Marriage Archives - BrassBalls TenderHeart https://brassballstenderheart.com/category/marriage/ Relationship Coaching for Men Fri, 25 Sep 2026 23:36:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.4 https://i0.wp.com/brassballstenderheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/cropped-1.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Marriage Archives - BrassBalls TenderHeart https://brassballstenderheart.com/category/marriage/ 32 32 151881966 Ep. 18: Emotional Intimacy As The Path To Physical Intimacy with Jeff Nuziard https://brassballstenderheart.com/podcast-ep-18-emotional-intimacy-physical-intimacy-jeff-nuziard/ Sun, 09 Aug 2026 17:43:29 +0000 https://brassballstenderheart.com/?p=50498 Jeff Nuziard, a veteran and the founder of RegenMax, went through a divorce and then his own struggle with sexual dysfunction. That experience set him on a long search for answers.

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]]> The BrassBalls TenderHeart Podcast · Episode 18 · Originally released August 9, 2026 · 43 min

Jeff Nuziard, a veteran and the founder of RegenMax, went through a divorce and then his own struggle with sexual dysfunction. That experience set him on a long search for answers.


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About this episode

With Bryce, he gets into what most couples never say out loud: how physical struggles in the bedroom turn into emotional distance, how silence lets a partner fill in the blanks with the worst story, and why emotional connection is the real foundation of a satisfying sex life at any age.

“Sex is eighty-five percent mental.”
Jeff Nuziard

Key takeaways

  • Avoiding the conversation about a sexual issue usually does more damage to the relationship than the issue itself.
  • When men go quiet out of shame, partners often write their own story about what it means, and it is rarely a kind one.
  • Leading emotionally, by being present, curious and affectionate, comes before expecting physical closeness.
  • Intimacy can deepen with age when connection matters more than performance.
  • Shame thrives in secrecy. Naming the problem is the first step toward solving it together.

About Jeff Nuziard

Jeff Nuziard is a veteran, researcher and the founder of RegenMax.

regenmax.com

Doing this work yourself?

Bryce Giron Mathern, LPC, works with men, dads and couples in Denver. If this episode hit home, start here:

Transcript

Read the full transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain small errors.

Bryce Giron Mathern: Welcome to the Man for Real Podcast. We are here to celebrate men as well as talk about how all men can do better and lead our world to a healthier place. Get ready to get real. Hi everyone, welcome to the podcast and thank you for listening today. Today I’m talking with Jeff Nuziard, a veteran, researcher, and founder of RegenMax Protocol that helps men with erectile dysfunction. Jeff has come onto this podcast to talk about his own journey with ED and the power of connection and intimacy in partnership. Jeff Newsyard, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I’m grateful. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for being here. So I’d like to just start like how a lot of my guests start with just a sense of your journey and kind of how you came to the place you are right now. And then we can sort of dive in from there. Sure. I’d love to tell my story. You know, i it’s amazing what people do out of desperation and out of survival. And and that’s the case with me. I literally at age forty, my whole life was reinvented in the matter of the next twelve months. I went through a divorce, ⁓ seventeen year marriage, had three amazing children, continued raising, my youngest one on myself by myself. And you know, there’s a lot of distractions going on. So it was it was easy for me to blame my sexual dysfunction at that time on the distractions. You know, it’s the divorce. It’s the stress, it’s whatever. And then as things started mellowing out and and my life was smoothing out, I noticed, you know, hey, it’s not getting any better. And I had a great sex life when we were married and I’m very active sexually in my mind, but my body was like, hey, I’m not I don’t want to cooperate anymore. And it was devastating at forty years old. That’s very devastating because in our culture, even though it’s happening younger than that now, I had patient today come in my office at thirty two and not get an erection at thirty two. I’ve had twenty somethings come in with major sexual dysfunction issues. The discussion I hope we have today is going to be broad, but I will say I understand. There’s so much on the internet now and on TV about take this pill. If you’re suffering from rectile dysfunction, take this pill, take this pill. It’s become very common and people just are looking for the get fixed quick schemes and scams. And and that wasn’t what I was about. I’m I’m a very anti pharmaceutical kind of guy. I don’t like surgeries. I don’t honestly, I don’t like doctors. I don’t like Western medicine, I’ll put it that way. And so I was very much into the I know our bodies are designed to regenerate. And so I I’ve got to figure this out. I sold everything and pretty much just dove into 24-7 research and development. So I gotta figure out how to fix this without pills or surgery. So I did. The first thing I started was looking at hormone optimization and what is that really what is hormone replacement? What is HRT? What’s TRT? What does that mean? Started with that. And the more I started digging into that, realized how much people don’t know about it and how much I didn’t know either, but how much general practitioners of doctors don’t know about it and don’t understand it. They go to a weekend course and they think they have enough knowledge to be able to manage somebody’s hormones and that’s not accurate. And I’m finding now that we’re in practice, I’m finding a lot of patients’ hormones totally screwed up. But that was the start of it. I got my hormones leveled out and optimized pretty well. At twenty-seven, my testosterone level was eleven eighty-five natural, just my level. And at forty was three ⁓ five. So I mean it had dropped really bad. And in my case, it was a hereditary thing. It was purely genetics. But there’s a lot of that’s a whole nother podcast. We can talk about hormone deficiency for hours on that. But for me, it was a mental and emotional roller coaster because I felt like I was forced to turn in my man card now. I’m not even worthy to be a man. I can’t perform. You know, as a man, you gotta rise to the occasion and perform. As a woman, you can hide it. Although women are going through the same problems, they have vaginal dysfunction in a lot of areas, not just being able to get an erection. So it took 15 years, 15 long years of figuring out, first of all, what the cause is. And and blood flow is not the cause of erectile dysfunction. Contrary to what everybody’s talking on the internet and what you see on TV and all these Weekend warrior commercials of have sex this weekend with no problems. Blood flow, blood flow. It’s not blood flow is not the problem. And once I figured that out, I was able to then go to the next step, okay? How do I repair that? And then blood flow does get crippled and handicapped because of the problem is the sponge. And that’s a whole long conversation, but I’m happy to touch on a little bit. But when the sponge goes bad, The veins respond and send less blood in. So eventually the veins do develop atrophy and and send a lot less blood in. What’s the sponge? The sponge in the center of the penis, you have two tubes, one on each side called the corpus cavernosum. And inside there are two sponges, one on each side. And those sponges expand and relax and absorb the blood that’s coming in. And when they get full enough, it triggers a muscle behind the scrotum called the bobospongiosis. And that muscle locks down. And it keeps the blood inside the sponge until orgasm. Then that muscle relaxes, the blood flows back out. So the veins, you’re like, hey, Mr. Sponge, you’re not absorbing all the blood we’re sending in. It’s called the venous leak. Blood goes in and it flows right back out. The first symptom of erectile dysfunction is I can get erect, but I can’t keep it erect. And that’s the problem. Your sponge, you’ve got the blood flow in. You’re so blood flow there, that proves the point. Blood flow is not the cause. And that’s why Cialis and Viagra, they work until they done it. And it’s not that they stop working, it’s the sponge is not absorbing. Every man that tells me I can’t get an erection with cialis, they tell me, well, it does get a little bit firmer, but it doesn’t get an erection. Well, yeah, it gets firmer because blood’s flowing in, but there’s no sponge to absorb it. So it’s flowing right back out. So we have to fix the sponge. And that all starts with new spongy tissue and collagen. We have to fix all that. So I developed a way to fix that. And then our bodies do it’s called angiogenesis. We create, which is basically your body making new blood vessels. And we do that every day. We break blood vessels walking. If you walk your ten thousand steps a day, you’re gonna break some blood vessels. That just that’s what our bodies do. And then your body creates new ones to replace the broken ones. So we can replace the blood vessels in the penis, we can replace the spongy tissue and remodel the collagen and thicken it up. That’s the problem. And that’s what has to be repaired. And no drug is gonna fix it. A drug will mask it, override it, and give you temporary relief, but it will never fix the problem. Actually, you will continue to get worse to where eventually the pills just won’t work. 90% of the patients say we’ve been on Cialis for five years and it’s worked great. Now I don’t. Because the sponge is continuing to degenerate. Wow. Okay. So this took 15 years to develop this procedure and this process. Wow. Okay. It wasn’t that took 15 years. I kind of figured it out in about four or five years, but it was figuring out how the heck do I safely fix this now? That’s the problem. Because I mean, shoot. You can use lasers and things like that and burn the heck out of your penis if you want. I mean, and I won’t admit or deny, I probably did that once or twice, trying to figure this out. But it was figuring out how to safely repair without being invasive, no surgery, no pills, and how to safely regenerate. You know, our bodies are designed to be totally regenerative. That’s what I use a simple example all the time. You cut your hand and you put a bandage on it. Well, it’s not that your hand glues back together. It’s that your body creates new epithelial cells and it mends the cut. And it grows the skin back together. So it’s regenerating the cut skin and new skin fills in. It’s the same thing. When you lift weights, you tear your muscles, your body regenerates new muscle tissue to fill in those tears. It doesn’t glue the tears back together. So I’m like, if I can create enough damage, if you will, intentional damage inside the tissue, then I can then the body will respond and create new sponge tissue. And if I can remodel the collagen by getting it hot enough, your body will remodel the college. It always does. I mean, that’s just kind of how it works. So you’re able to do those kind of things and and it’s a series of treatments. This is a regenerative process. This isn’t a get fixed overnight thing. It’s not going to happen quickly because we’re regenerating the tissue. I say quickly, but I mean what’s quick. You know, people in today’s society, they want results yesterday. On average we’re seeing three to five treatments. We’re seeing guys going, hey man, things are changing really well. By the sixth to the eighth treatment, they’re like, wow. I’m waking up with erections again. I can have sex with my wife again. This is great. So it’s a year-long process, but again, I liken it to the gym. When you go to the gym and you see your body begin to change, that’s not the time to quit. That’s the time to dig in and keep going and finish the race. So by doing this over a year, what my research at the end of the 15 years when I kinda when I figured it and said, okay, this is what I gotta do. Then I went into a clinical study and I got 250 volunteers to come in and be treated. And no cost and to let’s just try this. And out of the 250, we had 97% get success. 97%. How do you measure success? Is it like well, the great question? We measure success by penetrable erection, sustaining it until orgasm. Okay. So basically until you want to have your orgasm. And that’s another thing it says is also repairs damaged nerve tissue. A lot of guys complain of early ejaculation, premature ejaculation. This repairs those the damaged nerves. Or guys complain of, you know, I can get a wreck, but I can’t have an orgasm anymore. Damaged nerves. So we’re able to fix all that through the same process. It’s the exact same process. So yeah, I go back to the gym. It’s like sending your penis to the gym for a year. And next thing you know, you’re good. And I got guys in their eighties that are doing absolutely great with no issues whatsoever and are doing great. You know, and I got one guy, eighty-four years old, having sex with his wife four days a week. Didn’t have sex for 20 years because he couldn’t. So it works great. You know, a cool thing about the study is it was 250 patients, 97%. Since then, you know, we’re on the retail side. Now we have an actual clinic that’s doing it. And we also licensed this patent to other practitioners around the country, other physicians, what have you. Over thirty two hundred patients have gone through the program now. Over thirty two hundred. And our success rate has dropped point two percent. Went from ninety seven point two to ninety seven with over thirty two hundred patients. So I’m I’m very happy with the success rate of that. But biggest thing it did for me, I felt like a man again. Yeah. It totally got my emotion confidence back. It was like, you know, I can chew on bullets. I’m good. I’m good. Yeah, I’d like to talk a little bit about that. So you’ve been it’s kind of this challenge, you know, you suddenly this you’re faced with this deficiency or this like problem in your body. And then you went on this search to figure it out, which is quite inspiring. But just curious about like yeah, the emotional challenges of it. Cause you you kind of came out of this divorce. Was this a part of that divorce? Did it have something to do with the divorce? You know, depends on who you ask. Okay. She says no, but I’ll just say that she got pregnant by somebody else. Wow. Okay. I was not able to take care of my wife. You know? And she kept saying, It’s not your fault, it’s not you. This is on me. But I also know what I know. I could take care of her in other ways, but it wasn’t right. You know what I’m saying? So yeah, I was a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, incredible amount of embarrassment. Didn’t want to talk about it to anybody. That’s part of what drove me so hard to fix this and to say there’s gotta be a way. I’m not living my life like this. I’m 40 years old. I mean, that’s young. I’m 60 now and I love being 60. I’m extreme I’m way more healthier at 60 than I was at 40, but my body is completely different and changed. I weigh the exact same weight that I weighed my senior year in high school. And I’m in great shape. Blood sugar is great, cholesterol is great, I check my blood all the time. I have no sexual dysfunction of any kind. Everything’s great. It was changed lifestyle changes for sure. You know, I mean, I brought a lot of that on myself. Most of it I did on myself. And so I take responsibility complete for the divorce, 100%. You know, I I wasn’t being who I was supposed to be in the bedroom, and then not being there mentally or emotionally because I was completely checked out and worried about my penis working and not worried about my marriage working. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So that’s that’s a I find that really interesting. I had to kind of double click on that. Like, so you know, this whole thing is happening. Obviously, it gets in your head. Obviously, you’re thinking about obviously it’s there’s a lot of shame and stuff. I mean, I wonder about like, you know, just your ability to talk to your wife about it and find new ways to sort of support each other. I mean, you’re sort of saying that. Yeah, you could support her in other ways, but was she kind of in a place of like, that’s not enough or Again, she says no, but yes. She w I hundred I she had checked out. I mean she she was looking for that physical she needed it. She was at a time in her life when she was she was on fire, man. What do you call it? Hotter than a June bribe. You know? I mean, it was like she needed it. And what and and and I was checking out because I was embarrassed. And I I didn’t know how to have the conversation, first of all. That’s kind of the the biggest problem. Is I I didn’t it was so embarrassing and humiliating that I I felt so unmasculine. And you’re talking to a guy, you know I served in the military. I was in Desert Storm. I did my time. I mean, I’m a very manly man. I was a competitive athlete in college and and after college. I I competed in a semi pro level and was a very competitive athlete and very physical. And now I’m questioning do I need to put a skirt on and change my tamp on or not? I mean, I didn’t know what I that’s probably the wrong thing to say with all the gender identity stuff going on today. But I was totally confused. Well, who am I? What is going on in my body? I am worthless. And the way I was right culturally You know, you gotta take care of home and and I couldn’t. And so and I just didn’t know how to have the conversation. I did not know how to have that conversation. Looking back and dealing with all the patients I deal with today, yeah, I would have done it totally different. And I that’s how we we teach at the clinic, you know, you you gotta have the conversation. Can you say more about the conversation? ‘Cause this is a part that I think is really interesting because it’s it’s not even obviously there is physical stuff that men go through, but I think the problem This is just as I’m thinking about right now, is the lack of the conversation, is the lack of transparency, is the lack of like learning how to understand each other, both men and the woman coming together and saying, Hey, this is a problem. How are we gonna s how are we gonna work together to make this work for us? You know, I’ve never heard it said more perfectly than you just said it. It is such a problem. And the problem is communication. The problem is not your penis don’t work. Or Her vagina’s dry or it hurts when she has sex. Those are physical things that every one of those things now I know can be fixed. And physiologically they can be fixed and should be fixed. And you need to take those measures, whatever that costs, or need to do to fix those things. But here’s the problem. When you don’t have the conversation, the other party assumes and makes stories up in their head that are not true. They’re the furthest thing from the truth, but in their mentality, that’s reality. It’s their perspective, their perception. And although it seems real to them, that’s not the it’s not reality. In her mind, I was checked out. She thought I was out having an affair. She thought I was out cheating. She thought I was out doing another thing. Wow. When okay. There was a first thing from the shrewd. Okay. But in my I was embarrassed and I could not say, Listen, it’s not you. But that’s the first place women go. It’s me. I’m not sexy enough. I don’t turn him on anymore. I’ve maybe I’ve gained some weight, or maybe I’m not I don’t dress hot enough. I don’t put makeup on during the day anymore. I and you know, there’s a lot of problems there. A lot of women need to take responsibility for themselves too. And when you were dating that guy and you got married to that guy, you looked dressed to the nines all the time and you looked hot and you turned him on and he wanted to be around you. There’s a reason for that. And you shouldn’t abandon those reasons. But you gotta be able to have those conversations. And just because she’s now a stay-at-home mom or because she stays at home or whatever she does and She’s not taking care of herself. That’s her pro that’s a problem you need to discuss with her and have that conversation. Yeah. And when you have problems with yourself performing, you need to be able to have that conversation. I want you to understand this lack of a performance has nothing to do with you. I don’t know what’s going on in my body. My mind is doing one thing and my body’s doing another. And I don’t know what to do and I need help. I need to go find out the answer here. And I didn’t do that. And nor did I have any place to really go to do that. Well, I’m curious because I think what you’re talking about is a such a fundamental struggle for a lot of men. And not just around, you know, sexual dysfunction or any sort, but just generally, men struggle with shame. Shame is like so hard for men to deal with. So what they do is they avoid it. They shut down, they don’t talk about it. And so then all these things, like you said, get really convoluted. You know, nobody’s talking about it. So then people fill in the blanks, and as a result, those blanks get filled in incorrectly. There’s all this misunderstanding and then And they can lead to something like divorce when really, you know, and I mean I’m sure there was more than just having a conversation, but that conversation could have saved, potentially saved your marriage, I would imagine. 100%. If I wouldn’t have been living in fear, ego, and shame and could have had the conversation of what I just said, there’s something going on physically and I don’t know what to do or where to go. I don’t even who to talk to. I don’t even know where to go. Yeah. Help me walk through. I want you to it’s not you. You know what? Yes, it didn’t happen overnight. It took a year, two years, whatever. And she really believed I was outscrewing the world and which is why I wasn’t interested in touching her. Yeah. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t interested. I couldn’t. I didn’t, you know, and I my ego was like, Well, yeah, okay, you’re gonna have oral sex with her and then she’s gonna want more and you’re not gonna be able to do anything. So why do why get started? You know, you start then you I start making up stories in my mind of what’s how it’s gonna play out. And it that doesn’t mean it’s gonna play out that way, but in my mind it damn sure was gonna play out that way. And it didn’t, you know, without a conversation, we don’t have the facts. And you gotta deal with reality, not perception. Perception isn’t always accurate. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that’s so important. I guess it’s it’s interesting as we’re talking about this, you know, like one of the things that I get curious about for you. Well actually I’ll just I’ll share a little bit about myself. Like I think one of the things that I’ve learned after twelve years of being my wife is is just how important it is to focus more on our emotional connection than it is to focus on my performance. Like I think, I think as a as a man, I don’t know if I was taught this, but somewhere down the line, I don’t remember being taught this, but done somewhere down line I believed, you know, that if she didn’t have an orgasm, and I’m not talking about my wife, I’m just talking about women in general, there was something wrong with me. I didn’t I I failed. I failed. And I think there’s still some of that in there. But what I what I find that’s so So much more satisfying about my relationship with my wife is just we just feel this really depth we have a really deep connection. And the sex kind of flows out of the connection rather than the sex making the connection. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Yeah. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Our culture is the complete opposite. This hookup culture, one night stand culture, our culture teaches us that performance is everything. And what you’re saying is right. The great performance comes out of the great emotional connection. And when you can be that’s why it’s called intimacy. When you can and intimacy is not sex. When you can have intimate conversation and get on an emotional, intimate level, the sex will happen out of that instead of let me go hook up and then we can we’ll get emotional through that. No, it it’s that’s backwards and it’s not sustainable. So there is a lot of undue pressure put on men to perform instead of engage. I have so many men patients who, well, how are things going? Well, I’m waking up with erections. What how’s the sex? I don’t know where I’m afraid to engage. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What do mean? I mean, it’s working now. But how do I know? Well, you’re waking up with an erection. You weren’t. Now you are. Physiologically, we’ve repaired the damage. Now you have to engage. And they’re scared to death because they don’t have the emotional connection. Well, say say a little bit more about. So a guy comes in, he Goes through protocol for a year, gets it all fixed. He knows it’s fixed. But he hasn’t been having intercourse with his partner for who knows how long. Mm-hmm. And so now he’s he’s still afraid that he’s gonna try to do it and he’s not gonna have it happen. And so he just but I’m c I’m I g what I’m curious about is like this guy, why isn’t he like his wife knows he’s gone through the protocol, I’m assuming. Some of ⁓ do, some of them don’t. Okay. Okay. That’s probably true. But it’s just I’m getting curious, like, what is this guy? He’s wanting to get better so he can do this. And then he’s still it’s almost like he has this boundary or this like this thing that he has to get over emotionally of like. So you said he doesn’t have the emotional connection. I’m curious if if you could say more about that. What do you mean he doesn’t have the emotional connection? He’s got an emotional block, so he’s disconnected himself from his wife. Yeah. You know, I got guys tell ⁓ I can masturbate, no problem. Well, hello. Then we fixed you. We did our job. I need you now if you’re if you can engage with your wife, I need you to we need to talk to a therapist together. Yeah, I need to put you in contact with therapists because you’ve got an emotional wall that’s keeping you from being connected to your wife. And whether it’s fear of failure or fear that you’re she’s gonna say something and make you feel bad about yourself. I mean there’s so many women, because you don’t have the conversation who don’t understand this, that they say things that hurt you hurt a man’s heart to to the bone and don’t they don’t mean to, but it does. And so there’s things like that that happen that get in the way. Of you being able to engage again mentally and emotionally to where the physical part happens. Yeah. I think this is the narrative I’ve created. So see if this, since you’re really in this world, see if it fits your narrative to some degree. I have a sense that there’s a massive gap between men and women in the sexual realm. And the gap is women want to connect emotionally, and their bodies are a part of that. You know, there’s physicality, but their their focus is on this emotional connection. Like what I think my wife gets most excited about or most satisfied is is that she feels incredibly close to me, to my heart, not to my body. You know. I mean, that’s that’s part of it. It’s it’s it’s hard to separate it all out, but that’s really what they want. And men are so focused on the outcome of the experience. And the gap is like so huge because I there’s lots of there’s times where, you know, we just Kind of mess around. We don’t even have intercourse and it’s amazing. It’s amazing. And it’s not because of the physicality, it’s because of I just feel so loved and she feels so loved and we feel so connected and it just feels amazing. You know, our bodies are excited and there’s all that part of it. But it’s it’s that that’s what really is it’s about what it’s about for her. And it’s become more and more about it for me. And I just think like men are so distorted in their belief that if I don’t perform She’s gonna leave me, she’s gonna abandon me, she’s gonna be disappointed, she’s gonna think I’m a loser. And if you f if they focused on the heart component, most of these women would come away being like, That was amazing. And they’d be like, Well, you didn’t have an orgasm. And they’d be like, Well, yeah, that’s fine. I don’t, you know. I mean, I’m sure there are women out there that are a little bit more focused on the outcome and the they want to get their orgasm and stuff like that. I get that. But it’s all in balance because yeah, the next time they probably would have that. Yeah. You know, I mean, it doesn’t have to be every time. Right. Yeah. Well anyway, I just think in this gap is like a lot of miscommunication, a lot of sadness, a lot of a lot of lost opportunities for people to have really enjoyable experiences with each other because one person is shut down because he can’t perform. The other person is like, what the hell’s going on? Why aren’t you interested in me? And sort of kind of like as you’re describing in your marriage, this big disconnect. It’s just so so so sad. Yeah, it is. It is. And here’s what people understand too. The physical degeneration of the penile tissue, it’s like any other muscle in your body. If you don’t have you ever had a broken arm or anything broken in a cast, and they take that cast off, your arm’s like half the size of what it was because it’s not being used, right? So all those that muscle in your arm become atrophic. And and it’s the same thing. So when you get into this emotional disconnect with your spouse or your partner, whatever, and you’re not engaging, that muscle’s not working. And it’s developing atrophy. The veins are developing atrophy. In our 20s, we averaged 20 erections in a 24 hour period. Most of those are when you’re asleep in your most relaxed state. But at the same time, that’s a lot of expansion and contraction back and forth, back and forth. So that’s a lot of exercising. Well, when you are disconnected emotionally from your spouse and you’re not engaging in the the physical side, atrophies div is setting in. And degeneration is happening because you’re not exercising anymore. So it’s a catch twenty two. You know, and in my case, it was the other way. It was physically I wasn’t working and it caused me emotionally to withdraw and back up. I find that to be the polar opposite in a lot of my patients today. They emotionally back out because of careers, whatever, and physical degeneration starts taking place. I see. Yeah. So is it is that what happens then to the sponges? Is that over time the sponges start to decay or not decay, but they atrophy because of lack of use? ⁓ wow, that’s that’s fascinating. So is that is that really what you would say is not the only cause, obviously, but one of the primary causes of ED is this? Yeah, that’s that’s what’s called age related ED, but there’s also mental, there’s a psychological form of ED, which we’ve already touched on some of it. which is really an emotional ED, but mentally you’re in fear and you’re afraid you can’t perform, so you won’t. I mean, once you go there in your head, you’re done. You’re not gonna perform. But the other side of it is which is happening in our society more than ever in the history of our country, literally, is porn addiction. Yeah. You know, we walk around with endless volumes of pornography in our pocket on our phones. All the time. Anybody can pull a phone out today and find any video of any disgusting, far reaching, and I shouldn’t even say disgusting, I mean but whatever you want to find vid sexually, you can find a video on. And in a matter of seconds, with no proof of age, no nothing. And so with that ready available library of pornography, we have destimulated our brains. And so it’s just like You know, the heroin addict didn’t start on a heroin. You know, it’s probably started off with weed or probably started off with something small. And then it wasn’t enough. And so then they added more. And then it wasn’t enough. So you had more. It’s the same thing. You know, when you start down the pornography road, it’s not reality. It’s a complete fantasyland. And so it takes more oxytocin to come from your brain to stimulate and get you turned on. So because you’re burning it all out. So now you have to watch. kinkier porn and more of it and to get there. Mm-hmm. And and before long, if if you don’t watch it at all, you there’s no way. And then that doesn’t do anything because it just destimulates you. Yeah. The good news about that addiction is or that E D, it’s the cheapest, easiest form to fix. And that is a a fast of porn. No no porn for ninety days. Your brain will reset. Your brain will reset and you will produce the right amount of oxytocin and you’ll go back to getting stimulated with very little. Okay. And so do you get guys coming in with and you know after they tell you how much porn they’ve been doing for last like fifteen, twenty years, you’re like most of the younger guys are in that problem. The older guys the older guys they have you know, ⁓ most the older guys are guys that just hadn’t been active, got a divorce five years ago and now all of a sudden they got a girlfriend or something and things are different or Yeah. They just haven’t been using it. Got it. Well, so I’d like to get back. I’m curious You know, having gone through this journey of like discovering this protocol and helping thousands of men now, I’m curious for you, like what’s it like for you in terms of your, I guess I want to say like way of prioritizing your sexual experience now versus like maybe it was when you were forty? ⁓ totally different. Yeah. What a what a great question. Man. I wish everybody asked me that question because completely different. Not only did I go through a transformation mentally of fixing the figuring out this problem physically. I went through figuring out this problem mentally and emotionally and talking about the things we’ve talked about so far, about the connection, about the emotional connection, things like all that was never a big deal to me. You know, you have sex because I mean that’s just what you do. And you kind of go by the cultural way of, you know, everybody’s doing it. Go have sex. Make love not war or all the cliches, whatever you want to say. And that became The thing, the goal, the the way you do it is you gotta perform, you gotta perform. All that changed in my mind and I now I understand sex is eighty-five percent mental. And you cannot I have way better sex at sixty than I did at twenty, at thirty, at for sure at forty, ’cause I couldn’t even do it at forty. But now my wife and I are completely different. As you said, w maybe we maybe we’re not having intercourse today, but we’re sure spending a lot of time Holding hands, touching, loving, heart to heart conversations. Maybe it’s just a walk in a dang park. But it’s such a satisfaction that we do go to bed and it’s like, ⁓ things just happen because it’s a connection of that’s what I we want because of the connection we’ve done. I never understood that at 40. I I had no concept of that at 40 at all. So the physical side, yes, is important and it’s it’s inevitable. It’s not about If it’s when it’s going to happen to every man. It’s not the end of the world and it is fixable. But first and foremost, it will delay happening if you’re emotionally and mentally healthy with your relationship. It will delay that hell that physical part from going from degenerating. Yeah. So it sounds like here’s what I hear you saying is that, you know, if you reprioritize the emotional connection with your partner. as being more of the focus. And that includes touching, holding hands, talking, working through stuff, dealing with your relational issues, all that kind of stuff. Yes. The sexual, physical intimacy will sort of come out of that in a more natural, satisfying way. That will lead you to have more sex, most likely, which will keep your sponges, I don’t know if that’s the right word healthy. ⁓ that’s exactly right. Okay. Keep your sponges intact and working so they won’t atrophy, which means that you’ll have More sexual function for longer periods of time and you’ll just have a way better sex the whole time. Way better. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and there’s there is another physical aspect of it. We do stop producing testosterone physically in about our 20s, anywhere, somewhere in our 20s, about two percent a year. So once your testosterone has dropped down to a certain level, that’s when the collagen starts degenerating. Testosterone is like the oil of an engine. Can I my motor, can I go start my truck and drive On three quarters of a tank of oil. Yeah, I could. And I could be just fine. But if I drive it for very long, that oil is gonna get really thin because it’s not enough to keep it cool and break down and become a problem. I darn sure you’re gonna struggle at a half tank oil. And if I have no oil, I’m not going very far at all. So it doesn’t the oil doesn’t have to be completely full, but it it’s healthier if it does. So as your testosterone comes down, that’s the oil of your body’s engine. And you have to keep that level right and optimal. And in doing so, that’s what you do physically to keep it intact. And then what you just said about the emotional side is exactly true. It will keep you healthier and keep those, you know, it’s funny to me, something as simple as this. This is the difference in sex in our society today. As men, we think, I want to have sex. I need to get hard. And so, okay, it’s starting to move just because I said I want to have sex. So I’m going to go ahead and engage with my wife. What if We flip that script and we just go engage with our wife and get lost in the moment of how much I love her. I promise you, your brain will send the chemicals and stimulation will take place. Yeah. But we think we have to be ready and be assured we’re gonna be erect and it’s gonna be ready to go. When she when she’s ready, I’m ready. Yeah. You gotta jump that cliff, jump off that cliff and embrace and Be in the moment, embrace the moment, embrace the smells, the sounds, the touch, the sensations, the everything. Embrace be in the moment. Stimulation will take place in the brain, which will then take place in the body. But we have it backwards. We think, I think I want to go have sex with my wife. So I better get hard first and then I’ll go find her. Yeah, no, I think I think that that’s really the challenge for men is like trusting their bodies, but also just reprioritizing. Like my focus, I think in many ways My focus today is really on my connection with my wife. And that means not so much, you know, from like nine o’clock to ten o’clock at night. It means every day, all day. You know it’s like it’s like I send your text, I miss you, I love you, I’m thinking about you, I come home, I give her a hug, I’m wrapping my arms around her, I’m telling you she looks beautiful, I’m creating that connection. And not because I want to get laid that night. I do it because it feels great. It feels great to her, feels great to me. But then what comes out of that is we’re both by the the time we get to bed, we’re both like super excited to be close to each other. And sometimes it gets you know, we move towards, you know, physical intimacy or or intercourse. Sometimes we don’t. But it’s just like we’re in this state of depth of connection and enjoyment and pleasure. And that is where that’s why I’m a happily married man. Yeah, well exactly. Yeah. Enough said. Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s exactly right. I think the thing about it is I sometimes feel like men don’t evolve out of their like seventeen year old mindset. It’s like they never get they never get to like this this greater place. And I wonder sometimes if erectile dysfunction is almost like a signal to of like, dude, you gotta grow up. Like you can’t keep having sex this way. Like you need to get more into your heart. You need to like, you know, it’s gonna be better. But I feel like the 17-year-old mindset is just like, I’m, you know, I’m super excited. I’m gonna grab my wife. I’m gonna have sex. And there’s no prep. There’s no like, you know, and then there’s the whole thing of like, you know, women need like a long time to get to that space because just biologically. And men, you know, we need like, you know, 45 seconds. And so it’s like understanding those things. And that the once again, there’s a gap there just biologically as well as emotionally. And men just don’t ever really get that until maybe there’s some kind of really catastrophe in their physiological capacity. And then they have to evolve and change. But they’re gonna have to eventually anyway, because you as you said, you know, this stuff isn’t gonna last forever. But what I think is interesting, I read this book, I’m switching topics here a little bit, but I s read this book this a couple of years ago, and it said that people in their sixties, seventies, and eighties actually have the most satisfying sex. A factual statement. I hear it from my patients all the time. Sex is better now at 80 than it was at 60, better at 60 than it was at 40, and so on and so on. And I hear it all. the time. And I will tell you, in my case, at 60 years old right now, I’m having the best sex of my life. Yeah. And it’s amazing. Why are you having the best sex of your life? Because I’m connected to something. It it’s got meaning. It’s not just it’s not just a physical thing. It’s not, you know, just an orgasm. You know, when you’re young, teenager to 20, you know, or through our 20s, you know, the old adage, you know, the when the wind Blows your hard and ready to go. I and it’s true. You have your hormones are raging, things are racing, your body’s going through a lot of changes. And so it doesn’t take but a split second for you to be ready, armed, and dangerous to go have sex. But that’s because your body’s going through changes. When as you have miles with your spouse, it’s not that you’re bored, it’s that you quit the effort because now it takes effort where it didn’t at twenty-one when you met her. Or twenty two when you met her, it didn’t take any effort, you know, boom, boom, boom, we’re ready to go. So now it’s like you said, it’s an ongoing all day thing. And people say, Well, I’m too tired for that. I got my job, I got ⁓ work, I got the well, do you wanna be married or you wanna be right? You know, I mean it’s comes down to you gotta invest in relationship. And the best sex is out of the emotional heart to heart connection, not a physical thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I sometimes wonder though, like, you know Men often connect through their physicality. Women connect through their emotional world. And that’s almost sometimes I wonder if it’s a cultural thing, you know, like a nurture thing versus a nature thing. But it it does seem like there’s something about that that feels so continuous. But I don’t know. I mean this is a bigger question because it’s like how do we get men into their hearts just in general so they can enjoy their lives better. You wanna know why I love what you just said so much is because that’s exactly right. Men Get a physical connection and women get emotional connection. I understand that. So how do we get there? How do I get the wife to pay attention to the physical so I could be pay attention to the emotional? Well, how about you be the leader? How about you take the lead and you be the first to take care of the emotion on her end? She will respond and take care of the physical on your end. But if you expect her to take care of the physical, she’s thinking about kids, she’s thinking about the house, she’s thinking about 15 other things. Sex is not the first thing on her mind. It might be on yours. So take the lead and take care of her emotion. She will respond, and which then you will respond physically. I love that, Jeff. I think that’s the if people take away one point, that’s the point that we should take away from this. I wonder if you could say more about that though. Like when you say take care of the emotional. I think we’ve been talking about it, but I just want to curious, what do you do to take care of the emotional for your partner these days? It’s the little things for me, for us. I have an absolutely amazing wife for me. She is literally the perfect yin to the yang, the perfect connection. It’s it’s a great situation. So for her, it’s the little things opening doors. It’s she don’t pick up one thing. She doesn’t need for anything. And I’m not talking about materialistically, I’m talking about emotionally and mentally. I will do for her before I think about me, and her she will respond physically to me. And so I know that. And so. Even what here’s a great example of that. Like you said, the text, the I love you is the coming home and hugging when you walk in the door and just having TV off and just how was your day? Tell me what you did. I’m interested. Not I want you to tell me yours so I can tell you mine. Not I’m telling I want to spend time with you so you’ll spend time with me. Be genuinely interested. And then what happens is then I come home and I’m very happy to I am very genuinely happy to see her all the time. I’ll sit down and I just want to just sit there and I don’t even want to talk now. I’m talked out. I want to kind of just let my brain relax. And she’ll come up and sit next to me, just very softly, just lean against me and rub my leg. And next thing you know, physical’s happening, but that wasn’t the plan. That wasn’t the thought. She was responding because I had filled her emotional need. She was safe. She felt protected. She felt safe and she felt there was security in the relationship. So she can Be free to respond however she felt to respond. Wasn’t that I was asking or demanding. Matter of fact, that was the first thing for my mind at that moment. Didn’t take me long to change tracks, because it doesn’t take long for men to change tracks. But if you want them to respond to you physically, you need to be the one to be the leader and step out first and respond to them emotionally. Yes. And that isn’t a that isn’t a Hallmark card. That isn’t a a saying. It’s an action. It’s a doing. It’s a living your life appropriately. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I love that. I love I often say that to the people I work with. It’s like you have to lead your wife into connection. That’s your job. And it’s not her job. And if you’re n if there’s a disconnection in the relationship, then you are not doing your taking responsibility. You have to take responsibility. Well, Jeff, I think that’s actually I feel like we’ve really nailed it. I feel like this is a pretty good place to to end. I wanted to just circle back though and just maybe give a sense to the listeners of like You know, where they can find more information, obviously website. But I just wonder, is the protocol something you can get anywhere? Do you have to go somewhere? You have to go to a doctor’s office that has a license to do the patent. Okay. Okay. And they could be all over the country. Yeah, we have right now we have 20 licenses and we’re constantly looking for more doctors. So if there’s a physician or nurse practitioner that’s in practice for him or herself that wants to do this patented protocol, we have a licensing division of that. That just deals with licensing and training and we get you trained up on the marketing aspect of every every part of it. But yeah, to get the regenmax protocol done, it must be a licensed provider to do that. Wow. Okay. It sounds like you’ve I mean it it sounds like pretty good odds. This is like a physical issue. Yeah, th th there’s always going to be a physical part and we can ninety-seven percent fix that physical part. I can’t always fix the emotional mental part. Yeah. But I have some great therapists that we refer you to. That do a great job. Okay. Well, Jeff, I really want to thank you for your time. It was really wonderful to talk to you. I appreciate it. I’m really excited about you know what you’re doing and and I’m I’m really impressed. Like you found a problem, you’ve figured it out. It took you a long time to do it, but you just had dogged determination to make a difference. And now you’re making a difference in so many people’s lives. So I want to thank you for that. It’s been very rewarding and I appreciate you bringing me on. Any chance I get to talk about it. I know that somebody’s listening to this right now going, Wow, I I needed that. And whether you come see us in Texas or you see it somebody wherever you’re at, the point is it’s not the end of the world. Yeah. We can fix the physical part. You need to take the lead and fix the emotional part. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Jeff. Thank you so much for your time. I’m grateful. Thank you for listening today. Please take a moment to like and follow so we can continue to change the world by changing ourselves. Have a wonderful day.

The post Ep. 18: Emotional Intimacy As The Path To Physical Intimacy with Jeff Nuziard appeared first on BrassBalls TenderHeart.

]]> 50498 Ep. 12: Discovering Bliss Through Suffering with Ty Humphries https://brassballstenderheart.com/podcast-ep-12-discovering-bliss-through-suffering-ty-humphries/ Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:36:05 +0000 https://brassballstenderheart.com/?p=50504 Ty Humphries grew up trading authenticity for acceptance. Years of chasing outside validation left him disconnected in his marriage and in a very dark place.

The post Ep. 12: Discovering Bliss Through Suffering with Ty Humphries appeared first on BrassBalls TenderHeart.

]]> The BrassBalls TenderHeart Podcast · Episode 12 · Originally released April 14, 2026 · 46 min

Ty Humphries grew up trading authenticity for acceptance. Years of chasing outside validation left him disconnected in his marriage and in a very dark place.


Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | All episodes

About this episode

He shares with Bryce how taking full ownership of his life, joining a men’s group and practicing vulnerability helped him rebuild, and how he came to see suffering as a doorway to growth rather than a verdict.

“You’re the one that’s gonna do this. You’re the one and you’re the only one.”
Bryce

Key takeaways

  • Shame learned early can teach a man to trade who he is for being acceptable.
  • Change started when Ty accepted that his life was his responsibility, both the problem and the solution.
  • A men’s group gave him accountability without shame, which made change feel like a choice rather than a punishment.
  • Vulnerability, once off limits, quickly rebuilt connection with his wife.
  • Everyone has to find a personal philosophy of manhood that actually fits.

About Ty Humphries

Ty Humphries shares his journey through men’s work and personal transformation through Whole Man.

wholeman.org

Doing this work yourself?

Bryce Giron Mathern, LPC, works with men, dads and couples in Denver. If this episode hit home, start here:

This episode touches on suicide and loss. If you are struggling, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any time.

Transcript

Read the full transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain small errors.

Bryce Giron Mathern: Welcome to the Man for Real podcast. We are here to celebrate men as well as talk about how all men can do better and lead our world to a healthier place. Get ready to get real. Hey everybody. Thanks for being here today. It’s good to have you. Today I’m talking to Ty Humphreys. I’m to talk to him about his journey and his upbringing, some of his religious backgrounds, and to just get into some of the struggles that he’s had. It’s led him to be developer… ⁓ organization called whole man.org. He’s going to be here today to help us understand how we can work through suffering. Ty Humphries. Welcome to the podcast. Bryce, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it’s great to see you, man. It’s good to spend time with you. So I’d just like to start with a general sense of you and your journey of manhood, how that’s gone for you. Some of the highlights, some of the maybe some of the lowlights, just some things that have happened that have impacted your life. and led you to this point. So, you know, our listeners can get a sense of you. I know a little bit about you. I don’t know a lot about you. I know a little bit about you. And so I’m just curious if that feels good. can start to start there. Absolutely. Yeah. I’ll try and pick through the last 40, 41 plus years and give you a quick synopsis. I was born in San Diego, California to two loving parents. Grew up with two siblings, I’m the oldest of three. And we were a, what I would call a pretty religious family. Although I didn’t really know that growing up. thought, I thought we were pretty, for lack of a better term, normal. Yeah, just, just normal, I guess. Church every Sunday, usually also on Wednesdays. Yeah, so grew up in the Christian religion. Nondenominational is what it was called. And… Looking back on those young years and even all the way up until only probably three or four years ago, that religion had a major effect on my life, both positive and what might be referred to as negative. When I was 10 years old, we moved to Colorado Springs. My parents both worked at Focus on the Family, which may give some context as well, which… It does. Yeah. Yeah. For people who don’t know, Focus of the Family is a pretty conservative Christian organization in Colorado Springs. Yes. And that’s an interesting thing to me, again, growing up totally normal and something that my family was very proud of. My parents were very proud of. And, you know, that’s something that I’m working through and kind of getting new perspectives on as I step into my own power and my own consciousness and kind of sort through. what all of that actually means to me now. So 10 years old, moved from San Diego to Colorado Springs. So I would say that Colorado is kind of where I spent most of my more cognizant developmental years. High school, played football, played hockey, had some really formative experiences there just in the sports world with coaches and kind of getting what I would call a stereotypical American masculine. perspective of what a man should be and is. And yeah, that really formed a lot of my perceptions for later years. would you describe that? How would you describe that? Like, you know, I played football too, so I have sense of what you’re talking about, but I’m just curious, in your words, how would you describe that sort of typical American masculine idea? Yeah, I would say that it was a total deletion. of emotions. was a grooming to be willing to suffer without any kind of openness or communication about what was going on. Any type of what would have been called whining or emotional expression would have been shamed. And I just learned like, ⁓ okay, that’s, that’s not what a man is. And so that’s not what I’m going to do. And that perspective was, that was reaffirmed. in many other places in my life. In my family, that was kind of the norm as well. Even though both of my parents were psychologists and counselors, emotions still were not a safe place, which is pretty intriguing for me to recognize. Do they ever talk about them? Do they ever talk about emotions? mean, just that’s like their orientation. Yeah, it’s interesting. We would have family meetings and I think that was their attempt at talking about emotions, but it was all so intellectual. It was all so structured and contained. There was no availability for just raw emotion in my experience. I think perhaps my brother and sister have a different experience from the little bit that I’ve gotten to talk to them about their experience of their childhood, but… And part of my recognition there is that I was the firstborn. And I think there’s, I think there’s something to that. I see a pattern even in my firstborn where parents’ fears seem to be transferred to the firstborn more heavily than the latter, which to me only makes logical sense. First time you have a child and you’re like, ⁓ my. Gosh, this thing is totally dependent on me. have no idea what to do. I’ve never done this. And beyond that, I was deeply wounded by my own parents. So I don’t want to do that. And now all of that fear I feel like is without real intention is very easily transferred, especially to a first born. Yeah. Yeah. So you want me to keep kind of going through. Yeah. So I get really curious about, so there’s the sports thing. I get curious about how. the religious upbringing impacted your sense of yourself as a man or even just as a human being, obviously, maybe more specifically, like how that informed you is like, I’m a person, I’m a man. And then there’s this whole kind of dogmatic system that you’re being inculturated into. And then you have to come out of that and it makes some sense of it. And I’m just curious, like what that was like for you. Yeah, that’s a deep question and to me it’s one of the, the answer to that question is one of the most foundational healing points for my whole journey to this point. To be told when you are, I mean, as early as you can understand language that there’s a place called hell and if you don’t do things right, if you don’t say the right prayer, if you don’t behave the right way, it’s very possible that you could spend. eternity in a place of horrific torture. You and I, as full-grown adult men with fully developed brains, we can, we have ways to rationalize through that and kind of protect ourselves from that. But a small child, that is, I honestly don’t think that we can really understand the effect of that. And that has been a big part of my awakening and emergence. is exploring that more and considering how that really affected me. And some of the ways that I can clearly see, it seems like such a foundational deep stab at my value. And it’s so interesting because what I was always told was, oh no, you are infinitely valuable. You’re so valuable. Look at what Jesus did for you. He died for you. Yeah. And yet the underlying premise is he had to die for me. I’m that horrible. I’m that evil that he had to die for me. And if he didn’t, I would absolutely be going to hell. And, and then on top of that, if I didn’t say the right thing or believe the right thing, even though he died for me, I’m still going to go to hell. And the effects of that on, on my brain. were just so detrimental. spent, what I recognize is I became someone who traded my authenticity for acceptability. And it seems to me, looking back on it, so obvious why. For that seed to be so deeply rooted at such a young age, it’s like, oh, fuck, I better do things right here and I better comply. with what’s going on here. And then to add on all the other realities of life, the sorrows and the traumas and the fears, all of that, I just started to build this story. Like this place is not safe and I need to fall in line and I need to do what other people tell me to do. I am not inherently valuable. What makes me valuable is this God, this religion, this savior. this death of him and my compliance with that. And so I became the ultimate nice guy, people pleaser, completely non-existent as a separate entity. And the suffering that that created is something that I still process on a daily basis. And I love that I get to process it. And There’s a part of me that loves that I got to experience that suffering so deeply because no one can ever take that away from me. And I went there deeply. I based my life on these beliefs and they ended me in a place where I was contemplating more and more suicide. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I hated my life. I had a failing marriage. My children. didn’t want to be around me, didn’t respect me. I felt totally at a loss for how to connect with them and how to love them. Even though these things, my marriage and my fatherhood were so deeply important to me and things that I just longed to succeed at, it was like I could not figure it out. I could not connect with these people who were so precious to me. And it came to the point where about three and a half years ago, probably closer to four now, my wife just said, and it’s wild to look at the progression of it because for the whole 12 years leading up to that, she kept communicating like something’s wrong here. Like I’m not getting what I need. I don’t feel connected. I don’t feel loved. Like you’re mean and you’re, and yet I had built this religious structure around me where I could go. to church on Sunday and Wednesday, get a couple good handshakes, look a couple people in the eyes and say the right things and get the confirmation, ⁓ no, Ty’s a great guy. Everybody loves him. Everybody thinks he’s so amazing. And my bias was to listen to them over this crazy woman in my life, the only one in my life who was like, dude, something’s wrong. You’re messed up, dude. And yet I had all these other sources that were confirming, no, I’m a good guy. Everything’s good. Everything’s all right. And eventually 12 years into our marriage, things just came to a head. was infidelity and not to mention the infidelity that was going on all throughout through my porn addiction. And it came to the point where the word divorce actually came up as a real possibility. And what I experienced in that moment was a recognition that this facade that I had built was about to come crashing down and everyone was going to see who I really was. And that scared the shit out of me. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It just, it’s interesting to hear this story. I definitely have a lot of clients with a similar story. I just wonder, like, it was like, almost like there’s this way in which in relationship or in, I know, I guess it’s not inevitable, but there’s some way in which something keeps poking at us that eventually we have to change. We have to change. We cannot continue. And it always comes back to this sense of like, it’s so much suffering not to be who we really are. So much suffering. And that keeps poking us until we have to, we collapse, we give up, and then we have to start to rebuild to be that. who we really are, or are we just, you know, I mean, unfortunately I think a lot of people, you know, they end their lives because they can’t be who they really are. I’m not a lot, but there’s a percentage of people that go that route, but it’s, it’s really, it’s so tragic. It’s so tragic. Yeah. Yeah. Man. I love the way you put that. And I feel that so deeply in my soul that I think a way that I would put it is whatever you want to call it. My term for what I used to call God is GRUS and it stands for good God, reality, universe, unity, source and spirit. And for me, Gruss just never gave up. Gruss will not give me satisfaction in anything other than the most beautiful, true, real version of me. And that is one of the new beliefs that I cling to and that I love because it It changes everything. It actually, makes it, it turns those negative things, those things that I used to feel like things that were against me. now see those things as so unbelievably for me. They are my opportunity to grow and remember and be who I actually am because I spent a lifetime building up shit that was not me. And now I’m in this process of. Just slowly peeling all that away and actually seeing who I am and my greatest opportunity there is those moments where it’s like, ⁓ shoot, I’m really sad right now. And I’m really angry right now. I’m really scared right now. Or I’m really joyous right now. And all those pieces that I never had access to before, because I didn’t allow myself to access those things. And now those things are. reminding me and giving me the opportunity to dig in. If I’m scared, well, why am I scared? It used to be, I avoided fear like the plague. Now I see fear as one of my greatest opportunities and teachers. it’s just life is a 180 degrees from what it was. And I love being here now. Good to hear. I’m so glad. So I’m curious. This was, said, kind of really that came to head about four years ago. And so that was really a tipping point where things had to change. And then kind of where are we at today? Or maybe you’d kind of catch us up a little bit of where things are now. You bet. Where am I at today as far as my relationship with my wife, my kids, just kind of all of it or. Yeah. Maybe, maybe there’s something in the middle there that It’s important. I don’t want to rush you through it. I’m just curious, like you’re sort of seeing like, wow, I’ve really made these big shifts in terms of how I’m relating to myself and how I’m seeing the world. And it feels like really transformative, but kind of what I’m curious about that path for the last few years that has sort of led you to this place. Yeah. I love the opportunity to kind of remember because it started for me. I moved out of the house. I lived in my van for. About three months. And right at that moment, I had had a book on my reading list for some time before that, a book by Jaco Willink called Extreme Ownership. And that was the perfect book for me to read in that moment, apparently. And what I learned from Jaco’s experience in battle, and I don’t condone war, battle, any of that. I’ve become very different from who I was when I read the book. And yet it’s so cool to see how perfect it was for me in the moment, because I would say that I was kind of a warmongering type person. And so this battle scarred hero writing this book about extreme ownership and getting to read that in my moment of crisis was so precious because what I realized in reading that book was that my reality is my responsibility. And if I’m the problem, I’m also the solution. And Jaco talks about if anything went wrong on his battlefield, he owned it. He owned, even if someone else made a mistake, he found a way to take ownership to say, Hey, I could have communicated better. And that for me in that moment was such a revelation, such a breath of fresh air, because I had externalized my power in every possible way. I had externalized my value in every possible way. I was completely dependent on everything and everyone around me. And what I gained in reading that book was the recognition that I’m powerful and I can create whatever I want. And it started for me with ownership for recognizing that I had created an environment where my wife was so disconnected. so desperate, so ⁓ heartbroken that she wanted nothing to do with me and she was so hurt and confused and that she was seeking love in other places. And I now look on that with such gratitude that she tried so hard for so long to communicate and to give me the opportunity to change And eventually it came to the point where it’s like, I’m done, man. I’ve got to find love somewhere. And as painful as that was, I now look on that with such gratitude and as one of the greatest gifts that I’ve ever received in my lifetime. And I will, I will spend the rest of my life thanking her for her courage and her power and her consistency and her love for me in all of that. So it started for me with ownership. And then it’s so beautiful to look back and to just recognize all these, what I would now call baby steps. And yet in the moment they felt like Mount Everest. Sure. Yeah, but they were massive, know, like scary. And one of the next big steps was joining a men’s group and getting the protection of powerful men who had done their work to be able to provide a safe place, to be able to provide a protected place for me to develop my own safety, my own internal safety. And it was a place where I could come out and say, I’m addicted to pornography. I am a kleptomaniac. I was stealing things left and right. My wife despises me. My kids don’t want to connect. Like the utter failure of my life. And to be held in that space by those men, not soothed, not like, ⁓ it’s okay, Ty, but so powerfully held and challenged and loved to say, it doesn’t have to be this way. And there is a path and there are steps that you can take to create what you want. And it’s, I’ve been on that path for the last four years ever since, and I love. My life, I love this path. Wow. That’s great. So I wanted to just double click on one part. It’s like, you know, that, way in which men can provide that clarity where it’s not, it’s not an avoidance or discounting, but it’s, it’s going right into it, right into it. Like, yep, this sucks. And what now you got to do something about it. think that’s it’s so beautiful about men’s groups is that there’s an accountability, but it’s not an accountability from shame or judgment or criticism. It’s an, it’s an accountability of like, we’re here, we’re on your side and you can do this. You got to change though. You can’t keep being like this. And then you start to make those short Mount Everest changes or it feels like Mount Everest changes, then slowly but surely you start to make the steps towards something new. So I just, really appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the tiny little language shifts there that I really felt from these men too, is it’s what you said is accurate. You’ve got to change if you want to stay here and be among us. And there’s another sense in which a big part of my journey and my healing is that I don’t have to change. I actually could stay that way. I could stay the same person who was totally disconnected, totally addicted to all these things that were leading me to despair and death. And nothing would change about my inherent and innate value. And that to me is such a powerful truth because what that does is it actually deletes any shame. And now rather than this pressurized container that I have to become someone different or I’m just fucked. or I’m going to hell or I’m unvaluable now, it creates a whole different mindset, which is I get to change and I want to change and I love changing and I love becoming me. No pressure. I don’t have to, but I get to look at what old me created and be like, dude, I don’t like that. It becomes almost logical at that point. And as men being so logically minded, it’s like, ⁓ shoot, yeah. When I believed this, this was the result and I don’t like the result. So I’m not going to believe that anymore. Okay. So this all sort of come out of these last four years. And so where are you now? I’m curious, like in terms of your life, your kids, your wife, how’s that all shifted for you? Oh man. It’s 180 degrees from where it was. My wife and I are deeply. deeply connected, the conversations that I get to have with her on a daily basis now just blow my mind. So, so deeply intimate. Every day is an adventure. And don’t hear me say that there’s not still major, major struggles and major difficulties and major differences. The difference now is that, like I said earlier, the mindset is that those are for me. And so what that does is It opens my mind up to a creative mindset now. And now when I experienced those, like I said, those emotions, those traumas, the fears, the sorrows, even the joys and the pleasures, my mind now is able and not, not immediately. I’m still, I’m still learning to, to get there more quickly. And yet I get there way more quickly than I did at the beginning of this journey, that those things are for me. They are my greatest opportunity, greatest gift. And so I alchemize things that in my previous marriage, and when I say previous, I mean my marriage to the same woman, but previous to my awakening. Those things just went down in the history books as, well, that’s just another withdrawal from the account of love that will never be accounted for or fixed. just became. a part of the fabric of our relationship. Whereas now those major disagreements and pains and sorrows, we alchemize those within oftentimes hours, sometimes a day, maybe two days, but those things become little, I don’t know, maybe carns. I don’t know if you know the term carn, like when you’re hiking, little signposts or, or remembrances that we can look to and be like, Holy cow. Yeah. felt like, you know what carn is? Can you explain what it is? Yeah. carn is like a, like when you’re out hiking, it’s a trail marker that people put up to indicate where the trail is. It’s basically a stack of rocks. Yeah. Sometimes it could be like having a memorial element to it. Like sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. I love that image of just these carns on your life that help you in your journey. And they’re each little ones that Dictate the journey. think that’s really beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. It’s fun, man. It’s fun to be able to look at those and, see, Oh my gosh. I just turned what even in that moment, even like a couple of days ago, I had an experience like this where old old me kind of took the wheel and I felt this deep despair. Like, am I ever going to get what I want in this marriage? And just like deep, deep despair. And yet. the past four years of me training myself, deleting the shame, constantly conversing with powerful people, all of that training, all of that input and that like soaking in this new beauty and this new belief system and all of that kind of just activated. I was scared out of my mind and yet it just kind of activated into a point where it was like my body intuitively knew like you need to be vulnerable right now. You need to share what you’re feeling. That was totally off the table before. I couldn’t say I’m scared right now or I’m really hurt right. That was gone. That was not an option before. And it’s still very scary for me to do that. And yet in this moment, a couple of days ago, that training just took over and I did it. And within literally within 20 minutes, we were so connected. We were so in love. We were so like, it’s just like, whoa, man. I love this. Yeah. Yeah. I want to just give some really appreciating what you’re saying about like this movement from, I think you said externalizing your value, externalizing yourself into like everyone else gets to dictate you. You’re who you are because of everyone else. Like my value is because you love me. My value is because I did a good job and you think I did a good job to this way of like feeling like ownership of your life, this empowerment. I feel like that’s a very common experience I have in my work is that, you know, there’s a way in which the externalization is, it can be like, like a sense of identity. Like I’m not valuable unless you love me, but it’s also often in the form of blame. Like I can’t do who I want to be in because you were holding me back. And I think that this, this idea of ownership is so critical for men to say, I am going to create, I’m going to lead. I’m going to take. find my fierce masculinity and I’m going to take over and make this the way I need it to be. And I’m going to fully empower or I want to say fully embrace my wife’s struggles and complaints and issues and own it, just own it. Cause I think that’s what ends up happening. And I mean, I definitely do this too, is we’re so afraid to sit in the vulnerability of being seen as messing up. And it’s like small things. forgot the butter off or I really messed up. You know, like I did something terribly hurtful. We can’t sit in that. And so we blame, we shame ourselves. We shame other people. There’s all these defensive mechanisms that we use to get out of it. But once you can start to, and it’s not perfect, you don’t do it a hundred percent, you know, is all that obviously, but once you start to realize that I can own all of it, I can just take it all in and use it and use the word alchemize, which for me means It’s all coming in and it’s helping me turn all of this despair and shame and stuff into like this gold of growth. Yes. And I think that’s really what’s happening is that we have to really have that almost, I think, I don’t know if it has to be this way, but there’s almost like a breakdown and then was sort of awakening. And it’s like, then it’s like, really, I’m going to empower myself. And that’s really what I see with so many men that have, I think in many ways parallel your journey. is that I’m gonna do this. know, it’s a lot of my work is to help men to see like, you’re the one that’s gonna do this. I’m not here with your wife. I’m not gonna change your wife. I’m gonna get your wife to be better. I’m not gonna get your kids to be better. I’m not gonna get your parents to be better. You’re the one and you’re the only one. But in taking responsibility for our lives, it just, changes the whole game. Yeah. And what a lie it was to ever believe anything other than that. And it’s intriguing to me. Like where does that lie start for different people? For me, it started with hell and the religion and someone else scaring me so much that it was like, Oh, I can’t trust myself. Oh, I’m not, I don’t have innate value. I don’t know what’s going on here. And yeah, it’s intriguing to me to recognize though, that there’s so many people, so many men. probably women too, who didn’t necessarily have the religious background and yet still have that same feeling. It makes me think that maybe there’s a biological mandate there happening where it’s like, we’re always looking for the tiger. We’re always looking for what’s going to kill us. And it feels like we’re moving past that. It feels like there’s a big move happening where we’re going to overcome that. mean like we’re always looking for reasons why Like to be afraid, to be scared of our circumstances or where we’re at. And then that fear leads us to want to attach to systems that aren’t always the healthiest systems. Like a religious system or something. Yeah. And to me it’s rampant. It’s not just Christianity. It’s not just Islam. It’s Republicanism. It’s Democratism. capitalism, it’s like, these are all to me, religions that we all attach ourselves to, to protect ourselves. Sure. Yeah. No, think it’s actually kind of hard to be fully engaged with our fundamental truth, like our real sense of ourself. I think it’s actually quite uncomfortable, least maybe the journey there. I find it actually quite beautiful and humbling to be in that space at this point, but I think it’s scary for people. so people are looking for some kind of structured thing that will give them the answers to everything. And all of these things are some sort of answer to that. But it’s always a hollow answer. It never really sort of fulfills what we’re looking for. so, you know, the thing I was saying earlier is that I think there’s just this constant kind of itch, sometimes an itch, sometimes it’s like a scream that’s telling us you’re not being who you really are. Keep going. You’re not who you really are. And sometimes it’s really painful. You know, there’s substance abuse and all kinds of other things that we do to kind of fake it. But inevitably there’s a pull in our sort of human life towards that sense of growth and becoming our fullest self and that we can’t get away from. I really don’t think we can get away from that. Yeah. Which is beautiful. It’s baked in. It’s like, it’s beautiful that it’s baked into the whole evolutionary process. ⁓ I love it. It gives me so much hope to recognize that there’s another sense for me. Part of my old belief too, was that time was limited. And so if I didn’t get it figured out in this next 90 years, again, I’m fucked. Yeah. Either I’m going to heaven or I’m going to hell. And I don’t believe that anymore. You know, like the amount of suffering that I accumulate on this earth, I think goes with me wherever I go next. And all it is, it’s like suffering. don’t see good and evil anymore. I see everything leading to bliss and beauty and even the suffering that I am massed in my own experience in this lifetime, this go around or however, whatever you think about it. mean, I’ve already just in one lifetime, I’ve alchemized that suffering into this whole new paradigm where I live in bliss far more than I did before. And so. When I extrapolate that into eternity and more, more time beyond when my body is going to be here. It’s like, dude, even if you suffer a whole lifetime, I’m okay. Like I don’t want you to, and I’m here to be a light and to like do whatever I can to help you jump off of that suffering cycle. And yet if you spend a whole life suffering here, that’s okay. You’re going to be fine. It’s okay. We have this limited perspective of what’s going on here. And that to me is part of what scares the shit out of us is like, I only got 90 years. ⁓ my God. And talk about pressure and pressure then leads to fear and fear leads to a closed mind and a closed mind can’t think about how to actually create what we want. And so that’s one of those beliefs where I’m just like, that belief doesn’t lead me where I want to go. So I’m fucking done with it. Yeah. I’m curious. Like. One of the things that I think is challenging for people who either didn’t have any kind of religious spiritual development, you know, just lived a very secular life or people who’ve come out of that world and have decided that that’s not their right way. Like one of the things I think is hard is like finding some kind of North star in your life that allows you to kind of know where you’re going. Yeah. I think about like religion and even some spiritual traditions, it’s like it gives you some sense of like, this is what you need to do. And I think it’s hard for people to be in the world and have a little bit more of an amorphous, like I’m just going to be me. And I think that’s what’s hard. And so as much as we’re sort of here talking about the challenges of religion, I think what it does provide often is a sense of here’s your North star. And I those North stars can be somewhat distorted as we’re talking about today. But I think in the loss of that, you know, in our more, I think increasingly secularized world, it really makes it hard for people to feel some kind of grounded connection to the sacred. And that is a huge loss. And so then in the absence of that, I’m just curious, like, I don’t think you’ve, sounds to me like you’ve created or not necessarily created, but you’ve maintained the good elements of that. Well, maybe letting go some of the shameful, painful elements of your upbringing. I’m just curious if you could talk a little bit about. how that’s been for you of maintaining some kind of North star in your life. Yeah, I love that. I’ve been thinking about this more lately. A big part of the process of healing and growth for me, one of the mile markers or the indicators that I am healed is when I can go back to my abuser with completely open arms and complete love and just, and I wouldn’t say that I’m fully there yet. And yet I’m on that path and that love is growing. so part of that process for me is recognizing the beauty in my upbringing and recognizing how valuable it really was and how it actually made me who I am today, who is this person who is so much more blissful and so much more excited about life. And maybe I wouldn’t be here today had I not gone through the goods and the bads. of my upbringing and of my religion, former religion. And so the way that I’ve contextualized that in my life is I see religion as a foothold. If we’re to take the analogy of like climbing El Capitan and this sheer rock face, envision that as our life. And as I’m climbing this daunting, unbelievably massive, challenging endeavor. Religion to me is, it’s a foothold and it’s something that, that I was able to grasp onto that gave me some beautiful truths and some opportunity to feel and to explore and to actually experience, ⁓ okay. Here’s Christianity. Like I’m doing it. I’m actually here and I’m holding onto it and I’m believing it and I’m acting. based on those beliefs. And I think what I recognize though is that religion is always only ever that. Religion is not the end goal because religion is by its very nature limited. And I don’t believe that I am limited. I don’t believe that you are limited. I believe that we are eternal, infinite beings. And so I got the opportunity to experience Christianity and now it’s like when I was young, it was a handhold. When I got a little bit older, it was a foothold as I moved up and now I’m moving on to something different and I’m not even standing on it. Does that mean that I don’t love Jesus Christ and the message and so many of the stories and so many beautiful things from the Bible and so many of the amazing experiences that I’ve had and the amazing things that Christianity has produced in this world? Absolutely not. I love those things. But my life is no longer based on those things. I’ve climbed beyond it. And that’s also to say that like, I have new religions now in a sense, and they are religions of my own making. And my hope and my desire is that those now are my handhold. And in a couple years, they will be my foothold. And I will progress past those things eventually. That’s kind of the way that I contextualize that stuff now. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you feel like you have beyond sort of the kind of the growth element of your life? Like it sounds like that’s kind of what you’re saying. Like you’re going to keep growing. You’re going to discover new ideas and new things. You’re going to keep growing, which is beautiful. I wonder if there’s like a way in which you have some kind of essential philosophy or way of seeing the world that really kind of keeps you grounded or in line with, you your turn of divine essence. think you’re talking about the sense of divine essence and like, that’s where, you know, know, truth resides. Cause you know, I think it’s kind of easy to be in that in some ways, but there’s also times where I like what you’re saying about suffering and the challenges of life being a way to continue to use that. to grow, but I think for a lot of people, it’s those times where we need some kind of grounded sense of ourselves, you know, whether it’s a religion or spiritual tradition, whatever it is, it’s like when I’m really suffering, I need that. I need something to feel. need that toe hold. So I just wonder for you, if there’s like a real sense of like, this is the thing that I really can depend on in those challenging times. Man, I mean, there’s so many different things that come to mind. It’s hard to pinpoint right now. And that may be part of the indication that like, I’m actualized or realized or I’m not done growing. But for me, I would say that bliss is kind of a central theme. have a belief that bliss is my natural state. It is what I’m created for and why I’m here and it’s my birthright. It’s who I actually am. And so. If ever I’m outside of bliss, and that’s where other pieces, other answers to your question kind of come in. Now I have this thing, okay, bliss is who I really am. Anytime that I’m outside of bliss, anytime that I’m experiencing stress or fear or anger or trauma, any of these things that all those are to me now, and this is another belief that plays into that whole system for me, all those are opportunities. And along with that, there’s so many pieces to this kind of, for lack of a better word, religion that I’m building for myself that I use in those moments where I don’t feel grounded. I mean, one of the things that I am discovering is what I call superpowers. We were told by Hollywood that superpowers are what Superman has. He can fly, he can laser beam people, he can, you all these crazy things. And yet what I’m realizing in my life is that. I am full of superpowers. And the definition of a superpower to me now is it’s available to me in every moment that I’ve ever existed or ever will exist. It’s available to everyone in every moment. Maybe that’s the full definition. It’s things like vulnerability. It’s things like breath. It’s things like curiosity and courage and creativity. Like these things are available to me in every moment that I’ve ever existed and yet they were unknown to me and unavailable to me. And now they are available to me and I get to pull them out and use them in those moments where I don’t feel grounded, where I feel scared. And the effect is it’s 180 degrees from where I was before. Wow. Yeah. That’s great. Well, Ty, I just want to take a moment to thank you. I wanted to ask Before we end though, is there a place where people can find you? Yeah, I am. I’ve got a website, wholeman.org. wholeman.org, okay. Yeah. And then I’m on Instagram and Facebook, Instagram. I just actually changed my name and I didn’t even tell you, Bryce, it’s weird. And, but I now refer to myself as Cowl. And so my Instagram page is Cowl I am. If anyone’s interested. Okay. Cowl I am. Is it C-O-W-L? ⁓ no, it’s actually C-C-O-W-L. C-C-O-W-L. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Okay. Well, thank you so much for being here today. It’s been such a pleasure to connect with you and spend time with you. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. Sometimes connect on WhatsApp for just brief texting, but it’s just really great to see you in person. I appreciate you being on the show today. Right. Thanks. Thanks for having me. I love your presence, man. love your gentleness. feel connected to you and I love you. I love you too, man. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening today. Please take a moment to like and follow so we can continue to change the world by changing ourselves. Have a wonderful day.

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]]> 50504 Ep. 11: Using Relationship To Become Our Best Self with Jeff Borkowsky https://brassballstenderheart.com/podcast-ep-11-using-relationship-best-self-jeff-borkowsky/ Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:37:56 +0000 https://brassballstenderheart.com/?p=50505 Jeff Borkowsky, a men's coach and author, grew up with a father who tried to toughen him up. The shame that came with it made him defensive and avoidant in his marriage, which ended in divorce.

The post Ep. 11: Using Relationship To Become Our Best Self with Jeff Borkowsky appeared first on BrassBalls TenderHeart.

]]> The BrassBalls TenderHeart Podcast · Episode 11 · Originally released March 26, 2026 · 54 min

Jeff Borkowsky, a men’s coach and author, grew up with a father who tried to toughen him up. The shame that came with it made him defensive and avoidant in his marriage, which ended in divorce.


Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | All episodes

About this episode

He talks with Bryce about what he learned in the reflective years that followed, why the purpose of marriage is growth rather than happiness, and why men need a community of other men while they do this work.

“Whatever she’s doing to you is to help you become a better person.”
Bryce

Key takeaways

  • Unprocessed childhood shame becomes the filter men hear a partner’s complaints through, and it triggers defensiveness instead of curiosity.
  • A simple daily reflection practice builds awareness and breaks autopilot patterns.
  • Marriage is designed to grow you. Friction is part of the point.
  • Your worth has to come from self-respect for your own growth. Your partner’s praise is a bonus, not fuel.
  • Men need other men to witness and support their growth.

About Jeff Borkowsky

Jeff Borkowsky is a men’s coach and author who works with men through marriage crisis and divorce.

wifemagnet.me

Doing this work yourself?

Bryce Giron Mathern, LPC, works with men, dads and couples in Denver. If this episode hit home, start here:

Transcript

Read the full transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain small errors.

Bryce Giron Mathern: Welcome to the Man For Real podcast. We are here to celebrate men, as well as talk about how all men can do better and lead our world to a healthier place. Get ready to get real. Hey everyone. Thanks for listening today. My guest today is Jeff Borkowski, the author of Better Man, Better Marriage. He’s going to talk about how he used his divorce as a way to help himself grow and improve as a man. Jeff Borkowski, welcome to the podcast. Bryce, great to be here, man. Yeah. It’s really good to have you here. I really appreciate you. You’re the first person I’ve reached out to an author that I really appreciated. And you are so, so kind to get back to me so quickly and make the effort. So thanks for being here. Absolutely. So I’d like to just start getting a sense of, know, kind of your journey as a man. You know, you’re kind of come to this place of being a, you know, a men’s coach and you’ve written books about relationships and marriage and that sort of thing. And I just like to get a sense of like, you know, what happened in your life that kind of led you to this place. Man, it wasn’t always this way, Bryce. You know, I grew up riddled with kind of debilitating insecurity. am the oldest of five born to a nurse and a Navy officer and Navy pilot and first born son. I think he wanted to shape. in his own image. My dad held physical fitness records in the Navy for years at a time. His firstborn son just wasn’t that alpha aggressive guy and he just did it all wrong. His attempts to toughen me up, to condense a lot of years of my childhood, his attempts to toughen me up actually had the opposite impact. They crushed me, crushed my spirit. So I just grew up with this Am I enough or actually way beyond that actually, it wasn’t a question. It was a certainty that I suck. Like I’ll never measure up. I’ll never be strong. I’ll never be a real man. And sadly, you know, I brought that into my adulthood and I brought that into my marriage and let’s see, guide me a little bit. I don’t know how much to share, not to share. Yeah. Whatever feels comfortable. think, you know, you’re speaking to, I think what a lot of men feel, which is that sense of shame. That sort of core sense of shame. And then they come into their relationships. And so I’m curious for you, as you’ve been on this journey, like how that shame showed up or impacted your relationship in your marriage. Yeah, definitely in a big way. And I see this a lot in my community and with the guys I work with, right? When my wife came with a criticism, not even a criticism, maybe a complaint, fairly innocuous complaint. What I heard was bad husband, bad, bad, right? Because that was the unconscious programming from my childhood. It’s like, suck. You’ll never be good enough. You’ll never be strong enough. know, most interactions with my dad in my formative years ended with me like crying and feeling defeated and feeling like just, I suck. So I definitely brought that into my marriage, which, which is terrible if you think about it for a marriage, right? It means that we were never able to move toward greater connection and greater intimacy because as you know, you know, every complaint, every hard conversation in a marriage is also an invitation like, Hey, let’s ratchet up the level of our connection and intimacy here. So, you know, my marriage stayed shallow for a lot of years because I was reactive guy. was defensive guy and I was also avoidant. I think they all kind of go together, right? Like I’m gonna react. I’m gonna tell you why you’re crazy. I’m gonna tell you why you’re wrong. And then passive aggressively because you hurt me, you threatened my very fragile sense of self because you threaten that now I’m gonna hurt you back, you know? And I was sadly the king of, yeah, I’m just gonna disappear if not physically. didn’t honestly, I didn’t have the courage probably to be that guy. I would disappear emotionally. You know, for days at a time, just withdraw, withhold, ignore my wife. Just, yeah, didn’t make for a good marriage, Bryce. And it only took her probably a handful of years, even though she left at the 14 or 15 year mark. I know that very early on it was, you know, looking back, my wife, and I think a lot of women do this, right? They start to create a life apart from the relationship and apart from the marriage and. For my wife, meant starting businesses. We lived in California at the time, buying properties, turning them into rentals. I don’t even know if it was conscious, but there was definitely looking back, I can see that. Yeah. At some point she realized this guy is just a dud. Like we are never going to have the marriage I wanted. And so I’m going to start creating something I am excited about because this marriage certainly isn’t in that column. Okay. So this all happened. And then you started to change or you started to have new ideas about how relationships can work. So I’m curious, like what happened to you? mean, obviously a divorce is a big wake up call. Yeah. But I wonder like, so from that point, then where did you go from there to sort of come to this place you are today? Down, Bryce. went down. crashed hard. She moved out and it was under the She wasn’t trying to deceive me, but I think to soften the blow, was her saying, Hey, I’m having a bit of a midlife crisis. I just got to figure out, you know, so it was the coaching I received at the time was like, her space and it’s okay. And as long as you guys put a plan in place, you know, for there to be reconciliation, you guys working on your relationship. within a few days, she made it clear she wanted no part of that. And then less than a week after she moved out, I got served divorce papers. So it was like, Whoa. So I crashed and burned. think I cried every day for six or seven months. Again, never in the presence of my kids, but I stepped away from my job at the time. I ended up taking 18 months off and just living on savings. Initially, I didn’t know it was going to be 18 months, but I got up from that bottom and I write about this. I don’t give a lot of detail, but in the book I do kind of mention it and it is a foundation of our community. In the community, we call it our sacred vow. But I got up from that place, not knowing what was going to happen with my wife and I, divorce had been filed, but it was four months away from being finalized. But I got up from that place of grief and just decided, you know what? I am going to learn and 100 % own my contribution to the sorry state of our marriage. Now, to be honest, at that time, I still thought she was mostly at fault. So, right, this was the very beginnings of my awakening, so to speak. But what we call in the community, our sacred vow, I’ve shared it and we do it every morning together, but it’s simple. It’s, have one goal to grow, evolve. Become a better man, a great man for me, for me first, for my family and for the world. So that vow and what it’s led to was birthed in that dark. hit of despair and unofficially that’s where kind of what I do today, right? That was 11 years ago, but that’s in a sense, that’s where it started. I didn’t, I had no clue, no aspiration to write, to write anything or ever help other men in this regard. I certainly wouldn’t have felt qualified back then, but that was the genesis of it. Okay. Okay. And where are you at now? Like in terms of your, are you single still? I am. Yeah. So if the idea of a relationship even entered my mind, was following quickly on the heels was I’m not going near that right now. Like I am, I already F’ed up my marriage. Like I’m in no condition to jump into a relationship. You know, the little I knew then I knew honestly with my own soul that yeah, that would just be a way to numb the pain and not actually move toward it. And I’m a big proponent of moved toward the pain. So I knew it would be a few years at least. And then as my youngest entered high school, I will just say this again, no blame cast in his mom’s direction. If anything, I take ownership. I led us to that terrible place, right? She made some decisions that I wish she hadn’t made, but I led us there through my passivity and through my avoidance. But my son was traumatized. Our youngest was really traumatized. And I knew as he entered high school a few years later, I’m a bit of a romantic and I knew if dad gets into a relationship, he will feel like he’s been left twice. I just knew it because his sister was already out of the house. There are some years apart and I just knew, you know, coming out of that sacred vow, I knew I had two priorities. One was heal. and grow and become a better man. And the other was to shepherd my son’s heart. So literally those 18 months that I took off, part of it was because it was like a rebirth and I was taking soul care classes and I was reading books and I was watching videos and I started journaling and I started breath work and I, you know, just the whole shebang, so to speak. But the other reason I took off 18 months was to be home every day. for my freshman in high school and to be there in the morning and to have breakfast with him and to be there at 2.30 when he got off the bus and to be able to watch a movie with him that night or play Xbox. So it was a lot of Jeff time, personal reflection and growth. And it was also a lot of me and my son time and just trying to help him walk through the pain and the trauma of the divorce and just, again, the way it all went down. So. I’m rambling a little bit, but that’s my roundabout answer. And then as he approached graduation, and that’s been a couple of years now, I’ve dated, I’m open, I’m looking, I’ve been on the apps and then off the apps. I asked a woman at the gym about a month ago for her phone number, didn’t see the wedding ring on her finger. That didn’t work out. Yeah, but those first eight or nine years, it was like, okay. I’m really clear on my priorities and dating is not one of them right now. And I have no regrets looking back. I’ve never even once thought, ⁓ was that the right call? No, I know for certainty it was the right call. Okay, great. Well, so you took these 18 months off. You did all this reflection and learning and I guess what, I wonder if there’s like a specific moment or a specific insight where you started to realize like, oh, maybe it wasn’t all my wife’s fault. Maybe I had a part in this on some level or was there a specific book or training or something that like, I mean, I’m sure it was all, you know, all of these things together. It sort of helped you for lack of a better word, wake up. But I’m just curious, like that’s such a, it sounds like such a rich time for you to sort of dive in and give yourself that space to really learn about these things that you were learning about. Agreed. And I’m still in it, which is cool. Right. I’m sure I’m still like you. Yeah. Yeah. Which I didn’t understood, you know, for the first five decades of my life, you know, looking back, I don’t know how, especially in the kind of community I was a part of and my, career was like, how did I go so long without personal evolution becoming a high value? It’s still a bit baffling. Although the answer, which is the first lesson in my course, I think is most of us are on autopilot. Yeah. You know, we’re just without a practice like journaling, taking time intentionally to reflect and to ask, you know, at the end of the day, what went well, what needs work, what will I do differently next time or tomorrow? I mean, without that, we’re just, we’re just not conscious, you know, we’re just, so that journey of consciousness really, when I got up from the floor and said, I’m going to own 100 % own whatever my part is as it’s revealed. Price, was supernatural, it was probably too strong of a word, but in my times of reflection, I’m so thankful for the habit and I continue it to this day about five or six nights a week. It was just during those times because there’s still some grief mixed in there, right? We’re not divorced yet. then even on the heels of the divorce being finalized. Bryce, was like I would have these moments where I would literally see in my mind’s eye, I would see vignettes from the past exchanges between my wife and I and how I handled it and the guy I showed up as. again, whether it’s God for some of the guys in your audience, whether it’s the universe, whether it’s higher intelligence, it was like, I guess my heart and soul were just in the right place of being receptive. And I think my desire to learn was genuine. And I started seeing these vignettes and having this deep sense of without reading books. I wasn’t reading books at the time on relationships. I was reading mostly books and watching videos on personal evolution and growth and pushing our limits, getting outside of our comfort zone, learning new things, trying new things, getting uncomfortable, you know, all that stuff. And I would just. Instead of feeling the shame of that memory, would actually in my mind’s eye and in my soul kind of know, ⁓ that’s what she needed. I wish I could like explain it. And I’m certainly not trying to sound, you know, let’s pat Jeff on the back and say, wow, you’re amazing. But it just came to me. I wouldn’t take credit for it. You know, even writing my books, there were times when I would get up from a chapter and I know you’ve experienced this, I’m sure with clients and with your work where you’re like, Okay, I’m trained to do what I do, meaning you, Bryce, but like, wow, I don’t know where that came from, but that was exactly what that person needed in that moment. Yeah. So I was just having those personally. And I was writing about it and reviewing those things. Yeah. Does that answer your question? That’s really good. Yeah. One of the things I loved about your book that you did throughout it was this way you would translate. you would describe an action and then you would translate, this is what she’s feeling inside. If you do that. Yes. I just loved how you did that because I think it really speaks to this understanding of the feminine experience. Like what’s that like? I mean, I could give specifics, but it was just so helpful to read that and think, ⁓ that’s not what I want her to think or feel. And yet I still, I can sort of see the behavior and be like, well, what’s wrong with that? And then it’s like, but if you do that, this is how she’s going to experience it. And I thought that was just incredibly insightful and helpful. And I agreed with all of it. was like, ⁓ yeah, that’s exactly how my wife feels when I do that. So I loved that. But it was almost like you were translating the feminine in this book in a really beautiful way. that’s cool. Yeah. I try to keep it simple. And I know for us guys, right, just seeing it simply spelled out, I do a lot of that translating. And then also here’s your wife said this, but let me translate. Here’s what she was really. You know, and a lot of, all of that came again, not to take credit, but it just came intuitively. And before I wrote my first book or while I was writing my first book, I did have a group of 20 to 40 men and women, but a lot of women in there where I was sending chapters, emailing chapters to friends and saying, am I close? I missing it by a mile? You know, ladies, especially since I’m kind of speaking for you, help me. And I kept getting the kind of response I just got from you. you know, about your wife, meaning women just saying, how do you know this? Who taught, you know, this is spot on. And so that was my little encouragement just to like, okay, I’m onto something. I don’t know how or why, or, somebody’s tapping me on the shoulder and saying, keep going. So, and even the book idea for the first one, it came from the insistence of a friend. It was a lot of my journal entries and a close intimate friend from California. few times and we’re talking on the phone and he’s asking me about my journey. And sometimes I would read little passages from my journal. And one time he didn’t know what I was reading from, cause I don’t probably didn’t announce it. He’s like, wow, that is awesome. He said, what are you reading? Thinking, you know, it was a book. said, no, that’s my journal. said, dude, he said, you’ve got to put that in writing. You got to get this stuff out there. And was really out of left field. was like, really? Yeah. Yeah. And that’s how it started, honestly. And then I released the first book and I put my contact info in there. And guys started reaching out to me, Hey, do you coach? And I was like, I guess I could, you know? So, wow. That’s wonderful. Yeah. That’s literally how it started. Bryce. I was painting houses for 25 and 30 and $35 an hour, barely getting by. And I released the first book and yeah, guys started reaching out to me. Wow. That’s so cool. Yeah. One of the things I was going to ask you about, I this sort of was interesting is, you you talk a lot about leadership, which I also talk a lot about it with my male clients, you know, taking the lead, you know, being in that masculine energy and taking the lead. One of the things that was really striking to me is this, it wasn’t a lot of the book, but it was like a certain part of the book of like wanting more like excitement and novelty and how, and there was a part of the book where you were talking about how like women don’t speak directly to what they need or want and that sort of thing. And I have this sense in myself and this is like very like psychological training that I’ve had of like You’re an adult. Exactly. So you think what you need. It’s actually very much. And what I loved about it was you were like, what’s fun about that? It’s so boring. And I was just like struck by that. was like, you’re right. It is boring. It’s like so much more fun to like give you a little bit of the thing. And then you had to figure it out. Let’s say you have to work for it. And I was like, yeah, I want to work for it. And I’m still annoyed by that at times. I have to work for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m still annoyed. I’m like, oh, why don’t you just tell me that? But. I think there is something about that where it’s almost like the feminine is saying, it’s not like a test, that’s not quite it. It’s more just like, I’m gonna give you this and then I want you to work for it. Come work for this, lead me back into connection. And it just really struck me and it really realized like, I was wrong. I think you’re right. I think that I need to work on the translation. I need to like take the effort and say, you were saying this and this is what I was getting and let’s figure this out. or, you know, figure out myself, but also like not expect this like ease of translation. I think you spoke to that too of like how men, what the man’s saying to the woman is like, yeah, I’m done working. I’m not trying anymore. I’ve got you. I figured out. Yeah. I’ve cracked the code. Yep. That was probably the quote. And it was like, I just, just tell me what you need and I’ll do it, but I’m not going to work for this anymore. I’m not going to try for this anymore. And I just, it really hit me because I know I’ve done that to my wife. I’m like, Why didn’t you tell me that? You didn’t say that. You said this and I didn’t know you meant that. And then she’s just like, what? Why didn’t you know? Like figure it out. And I’m just like, no, no, you’re an adult. And now I’m like, ⁓ okay. Yeah. I’m going to work. I can keep working. I can’t just start being, you know, just giving up and being like, I’m doing enough here. Just, you know, like phoning it in, so to speak. So I just really loved that. I thought that was wonderful. Make this easier for me. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think it is about the feminine that makes that part of their wiring? I mean, go ahead. Well, I think, you know, it’s like almost like if you think about it more in an embodied sense, like the feminine shows up almost like in lingerie. Like I’m going to show you some of myself. I’m going to show all of myself. I like that. Yeah. Like I’m going to, I’m going to tease you. I’m going to give you some information, but I want you to work for it. Like you got to come over here and you got to get me excited. If you want this, you gotta work for it. that’s what really came to me. was like, cause you know, I think in our physical intimacy, I get that. Like it’s like, course, you know, I’m not just like, okay, let’s go. It’s like, you know, I gotta like bring a leader into that space and you know, we gotta start the whole process of, know, getting each other warmed up and all the beautiful things that go along with that. But it just started, struck me. like, oh, in this world, I feel like I shouldn’t have to do that. And like, what’s the difference? What’s the difference? I’m not sure there’s a difference. I am so glad I asked you that question. You just gave me an outline for the chapter in my next book, Bryce. Oh, great. That lingerie picture. I’m going to show you a little and yeah, it’s do you care enough to keep pursuing me? Right? Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. Are you going to keep pursuing me? Are you going to keep moving in my direction? That is so good. I wrote a post. I write for a men’s app called live free. It’s an app for men wanting to kick the porn habit. And one of the themes in my last book, right? It’s in there a little bit, but we say it a lot in my community, which is stop playing the princess. Stop playing in the princess. playing the princess, like stop being in the role of the princess. Okay. And the woman wants to be in that role. Right. And so I just wrote a post, two story about a client. He and his wife had a little disagreement after putting the kids to bed. It was unsettling. wasn’t a major fight, but it was unsettling. And he. Went downstairs to his man cave to play call of duty and just kind of like check out, right? Do the avoidant thing. And a few hours later, his wife came downstairs by this time it’s probably, you know, 10 30, 10 45. And she asked him, are you coming to bed? That’s all she said. And he said, no. And what I say in that post is he missed it. Right? So he missed a bid for connection. That’s what Gottman calls a bid for connection. She wasn’t looking for the information. Are you coming to bed now or in five minutes? Right. That was her repair attempt. And what she was really saying in that moment was, Hey, I hate feeling disconnected from you. Would you come upstairs? Even if we don’t talk about the spat, you know, would you just cuddle with me? Would you hold me in your arms? I just need to know we’re okay. And what I say in the post is, The uninitiated male asks, well, then why didn’t she just say that? Right. And, what I say after that is no, that’s the wrong question. Here’s the right question. Why did she have to descend two flights of stairs into his dark lair? Why did she in the absence of true masculinity have to hastily play the hero and fight for their marriage? Cause that’s what was happening. She was fighting for their marriage and you know, it was in a sense, it was very unfeminine of her. But what did he do? He was playing the princess, right? Think of his answer. No. What was he doing? He was playing hard to get, right? He was actually playing the princess and she had to go after him and he, anyway, you get the whole idea. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s part of it. That’s part of her DNA, right? Like pursue me, come after me, show me you care, show me I matter. Mm-hmm. I wonder though, this is a thing that I’m curious about from your perspective is that I work with a lot of men who I want to say that they are the primary providers sometimes exclusively the providers. Yeah, they do well. They make you know, good money They take care of their family all that stuff and they often feel like a pretty deep sense of despair or like there’s this kind of like emptiness in the side that they don’t feel very seen in all of it. They don’t feel very acknowledged in all the things that they do. And there’s a wanting to, I guess the best word is appreciation or gratitude or something like that, that they rarely get in their life. It’s shown up enough that I was like, huh, this seems like a thing. And I was sort of curious about it because I find that my female clients never talk about that. They never like actively looking for some sort of, you know, they want to be seen. But it’s not like it’s not the same thing. It’s like, think in that sort of more male role in our culture of like provider, protector, there’s almost like a wanting to be seen of like, you’re doing a good job as a man. And I think there’s something about that that’s, I was gonna say natural. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but there’s something about that that feels like I want to be seen in all that I do, all that I sacrifice, all that I get up every morning and work my ass off for this family and for you and for. making this all work. I just want to be seen in that sometimes. And I think the way they want to be seen, which is maybe different than the feminine is to be seen in their masculine glory. I’m not sure what the words are. Yeah. But I felt like in your book, you were saying, yeah, you really need that. You know, not say that we don’t, but like, it was more like, is that what we’re going for here? So I’m just curious what you think about that. It’s a great question. I think it’s one of the reasons it’s so important. to be a part of a tribe of men, right? Because we get that from each other. You know, as you were asking your question and setting it up in my head, I was thinking there’s probably two different scenarios that sound very similar. And in one case, the one you described, that guy is also, you know, doing the things we’ve talked about, pursuing her and making his marriage a priority. and walking in his leadership lane and owning the health of the marriage and being the one to plan date nights. I don’t mean every time, right? But the one who’s going first, as I say in my book. And then there’s the guy, right? A lot of the guys that come to my community and I was one of them where it’s a little bit like, hey, I do all of this and you should be happy and that should be enough. And why are you so freaking hard to please woman? Right. But it’s not coming from a place of there’s deep connection, there’s intimacy, there’s friendship. You know, it’s, it’s more just like, you’re too demanding and I should be getting more from this and out of this, it’s not, you know, it’s like a victim kind of energy. It’s not like, Hey, I want to lead us to a stronger place, better place. I want to get really clear on what your priorities are in this marriage. I’m going to do my best to be clear on what I need more of, yada yada. Yeah. So I think, gosh, I think it’s, would you agree? It’s like the same scenario, but it’s like, really depends on how we’re coming at that. Showing up. Yeah. No, I think that’s right. I think if you’re, well, I think here’s where the disconnect goes for men is like, they do the things that the culture has directed as swords. Yeah. I make the money, I pay the bills, make sure I lock the door at night, protect my family. What they’re not doing though, is they’re maybe not leading to connection, all the things you just spoke of. I’m not engaging with my kids, come home, I’m tired. I’m to go sit on my phone, read the newspaper, whatever. And so what they’re seeing is that they’re doing this thing. And why am I not getting all of this adoration for my efforts? And I’ve definitely had men in my couples work where the woman is just exasperated because she doesn’t get much of anything from this guy. She doesn’t get any sort of leadership connection, he just kind of is like, what? God, it’s like more for me. And they don’t really see how I think the way I try to sort of leverage it is like, this isn’t about your wife. This isn’t going to make her life better. This is going to make your life a lot better because she’s going to feel connected and loved and sexy and fun and playful. It’s like, you’re not getting all these things because you’re not doing these things. And for a lot of these guys, you know, I can sit here and complain about them, but it’s not that it’s like, they don’t have no idea. It’s like, that’s how their dads were. So I don’t really see it as like, there’s like this big deficiency. I’m just like, they, they have no idea, but like, it’s getting back to my, this is a long drawn out answer to your question, but I think what ends up happening is that when they’re asking for that, it feels like this kind of like needy is giving me more instead of coming from this place of like, clarity and groundedness and like, maybe I really want you to see me in my power. I want you to, I want to feel that from you. want to see, you know, that’s totally different if I think to sort of see how you’re describing it. Yeah. Two things come to mind. If I was a women’s coach, I would tell that woman, praise your man. Right. Like I would, I would coach her down that path. Obviously one of the things we say in the community is there comes a point Now I’m coaching guys and my community is for guys in marriage crisis, right? So very different from the books I write. The community and the course is for guys in separation, divorce is pending, yada, yada. But there comes a time on every guy’s journey where I will say to that guy, hey, in a grounded, calm, I’m not upset way, but it’s appropriate for you to say to your wife, hey, listen, you may not be proud of my changes, but I am. I am. And then walk away. Right. So it’s because as you can imagine, right. In my community, the women who are separating from their husbands and the guys that find me, you know, these wives know that, Hey, just cause you put a good week or two together, doesn’t mean you’re, you’re radically different. You know, I know my husband, if he sets a goal, if he’s got a target, he’ll go all in and he could impress anybody, you know, so it takes time. The average separation in the States is 10 to 15 months. And that’s some of the first news my clients get, which they hate, right? They want this thing to be over in maybe two months. And I’m having to tell them upfront, no, we’re playing the long game here. One of our little mantras in the community is we’re turning a cruise ship, not a kayak, right? Like this is a long, slow turn. But to have that strong masculine sense of I’m owning my crap. And I’m two months in and you may not recognize my changes. You may not be proud of them. You don’t need to be. I am. I love what’s happening inside me. I love the man I’m becoming. And I think obviously, right, that strong. I think if we can live from that place and we were a part of a tribe of men where we get to acknowledge each other and our hard work and stuff that we’re fighting through and the stuff that we’re slaying. I think in marriage, the acknowledgement and the praise, yeah, it’s important. And I think it should be kind of like the icing on the cake. Like I already have the cake. I already have a strong sense of I’m proud of me and I love it when you acknowledge it, but if you don’t, I’m not going to collapse. I’m I’m okay. If you’re not acknowledging it, maybe I could. do a better job of just extracting you from the house and the demands of kids and laundry and cooking dinner and packing lunches. Maybe we just need to, you know, maybe we need three or five days out of the house and maybe my wife will be able to show up differently and be like, you know what I haven’t told you in a while? You’re amazing. Right? Yeah. I like that idea of it being the icing on the cake. think there was like a part of me that could kind of like take care of myself. I have a very self-reliant part of me that’s like really good at that. Yeah. As I’ve deepened in my relationship with my wife, one of the things that’s come out though is like wanting more from her in a way, like more emotional, I don’t know, depth or connection or something and wanting to be seen in some of these things. Whereas I think in the early part of my relationship with her, it was very much about, I got it, I’ll just take care of myself. And that’s just, that’s my natural state. That’s part of my developmental trauma was I just had to take care of myself a lot. And so I’m sort of bringing up as a personal question because I’m wondering about like, don’t know if I deserve quite yet the icing on the cake. I think I got a few more, maybe decades of working on this shit. But I do think that there’s something about the feminine seeing the masculine at that. I still haven’t quite formulated. So that’s kind of what I’m coming out of. like, what is that moment where, you know, I’ve done that in couples therapy where I’ve had the woman speak to the man. and say, you know, just like, see you, I see you, you’re a good man. Stuff like that, like over and over again. And the shame and the pain and often tears come up. It’s just like really powerful to be seen like that for men. And so, I don’t know, I’m still working with this one. I’m still curious. I like what you said. I’m just like, hmm, what do I want from my wife? I’m not even sure exactly what it is. In your estimation, you know, the scenario just described in the tears and the emotion. You think that has more or less or equal to do with he’s never heard it from her or it’s been five years. And so this is washing him and, or do you think it’s part of his broken record from the past? Right. Like mine is you suck. So for an adult, just to say, I see you, you matter. I appreciate you. This family is lucky to have you. What do you think? I’m just curious. Yeah. I mean, I think. It’s definitely both. think what happens, and this is maybe leading to my next question, because I really appreciate this part of your book too, is that we are attached to our parents and we get wounded in that relationship. And we attach to our partners and we play out all the bullshit that we didn’t work out with our parents. And so there’s a definite a place of feeling that love and connection with our partners. that starts to heal the love and connection we maybe didn’t get with our original attachment people. And so when that happens, I think it’s, it’s both like the longing to feel like I’m a good man. Like there’s a longing to feel that on some level. And then also for a lot of these men, there’s just a well of shame that has come out of their original, their family of origin and has led them to feel, you know, all the things that you talked about at the beginning of like why it was so hard to show up in your. in your marriage. So I think when that happens, just pokes all of that and it just, and it’s so healing because it’s like, ⁓ so really. Yeah, it’s so healing. And just to say to your audience as a quick aside, I’m certainly not saying don’t share your needs with your wife, right? If anything, me and the guys that come into my community, initially that’s been an area where they have failed miserably, right? Just speaking up, speaking up for self and saying, Hey, when you, I, or, know, this is what I would really love more of this means a lot to me. It’s actually initiating those conversations. So many guys just never do. And then we become that shook up Coke bottle of resentment, right? Yeah. Yeah. So just to say to your audience, yeah, listen, hey, everything Bryce is talking about is legitimate and real. And we do need that from our spouse. And if you need more, let her know, let her know. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. So partly on that is this sense that I really loved. And you just, said it. here too, which I’m really appreciating is I bring this to my clients sometimes and they’re a little bit like surprised by it. You know, it’s a little question of like, what is the point of marriage? What is the point of like deep relationship? And for a lot of people, it’s like, well, you know, companionship, we like each other, we hang out, we have sex, we have a family, we take, you know, we steward our kids through this world and it’s all very practical. And I often say, oh, no, no, no, no. I mean, yeah, all that. That’s true. But you guys picked each other because you’re going to help each other grow. That’s why you picked each other. And so it’s actually quite, I want to say, I was going say astonishing, not astonishing, but like, they’re like, whoa, I’ve never even thought of it like that. Yeah. And I’m like, that’s why. And, you know, I talk about the sort of that, you know, alchemical kind of thing that happens where, you know, you bring these two people together and then all this conflict and differences and stuff goes on, creates all this heat and that creates change. Yeah. Right. And as that heat comes up, what happens is then we start to grow and we start to change and slowly all that trauma starts to get healed and all that waste starts to move out. And so that’s really why we are in relationship. I was just, I was thinking of this one client, I was talking about all this and he was like, why hasn’t anybody ever told me that I never knew any of this. I was like, well, you know, it’s not like super new. This is like, you know, from the Imago, I don’t know if you know the background of this kind of theory. It’s this Imago theory that they came up with back in the day and probably in the sixties or seventies. But it is like, to me, it really sort of creates this notion of relationship as the, like the foundation or the way in which you are going to evolve to your best self. when you’re pissed at this person, just remember. whatever she’s doing to you is to help you become a better person. Now it doesn’t seem like that in the moment. Sure as hell doesn’t seem like that in the moment. ⁓ But that’s why she’s in your life. And that’s why you picked her. And I just loved that. I love that idea because it’s like, ⁓ you know, like I think about my relationship with my wife and I’m like, so incredibly grateful because nothing, no amount of meditation or therapy or breath work or anything could even come close to how much she has. opened me up to my core self and made me more and more of the, like the best person I can be. And like, I can never even imagine, there’s no way could repay her for that. It’s it’s amazing. And so I think that that idea and I didn’t get, there was definitely that was in your book. I think it just is so helpful for men to understand like, no, no, no, no, she’s not fucking with you. She’s helping you become your best self. That hit me years ago, like a ton of bricks. And I think it was crystallized with a quote that I included in the book. I believe I know it’s in the community, Nate Bagley. He’s a, okay. It’s in the book. Yep. He’s a Gottman disciple, but I remember seeing that quote, the point of marriage isn’t happiness. It’s growth. And that not only hit me personally, but I remember having this thought like universally, like, ⁓ my freaking like. That would change the world. That would change marriage across the board if I’m stepping into this relationship knowing it’s way more than the good moments, the comfort, the predictability, the familiarity, the sex, the intimate. But it’s like, yeah, all that’s great. And the priority is I get to grow. Being my age and being single, It’s not that I’m this amazing guy, but I say to the guys in our community all the time, you guys are part of the 1%. If you think of our world, it’s rare that people are conscious. It’s rare that people are leaning into pain and criticism and discomfort and have this high value to own everything they can own and to grow and to become better, more generous, kinder, more compassionate humans. We might all agree or subscribe to that as an idea, right? But it’s a very small percentage of people, as you know, who are actually living that way. So in the same way I say to the guys in the community, you guys are part of the 1%. Like you invested in a course in community, not just to win your wife back, but to become the kind of man she would be attracted to again one day, right? That’s very different than. Here’s five things, do these and win your wife back, right? Here’s a bunch of gimmicks. You know, the first thing they learn in the course is like, no, there’s no gimmicks here. You’re to learn some very practical things for your separation, what to say, what not to say, what to do, what not to do. But the long play is you’re going to grow into the kind of man your wife will, all the words you’ve talked about, admire, respect and adore one day. So I tell those guys, you’re the 1%. Most guys, the 99, They’re playing video games. They’re scrolling their phone. They’re out there sleeping around. They’re hooking up with divorced women, right? They’re drinking. They’re looking at porn. And so what you find out in the world is it’s a very small group of people who are growth oriented. You know, I have a list of nine things that I kind of recite fairly often of what I’m looking for in a woman. And it goes like this warm, affectionate, kind, caring, beautiful, sexy, learning. Growing, Bryce, those last three were not on my list for the first 55 years of my life. Right. But now, now that I realize, ⁓ like as a single guy, you could give me the first six, warm, caring, kind, compassionate, beautiful, sexy. If she doesn’t have those three learning, growing, evolving, committed to that beyond me, beyond meeting me, but this is already in place and a part of her MO. We’re just not going to be a good fit. We’re just not going to be a good fit because I am all about what you’re talking about. I wasn’t right for the first 50, 55 years of my life, but now it’s like, you know what? I don’t want to be single. I’m not like even choosing it. I would rather share my life with someone, but I would choose singleness over a relationship without this foundation. And I will also say as a single guy, it’s the one thing I miss most. jealous of my clients when they bring me these friction moments. like, ⁓ man, even though I’m working on myself, even though I’m proud of my growth and I’ve come so far, ⁓ I’m not getting what they’re getting and I really miss it. It’s one of the reasons I moved back to New Jersey and I live close to my family. My four siblings and my mom are all close by and there’s a lot of friction all the time. So I don’t have the romantic relationship. And I do understand obviously that’s a whole different level that I still don’t have, but it is great having a family around because we’re always pushing each other’s buttons and there’s always opportunities to grow. know, that’s beautiful. Become better people. Yes. Yes. We are wounded in relationships and we heal. in relationships. That’s it right there. Yeah. I’m curious as we’re, got about eight more minutes here. I’m curious, like, what would you say to some men, you probably say this to some of your men, but if you, if you could pick just right now off the of your head, what’s one thing that you would encourage men to do to start to move in the direction we’ve been speaking of today? It’s one thing that really it’s been helpful for you or something that really stands out for you. That’s easy. You know, I referred to it at the outset. It’s the thing that has changed my life, which is building the reflection habit. There is no long-term growth, substantial growth without that reflection habit. Sitting with a blank piece of paper, a journal or a notebook, you know, 15 minutes at the end of every day. Again, could be simple questions. We have the three that we ask in the community, but we’re always changing it up depending on the season. We introduced two new questions this week. They’re some of the best I’ve ever heard in my life. So I’ll just share them with your audience. Here’s the first one that we’ve all been sitting with as a community. If a third party were to observe you up close just for a week, what would they say your priorities are? It’s a great one. That’s the first one. And the second one is this. If you were starring in a movie of your life, what would the audience be screaming at you to do right now? Wow. Isn’t that powerful? Right? know, in Notting Hill, it’s go after her, right? What? You just told Julia Roberts to hit the road? What are you crazy? Go, go, go. Right. In the horror film, it’s don’t go down there. Right. Oh, those are powerful. Those are powerful. So we’re always, you know, you want to keep it fresh. You don’t want to answer the same three questions every night for 10 years. the You know, if you want to start the three that we use are I think powerful. We always start off with five minutes or so of gratitude. So just writing down from that, eh? five to 10 things from that day. I mean, if you think of one from a week ago, fine, but it could be the sun was out today. I live in New Jersey, right? It could be my niece texted me and invited me to her basketball game. It could be I’m grateful for just 10 minutes with my son in the kitchen when he was acting silly and we were laughing our asses off. So it’s gratitude. And then it’s looking back at the day and asking what went well, what needs work. And what will I do differently next time? Right. So it’s in coaching. call it game film, right? Tom Brady’s considered the greatest of all time because he watched more game film than anyone. It’s looking objectively. It’s not beating myself up. It’s saying, you know what? I was really short with my son today. Where did that come from? ⁓ you know what? I was pissed because this client broke his appointment, whatever the case may be. Right. But it’s just. It’s practicing being conscious, which is where we started this podcast, right? So it’s building that consciousness reflection habit. It’s keeping autopilot at bay, knowing it’s always there just to make us and keep us automatons going through the motions, not considering the important things, majoring on the minors, pushing aside the things that matter, right? I think I write about this in the book, maybe in my first book, but it’s like, We were always going to have a vacation soon, right? Work was always going to slow down next month. And so I was that guy and most of us are that very kind of heads down. We don’t take time just to look up and think and be conscious. So that’s my five minute answer to your question. That’s really good. It’s actually inspiring me to take up journaling again. I haven’t done it for awhile. I appreciate that. My gratitude practice. You know, one of the things that strikes me too, like I think sometimes these things we talk about can feel like just maybe to somebody like sort of insurmountable, know? Yeah. I think it’s just like anything, you know, I often will say, you know, it’s like, talk a lot about like nervous system regulation and like, you know, being aware of your body and things like, so you can regulate your body. I’m like, it’s not that much different than hitting a tennis ball. You know, you just keep doing it and it gets easier. And I think, I think the other thing is that like with, you know, being more conscious, it gets this point. I think maybe you can agree. Like I don’t, I can’t check out. It’s like, can’t, I just can’t like be like, ⁓ I don’t need to deal with this. I mean, I could, like, I could do that, but it’s so against my state now that it would be so difficult to do. you, so you get to this point where it’s not like such an effort, you know, but in the beginning it is, there’s a lot of effort, a lot of work. to kind of keep you in that state of awareness and reflection and understanding. But then you get to a place where I feel like, you know, I’m 53, I still got a lot of work to do. Don’t trust me and don’t, nobody should think that I’ve a lot of to do. But I do feel that there’s like almost like a mechanism in me or I’ve reached some level of consciousness where I don’t have to work as hard at it as I did in the early stages of my life. know? Totally agreed. It becomes our In the community, we say new second nature, right? Yeah. So if you’re practicing generosity, stinginess used to come easy, right? Holding on tight to the little you have that came easy because you did it for years. was part of the automatic programming. But once you start kind of pushing your brain in new directions, in this case, generosity over time, generosity becomes your, your new default mode network. It’s easier in the checkout line to pay someone a compliment. Be generous. It’s just, does become easier over time. agree. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And the community you keep referencing, is that like the people you work with or is there like a group of people you meet with on a regular basis? Yeah. So we, about two years ago, I launched it. spent two years writing a course for men who are again in crisis and my books are for anybody, right? You can be in a pretty good marriage and still I think get a lot out of my books. But the course, the guys that were coming to me, which makes sense, are the ones in crisis. So for six or seven years, I’d been coaching men in crisis, coaching them through separation with the goal obviously to become better men and also to mend or heal and restore that marriage. And I reached the point where the demand just became too great. And so I spent kind of, you know, 18, 20, 22 months just compiling my notes from the last six years and saying, okay, let’s have a lesson on this, a lesson on this. So I put it all online. So it’s 38 lessons, a bunch of eBooks that support the lessons, a bunch of videos, and it’s all housed with our community platform. And so it’s a private app. Guys have it on their laptop and on their phone. It’s just us. And the course is there. The videos are there. post new content regularly. The guys can post, hey, how to win this weekend, wanted to share it with the group. The next guy can say, really struggling with X, does anyone have advice? And so, yeah, it’s going great. We do two group coaching calls a week with me. So they’re getting a lot of bang for their buck. And every week, every month, we’ve got some awesome success stories. And the cool thing is about the community, I know you’ve seen this in men’s work is, A lot of the guys that have seen what they would look back at and call a miracle, right? Cause they came home to a note on the kitchen counter and the wedding ring on top of the note. And you know, I’ve already met with an attorney. Those guys are having, it’s not that they fixed their old marriage. They took it out back, shot it in the head. And now they’ve actually built something really wonderful in its place. A lot of those guys, not all of them, but a lot of them want to give back. So the cool thing is when it started, it was kind of just me, you know, coaching a lot of guys. And now it’s me and you know, 10 or 15 others were staying in there and encouraging and sharing their stories. So it’s cool. I love it. It’s not the only community obviously of its kind. Sure. know it’s yours, Tim Wade and those guys, they have something similar, but yeah. So that’s kind of my main work that takes most of my time is that community, but I love it. So rewarding, so fulfilling. Well, I’ll put all that in the show notes here. Cool. So if you guys want to check it out, please reach out to Jeff if you’re interested. Jeff, I just want to thank you for your time and your thoughts and your reflections. I really think you’re doing really amazing work in the world and I really appreciate everything you’re doing. And I’m glad we got a chance to get this in a podcast so some people can listen to it and get some ideas about how to make changes in their own lives. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Bryce. I’m so glad we got to meet. I’m so glad I had this opportunity to speak to your audience. Hopefully there’s some help and some takeaways here for the guys in your community. And I look forward to meeting you in person at the summit. Yeah, great. That’s awesome. All right, man. Thank you so much. All right, brother. Thank you. Okay. See you. Thank you for listening today. Please take a moment to like and follow so we can continue to change the world by changing ourselves. Have a wonderful day.

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]]> 50505 Ep. 1: Finding Our Way: Navigating Loss And Coming Out On The Other Side with Tim Wade https://brassballstenderheart.com/podcast-ep-1-navigating-loss-tim-wade/ Wed, 08 Oct 2025 23:28:11 +0000 https://brassballstenderheart.com/?p=50515 Relationships can lose their spark and get stuck. Men's coach Tim Wade talks with Bryce about the challenges in his own marriage and the personal work that brought him to a better place.

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]]> The BrassBalls TenderHeart Podcast · Episode 1 · Originally released October 8, 2025 · 45 min

Relationships can lose their spark and get stuck. Men’s coach Tim Wade talks with Bryce about the challenges in his own marriage and the personal work that brought him to a better place.


Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | All episodes

Key takeaways

  • Relationships get stuck, and that is not the end of the story.
  • Doing your own work changes what is possible in your marriage.
  • Loss can be a turning point.

About Tim Wade

Tim Wade is a men’s coach focused on relationships.

timwadecoaching.com

Doing this work yourself?

Bryce Giron Mathern, LPC, works with men, dads and couples in Denver. If this episode hit home, start here:

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]]> 50515 Considering Divorce: Should I Get a Lawyer? https://brassballstenderheart.com/divorce-should-i-get-a-lawyer/ Mon, 03 Jan 2022 18:18:52 +0000 https://brassballstenderheart.com/?p=49811 (Don’t Lawyer Up… Yet.) Read This First… Points to Consider Before You Lawyer Up Should I get a lawyer…. you may be asking yourself this right now after a particularly bad event or fight. It is natural to want to defend ourselves when we feel threatened. When the people we love are being critical, blaming...

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(Don’t Lawyer Up… Yet.)

Read This First… Points to Consider Before You Lawyer Up

Should I get a lawyer…. you may be asking yourself this right now after a particularly bad event or fight. It is natural to want to defend ourselves when we feel threatened. When the people we love are being critical, blaming or outright hostile we want to deny their opinion of us. In this defensive posture we act as lawyers, not listening or caring for the other but finding reasons they are wrong. What if we changed our defensive posture to one that allowed for a more present openhearted response? What if we were able to listen to understand rather than plan our response as a way to fight back? What if these interactions stopped being about winning and started being about understanding?

should i get a lawyer, couples counseling, brassballs tender heart, mens counseling denver, mens therapy denver

When Your Relationship or Marriage Feels Like It’s Over

Our primitive response to threat comes in a flash. We can feel our face, arms and hands tighten and our mind focuses energy towards the person we perceive as attacking. Immediately we want to defend against what they are saying. We want to turn the argument around and put it on our partner…accuse them for what we are being accused.

If this sounds familiar it is because we all do this. We all get defensive when we feel we are being barraged with aggressive energy. The thing we do next is often start to listen for reasons the other person is wrong. This is why I liken this to being a lawyer. A person who is steeped in the law is often engaging a witness not to understand them but to find out the mistakes in their testimony. By doing this they are strengthening their case.

In some ways we are all defense attorneys attempting to protect ourselves by coming up with reasons the other person is wrong. The problem with this strategy is that we aren’t in a court of law. We are in our home with someone we love.

Trying to avoid or control other people doesn’t resolve your reactivity.Michael P. Nichols

So what is a better solution?

Awareness Is Key

I feel like a broken record talking about awareness because I talk about it a lot in these blog posts. The truth is nothing really can improve if we aren’t aware of what’s happening. When we are aware of how we are experiencing someone’s intrusion into our mental space then we have more options. We can begin to manage what is happening inside us and move out of the anxiety/anger by being aware of it and naming it.

We do this by being aware of the tension in our chests and the difficulty in our breath. We may even have enough resilience in the moment to say “I’m feeling anxious and upset.” Once we have started to feel it and name it we have already started to shift our primitive response out of fight flight and into a more manageable set of nervous system responses.

Being Generous

One of the challenges of really listening is that it takes energy and focus. It means we have to work to be a good listener. It means giving generously of ourselves. Often when we are being attacked by someone the last thing we want to do is be generous.

 

Often it’s a burden. Not, perhaps, the perfunctory attention we grant as part of the give-and-take of everyday life. But the sustained attention of careful listening—that takes strenuous and unselfish restraint. To listen well we must forget ourselves and submit to the other person’s need for attention.

Michael P. Nichols

 

It is important to acknowledge that in order to be a better listener we need to be very generous with our mental resources. So how do we become more generous with our mental energy so that we can listen better? We have to decide to do it. We have to be intentional. Set an intention each day that you will be generous with your partner/loved one and work to be more present with them. The intention will continually focus you towards doing the thing you are intending more often.

Acceptance

The value of acceptance is that it allows us to stop fighting what is. It doesn’t mean we can’t have boundaries and encourage our loved ones to treat us better. Acceptance is allowing, in the moment, what is happening. I think it also comes into play in how we listen to each other. For a long time I wanted my partner to talk to me in a certain way. I would groan and send all kinds of non-verbal feedback to her that her way of saying things wasn’t okay with me. I wasn’t listening to her words often I was just pissed that she talked to me a certain way.

What I have tried to do (sometimes successfully and sometimes not) lately is accept that she sometimes expresses herself in ways that make me feel uncomfortable. I may offer some boundary if it feels extreme but mostly I’ve worked to be okay with her voice inflection and volume. What this has done is it has allowed me to settle into the conversation more without trying to control her way of talking. This has allowed her to feel more seen and listened to and actually changed the way she talks to me. Funny isn’t it? When we accept people as they are they start to feel safer around us and they don’t need to express themselves in ways that feel uncomfortable.

 

A relationship matures when you can allow the other person to be who he or she is. If your mother criticizes everybody and you can’t accept this, your life may be dominated by your attempt to stop her (and everybody else, for that matter) from criticizing anything or anyone. Once you can let your mother be a person who’s critical—in other words, accept that she is who she is—you don’t have to fight it or organize your life around it.

Michael P. Nichols

 

How This Shows Up In My Life 

 

Ohhhh…I wish I could say that I’ve become a successful listener and really do this most of the time. The truth is that I struggle with being present with my loved ones all the time. I get triggered and instantly start to lawyer up.

The shift in me is that I can sometimes notice when I’m doing this and slow down and open my heart. When I do this the energy in the room changes and there is a much better chance that what ever is being argued or fought about will find a resolution.

The most common strategy I see in my practice is people organizing around their partner’s behaviors and trying and get them to change so that they can then be good partners.  I also did this for much of my marriage. Now my goal is to focus on me. I intend each day to listen with a present open heart for the good of my partner and the good of our relationship. My goal is not to win the argument but to understand my partner and learn more about who she is as a person.

As I type this all I can think about are the times I have failed. I also can recall times that have gone well. I believe we are always doing the best we can with the resources we have in our lives. Don’t let yourself off the hook…and be patient. Little micro changes over a long time bring you to a new way of listening.

If you or someone you know is struggling with how to listen effectively I encourage you to reach out.

 

Wishing You The Day You Need To Have!

Nichols, Michael, P. (2009). The Lost Art of Listening, Second Edition: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

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