witnessed, ideally maybe by yourjournal or by your, your, your
God or by your community, in ahealthy way, and then show up
for the repair.
I mean, I could talk aboutrepair for so long, but like one

(01:28:21):
of the big things is to show upfor repair without the agenda
of um, it's like show up forrepair in the same way that we
show up for sex right withoutagenda.
Like I think it's actually canbe detrimental to assign, you
know, it's like okay, well,here's what I'm trying to get
out of this.
It's like, okay, you can sortof go there, but like I think

(01:28:43):
showing up a repair with theright energy is more important
than showing up with the rightagenda, because sometimes you
know, like and I see this happenall the time and that's that's
one of the reasons that it fucksup um, like mediations that
happen too soon after the eventPeople are like what's my agenda
?
My agenda is to get resolution.
My agenda is to get out oftrouble.
My agenda is to be cool again.
I don't want this to be a thinganymore.

(01:29:05):
I'd like this to stop being athing.
I'd like you to be okay with meand even having that as your
agenda going in, if you've donea harm could be the kind of
energy that will do more harm.
Right, the energy that will domore harm, yeah, right.
So I see this happen all thetime where, like, they go into
the mediation and she's like oh,he'll finally get me, he'll
finally receive me, and he'slike I just want to say whatever

(01:29:27):
I need to say to get out oftrouble totally.
And then the energies aremismatched and he hasn't done
enough processing, and you knowand like, and then it ends up
being worse, right?
So this is like number one mostpreventable mistakes
apologizing too quickly untilyou've taken the time to grok it
and you know, and really I, Iadvise, um, doing as much

(01:29:50):
preemptive emotional labor asyou can, like really putting
yourself in the shoe, like, yes,like if someone wants to share
their pain with you, great, likeyou know, you should be able to
hold that pain.
Um, and do what danielle surredthe um, who I quote all the
time she's the founder of commonjustice, which is a
brooklyn-based restorativejustice organization.
She calls standing in the fireof accountability, which is

(01:30:12):
sitting with someone telling youthe pain that you cause them
and just fucking standing inthat fire, yeah, which is so
hard.
It's a fire, totally nodefensiveness, no, oh, but you
also hurt me.
Or oh, like it's not that bigdeal, but oh, but like my, I
didn't have this good experiencein childhood, one time where
kids beat me up like, just thankyou, what else?

(01:30:36):
Right?
Um, yeah, um.
I think it's really important toengage in that, uh, what I call
pre-empt, uh speculativeempathy.
I imagine this person mighthave experienced this.
I imagine this person mighthave experiences.
I'm not going to assume that Iknow their experience, but,
given everything I know aboutthem, I imagine, imagine that,

(01:30:57):
like when I did that, theyprobably experienced maybe some
betrayal, some sense of like,distrust, like, oh, like.
If Misha did this and like, howcan I trust him to be a consent
educator?
God, like.
And then how can I trust thisorganization that's endorsed him
as a consent educator?
I imagine you experienced allthose thoughts and that must
have sucked for you.
Oh, I can go so much Like we'renot even we.

(01:31:18):
We don't.
I don't know if we have thetime to go into like, but
apology practice and restorationpractice is like a huge part of
my work.

Yeah, I'd say you know what I'd say?
Like, if you have the time,people can.
People can break this episodeup into chunks, so I think it
could be useful, Like if youcould.
You know, possibly there'ssomebody listening right now
who's like man, I'm reallytaking notes, I really want to
get this stuff.
Like let's.
I'd say let's, let's round.
Like if we can do that in 15minutes, whatever we can round

(01:31:47):
out to provide some actionable,something like I, yeah, I'd say
let's do it.

Yeah, so okay, if you've done harm and you know
it and you want to make itbetter, right, the first thing
is to be with your own body, bewith yourself, like, be with the
experience of doing harm andmake sure that you're not coming
from the place of like I'm ashit, shit, piece of shit, you
know.
So, not self-flagellating, youknow that that expression like

(01:32:14):
self-hitting and also right,well, like, welcome and
acknowledge the degree, like the, the various politically
incorrect feelings that you'llinevitably get like.
One of the first things thathappens after I do harm to
someone is I look at themthrough a red lens and I'm like
what a what a over sensitivejudgy piece.

(01:32:37):
You know, you know, like,that's my internal process.
I think most people's internalprocess is that we start hating
the person we harmed.
It's a defense mechanism.
It's quite common Accept it,recognize it, notice it, let it
pass through you, right, let itcome through you Some level of
like hitting a pillow or somesort of like expression going to
someone, having a big cry,being really self-centered in

(01:32:59):
your cry.
All of this should be doneprivately, not with the person
you harmed.
Right, lots of pre-work,restorative justice.
People call this prep.
Yeah, you prep.
You prep before you go into thecircle.
You really look not just atlike, where, like.
The inquiry is where you wereout of integrity.
That's usually the best, mostfruitful place to start.

(01:33:20):
A lot of people call this whatdid I do wrong, but wrong tends
to like apply to like a, anobjective set of standards.
Did I break a law?
Did I violate a norm within thecommunity?
That's that can be useful as aninquiry, but like it's also, I
find it much more useful to belike what did I do that was out
of my own standards, you know,and usually for this inquiry

(01:33:42):
it's useful to assume that therewas something right.
Like part of my practice.
You talk about preventativepractices.
We asked at the early set.
One of my preventativepractices is when any at,
whenever anybody gives mefeedback, I assume that it's all
true, all of it, and I just sitwith that.
It takes me anywhere between anhour and a week to just ugh

(01:34:04):
that stage and it's the worst.
It's the worst because I'mconsciously tearing down my own
internal defenses, all of myarmor that I've naturally
created, for myself to be likedismiss that one.
That's not real and just allowit in, and for myself to be like
, dismiss that one, that's notreal and just like, allow it in
and allow it to be true.
Like, what if this were?
Like what, if they're seeing aside of me that I'm not even?
Oh God, it's the worst,especially if you don't trust

(01:34:27):
them, if you're like thisperson's like not a good judge
of character and I don't trusttheir judgment.
They're just seeing a side ofme, you know, is just a facet,
you know, and it's not really me.
Ooh, okay, you've done thatwork.
Now let's say you've seen itand you've seen where you were
out of integrity.
You've seen where, like, oh,it's important to me to be

(01:34:47):
compassionate and I wasn't.
It's important to me to bethoughtful and to like, really
be like attuned and I wasn'tattuned.
Okay, when you like, I advisepeople to write out the
restoration, even if they end updelivering it verbally.
I advise people to take the timeto write it out, um, and then,
in terms of like, venue fordelivery or or or vehicle for

(01:35:08):
delivery, written, oral, inperson, et cetera, is, um, I
think, really a context based.
Some people hate written, somepeople hate to receive written.
They're like this isdispassionate or cold, um, some
people would really appreciateit, because it's like, oh, this
is complicated and I havecomplicated feelings and I want
to be able to sit with yourwords.
Yeah, and I know that if wetalk like all my instinct will

(01:35:28):
be to like, immediately tell youit's okay when you engage in
the repair.
Um, I have a whole practice onthis, but it's name the action.
Don't apologize for impact.
Name the action and then, whenyou apologize, apologize for

(01:35:50):
what you did, not for how theyfelt, not for what happened, but
what you did.
I am sorry that I hit you, notI'm sorry that you were hurt,
I'm sorry that you felt bad.

We use this in.

English all the time we say I'm sorry that
you're feeling that bad, I'msorry your father died, and an
apology letter really with me.

Yeah, except the one piece, just to clarify.
Like that I see in some peopleis like, like we talked to
earlier, just want to name itlike oh, maybe they didn't hit
the person, maybe it's not, likethey have a hard time clearly
identifying it, In which case, Ithink, go back and possibly
listen to the earlier part ofthis episode again.

Yeah, yeah, well, well, like, how about?
How about?
Like, I'm sorry that Idisrespected you, right, I?
Generally one of my moreadvanced techniques is to like
name the action that happenedand then, when you apologize,
apologize for the moreoverarching theme of the thing
that you did.
That was most impactful.
Like, um, I workshopped onerecently where it was a man with
his partner and he took off thetoll like sticker thing that

(01:36:54):
like allowed the you know andwithout telling them, and then
the person like got a ticketbecause, right, and it was like
I'm, yes, like, what I happenedwas I took off the toll sticker
thing on the car without tellingyou.
That's what happened.
But what I'm sorry for is thatI'm sorry that I took away your
sovereignty, because it'ssomething that we've talked
about a lot got it yeah you seewhat I mean?

(01:37:16):
totally, that's where the juiceis, that's where the resonance
is.
Yeah, right, that's what theperson wants to hear, not I'm
sorry for this incidental littlething, because the incidental
thing of the thing it's right inthe context of our marriage is
representative of all the othershit right and so like do you
get the impact right?
Do you get the, the gestalt,the holistic thing and that's

(01:37:36):
that's the advanced technique isto apologize for that.
Name the impact right, engagein the speculative empathy,
engage in like reflection ofright.
This is where your non-violentcommunication skills can come in
.
Of like I heard you say thatyou were hurt in this specific
way, betrayed, felt, violated,whatever it was, and then you
can say like this is how youfelt, this is what what your
experience was.

(01:37:57):
It's better generally to takeaway phrases Like you felt this,
better to use direct languageof like this was violating to
you, or you were violated, or Iviolated you.
People are pretty resilientwhen you say I violated you.
People tend to really tend to,especially in relationship, tend
to respect that and and tendsto land pretty easily.

(01:38:20):
So we've done the apology, we'vedone naming the action, we've
done naming the incoherence,we've talked about naming the
impact, and then the final twosteps are repair and prevention.
What am I doing to repair itright?
What am I doing to make itbetter?
I'm going to pay the toll.
I'm going to pay for yourtherapy.

(01:38:40):
I'm taking classes from anaccountability coach.
I'm, you know, I'm takingclasses with Taylor.
You know, maybe it's indirect,maybe I was pushy, in part
because I don't have goodcontrol of my sexual urges, and
so it's not about, like,learning to apologize better.
It's about like, actuallythat's the reparative act, right
?
Or rather, that's more of apreventative action, right, the

(01:39:00):
preventative action is gainingbetter control of my own
sexuality.
That's a journey that I haveseen now from this incident,
that I need to go on.

Yeah, just to say, also with a number of the
women that I've talked to overthe years who've experienced
some sort of harm from somebody,like, one of the biggest
important things that theyreally desire is evidence that
the man is changing the behavior, going forward like, and that
inherently is part of the repairprocess right.

Totally oftentimes prevention can feel
reparative, totally right.
Um, so I I I say that by sayingand sometimes there's actual
reparative steps.
For sure, it depends ondepending on the context,
depending on the harm, dependingon the.
But yes, oftentimes everythingin prevention functions as
repair, but you don't get toskip over the repair as well.

(01:39:48):
You have to think about theactual incident as well.
Yeah, but then prevention canlook really, really creative.
A lot of people get stuck onthese last two steps.
A lot of people like feel like,oh, I won't do it again.
The promise not to do it againworks once, and then you kind of
have to get a little bit morecreative and a little bit more

(01:40:09):
serious.
You have to really take itseriously.
And it's tough and we're allgoing to fuck up and we all
leave dishes in the sink.
Still, you know what I meanPeople tough and we're all gonna
fuck up and like we all leavedishes in the sink.
Still, you know what I mean.
Like people are.
People are fallible and you can, you can take the stuff as
seriously as as it's possible.
You know, you can, you know,and it can be a giant vehicle
for growth to really use thesethings as a, as a vehicle to

(01:40:32):
push yourselves forward.
Um, some more advancedtechniques.
Briefly, make sure that yourapologies are consensual.
Don't assault people with yourapologies.
Don't like attack with yourapology.
Don't apologize at someone.
Don't assume that your apologyis enough.
Don't assume you get it.
Don't assume that you've likeencapsulated everything.
I advise a double down techniqueof like saying, now that I've

(01:40:54):
apologized, like what else ispresent for you, right?
Which is like people are likeoh my God, whoa, really, I get
to like cause, yeah, like I'mreally interested, like is there
something that I might'vemissed or something that I
didn't really speak to?
Like take your time, oh, that'sgreat.
Don't make, don't, don't askfor forgiveness Please.
This is a weird thing.
Don't, don't say oh, pleaseforgive me.

(01:41:15):
I really don't say oh, pleaseforgive me.
I really don't like that.
I don't think anybody reallydoes Like they'll make it okay
when they're good and ready.
And I think pressuring someoneto like forgive you, first of
all, is pressure, which sucks tofeel pressured about anything,
right, especially if youroriginal harm had to do with

(01:41:36):
pressure and sex, right?
Second of all, it it makes itabout you, right.
Asking for forgivenessfundamentally makes the apology
a transaction.
It says now that I have givenyou gold, you will now give me a
horse, right, yeah?
And the forget right and theforgiveness is almost like
legalistic.
It's like now you've forgivenme, you can't bring this up
again.
Fuck all that.
I offer this to you withoutexpectations.

(01:41:58):
I offer this to you withoutstrings.
It's important for me, this isthe framing and this I got from
my anti-racism mentor, thereverend bridge feltus, at the
intersection for mankind, ifyou're curious, is the idea of
restoring integrity.
Rather than apologizing, it wasimportant to me to restore my
integrity and part of that was,was, was making the corrective
actions and the reparativeactions and the preventative

(01:42:19):
actions, and part of it is alsooffering you this, this
restoration, this, this, thesewords, but like I needed to
restore my integrity.
Thank you for witnessing melike you don't like.
This isn't just to pacify you.
This isn't right.
And if you come at it with thatangle, it tends to land a lot

(01:42:40):
better, because people are likeoh, this is about him wanting to
do better rather than him justtrying to make me not mad at him
and get out of trouble.
Yeah, there it is, quick anddirty.

Man, thank you so much.
Such a rich, in-depth,interesting conversation.
I really hope this has providedlike a rich, in-depth,
interesting conversation.
I really hope this has provideda resource for you, listener,
watcher, for people out there.
I'm going to go through and putdifferent timestamps throughout
the episode so people can go todifferent sections.
There's this one last piece thatI'm like oh, if I didn't say

(01:43:16):
this I would be kicking myself.
It's happened in a friendcircle within the last couple of
years.
There was a scenario betweentwo partners and one partner did
something.
The other partner felt hurt byit and the partner who did the
action that hurt the otherpartner didn't want to apologize
.
They didn't.

(01:43:37):
They didn't want to say I'msorry't.
They didn't want to say I'msorry because they, their
thought was well, if I say I'msorry, then I'm admitting that
I'm bad or fault or something,and that I can grieve the action
and impact, but without wantingto admit or say that I did
something wrong, cause I don'tthink I did something wrong.

(01:43:59):
I'm curious what happens foryou when you hear that.

Yeah, oh, it's really common.
Yeah, I mean I don't know thecontext or the Totally.
I didn't give you enough reallyto go on, but but like, it's
okay, I'll take it a couple ofplaces.
One is, you know, like, to thedegree possible we have, like, I
invite us to remove the, the,the words and the concepts of,
of allegation, accusation, guilt, innocence, right and wrong,

(01:44:30):
right, yeah, I right.
If, if, if part of theresistance is apologizing,
because that makes me wrong,that's already the big inquiry,
that's the big thing of.
You can do harm without beingbad, which is what I'm hearing
in that.
But there's also the whole ideaof admitting fault or admitting

(01:44:53):
wrong, um, or right.

(01:45:16):
So I would put it into thelanguage of like what was the
action in in the context of yourown integrity, you know?
And like maybe the actionitself that they're pointing to
wasn't out of your integrity,but maybe there was something in
the way that you did it or inthe context surrounding it that
was out of your integrity.
Like it wasn't out of myintegrity not to call you,
because I don't feel anobligation to call you, but it
was.
It was important to me to setbetter expectations about what
kinds of phone communication youcould expect from me, and I
didn't do that or somethingtotally I, without knowing
anything about what you'retalking about.
I really don't um, but like yeah, no, the make it the inquiry

(01:45:36):
about their own integrity andtheir own values as much as
possible in general is a goodapproach, taking out the context
of right and wrong.

I like that yeah .

And let's end on that.
I really want to mention that,Like it's so important not to
not to think you're bad bylooking at harm.
I hope to be an embodiment ofthat.
I say with deep humility, to bean embodiment of loving
yourself while also recognizingyour capacity to do harm and the

(01:46:11):
reality of the harm that youhave caused in the past.
I invite other men to step intothat form of leadership and I,
I I invite you.
If the water is warm, it's,it's okay.

Beautiful.
Thank you, misha.
We'll put all the links andmethods for people to get in
touch with you in thedescription of this episode as
well, as you have a reallyawesome resource around how to
apologize that outlines a lot ofthe things you just spoke to in
a really beautifully writtenway.
It's on your website.
Well, you can find that on yourwebsite.

(01:46:51):
Anything else you want to shareabout how to find you, I'll
have some in-depth Zoom coursescoming up in the fall.

I'll have some in-depth Zoom courses coming up
In the fall.
I'm designing one that's justfor leaders that really delves
into the topics that we talkedabout today.
I'm really excited to launchthat.
It's not yet launched, butplease follow me on Instagram at
Misha Byrick, and that's by farthe best ways to stay in touch
with me.
You can also sign up for mymailing list, which is um, on my

(01:47:18):
website evolved up men, and sogo to evolvemen and um.
Yeah, there's a, there's abeautiful world waiting for you
and I'll see you there.

Awesome.
Thank you so much, thank youfor being here.
Yeah, thank you Listener, thankyou Watcher, thank you Human.
I'll see you next time.

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Sexual Integrity & Men's Leadership - with Mischa Byruck

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