Masculinity, Mindset & the Messy Magic of Men w/ Christopher Daniels Part 2

What if the hardest work a man can do isn’t lifting weights—but laying down his walls? In the conclusion to this mini series of Radical Joy, James and longtime friend Christopher Daniels dive deep into the tender, tangled terrain of men’s mental health, vulnerability, and the radical strength found in being seen.

🧡 Brothers, breakthroughs, and the bravery of being bare-hearted
💥 Shame scripts swapped for self-compassion
🧙 Weakness re-written as wisdom and worth
🌱 Neural pathways, wheat fields, and planting new patterns
⚡ Friendship, faith, and the funky “shelving unit” of connection
🔑 Support without smothering—asking is its own superpower
🔥 Affirmations that feel funny at first (but fuel real fire)
💬 “I statements” that shift storms into steady seas
🌊 Emotional physics: heavy hearts, lighter loads
🌟 Radical joy rising from raw, real conversations

This two part conversation is an honest, heart-heavy, hope-filled conversation about how men can move from isolation into integration, from silence into sovereignty. 

The path to radical joy isn’t paved with perfection—it’s built by brave, messy, moment-by-moment connection.

Check out the mankind project 

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Take care of yourself, take care of each other, and breathe!  
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Got something on your mind? James never runs out of things to say, so tell us what you want to discuss!   

Remember there is no shame in joy or for asking for what you need.  

Leave a review, send us a screenshot, and we’ll mail you a sticker! See you next FRIDAY for another dose of Radical Joy.  

James is not a therapist, but you’re not alone. If you're in crisis, call 988 for professional help.  

For non-emergencies, Psychology Today can connect you with support and therapists who fit your needs.  

This podcast and CLW Studios content are not therapy or a substitute for it. Guest opinions are their own.  

We're here for insight and encouragement but always seek professional support when needed.  

This episode was Produced and edited by Kerri J of CLW Studios

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, friends, So happy to have you here with us today.
A radical joy. If you've been here before, welcome back.
If this is your first time with us, we're glad
you're here. Each week, we're here with you talking about
things that weigh on our minds and hearts, hoping if
you're dealing with something similar, we can adjust our perspectives
as you listen. Hey, if you're struggling with something that
needs immediate attention, please know that help is available. Just

(00:24):
on nine eight eight nationwide in the US to reach
the Mental Health and Suicide Crisis Hotline. All of us
here at COLW Studios believe that mental health is a
vital part of our well being. The more people we
meet and the more places we go, the more we
realize how important it is to make people aware of
the fact that there is no shame in enjoying the

(00:46):
parts of our lives that are incredible. It's time for
some radical joy, and this week, the three fingers pointing
back at us are for our guest, Christopher Daniels. A
Michigan boy from Midwest Chris moved out to Seattle in
his early twenties and still calls it home twenty years later.
He has worked in sales for seventeen years, where he
found a love of psychology and a deep care for

(01:08):
his clients. Nearly a decade ago, a friend suggested he
attend the New Warrior training adventure through an organization called
The Mankind Project. Since then, Chris has walked the path
of helping men be better men. Today, you'll find him
often coaching people through tough spots in their lives. Chris
specifically aims toward elevating communication and emotional intelligence.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, there's something interesting about about what a journey means
as it relates to the other people in our life.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
About I'll never forget.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I was sitting on a Washington State ferry going somewhere
for work, and I had a good friend of mine
on the phone and I was just in tears and
sadness as I was talking to him, because I said
to him, like, I'm scared that I'm going to have
to leave a lot of people behind that I love

(02:09):
dearly because I'm going somewhere and I'm starting to get
the sense that they're not they're not coming with me,
but they that they they can't because and this is
all judgment and projection. I had a judgment that that
they weren't growing, they weren't evolving, they weren't they weren't

(02:32):
taking a personal journey. And so I was out here learning, uh,
you know, new emotional math and science.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
I was.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
I was learning new ways of talking, new ways of
looking at myself, new ways of looking at the world.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
And and and they and they weren't.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Like the number of times I've heard someone say, I
just like this is just who I am. And I
I I that statement, and I also test that statement. Yeah,
I love the statement because there's something beautiful about the
recognition of like, this is who I am. Like there's

(03:12):
something actually really powerful about acknowledging who I am versus
who I am not. There's something really strong in that.
I detest it because it oftentimes I've seen gets used
in a manner, in a method that is defeatist, that is,

(03:34):
this is just who I am in response to me
challenging someone to grow, to be better, to you know,
see their faults, their foibles. There there's more efforts for you,
their failings.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
To thank you. I've got a list on my left
shod me.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Clearly someone got up with bestoris thanks.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
That you know that they that they look at you know,
the things that are holding them back, and they go,
I just I just want to be I just want
to be better. And so when someone says like this
is just who I am, like it just feels like
they're stuck. And I was having such a hard time
with that it was bringing me to tears. I'm happy

(04:23):
to report that I figured out a way to kind
of have my cake and eat it too, where I
was able to learn to have have my life trajectory
be what it was going to be, and learn to
just love and accept people for who they are and
understand that they may be stuck for a little while,
and they may be stuck the rest of their lives,

(04:44):
but that that doesn't mean that I can't have them
in my life. It just means I had to orient
how I interacted with them and especially you know, what
I expected from them. I I read something the other
day that has just been rattling around in my head.

(05:04):
And I'm paraphrasing because I don't have it here in
front of me, but essentially it was and I think
it was meant to talk about romantic relationships specifically, but
the essence of it was that some people will run
away because they're afraid of who they would need to
be to be with you. They're afraid of the work

(05:28):
that they would have to do to be in your
orbit to keep up with you. And man, that's just
been sitting with me in such a heavy way of like, gosh,
how true is that? Because I know that the person
I am the way that I live my life, and
you know this better than probably most people in my life,
I think in some ways without without overtly doing, and

(05:51):
I'm demanding excellence from people, you know, Like I'm saying
all of this stuff like I talked to you today
on this Podcass, the way that I talk to all
of my friends, Like it's with this language, it's with
this technology, it's with this intention of just saying I
am headed somewhere. I want to be the best version
of myself as possible. And now I'm starting to understand

(06:12):
I think that that scares the crap out of some people.
I think it really does.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
It absolutely does, And it's one of those things I'm like,
all right, so do I speak to make them comfortable?
Because part of my becoming is using that language around
my most important people. They need to know I want
them to know, so if they have something to add
or something they can do to support, I think a

(06:38):
lot of them would want to, and we'll often offer.
I was like, great, just so you know this is
what's going on. It's hard for them not to see
judgment in our eyes if we voice those goals and methods, attitudes, exercises,
whatever for them if they're not on a similar journey, right,

(07:00):
I've had friends that have said something like that. It's like,
I think you just need to know that as long
as you're doing what you consider to be your best
and aren't being a trash human being, that's okay. There's
still something in you that is very valuable. Otherwise I
wouldn't be here. It feels almost transactional, but it isn't
every one of my friends. Every one of my friends
have something in their lives and their hearts, souls, skill set,

(07:23):
however you want to put it that I would love
to integrate into my own bag of tricks, and that's
why I have them there. They're very useful. Sounds transactional,
and I hate that sound.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
It's just.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
If you're not picking up something from the people with
whom you spend your time, what are you even.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Doing there, I'll take it a step further.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Ready, I'm going to say something that's probably gonna sound
super transactional awesome.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Then I won't feel as bad.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, exactly, That's why I make you feel better, I judge.
At some point in my journey started thinking about it,
like what's the what is the whole point of connection?
Like why are we connected with people? I believe strongly

(08:23):
that human beings are innately incredibly selfish and I and
I'm using that word because I think it's the word
that most people would understand, and I hate.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
That it's such a pejorative.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
I think that people start and I don't think that
we can help it. I think that the human brain
essentially starts with self. And I'm at the risk of
sound like I'm a walking billboard for Brene Brown. I'm
gonna channel her yet again when I when I say that,
so much of what she says has just impacted me

(08:57):
in such such profound ways, which is why I just can't.
I just can't sing enough praises for her and encourage
everyone else to go read her books or watch her content.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
She said, and I love this statement. The human brain
is wired.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
For survival and there isn't even a close second as
to what it does. And so if you think about
every decision that you make, every conversation that you have,
every thing that you do in your life is wrapped
around the idea of survival. How do I get what

(09:36):
I need? How do I move forward? How do I
get from the beginning of the day to the end
of the day, to tomorrow to next week? How do
I live as long as I can? How do I
know manage the stress that I have in my life?

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Like?

Speaker 3 (09:48):
How do I do things? It's all IIII And I
don't think.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
I don't believe that's inherently wrong, because no one's coming
to save me. I'm responsible for me. You know, I'm
the only person that is going to do what's needed,
what's necessary. I'm the only one that possesses the total,
the sum total of visibility to my life. I'm the

(10:14):
only one that can make the decisions that are necessary
for my life.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
And so.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
This mental math equation is, of course, I have to
start from self. And I want to be clear, I'm
not advocating the selfishness. I'm not advocating that we shouldn't
care about other people or that we shouldn't build relationships
because we're incredibly social species.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
We need that stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
What I'm seeking to do is to identify and almost
give permission to myself, to you, to anyone else that
it's okay to say, yeah, wow, Like everything I do
really is in service to myself because it has to be,
because it has to be. And so that's the first part.

(10:59):
The second part it is, you'll, if you grant me
the premise of what I just stated is true for
purposes of this conversation. Then the next logical step in
that is that virtually every decision that I make that
stems from inside myself is to get something that I need.
So you'll see where I'm going with this. My relationship

(11:20):
with you, which perfect there's the two of us here talking.
My relationship with you is such that when you and
I get together, I'm getting something out of it. I
choose to believe that you're getting something out of it.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
I hope that you are. But frankly, it's none of.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
My business what it is, or how much it is,
or how long it lasts or any of that.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Kind of stuff, because I just don't know what it is.
I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Like I've had people, you know, come up to me
and say, gosh, crisee, you're so important to me, you
mean so much to me, Like you do this and.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
You do that, and I'm like, I feel like I'm
doing nothing.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
I feel like I'm doing absolutely nothing, but like my
nothing as someone else's everything, right, And so I get
something out of again, back to you and I. I get
something out of our connection. And I judge that you
get something out of our connection. And I believe strongly
that those two things are never the same. Even if

(12:19):
it looks the same, they'll have different levels. It'll, it'll, it'll,
you know, be contorted in some way differently, Like we
could say, oh, we both get love, we both get attention,
we both get something like sure, it's.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
A cop out of the sort. Yeah, because that's very surface,
that's very obvious, and it.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
May be true. But there's something if we were to
really break it down, if you and I say here,
which I don't think we should do, but if we
sat here and got really granular about it, we would
find that you and I get entirely different things out
of our connection. Now here's where, and here's the last
thing I'll say about this diatrite.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Uh that.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
I think of it in terms of scales, and I
think that there are times in ever relationship where someone's
giving a bit more and that's okay. You know, when
one person is ailing, when one person is sad, depressed,
what have you like, someone may give more and it's
okay as long as it eventually starts to kind of

(13:22):
like as long as it continues to go back and forth,
it's not a problem. If it is like this for
a protracted period of time, this is where one of
us is going to start pulling away.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
One of us.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
May just cut off the other because now it's I'm
not getting anything, and likely I'm feeling taken advantage of
because I'm just giving and giving and giving and giving
and I'm not getting anything back. Yeah, and again, it
doesn't have to be the same thing. You know, we
talk about equity versus equality, right, Equality is you take

(14:06):
out the trash, I take out the trash.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
You do the dishes. I take I do the dishes.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Equity is you do the dishes because you hate taking
out the trash. I take out the trash because I
don't care and I don't like doing the dishes. And
we're both happy because the trash and the dishes are
being done, yep, right, And so I think that if
I have this belief that if people understood that all
of their relationships were transactional, and again, like it sounds

(14:35):
like a pejorative to say it like that, but that
I'm giving something to you even when I don't know
what it is, and you're giving something to me even
when you don't know what it is, but we're both
getting something out of it, and both of us feel
loved and seen.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
And heard and valued and held then and what else,
what else matters? That's my thought.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
The system survives because the trash needs to be taken
out and the dishes need to be washed. And as
long as that gets done and everybody's happy with it,
the way in which it is completed, I sounds like
a win. Yeah, And I honestly the way that you
describe it makes it sound even better whenever we put

(15:21):
it in a phrase like that, because it may not
seem like much to you, but to someone else it's something.
It's like water in the desert. It's an oasis. And well,
you know, that's just something that I've always done. Great.
I think you need to understand that I am operating
from a sense of lack for that specific thing that
you're doing, and when you do that for me, it
is huge to me, even though it is an afterthought

(15:42):
for you. It's not a scorecard. Yeah, it's just that
there is something in you. It's like jasaw puzzles. There's
a piece of you that fits in that space perfectly
in someone else, or at least very very well, and
it continues to be a good fit. And whenever either
that piece no longer fits properly, or you know, perhaps

(16:03):
you find a piece that fits better, there will be
a change in a transition period and you try to
figure out something else, and then it'll be what it'll be,
because again, not everyone is forever. And that's I'm gonna
give that a lot of okay too, I'm gonna give
that so much grace because whenever you meet someone, sometimes
the attraction is strong because you see something in them

(16:26):
that is just so abundant that you find lacking in
your own that the attraction is immediate and it's almost
phenom level. You get it and it feels you it
at least states that that craving, and then you start
to see what else is attached to that, you know,
the person, their habits there, whatever, and you're like, oh, oh, okay,

(16:48):
well this is not necessarily someone that I would be
long term connected to, so maybe we'll make a little
space now this has been filled, and people will judge
it like that sounds really unkind It's like maybe be
or maybe it's just one of those things where I'm
sure that I had my own contribution to the relationship,
and then whenever it became unbalanced, I found something else

(17:10):
that was more nourishing or cultivating for my goals, right,
and that that should not be something that we're unhappy
about or ashamed of.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
There is.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
There was something I read once upon a time that
was like people are People are in our lives in
a seasonal capacity, and we just don't We just don't
know how long that season is going to last. You know.
I say that every person that walks into our life
can serve a purpose, and.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
They might be in our lives all of it.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
You know, Like my little sister, who's one of the
closest people to me in my life, has been around
for forty years now, and I've met people in elevator
rides that we share something for.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
A minute and a half. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
And so the question is is do we have the
strength of conviction to see the value that someone brings
to the table for the time that they're there, so
that we can love them and connect to them for
however long that we have them, you know, or or
do we not have that ability?

Speaker 3 (18:28):
My I've been I've been.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Using this, uh, this term for some time. I call
it the shelving unit of friendship. And I want to
be super clear, I don't have an image. There's no
there's no there's no like you know, clearly defined tears system.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
There's that. I don't.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
I don't have a document that I can pull out
for you that that has like criteria for each of
the levels.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
It's not that deep.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
I'm really glad you said that because it immediately made
a picture in my mind and there was a hierarchy
going in a spreadsheet somewhere for sure.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
So yeah, you just saved yourself. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Please continue.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
I'm listen.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
I'm open to the idea that for some people that
actually might make sense. I'm open to the idea that
for some people that is a mental exercise that actually
might help them that they need to go like, what
are the things that I need for a top tier
top shelf friend to do? And then what is below

(19:25):
that looks like I don't personally feel the need to
do that, but I'm opening the idea that might help someone.
The whole idea of the shelving unit of friendship actually
came from a shelving unit right over here to my left.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
That still sits.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
I brought this out to Seattle with me twenty years
ago as a bookshelf that my dad had purchased. It's
in the shape of a boat, so it has kind
of a point at the top and then comes down.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
And so.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
I was just sitting one day thinking about this. I
think I was reading a book about friendship and connection.
Happened to look up at this bookshelf and I was like,
it gets narrower at the top, so the top shelf
is smaller, and it's sort of in alignment with you know,
older ideologies of circles of friends. How we talk about

(20:16):
like my inner circle, and then there's the circle beyond that,
and sometimes people have lots of circles beyond that. Some
are like my inner and then that's it, right. I've
always loved the idea of this shelving unit of friendship
with you know, especially the top few getting smaller because

(20:37):
it mentally helps me shape the idea that not everyone
can nor should.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Be a top shelf friend. And that's not meant to
demean other people.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
It's just meant to acknowledge that some people have a
depth of character and connection that really means something, you know,
like as an example, he's one of my favorite examples,
my buddy Pete. I doubt he's going to listen to this,
but if he does, Pete, you're a good friend and
someone I hope to have for the rest of our lives.

(21:14):
Pete's been a video game buddy of mine for fifteen years.
He's one of the guys I play a lot of
online video games with, Like you know, we're always looking
for games where you know, multiple people can play them
so that we can play it together. And he's just
not someone I go to for emotional support or psychological anything.

(21:37):
Like if he asked me how I'm doing, like, I'll
tell him, but you know that, you know, him holding
a space for me is not a strong suit. And again, Pete,
if you're listening, that's not meant to not meant to
tear you down. It's just meant to be like, listen,
there's so much stuff in this life I'm not good at,
you know. And so I tell people, like, in my
professional capacity, I think I'm pretty good at sales, and

(21:59):
whenever there's a new salesperson, I'll say, listen, here's the
things you should call me for that I'm.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Really good at, you know.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
I talk about the psychology of the sale, how to
connect with a client, how to read body language, how
to read between the lines, how to you know, assess
who you're talking about, Like I'm your guy, I'll sit
and talk about that stuff. And definitely I'm a subject
matter expert. But if you want to know about these
five things over here, don't call me. I don't know
anything about them. I'm not good at them, right, And

(22:27):
this is this has been part of my masculine journey
of not being afraid of being weak, that I don't
have to be a subject matter expert about everything under
the sun.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Right to tie it all together, and.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
I don't think there's anything wrong with me having a
really deep connective relationship to my buddy Pete that just
doesn't involve the emotional and psychological component. I would judge
that some people would say, but why do you have
someone in your life that you don't feel like you
can go and talk to about these things? It's like,
because he fills another bucket for me, Yeah, he does

(23:01):
something else. I feel connected with him because I get
to go do something I enjoy with someone I enjoy
doing it with because we do that thing very well together,
you know.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
But I don't.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
I don't get on a call with him like my
good buddy James Bullard and have four hours of psychological
emotional connective types of discourse and dialogue breaking down everything
about society and ourselves and our trajectory. Like I don't
do that because I have James for that. And I

(23:33):
think that there's something really powerful in understanding the roles
that people play in lives and that this person plays
this role, this person plays that role.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yes, and that I have a.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Few that sit in the top shelf, like my sister,
like you, like a few other people that are my
go tos that I know that they have the strength,
the education, the training, the resilience, the wherewithal to hold
space and way is that I need to feel held,
heard and seen and.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Then there's a desire. Yeah, we want to do that
for you.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's the thing too.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
And then there's a whole bunch of people who don't.
And it doesn't mean that I can't be friends with them.
It doesn't mean that they don't have value. It doesn't
mean that I don't learn something or get something from them.
It just means that they're in a different place in
my heart and my life. And I think that that
is totally fine.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Agree so hard.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
I agree so deeply with that statement. It's we talk
about those kind of things, especially when we're talking about
romantic partners or just friends or things like that. It
is unfair and unwise to ask everything of your partner.
That person is not capable. I don't care how great
they are, they're just not prepared.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
They are not enough.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
You need a tribe, You need a group of people
who can do that for you. Also, there are things
that I would love to sit and talk with you
about and help.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
You with that Pete would detest.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
He would hate every single second of it, to be
uncomfortable with it exactly, So why put him through the
awkward if he doesn't love it? Where I would revel
in it with you would listen, turn it over and
thank you for the kind words, and we would get
somewhere with it, and we would both enjoy it. It

(25:23):
wouldn't be a dinner of Brussels sprouts and cabbage, like
we'd really sit down to some meat. It would be wonderful.
And I think a lot of people don't necessarily take
that into account as well. It's like, hey, if someone
really enjoys being that for you, it is not a task.
It helps fill their vessel as well. When you ask

(25:44):
that of someone who is just not enjoying it, that
can be a chore and they may not have the
bandwidth for it. Doesn't mean they love you any less.
It just means that that's not why they're in your circle.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Cool, I think I have.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
So there's a there's a process in the mankind, Prince,
So when men sit in circle, in an I group
and an integration group. So again we talked about the NWTA,
the Primary integrat the New Warrior Training Adventure, the Primary
Integration training, and then the third leg of that journey
is sitting in circle in an integration group.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
An eye group is what we call it. We just
shorten everything too many, too many words. So we shorten
it to letters.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
And the I groups are meant to be a group
that we meet with weekly, bi weekly, monthly, same group
of dudes usually, And there's a pure facilitated men's group,
meaning that they'll take these actual processes that were written
by psychologists and it was meant to be anyone can

(26:57):
take this paper, read the lines, walk a man through
a process and help him learn something about himself and
figure out a path forward.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
You don't need to be a specialist. You just need
to read this document.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Which is one of the things I love about it
is that.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
From day one, as long as you can read.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Hey, hey, hey.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
As long as you can read, read this to that
guy right there and get help right immediately. And one
of the processes in there, and it's a process that
doesn't get used often for probably a lot of reasons,
but one of the processes called King's Court. And one

(27:41):
of the things I started doing after learning about the
King's Court was I started molding how I talked to
the people in my life using that terminology where when
someone calls me for support, and someone calls me for
advice or to hold space in some way, I oftentimes

(28:05):
will say listen on and be clear, I don't know
what you should do, and I'm not qualified to make
the decision for you. I am just a member of
your court. And that's how I see myself is I'm
just an advisor. You are the king, you are the queen,
you are the sovereign of your kingdom, your queendom, your sovereignty.

(28:27):
I'm just here as the advisors, the vizier. And you
can do anything or nothing with that information. You can
take it and run with it. You can pack it
up and throw it into the waste paper basket like
you can do with it whatever you want. And I
say this for two reasons. One is to empower someone

(28:51):
into their sovereignty to make the decision, which I think
is really is a huge part of work. It's a
huge body work for a lot of people finding sovereign.
Some people don't contend with that as much. My sovereign
was asleep. I had to wake them up and figure
out how to charts and courses. And then the second
thing that it does for me, because I had a

(29:13):
strong white night syndrome for a long time, is it
allowed me to remove myself from the need to hitch
my cart to that horse and just be completely attached
to that person's outcome. The Buddhists have a philosophy that

(29:36):
attachment is the root of suffering. And the more that
I have learned to unattach myself from someone else's decisions,
from someone else's life, from someone else's everything, yes, the
lower my expectations of someone else is that's me unattaching

(30:00):
myself to someone else's everything.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
The healthier it is for me, and the better I
can show.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Up for that person because now I'm not trying to
round peg square holes and they know you have to
do it this way, Like I'm telling you, like, this
is the way it has to be done. Why, Like, Yeah,
I'm invested because I care, But I can't care someone
into making a decision that I think is right for
them and then it ultimately winds up not being Yes.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yes, I have used that phrase at my own sort
of situation on it so so many times. My job
is not to judge their actions. My job strictly is
to love and support them in those actions. If they
ask me, I'll do my dead level best to help them.
Their decisions are their own, and all I can do

(30:48):
is stand here and cheer them on whenever they win.
And put back team on their knees whenever they fallen,
screat love and support. That is my job if I
see them creening for the edge. I had a buddy
ask me, because we were talking about another friend of ours, said,
if you saw me doing something that you knew was

(31:09):
going to end up the way we think it's going
to happen for him, would you say something? And that's
a hard question to answer, And I look at him.
I said, well, firstly, I just don't think that you
would ever find yourself in that situation. Honestly, you're a
very different person with very different goals and priorities, I said,
And chances are very good I would not. You are

(31:29):
a grown man. We are of a very similar age.
If you were to make this decision, it's not my
job to tell you whether or not it was good
or bad. It's my job to make sure that if
you are soaring that I applaud you from the ground,
or if you come crashing down into a muddy heap,
well okay, I'm here to sort of, like, you know,

(31:49):
clean you off a little bit and throw you back
up in the air. And I don't know that he
was really happy with that answer. But I think most
people it serves them better just to know that you
are basically the training wheels. You're not guiding, you're not steering.
All you're doing is providing just a little bit of
support to make sure they stay upright while they're going

(32:10):
and doing whatever it is they're going and doing.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
And that's it. Yeah, there is.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
I believe because I used to be like this, so
I have a belief in a judgment that a lot
of other people are like this too. Is that when
we have someone in our lives that we really care about,
we attach ourselves to an idea that if we don't
yell and kick and scream and prevent them from doing something,
that we are at fault. Right, we are responsible for

(32:45):
someone else's choices. We are responsible for someone else's falling
into the mud, and if they fell, it was because
I didn't do a good enough job of preventing this.
I'm not a parent, but from what I've not but
and what I've seen from a lot of my friends
that are parents, is that they really struggle with this.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
And I get why.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
It makes sense, Like you take this tiny, tiny human
being who cannot survive without you, and then maintain that mentality,
and then all of a sudden, they're just supposed to
not be like that when they turn an adult, as
they get older, they as they're individuating as a team, like,
they're just supposed to not continue to do that, right,
And so parents specifically really struggle with the idea of

(33:29):
not saying don't do that, like let me show you
the right way to do and so on and so forth,
and so to the point that you were making earlier.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
If I have someone in my life who I.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Feel is making just a catastrophic decision, like they're going
to do something that's going to really harm themselves or
harm other people, Like someone wants to go I don't know,
skydiving without a parachute. Yeah, Like, I'm going to find
stronger words. I'm going to pull someone aside and.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Say, this is your decision. Let's start with that.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
I really feel like this is a bad, bad decision
that's going to lead to a lot of pain and
suffering or death if you do this. And here's why.
And I care about you, and I don't want to
see you in pain. I don't want you to suffer.
I don't want to see you go down this path
because I am afraid of what's going to happen, right,

(34:22):
and I care so much about you, and so because
I care so much about you, like I just want
to say this thing, and I only there's anything wrong
with that, especially like if it's a really potentially grievous
situation that we spend the time to find the words
that let someone know how sincere we are.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
About this thing. And at the end of the day,
once we're done, we have to be done.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, we have to attach that cart from that horse
and just say I've done my part. I'm not going
to be responsible for someone else's decisions. I've done everything
that I can sort of put him in a straight jacket,
throwing him into the paddage room, like I've done everything
I can, you know, and like your decisions are not

(35:08):
on me anymore.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
And I often think that I get over involved in
the lives of my friends are having the past. I'm
working on it because I have things in my life
that need attention that I'd rather give to someone else
instead of focusing on my own foibles and strengthening those.
Oh boy, that is a big problem that I'm dealing

(35:31):
with getting better. But I've acknowledged it and so we
do with it, and some days you do great, and
now there's you. You know, there's room for improvement, and
that's that's not the way to make yourself any better.
And it probably annoys the friend because they probably see
it a lot better than I did. It took me

(35:53):
a while to figure that out.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
And you know, to your credit, though you're on a journey.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
And self reflection such a is such an important part
of that journey, you know. I was telling someone the
other day, this is something I struggle with.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Is I walk away.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
From virtually every conversation that I have with another human
being and I replay that tape over two, three, four,
five times looking for the areas where I said too much,
I said the wrong thing. Could I have said it
better this way?

Speaker 1 (36:26):
You know?

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Was I too passionate? Was I too much? Like the
amount of times? And I'm sure that you hear this
probably more than the average bear about like too much
because some people, some people are a lot right. And
I hear it from my friends with big, bold personalities
throughout their life. They give you know, people will say
you're too much, you know, because they have a really

(36:48):
introverted friend as an example, and they have a really
extroverted friend, it's like, Wow, you're just so much Now
that may sound like a condemnation or is it just
an acknowledgment that this person lives their way louder than.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
The other person does.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Right, Like, learning to separate these things is really important,
which is why one of the most important things that
I feel like I teach. And I spoke with my
co author Nick about this, and this weekend that I
have coming up in September, we talk about this. One

(37:24):
of the most important things that I teach is I statements.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
I was just.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Talking with a friend last night who's going through a
hard time with a person in his life, and it's
so easy to bring up judgment and projection when talking
to other person. You do this, and you act this way,
and you don't care and you display that, and that

(37:53):
may be true, and the deeper reality, the deeper truth,
is that it's my perception, it's my interaction inside myself.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
That I'm uncomfortable with. It's how I feel.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Based on my own wounds, my own trauma, my own
stuff that's getting triggered that I'm uncomfortable with. That is
forcing me to take all of that and project on it,
project it onto someone else, and so.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Understanding that that's what's happening.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Through self reflection, through leaving a conversation with someone and
going did I show up in the best way possible?
Did I use ie statements? Did I communicate.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
As clearly as I could?

Speaker 2 (38:45):
And if not, how could I have said it better?
That's the journey is what could I have done better?
So that I can train myself to do it better
next time. Here's my favorite, my favorite thing to talk
about in neuroscience. I want to be very clear, I'm
not a neuroscientist. I'm just a curious and learned person.

(39:10):
In neuroscience, there are pathways in our brain, and the
way that our brain works is sending signals down.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
These pathways, and our brain seeks to.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Get really good at the thing that we're trying to
accomplish by the more that we send the signals down,
it strengthens those pathways. This is what allows someone to
play Mozart without a piece of sheet music, because they
play it over and over and over and over again.
And so my favorite visualization has always been a wheat field.

(39:48):
If you picture yourself in front of a wheat field
and you walk through that wheat field. Once, you might
see some places where the wheat has been knocked down
by a footfall, but chances are you're not going to
see much. If you walk down that same path in
the wheat field every day for six months, you're going

(40:10):
to see a very clear path of where you have
been or where someone has been. Right, our neural pathways
are this are the same way. And so if I
think a certain way, if I talk a certain way
and I don't want to think that way and I
don't want to talk that way, I have to make
the pivot to make that shift, and then I have

(40:33):
to consciously walk a different direction. And then the next
time that comes up, I have to go, Nope, I'm
going to do it this way. Nope, I'm going to
do it this. We have to keep pulling ourselves away
from that old path.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
It's a physical pairing.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Sure, it's a physical pairing, yeah, to to create the
new neural pathway for ourselves, because this is how we
make the change again. I can't go into a folder
and pull out that coating that's there, chuck that away
and put in new coding and say oh, I'm a
new person.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Going forward, right. Wouldn't that be great and phenomenon how
that works?

Speaker 3 (41:09):
Yeah, it's not.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
I've met two people in my life who say that
that's how they are. I'm dubious, but I'll take them.
I'll take them at their word that that's how they are.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
For the other ninety nine point percent of people, we
have to make a shift, conscious shift, to walk a
different path in our brain and keep walking it over
and over again.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
And part of that is self reflection. Part of that
is I.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Don't want to tell that joke anymore. I don't want
to say that thing anymore. I want to show up
with kindness, with love, with joy, with radical joy, and
I want to be this person, and I have to
keep forcing myself to continue walking down that path to
get to be the person that I want to be.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, that's beautiful and useful. It's it's not just about
making a new thought and trying to steer clear of
the others. It's a literal physical pairing with the new
thought and a new direction. It's like whenever we would

(42:16):
have learned things in elementary school, you would get like
a hand motion to go along with the words, and
as long as you remember the physicality, you'd remember the words,
and vice versa. If you remember the words, you could
remember the physicality. It just brings a whole other hemisphere
of the brain into the process and it integrates it
into a muscle memory situation. I would assume as well,
so that whenever that happens again, you will feel it

(42:37):
almost like a haptic on a phone, like oh, a
little almost like a little shake.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
In many ways, this is how this is. This is
how therapy operates. If you go in and sit with
a therapist. I was talking with therapists once upon a time,
and we were having this deep discussion about what therapy does.
He goes That's all I do is I ask questions
to help people have a realization and then craft a

(43:05):
plan of how they can go work the'se like. But
I can't work a person's plan for them. There's no
there's no magic wand. I can't boop someone on the
forehead with my magic wand and they suddenly just don't
do that thing anymore. It is find find the peace
inside that hurts, apply love to it, craft a new

(43:25):
path forward, and help encourage that person to put up
whatever guardrails they need to whatever side signposts. They need
to to continue walking that new path to create the
person that they want to be. Yeah, for most people,
that is the only way forward. Which, by the way,
I used to think that affirmation statements were the dumbest.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
Thing on the planet.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
I used to think.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
I was like, what on earth am I going to
get out of this affirmation statement? And through a lot
of time and trial and error and education and through
a lot of what you and I are just now
talking about, have come to understand the power of it.
And I'd like to be clear, affirmation statements don't untraumatize anyone.

(44:15):
That's you know, again, this is the whole No mount
of sugar takes the piss out of the cup kind
of thing like.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
It.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Affirmation statements are a tool. They are a piece to
the puzzle. There is no silver bullet to mental health,
emotional wellbeing. There are some tools that work better than others.
There are some tools that work better for certain people
better than other tools for other people. Affirmation statements and

(44:46):
mission statements are great.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
They're really good stuff. I told you before.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
I have an affirmation statement on my door and I
read it all the time because I'm trying to create
a new neural pathway. And you know, the best to
create an affirmation statement is to come up with a
version of you that makes you feel a little disgusted inside,

(45:10):
to say out loud, okay. It is to come up
with something that, when you read out loud, you you
just feel dirty.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
You go like, that's not me. Why would I ever
say that? Okay? Because it's the person you want to be.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
And the only way we get to being the person
we want to be, the only way we get to
where we're going, is.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
We have to walk that path.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
And that path is laid with bricks of the statement
I've made about who I want to be. Now, it
still takes the actions, it still takes the footfalls, It
still takes intention and hard work and constantly shifting from
the old path to the new path. But if I
don't set an intention, if I don't put up a

(45:53):
signpost that says this is where I'm going, how do
you know where to go or what path to walk?
And that's I think the valuebold affirmation statements. But again,
I just want to be clear, affirmation statements are not
the silver bullet, because nothing is.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
No and it's just another tool in the box to
try to help our processing of whatever it is, to
try to isolate. And sometimes whenever you talk about it,
for whatever reason, a picture in my mind becomes a wound,
but a deeper wound, one that's already closed and covered again,
and so that fester in, that bacteria continues to bubble

(46:31):
and multiply, and what you have to do often is
open it, drain it, get you know, sometimes you've got
to scrape out the stuff that has no business being there,
just because if you don't, the entire organism could suffer
or perish. And though none of that is pleasant, all

(46:53):
of it is necessary if you want to save the
organism I have.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
I've made this statement a few times over the last decade.
I'll sit with a friend sometimes I'm just kind of distraught,
and I'll say, I wonder if I'm doing too much
work on myself, which is such a weird statement to
say out loud, because it's like, what do you mean,
Like you're trying to be too good of a person?
Like what does that even mean? It's like because sometimes

(47:23):
it just is so heavy, it's so hard, it's so difficult.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
You know, when I sit.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Around and I am reviewing ad nauseum. The conversations that
I've had.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
Go on.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Gosh, I wish I hadn't said that to James in
that way. I feel like I should. You know the
thing that I see, you know the thing that I
walk away from most conversations saying. The thing that comes
up the most for me is I talk too much.
I wish I'd listened more. Yeah, I just get so

(47:58):
jazzed about this stuff. I get so fired up with like,
oh my gosh, I just learned this thing. Let me
share this. It's like it's because to me, it's like
feeding someone is there's almost no separation in my mind
with giving someone a plate of food. Then by taking
something I've learned in this space and handing it to

(48:20):
them like they are analogous. They are the same thing.
To me in my mind, I feel like I am
nourishing the people that I care about, even the people
I don't care about, even the people I don't know,
even the people who I just met. My friend's brother,
who I mentioned earlier in this conversation. I didn't know

(48:41):
him from Adam. I have a relationship with him, and
I was on the phone with him for three and
a half hours the first time, four for the second,
and if you were to call me again this weekend,
I'd sit on the phone with him for another few
hours because I feel, in my own way, like I
am feeding someone, Like that's how important I feel like
this stuff is. And so because of that, I feel

(49:03):
like I talk too much. I feel like I was like, gosh,
I wish.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
I would have listened more.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
I wish I would have asked more questions, because it
is not about what I'm saying. It's about what someone
learns about themselves. So much of therapy, so much of
a journey is self discovery. It's it's that's where the
inception comes from that I was talking about earlier when
I talked about, you know, working with my co author

(49:29):
trying to figure out, like how do we get people
to take.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
A journey of self discovery? And it's like, well, we can't.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Like every time, like we have, we have robust discussion
about it, and it's always the same answer.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
We can't.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Like, there's no way to do inception with someone and go,
you need to take a journey, you know, even though
I could look at someone who's clearly needs to be
on a journey and say you clearly need to be
on a journey. Please, like, read this book, listen to
this podcast, like go go to an NWTA, like go

(50:02):
do anything, like literally, go do anything. Go take a journey,
take the first footfalls on a path of self improvement,
because the person that you could be.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
Is waiting for you. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
I don't know how to get people to realize that,
but I'm gonna try.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
And that's all we can do. Honestly, you cannot love
someone into doing better for themselves because also your idea
better for them and their idea better for them are
rarely the same idea that so many lessons that I've
learned the hard way. And again that's where that whole
thing in my job is to love and support. You know,
if you have questions or whatever, want to know more

(50:49):
about my journey so that you could maybe integrate some
of those ideas, You're welcome to them. I just don't
know if that's going to be the helpful thing because
it's so personal. Yeah, and yeah, of course I have
ideas of how to make their lives fuller, better, more
insta worthy, whatever you want to call it, and that

(51:10):
may not be the thing that really turns their world around,
and I have to continue to remind myself because I
did the same thing and continue to do the same thing.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
I love to talk.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
I get so excited we talk about things like that,
and the first thing I want to do is just
love bomb the hell out of somebody and tell them
exactly what it is I think that they have that
sets them apart, that makes them superlative, and all these
kind of things, and that is not at all what
that person needs. They just need someone to talk to,
to sit there and hold the space and listen while
they sort of like spin out the chaff and keep

(51:42):
the wheat on the on the blanket and they start
to really get to the crux of the matter to
see what's important, what's not, and how they grind the
flour to make the bread.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
I have.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
I've started using a term and I've used this with you,
and it was so awkward for the first like year
to say a lot because it felt so clinical to say.
And nowadays I've here again like this is the neural
pathway uh situation. Now it doesn't feel uncomfortable. I also
found different ways of saying it too, and this has

(52:25):
been part of my journey on on helping my white knight. Sendrome,
my white knight. You need to ride in on on
a on a white horse and with my with my
sword and shield out and slay some dragon. As I
started asking people what kind of support would you like

(52:46):
from me? And at first it just felt so clinical.
It felt like I don't know, it didn't it didn't
feel warm, It didn't feel like I cared it was.

Speaker 3 (52:57):
It felt more like, yeah, like, what do you want?
What do you what do you need for me?

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Yeah, let's let's get down to it, like you're saying
a bunch of stuff, what do you need? But over time,
I've learned to feel more comfortable with it. And as
I've felt more comfortable with it, I can hear the
love and the affection and the intention in my voice
when I say that sounds really tough. What kind of
support would you like for me? Because I want to

(53:25):
offer you something that you feel would be most helpful.
I don't want to make up a story in my
head that I know exactly what you need in this moment.
And because I've learned to phrase it differently, and I've learned,
you know, to feel more comfortable with it, and I
think maybe the people in my life have just gotten
more acclimated to it. That man that just pays me

(53:48):
such dividends, because now someone.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Will say I just need a hug.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
I just needed to say that I I don't know,
do you want to go out to dinner? You know,
like all of a sudden, I've now positioned them into
their sovereign by compelling them to think about what they
need in that moment, and I've created space for them

(54:15):
to ask in a place of safety for the.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
Thing that they need.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
And simultaneously, while I'm giving them what they want, I'm
also removing myself from this need to go slay a
dragon that doesn't.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
Need to be slay. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
I am not projecting the thing that they need and
then offering them a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Yep,
what is it that you need? I just need to
say that out loud. Okay, is there anything else you'd
like to say? Because I'm not trying to rush you
off this call. I'm not trying to tell you you

(54:56):
can't keep talking. I just want to make sure that
I'm in alignment with where you want to go with
this sure so that I can be the best support
structure as possible to you, you know, and sometimes if
I feel if I feel really jazzed in the Mankind
project and sitting in ie group backup, So there's more

(55:22):
context to this. So I mentioned earlier about processes. In fact,
I happen to have my binder processes right.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
Here next to me. Nice.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
I talk about the art and science a facilitation, and
the reason I talk about it this way is that
the science of facilitation.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
Is the document is like.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
This is the stuff that was created by psychologists and psychotherapists,
people who know what they're doing to walk someone through
a process in a certain way to achieve a certain goal. Right,
That's the hard science of it that I can trust
is going to do well. The art of facilitation is

(56:15):
when I get really comfortable with the process, I start
to see commonalities in what may show up in another man.
And I say another man oftentimes because I'm most familiar
with men's work. But I'd like to be super clear
that ninety nine percent of what we do in MKP
is not just male related, like it would be absolutely

(56:39):
applicable to anyone who identifies in any which way, because we're.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
All human beings. And while there may be slivers of pieces.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Like we talked about the masculine shame trigger and the
feminine shame trigger, there may be pieces that are more
angled towards one piece of energy than another. We're all
kind of dealing with human psychology, and all of us
kind of fit in these buckets in one way or another.
So I hope that you and anyone listening would give

(57:09):
me the grace and understand that when I say men's work,
like you don't have to think of it just as
men's work. It's just what I feel most comfortable, you know, vocalizing,
and when I have When I processed men with the
science over and over and over and over again, I

(57:29):
started to like see commonalities in the way that things
would show up, and I was just getting better. I
was getting more skilled at doing this. And then I
would get what we call a ping, like, Oh, I
wonder if his issue is this thing? Now that's a

(57:50):
really dangerous slippery slope.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
The reason it's dangerous and a slippery slope.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Is that I could be wrong, and now I've injected
something that does need to be there into there, so
being unattached to the thing, I might say, James, I'm
getting a bit of a hint that this might this
might be about your mom. Oh gosh, I wasn't even

(58:16):
thinking about that, being right, I talked about that last week.
And now that's the art of it. I'm now taking
my skill, my observational skill, my processing skill, my knowledge
and wisdom around psychology emotional growth, and I'm now applying
that in an artful way to the science, to augment

(58:40):
and add to what was already there.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
And so.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
If you're sitting with a friend and they're vocalizing something difficult,
and you get to a point where you say, yeah,
that sounds pretty awful. But before I say anything, what
kind of support would you like from me?

Speaker 3 (59:06):
And they and they.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
Say, I just I just you being here and listening
to me helps, Like, Okay, I picked up on something.
Are you open to an observation that I have. Note
that I'm asking a question again and I'm also asking
for consent. They say, yeah, absolutely, Like last week you

(59:28):
were talking about something regarding your mom and this is
sounding an awful lot like that thing from last week.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Oh my gosh, Yeah, I hadn't. I hadn't. I hadn't
put those two things together. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
And sometimes the answer is like nope, it doesn't have
anything to do with my mom. Like, okay, okay, I
thought it was totally wrong.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Please continue easy.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
It's also a signifier so being very much engaged. Yeah,
I'm listening not only to this what we're talking about
right now, but also our last conversation last week, and
the parallel that I'm seeing is here. Do you see that?
Or am I off base? And I'm I'm fine with either.
I just wanted to bring it to your attention that
I noticed it. Am I. They could say, oh well yeah,

(01:00:20):
or oh well no, not really, Okay, great, not making
a big deal out of everything. I think it's huge. Yeah,
I remember you and I had a conversation once. I said,
here's the thing, and now you didn't even get the
opportunity to ask from my recollection. I said, I just
need you to sit there and read all of the
messages about to type you and at the end what
I need you to do say wow, that sound like

(01:00:42):
it sucks. And I got out of the end of it,
went on for a minute a minute, and then I
got down to the end of it. It's like, okay,
now your time time and shine, Wow that sucks, right
bingo goal score nothing but net absolutely perfect. It's like, yeah,

(01:01:06):
that's what I needed. I needed to unload it with
no judgment, no commentary, certainly no advice. Did not need advice.
What I needed was commiseration, and I didn't need a
lot of it. I just need somebody's like, yeah, what
you just described as a big old bag of suck.
Thank you. Now I'm gonna go handle my business. But
I needed someone to meet me there, tell me I

(01:01:28):
wasn't crazy, and now I can go sort it great.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Was it commiseration or was it being seen? And maybe
that's a maybe that's a hair split.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
I think it's a hair split, because being seen is
one hundred. I mean, if I'm having misery, you know
you don't celebrate my misery. You dig in the trenches
with me, so you can sit there with me in
the ditch and be like, yeah, that stinks, I realized.
Thank you. I thought so too. Now let's get out
of the ditch, go get something neat, and I can
go work on this.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
I still tell people that story. I think it was
one of.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
The most beautiful examples of asking for what you needed,
and I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
I tell that story.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
I'm like I had a buddy who sent me a
text and it just started off with like, I just
need you to tell me that something sucks. I need
you to listen to me, and when I'm done, need
to tell me that it sucks. I'm like okay, and
I put my phone down and it was dinging like
nobody's business for like fifteen minutes. Yeah, and then I
was working, so I went and did some stuff and
then I after it stopped danging for a while, I

(01:02:32):
picked it back up and I'm looking at this and
I read every single word. I read absolutely every single word,
and I was like, okay, Wow, that sucks. And I
put my phone back down, went back to.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Work, and You're like, thanks all, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
That's all I need.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
It literally all I needed. And not that you are
not prioritized highly. You were probably the third or fourth
person that I tried to tell about this and started
the exact same way, just over explaining everything. Look, the
thing I'm about to do is just dump all this
on you. And I don't need help, per se. I

(01:03:09):
need you to tell me once I get to the
end that it stinks. And I get into like the
third shot, and somebody's like oh well no, no, no, no, I
was like, no, that was not the instructions. Uh yeah.
And another very valuable thing in helping people is listen

(01:03:30):
when they tell you what they need.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Yeah, it's just.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Not everyone's going to be so easy to read, and
not everyone is going to ask for the right thing,
but for the thing right now, they're asking for exactly
what it is they want from you. Listen as closely
as you can and deliver what it is that they're
requesting to the best of your ability. Yeah, it's usually
a lot less effort than what you were willing to

(01:03:57):
give if they just kind of left your own devices.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
And that's a beautiful statement, because I like you feel
that is true. Is that like when I started asking people,
like what kind of what kind of support would you
like from me? Man, I did so much less work.
I did so much less, and yet I gave someone

(01:04:22):
a targeted dose of exactly the medicine that they wanted,
that wound up having, that wound up being efficacious, that
wound up being exactly the thing that they wanted, which
was so good for everyone involved. And so the question
I'll ask you, and we sort of touched on this earlier,
is Why do you think that people will blow past

(01:04:46):
your specific request for a certain type of support and
offer you something that you don't need or want. Why
do you think people do that?

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
I don't have a super concise answer, but I have
a few ideas because I try to offer that to
so many other people, Like perhaps they are mirroring my
own assistance style or help style, and there I think
maybe that because I'm coming to someone for help and

(01:05:21):
that's not something I do very frequently, that they missed
the instruction parts getting excited and like ramping up to
give me what I tried to give others. What I
give others is a lot. I am a lot, point
blank period, full stop, and a lot of people kind
of feel like they need to wind up to get

(01:05:42):
to that level. Whenever. If they just listen to what
it was that I needed and specifically asked for, they
wouldn't have had to go through that like warm up
process and no judgment. I really appreciate it because they did.
They went over in a be Oh my god, such
a great job. If I had not specifically asked for

(01:06:05):
just a listen and that sucks at the end. So
and I've had that conversation with a few other people
because I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
They do.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
They see something, They're like, no, you did it. It's like,
I need to clarify, especially here now that everyone is
speaking you know, English as a second or third language.
Right when we talk about these things, I am not
asking for solutions. What I'm asking for is to be
heard by someone whose opinion and presence I admire. That's

(01:06:34):
all there is. I said, The more I talk about this,
and it won't take long because I've already gone through
sixty eight percent, said, but if you could help me
through this other thirty one thirty two just by kind
of being my sounding board, not ricochet, not contributing, not
not what I'm asking for, but just let me sort
of ramble, just touch so that I can put those
last few loose ends together. I'd really appreciate it. And

(01:07:00):
they do, and they sit there and they look at
me with raised eyebrows and they're like, you good. It's
a kid, yes, and thank you. It's it's a it's
a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
So I I think you hit the nail on the
head there, and I'll just take a second scoop add
and add to it that it's been my experience that
it is oftentimes such a strong desire.

Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
To be of service, to show.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Love, and that we are conditioned to believe that relationship
and I'm using that term broadly, is supposed to look
a certain way and be a certain way, and that
especially the higher you put someone on the shelving unit
of friendship team, uh, that that's uh that we're supposed

(01:07:55):
to do more like, oh my gosh, I have to
like he's telling me this stuff, like I have to
solve his problem, might have to give him feedback, I
have to do this, I have to do that right.
And I think that people get really trapped in the
things that they are supposed to say, like and I'll
give you a really good example of this. My dad

(01:08:16):
passed away February second, two thousand and three, so it's
been twenty two years, and I think it was well,
let me let me start with that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
There was two days of.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
What do you call it before the funeral is at
the viewing now wakes after?

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
Yeah, I think it was.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
I think it was the viewing two days at the
funeral home where we had an open casket and people
came and then so that was on Like I want
to say Thursday Friday, and then we had the funeral
on Saturday. First of all, there were over five hundred
people at the funeral. You'd have thought this guy was

(01:09:06):
a celebrity. A guy was an accountant. He'd been an
account in his entire life. He was a professional account
for fifty years. I mean, it's like, how do you
what do you do that gets five hundred people at
a funeral?

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
And I'm saying that not to glorify my dad, but
to provide context for what I'm about to say the
two days prior to that at the viewings. And bear
in mind, I'm twenty. I'm sure if I'm doing that
math right, roughly about twenty. And I had what felt

(01:09:41):
like an endless stream of people over those two days,
three days walking up to me saying I lost my
dad too. I know exactly how you feel. I lost
my dad too. I know exactly how you feel. I
lost my dad too. I know exactly how you feel.
It was just constant, and I grew to hate and

(01:10:04):
I'm using that word real specifically, I grew to hate
that phrase. I wouldn't say it myself, and I would
like have verbal backlash of people whenever they said to me.
I'm like, no, you don't. You're in know how I feel.
You know, my dad was my dad, Your dad was
your dad. I'm me or you. Those are the first
four of a billion differences between us. I would just

(01:10:26):
get so angry and so verbally violent when people would
say that to.

Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
Me, and I over time.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
Learned to realize that people were trying to show love
and connection in the only way that they knew how,
which was to parrot things they'd heard other.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
People say, like, this is just what you say.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Someone's dad dies, you go if you've lost your Yeah,
I'm sorry for your loss.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
I know what it's like.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
And I started saying, but yeah, but why do people
why do people feel compelled to say that? And finally
and it hit me, it's because we don't like human
beings detest being alone. We are a packed species where
a herd species, we grow and thrive and we're connected
with other people.

Speaker 3 (01:11:24):
We wither and we die when we're not.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
Again, with extremely rare exception, there are some people who
go live in the hills by themselves the bears, and
you never hear from them again.

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
But that's not most people. Like most people need connection,
community and social social structure.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
And I believe that it's an attempt to say you
are not alone. You're not alone now in this moment.
You are not alone in your feelings, you are not
alone in your suffering and your grief and your loss,
and I am here for you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
The problem is.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
People don't say that, they don't say it in that way.
And this is what's led me to be so passionate
about trying to help people elevate their level of communication,
to find other words, to really think about their feelings
and their thoughts and how can I convey this? Like
what am I really trying to say here? And and

(01:12:24):
the last piece of the story was I think it
was later that year, it was within it was within
two years. I happen to be back back in my
hometown for Christmas time, and I was out to one
of the two bowling alleys. Because that's what you do
in the Midwest when you go home, clearly is seen

(01:12:47):
it in a million Hallmark movies.

Speaker 3 (01:12:48):
Please continue.

Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
Yeah, you grab your buddies and and you go bowling.
I'm telling you, the Midwest and the winter, there just
isn't much else to do. And so we're at the
bowling Alley and a buddy of mine all of a
sudden like ducks behind me and he goes, Oh, there's Jeff.

(01:13:11):
I'm like okay, and I was like, oh, it's his
dad just died, and I don't know what to say
to him. I immediately pivoted and walked directly over to
him and I said, Hey, I just found out thirty seconds.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
Ago that your dad passed away.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
I don't know what you're going through. My dad died
recently and that was really hard for me, and I'm
envisioning that you're going through a hard time too.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
I'm here for you if you want to talk. That's it.
That's all I said. And you know which words didn't
leave my mouth.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
I'm guessing them exactly exactly. I know exactly what you're
going to, actly what.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
You're going through. I don't ever.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
I still did this day, even though I've made a
lot of peace of that. I don't get angry about
it anymore. Because that anger was mine, as most of
my emotions are. That anger was mine. And I went
through some therapy and laid that to rest and just said,
you know what, people were trying the best that they could.
They were doing the best that they could with the
tools they had available to them, and they were trying

(01:14:22):
to show love and misguided as their words may have been,
not even misguided, but.

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
Poorly, poorly stated.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
And also they didn't know that seventy five other people
had walked up and said the same thing to me
over the last three days, right, like, they don't know.
And so I needed the reframe in my head of
like they were just doing the best that they could,
and they were trying to show love, and I'm going
to choose to see it that way rather than them,
rather than the way I was seeing it, which was

(01:14:53):
that you're being unkind you don't really know, Like that
just wasn't wasn't true, And so now it when someone
says that, I thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:15:03):
I appreciate the intention of your statement exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
Chris, thank you so much for coming on Radical Joy Bud.
I'm so glad you came to share this with us.
This has been just such to use such a cheesy phrase,
just such a centering conversation. It's so affirming to know
that the things that we're trying to do, some of
them will land really well. There's still work to be done,

(01:15:30):
and some of the methods that we're using. Hey, that's
pretty close to what we know to be a good
way of going about it. Great, wonderful. It's always a
pleasure to see your face. And whenever you start to talk,
it just brings my blood pressure down to nearly negative.
It's delightful.

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
I really appreciate you having me here. This has been
a joy and a delight.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
I'll say the same thing to end this that I
said to you before when I got the email from Carrie,
I reached out to you and I said, radical joy.

Speaker 3 (01:16:04):
Huh. I don't know that I'm your guy. I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
I don't know because I don't feel like a radical
joy kind of person. And something that you see in
me that I don't oftentimes see in myself is that
my efforts to have dialogue like this is with the
intention of finding joy, is with the intention of finding peace.
It's with the intention of moving forward in a better

(01:16:31):
way and in my own way, trying to honor what
you're trying to do here. This is This has been
such a such a great experience, and I really appreciate
you giving me the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
Thank you. It's been wonderful having you and I just
Carrie mentioned it while we were talking before, and a
couple By the time this episode airs, it will be
a few episodes deep. We just did radical rage. Not
everything is about sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. Sometimes you have
to set aside other darker emotions. You have to find

(01:17:03):
a way to sublimate invent in order to get back
to the lighthearted and the butterflies and the meadows and
the YadA YadA YadA. Acknowledging the problem is the first
step in moving through it, and that is something you
are uniquely qualified to both spot it and have so
many tools that you're disposable, both for yourself and for

(01:17:23):
people who you work with, in order to help them
get through it more with more depth, recognition, and more
of a direction. Because we always hear growth is not linear.
It's more like a cha cha, And I think that's
always so funny, but yeah, yeah, because you know, you
make a couple of steps forward, but you have to

(01:17:44):
make some steps back. It's never linear, and so talking
to someone who isn't just positive vibes only. That's never
been what we're doing here. It's about finding it, whatever
it is, acknowledging it, picking it out, dusting it off
and people judge it. You tell them to go piss
up a rope, because it's not theirs. It's yours individually,

(01:18:09):
all of ours, and whatever that is, let's unearth it,
cultivate something wonderful out of it. Because things life comes
at us pretty fast, especially lately.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
Yeah, I feel that the way to joy is by
excavating and doing the deep work.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
Yeah, I agree, and I appreciate you sharing that with
us here today.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
If this has been your first episode of Radical Joy, welcome.
What a wonderful place to start your journey with us.
If this is not your first episode, thank you for
coming back. Thank you for the faith that you put
in us, for what we're trying to do here Radical Joy.
It means the world. If you're the kind of person
who likes to leave a review, and I hope you are,

(01:18:57):
please leave us a five star review on whatever platform
you're listening on your phone, on your computer at home.
Take a screenshot of that, send it to us. We
would love to send you some swag. We're in our
third season of Radical Joy. We've got a brand new look.
We'd love to send you something like probably a sticker
you can put it on your journal, a water bottle,
a laptop, a bumper, wherever you like to put a sticker.

(01:19:19):
We're thrilled that you wear our colors and our name
wherever it is that you go and put your most
intermost thoughts, stay hydrated, or putter around town as always, friends,
thank you so much for listening, and please never forget
how much we love y'all. Thank you for taking time
to share a moment of joy and hope with me.

Speaker 3 (01:19:38):
We're so grateful you're here.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
If this is your first time, take a moment to
check out our archive. See if there's something else in
there that fires you up, rekindles the joy in you.
Spread the word if you got something out of being
with us today. We welcome your thoughts and suggestions. Now.
I rarely run out of things to talk about, but
if there's something I haven't covered that's on your mind
or heart, I want to hear from you. To learn
more about me and see I used follow the links

(01:20:01):
in the show notes. Hey, don't forget. When you leave
Radical Joy Review, be sure.

Speaker 3 (01:20:05):
To send us a screenshot.

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
We'll send you some kick ass swag to show our gratitude.
I am not a therapist or a medical professional. If
you're experiencing a mental health emergency, please call nine to
eighty eight to reach the National Crisis Lifeline. This content
and other content produced by CLA Studios and affiliated partners,
is not therapy, and nothing in this content indicates a
therapeutic relationship. Any opinions