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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. Welcome everyone to Man for Real. Thanks for being here. I’m talking today with Given Doss, the author of Who You Are Is How You Parent. Given is a family therapist in the Denver area that specializes in working with adolescents. Today we’re talking about the challenges of young men and the importance of vulnerability. Stevon Das, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Great to be here. Thanks for the invitation. So I’d just like to start by getting a sense of you and kind of your journey as a man and kind of what you’ve gone through, kind of to lead you to the work you do and to the life that you live. I’m just very curious about some of how that’s like some of the things that have sort of brought you to this point. Great. Thank you. Well, the first thing that’s important to know about me is that I struggled a lot when I was a teenager. I was very unhappy with who I was. I felt lost and I survived, I would say, my early teenage years until I was in my early twenties because I was deeply insecure about who I was. And no one in my life I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin in the nineties, eighties and nineties, forty-eight. And no one in my life really got me. And that no one really saw, except for my mom. She could see that I was struggling, but had no idea on how to kind of like get in there as a young man, as a boy. And I was deeply insecure. And so I smoked lots of weed. I drank a lot. I did lots of risky behaviors. I was stealing from people and things. I was a good student and the teachers liked me. And I got decent grades. So I I wasn’t on anybody’s radar. And Inside, I can still remember how lonely I felt. Like no one really got me. I felt so alone. And my dad, you know, was he did listen, I had great parents. They did, they did the best they could. They had a lot of heart and they cared a lot, but they just were ill-equipped to help somebody like me who was so resistant to sharing about how I felt. I had no idea how to. My dad didn’t talk about his feelings, even though he had a big heart. He cared a lot. He didn’t talk about his feelings. And I was just lost for years. I had good friends and I leveraged my ability to be funny and self-deprecating in order to gain popularity in school. And I had I wasn’t smart, but I was a decent student. So I did okay. And I kind of just like made my way through adolescence and into college, just being pretty lost. And the the thing that started to save me, it didn’t ultimately save me, but the thing that started to just open up my heart a bit in a meaningful way was the wilderness. I became really passionate about spending time in the wilderness. I moved from Wisconsin out West and ⁓ I just started to get cracked open a little bit by the wilderness and spending time out there. And then I discovered rock climbing. And I I’ve been a high performance rock climber for about 25 years. And when I discovered those passions, something started to open up for me and I felt a little bit more free and not as dependent on drugs and alcohol. I also fell in love with a woman for the first time. And realized I didn’t have to be high or drunk in order to feel connection with people. And so that helped me feel less alone. And I started just to come into myself a little bit more, but that nothing had really been solved in terms of finding myself until a few years later when I started graduate school in Boulder, Colorado. So I’m a trained therapist and in graduate school, I was in Boulder and I was doing very risky things, rock climbing. Like I was, if you’ve seen the movie Free Solo, I was doing that kind of stuff, not to that degree or that. High difficulty, but those kinds of practices that were really risky because I was searching for something. I mean, I was addicted, you know, I have the personality of an addict. And I spent a lot of those years just punishing myself on rock walls and pushing myself to my own limits and, you know, dating people and looking for love and just searching passionately, but in a gripped kind of way, like just needing to just be filled from the inside. And while I felt a little bit more connected to myself, the key to my entire life was that I didn’t know how to be vulnerable. And I didn’t know how to I didn’t even know that. I didn’t know that was a thing. You know, when I was growing up in high school, it’s like no one was vulnerable, you know, like men weren’t vulnerable. And and interestingly enough, I had like my closest friends were girls. And that’s still the case now. I feel the most comfortable with like women because they’re just naturally relational, I think, generally in a certain way. And I feel it’s it’s easier for me. But I didn’t know how to be vulnerable. And so I while I wasn’t like addicted to drugs and alcohol and I wasn’t as lonely as I once was in my teenage years, when I was in my twenties, I just kind of got addicted to something else that was maybe healthier and was really like fitness in the wilderness. And I would injure myself and I would feel some respite from that inner kind of darkness on the top of a cliff or a rock wall or something. And then it would, you know, eventually come back and I just would feel kind of anxious and depressed, even though I had like all these things in my life. And there was one defining moment that was really amazing. I was doing this therapy training, this gestalt therapy training in Boulder at that time. And I was one of the leaders of the student group. It was a cohort where we do therapy with each other and people would rotate being a clinician and a participant and a clinician and a client. We’d practice with each other. And I remember I was a leader of the participant group. We had this weekend and I felt like I had a responsibility as a leader to kind of show up and like lead the newer participants and Have a certain role there, and I felt like I did a pretty good job. At the end of the weekend, the lead trainer called me into his office and I was like, like I wonder if he wants to talk about me, you know, having a more permanent role there or doing something, having more responsibility or something. And it was the complete opposite. I went into his his office and he told me that how I had showed up that weekend was completely inappropriate, that I had I walked around so arrogant and pompous, and that I had hurt actually a lot of people, a lot of the newer students in the group two had already quit, and a few more were having conversations with the lead instructors about how they wanted to quit because of how unpleasant it was. I mean, inspired it and it really, when I look back on this, I I had a certain presence that was very unpleasant. I talked down to people. And again, like it was, it was such an it was a frushing moment. And I just broke into tears. And he was talking to me and he was, I could tell he was seeing if I was being accountable or not or if I was I was just falling into a victimhood in that moment. And I felt, I mean, I just felt absolutely crushed, embarrassed, humiliated, of course, but also devastated that I had thought that I was contributing and helping and I’d hurt people. And it was just terrible. And I told him how sorry I was and that I’m willing to do anything I need to do in order to make it better. And he was, you know, considering removing me, kicking me out of the group because of how destructive I had been. Long story short, I had a long conversation with him and he accepted, you know of my accountability and I was very sincere in it. The next weekend that we had, I think it was a couple weeks later, I went in and ⁓ in front of the group of like 50 people, I shared a sincere apology and how and an accountability around it and how I had acted and how it wasn’t my intent, but it didn’t really matter. And that I was really open and I was committed to doing something better. And that moment just broke apart a certain amount of defense mechanism that I had had my entire life. protection and that I had really learned as a man. Like that’s how you be a man. You be confident. You know, you don’t show weakness. It was so subconscious. You know, even I was even like, you know, I was in therapy school. So we were like, you know, being vulnerable and connecting with each other and all of that. But it was so subconscious and it came out as I felt the pressure of being a leader. Like I had to show up and be strong and like tell people what to do and like, you know, be confident in all that BS that I think we’re taught as men. And it was a deeply humbling moment. And what was Beautiful about that. And I’ve retained this ability and you know, practice it now. That was probably 20 years ago, that there is such a power that comes with that vulnerability and that humility. I’ll never forget it, you know? And so now anytime I notice myself being in some ⁓ like a like a stressful role where I’m in some kind of a leadership, I notice myself practicing humility and vulnerability when I feel that temptation to be strong, quote unquote. And how important it is for me to because what I really want to do is have is is share and help people, as many people as I can, young people, families, which is the main thing that I do. And I’m a practicing monk. So I just I want to help as many people as I can. And I just, whenever I practice that, that surrender into vulnerability and humility, I have so much influence and I’m able to actually fulfill upon the mission that I have, which is just helping people as much as offering anything that I can, anything that I’ve learned, any way that I am. to help people in any way that they need. And it’s just so I mean, it feels good, of course, but it’s also very effective. You know, people people really gravitate towards someone who is humble, who’s open, who’s vulnerable. And I’m not perfect at it by any means. But it’s a wonderful practice. And gosh, I wish I would have had somebody in my life, you know, when I was younger that that lived that way. Not even like said that stuff or taught it, but like was a living example of that. And I was I was doing some research and preparing for this podcast and just doing some journaling and thinking about some things. And I I’m realizing that I have become the person that I needed, right? As a teenager. That’s that’s something that I’ve again like subconsciously, but I’m I’m realizing like, ⁓ I needed someone like this. ⁓ and it’s that’s why in some ways it’s so satisfying living practicing living the life that I am, because I needed someone like this in my life. And so if I can just have a moment with some of the young men that I work with where I can show up in a way that I would have liked to have shown up and how insecure I was and how protected I was and how arrogant I was, and especially with like kind of the manosphere that exists, quote unquote, you know, out there in the world right now, to just give young men an example of like how much there’s so much freedom in this way of living. I mean, you know this, Bryce, you know, it’s something you practice. There’s so much freedom. Yes. It’s it’s like quite glorious, you know, to, you know, to let the guard down and just practice being in that way as a man. Wow. I was like, On pins and needles, when you said that the thing was about being vulnerable, that just like lit me up. I was like, ⁓ yes, yes. There’s so many things I want to say. I’ve got like 12 thoughts going through my head right now. Yeah, you know, I think I think all that you’re saying is I, you know, can’t emphasize it enough because it’s all so true. And yet it’s so hard. It’s so hard to be vulnerable. It’s so scary. It’s so it’s like opening up to that is so scary. I mean, you know, I work primarily with men. Do you work with couples and women sometimes too? But I I just find that like it’s almost like the word I use is this grandiosity of this protected grandiosity. Look at me. Look at how great I am. Look at how much money I make. Look at how much this thing. And that to me, that actually defines so much of what the manosphere is about. You know, it’s all about show and external validation, but it is so unfulfilling. That’s the deeper problem. It’s so unfulfilling. And so it’s like it’s just a false reality. It’s like it’s it’s paper thin. Yeah. Totally. I stumbled upon this term that I hadn’t heard before. Maybe you have. It’s called the performance paradox. Someone wrote a book on it a few years ago and I heard it applied to teenagers because I was doing some research into like how to define the struggle that so many young men as teenagers are struggling with. And obviously everyone is customized to each person. But there’s performance paradox that with social media, the more that we all really portray a certain view or look of ourselves that’s kind of perfect, the further away from ourselves we get. Right. The paradox is like the more that I show myself as a certain way, the further I am from from my authentic self, like that. I have the warts and, you know, the weaknesses and the whatever, how I look and like the, you know, I’m not looking perfect. My lights, whatever it is. So that it was really interesting to me to stumble upon that. That that’s something I think that is so hard. And to to your point, the difficulty, and I don’t know. I It doesn’t feel as hard for me anymore to be vulnerable. And I’m curious if it does for you or if it’s more that you see that. I I know that it is for people to be vulnerable because without practicing it, it’s such a stepping, you know, off the ledge, right? What’s gonna happen? I’m gonna get made fun of. I’m gonna get judged. You know, people won’t like me. Romantic partners won’t be attracted to me, right? It’s that paragraph that seems so true. No, I mean, at age fifty-four now, it just it’s so much more fundamental to who I am. But, you know, say 10, 15 years ago, it was definitely still diceier for me to do that sort of thing. I can remember, it’s I’m just remembering this moment when I was in a a men’s group that I was running. And we would just kind of start out and we’d go around and we’d share stuff. And I just started sharing. I was like, ⁓ you this is going on my life, dah, dah, dah. And this guy who was kind of new to the group, he looked at me and he was like, wow. He’s like, you just made me feel so much more okay to share myself by sharing that. And that struck me of like, you know, because I think in some ways like you’re describing like when you open up and you show your vulnerability, you have more influence because people gravitate to that. They’re like, ⁓ that feels so good to feel your openness. And then I feel my openness, you know. I actually in my work, I often will be kind of I do some self disclosure, not as a way to kind of get my own therapy going, but more just to say I get it. I know exactly what you’re going through. And I was sort of struck by your Your journey of of how much that must be helpful for you having gone through this in your work with adolescents, you know, just like, ⁓ yeah, I did all these things too. I’m not like sitting up here being the like all wise therapist. I know exactly what this is like for you. So what enough what that’s like for you and and your work. Well, it’s again, it’s it’s so liberating because I don’t have anything to hide. And ⁓ while my journey of struggle is completely independent of everyone else’s, I found again through in in my work of I think it’s like 20, 20 plus years of working mostly with just with teenagers and families, especially in crisis, that one of the fascinating things about struggle is that it has us know our own depth in a way that we most people people who don’t struggle or who who aren’t connected to their own struggle. Sometimes, and I would say even often, aren’t connected to themselves because they don’t have to be. It’s very interesting. It’s like struggle makes us connected to ourselves through the pathway of suffering, you know, of pain. Right. But the God, one of the amazing benefits. And I wouldn’t change a thing about my life in terms of like what I went through, even though it was very painful for many years, because I was forced to look at myself and to come into relationship with myself. And there’s a certain depth now. That I have in terms of who I know myself to be. And I’m always, you know, kind of revisiting different topics like you do, I’m sure, as well, Bryce. But there’s that intimate connection that I have to myself that struggle provided for me. I mean, I think that’s actually like one of the main, maybe the the preeminent gift of struggle is that it gets us connected to ourselves, even when we don’t want to be. You know, it doesn’t ask permission. So we’re just like, ⁓ my God. Now I have to look at myself. So that’s something that I often talk about with the. young men that I that I speak will, it’s like, well, at least you’re getting to know yourself, you know, in a certain way. And if you can make your if you can keep going through it and keep in, you know, accepting different parts of yourself and like keep landing on your sword and being okay with it and just continuing to let the layers shed and become open and take accountability and be like, you know, I messed up. You know, forgive yourself and create more understanding for other people and just let that let your heart open up. That’s the gift that struggle can really give us. And it provides a certain level of maturity, a certain level of depth that I think is just makes life so much more satisfying. It certainly makes relationships so much more satisfying, you know, when we get that, when we get connected to ourselves. And it’s amazing because that struggle, it that’s a struggle brings. I mean, yeah, of course, there’s the there’s the really painful, uncomfortable parts of it, but it really ushers us into, it can usher us into a very new, completely new relationship with ourselves. That people who, you know, and I see people all the time that don’t really get don’t need to go to therapy or don’t doing transformation. Completely fine. It’s all good. And I sort of like wonder about like, is their life is their life meaningful? I it might be. It might be totally fine. It might be good for them, which is fantastic. And I know that people who have gone young people who have gone through struggle or at any age really, the gift that’s available sort of somewhere along that path is that, ⁓ my God, you get to know yourself. What a gift. You know, you get to and that I’ve also just been discovering the Like the anatomy of connection, like what does that actually mean? And I think that when I am connected to myself or I’m really connected to somebody else, I mean they’ve let me into their world, that there’s a spark of life there. And I don’t know how to define that, but it you know, it sometimes it comes across it gets expressed as hope, sometimes it’s relief, sometimes it’s love. But that’s something so unique that, and I think that’s actually how I’d define one way that I would define God is that in that moment of connection when we feel that like, You know, I’m like seen or I’m understood. It’s like there is life. That is the moment where life is born or expressed in a way. So anyway, all that to say, it’s I think, you know, if people can not embrace struggle, but if if people can embrace that struggle has something to bring us that’s so helpful that we can’t actually get anywhere else. I think there’s something that with that framing can really help. It’s helped me anyway. Yeah. You know, one of the things that you’re talking, I I get a sense of through my work is this hunger for depth. Hunger for depth. Like there’s this sense of like you’re kind of asking that question of people who, you know, they go through their lives, they live their lives, they’re kind of this is fine. There’s not a lot of maybe introspection or, you know, effort to explore deeper truths or something like that. I think they maybe they have depth on some level. I don’t know. But I just don’t think your life can be essentially meaningful if you don’t have a sort of continuing element of depth in your life. And I I I tend to think of it like I talk to my couples about how, you know, they’re in this like difficult period and they’re struggling. And I’m like, you know, what’s happening here is you’re you’re calling for more depth. You guys have to grow. And that means you have to get more vulnerable with each other. You have to open up more to each other and all the shit’s coming up. You know, all the hard stuff and the traumas and but I just think that there’s this call and and I don’t even know depth is the right word. Maybe it’s transformation, maybe it’s something else. But to me it always feels like I have to get deeper. I have to get deeper. I have to open to more of myself, more of myself. Like in my relationship with my wife, it’s like, okay, this is hard. I gotta go even deeper. You know, ⁓ I thought we were really get the deepest part. Nope, there’s a whole nother thing down there. I got to go further down. And so I just feel like that’s what I see in my clients is like things just feel so unsatisfying because there’s such a lack of depth. And it’s like the gateway to that depth. I think that’s also true from my experience and the people that I work with is that the gateway is that risk of being vulnerable, right? With someone else. And that vulnerability, I also made this kind of discovery a few years ago that I think the reason that especially probably everybody, but young people in particular, the reason that they have such a hard time being accountable is that accountability has an ingredient of vulnerability. In order for me to say, I did this, it means there’s that I’ve got to open up and you might be like, you’re right, you did that. You really effed up, you know? And I hate you or like you you’re a bad person, right? That you did that. Like there’s that moment where and I think that so many young people don’t take accountability because they’re afraid of being vulnerable. Like I don’t think it’s actually about being in whatever it seems like on the surface, like being denied or being a victim, or it’s like someone else’s fault. Like that’s easy. I think that’s low-hanging fruit of. What’s happening with again with young people, but I think everybody when they’re in that denial or victimhood or whatever it is that it’s not my fault or it’s their fault or it’s that thing out there that did this to me, that it’s it’s fundamentally ⁓ resistance to being vulnerable because they’re just so scared, right? And it’s so it is, it is so scary to be open and to be vulnerable. And I think it’s very scary to actually take accountability because you could take accountability and someone could be like, that’s right, you know, you do suck. And that it w you were wrong and it was your fault. And there’s, as you see in clients and with couples all the time, I see this in families, that sometimes a parent or a young person, even the young young adult or a teenager, will take accountability and then the other person won’t match it. And ⁓ my God, what a terrible moment that is. Yeah. It’s just one of the worst moments you can see in a relationship, right? Where someone says, I’m really sorry I did this. And they’re like, That’s right, you should be. You know, you really hurt that person. They just kind of layer it on and it’s like that vulnerability just gets crushed. And then they learn, well. I shouldn’t be vulnerable. You know, it’s better actually making it about someone or something else than it is about than it is taking accountability. So they associate accountability, they associate accountability with being hurt. So why take accountability? It’s much easier to make it about somebody else. And again, whether that’s as someone in an intimate relationship, a romantic relationship or a family or any relationship. But I think that’s it’s so important. One of my missions is to educate parents so that struggling people can feel better, essentially. And if parents, you know, know, for example, that like accountability takes vulnerability, I think they’ll they’ll create a certain level of vulnerability in their family environment that makes vulnerability more welcome, right? And create a certain leadership in families that makes that vulnerability more welcome. And so, and again, like you said, you know, in with your relationship with your wife, and for me, I’ve a small community of very close friends where we share everything. And fortunately we’re all practicing kind of the same thing. So when some of us are, you know, make a mistake, which I do, or I hurt someone or I say something kind of judgy, when they say it, it’s like, I still I mean, I still have it. Like, you know, I’m forty-eight and I still have that moment or like, ooh, I don’t wanna say I’m sorry. You know, like I I really wanna say something else, but take a deep breath and just like, man, I’m really sorry. You know, I I really wish I I regret that. I wish I wouldn’t have said it. And I think it was because I was feeling X, Y, or Z, insecure, defensive and for whatever reason. And then the healing that happens in that moment is just so profound. You know, it’s so profound. Well, I don’t know about your clients, but I Do that all the time. I I struggle with accountability. My wife calls me on something. I’m like, ⁓ d I what did I do that? I didn’t, I don’t think I did that. Really? No, I that was you actually. Yeah. So I can relate to that one very clearly. Sure. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, yeah. So I’m curious about your work, a little bit more about your work with adolescents. I’m sure you work with boys and girls and young men, young women. Just about like how that process goes for you in terms of like, you know, you’ve already said some really important things about accountability, about how parents show up. And I just wonder about like, I guess maybe what I’m trying to get to is like, I’m curious about your take a little bit about what’s going on for young men today in terms of their struggle. I mean, you’re seeing it at this like really at the ground level. Young boys, adolescent boys who are Struggling in school, struggling with behavior issues, you know, parents are calling you and saying, ⁓ my God. And then you’re also dealing with the family and all that stuff. I know you’ve been at this for a while. So I just get curious about your take on all of these things. Cause there’s definitely this question of what’s happening for men in general, but also young men too. Yeah. I think the pressure to be something, to be performative, to look a certain way, to be a certain way, I think it increases with every passing day in our society. With the prevalence of social media. I mean, the social media can be great. I d I don’t like I’m not I don’t dog on social media because if you look for the right things and you follow the kind of right things that are like quote unquote healthy things, it can be extremely helpful. And this prevalence that you and I didn’t have of everything is advertised. Everything that happens is public, right? As soon as everyone has a phone and all they do is hit a button and then it becomes public, whatever’s happening. So the potential to be embarrassed. To have a weakness amplified and to eventually be crushed by something is so there is so much more pressure to avoid that moment that it’s so compelling for young men to be something that they’re not, fundamentally, to be a certain thing that they believe is important to other people. And unfortunately, I I just see more and more that that brings them further and further away from themselves. And I think The the only thing that brings them back to themselves are relationships, are good, solid relationships. That relationship could be a friend, it could be a mentor, it could be a therapist, it could be a parent, could be a sibling, it could be anybody. And I see that there is a there is a constant tug at young men to be something that they fundamentally aren’t. Yeah. You know, it’s just, it’s like for me, that. My journey was about avoiding insecurity. And another thing that I sort of discovered is that the most secure people are not actually void of insecurities. They’re just familiar with their insecurities. Right. It’s like the more, the more that I’m aware of what I am insecure about or what my weaknesses are, the more magically, the more secure I become. Why? Because I’m not hiding anything. Right. It’s like that MM and Nine Mile or whatever that was, right? That amazing ending that movie was just like the other rapper had like nothing to say because he just was like, this is it. This is me. And I think the more that we can, I don’t love the term model because modeling also has that superficial quality to it. The more that we can be secure, meaning we can be trans practice being transparent about what we are insecure about, what my weaknesses are, the more young men will see men out there and be like, ⁓ that’s actually like cool. You know, like he seems pretty chill and happy. You know, and I kind of like the vibe that, you know, it’s kind of putting out there versus, you know, the Manosphere thing over there, right? Even though that one’s more compelling in a way and it preys upon, you know, our ego where you don’t have to put anything on the line other than like working out, whatever, you know, the can make your body a certain way, but like feeling a certain way. The more that we can become that, not model it, but the more that we can become that. And it’s so interesting because it’s not about being perfect. It’s not about Like not making mistakes and parenting and relationships. It’s actually the opposite of that. It’s about becoming aware of how we make mistakes or our insecurities or our weaknesses. And then just becoming familiar with it and making it okay to talk about. Not broadcasting it, obviously, because you don’t want to like make the child the parent, but being like just less and less to hide, right? Just like not hiding. And also at the same time, again, as caregivers, as leaders like you are and like I am, leaders for young people. The more that we can one, be that practice being that transparent about weaknesses, about mistakes, and thereby becoming more secure in ourselves. And number two, make ourselves available for meeting them where they’re at, not expecting them to do the same thing that we’ve done, like not expecting them to live that way, just being a certain way, and then letting them be however the hell they are, you know, just However, they are, as may maybe they have no idea that they’re insecure. It’s I don’t think it’s our role to actually tell them that or to to to reflect that. It’s just to like be there with them. And then the magic of what happens in that connection is that as we’re just with them, how we are, they gravitate towards health, right? Their version of that, right? Their version of becoming comfortable with their own weaknesses, comfortable with their own ability to make mistakes and thereby take accountability. Right. So there’s the more that we can. Me a certain way. And that’s the whole presence of my book, Who You Are is How You Parent, is that the more that we can become who we want to be, who a good person is in our in our definition, what a good secure parent, person, leader is, the more that we can become that, the more influence that we have. And the more that young people want to gravitate towards their own version of that. It sounds like too than in gravitating towards more of that authentic experience. It’s like once I like sort of the saying, it’s like then they can start to find their own authentic self in that too. Yeah. And their own path towards that. Who knows what it looks like? Who knows how they’re gonna talk to their friends or how they’re gonna be at school or what they’re gonna say when they’re out with their friends? Like who knows what they’re gonna say or how they’re gonna find their way or how they even define authenticity, right? Or how they define themselves. I mean, it’s they’re just you know, they’re they are building a plane as they’re flying it and they’re learning how to build a plane as they’re flying it actually. So who knows? And we don’t I I don’t know. We don’t know exactly like what their pathway is or who they ultimately are as people. It’s for them to discover and define. But the more that we can just become that again, secure person that’s in their life that’s connected to them through that process, man, what a reservoir we provide for them. Yeah. You know, one thing that’s coming up for me as I was remembering the story. There’s this guy, his name is Eugene Jenlin. He was this sort of created this thing called focusing. Have you ever heard of it? Anyway, he was doing this session and in the middle of the session, he was talking about this thing that was coming up for him, like, ⁓ he was touching into this like issue or ⁓ emotion or something. And somebody was talking to him about it. And he’s like, ⁓ yeah. Yeah, it’s very familiar. I’ve been working on that for about thirty years. And I was just like, Wow, thirty years. Well, what was interesting about it was like this guy’s like, you know. He was in like his seventies, maybe, you know, he was like this kind of guru who had created the system and he had been working on himself and helping people for generations. And he acknowledged like some of this stuff just never completely gets worked out, you know? It never gets worked out. And then what was there was it’s okay. You know, I think what one of the things that I’ve no as you’re talking is just like this deep acceptance of our just. normal humanness, like we’re scared, we’re insecure. And that’s okay. And that’s okay. And that’s the big shift. That’s been the big shift for me. Is not getting myself to some kind of happy land where everything’s worked out, but the acceptance of it’s not going to get worked out and I can be okay with where I’m at right now in this moment. Yes. Yeah. It reminds me of this story that I talk about in the book. It was another defining moment in my adolescence. I was a senior in high school and one of the things I was good at was tennis. I didn’t love it, but it was something that I was good at. And again, I was very performative at that time and I wanted to be successful and achieve, you know, very like masculine thing. And I remember practicing all summer to make the varsity team and make this certain roster in the varsity team. All summer I practiced into the fall. And then we had tryouts in the winter. And so for five months, and it I practiced kind of as hard as I could at that time. Looking back, I was like I could have done lot more. But for me, I like really tried. I was trying to be really good. Went in. Me and my buddy who had been practicing all summer and through the fall went in and we played these two, this other doubles team in tennis, who were just natural athletes. They were these two soccer guys. They they lettered in every sport, you know, they’re three season athletes. And we go in there and we play and they just crush us. They just crush us easily. And they didn’t even practice. They were just so good. And I was devastated. And instead of going up to the net to shake hands at the end of the match, I chucked my racket in the air and screamed an expletive. And the whole inside stadium, tennis court stadium inside, because it was wintertime, went totally silent. My racket echoed across the walls. And my coach yelled at me, Jay, what are you doing? And it was just like very awkward and silent. And I just walked out to my car, grabbed my bag, walked out to my car and drove home. And I didn’t smoke weed that night, which I usually would have, but I didn’t for some reason. And walked past my parents and they clearly saw that I was upset. And my mom had, I think at that point, like given up. knocking on my door because I would always get so angry whenever she tried to talk to me when I was upset. And I sat in my room and I something came up in me that I needed to say sorry to my coach. Was I was just I was so angry and so upset, but I felt like I I just I just did him wrong, you know, and I embarrassed him probably. And so I called him and as I called him and he answered and as soon as I heard his voice, I just I went silent and I just started choking back tears. And I wasn’t I was trying to hide that I was crying because I was embarrassed about it. And there was the silence there. And he said two words that I’ll never forget. It’s okay. And I just broke open. I just started weeping uncontrollably on the phone. You know, I was 17 and I’d I don’t even know if I’d cried at that point in years since I was a child. And I just broke open completely. I’m just weeping and sobbing on the phone. I’m embarrassed because I’m crying, but I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I felt devastated that I had been revealed for like the fraud and the you know, the terrible athlete that I was, that I’ve been trying to hide that and trying to be, you know, a success, but I was actually just a failure. And I was just completely broken. And I’m just sobbing on the phone with him for like five or ten minutes. And he just kept saying it. It’s okay. And it just, I just couldn’t stop sobbing every time he said it. And it was so revealing of how that’s what I needed in my life, you know, is someone just to figuratively or literally say that to me, no matter what happened. You know, whether it was good or you know, especially when it was bad, when things were bad, like it’s okay, right? It’s okay. It’s okay. And you know, which is really the message was like, you’re okay. You know, and that’s really how to penetrate, is like, you’re okay, you’re okay. And I finally squeaked out an apology and said, I’m so sorry. And he’s like, It’s okay. It’s and he he really meant it. You know, his heart was in it, he could feel connected to me. And I mean, this amazing man who was just a a varsity tennis coach in Green Bay, Wisconsin, like really it altered something inside of me. And I hung up the phone and I went back and had played a fine season and just, you know, it was fine. And it really was okay. It was a devastating moment. But it was amazing to be connected to someone in that just completely raw, vulnerable state. Again, I think if like we can, as people, just be there for young people who are struggling in that way. And again, you don’t even have to s we don’t even have to say those words. It’s okay because it comes becomes kind of cliched. But the more that we can just be with them and be with that like, It’s okay and you’re okay. Well, not being patronizing or condescending, but just being there with our hearts and like we’ve talked about, being vulnerable, open, present, you know, secure in our own insecurity, you know, living from that place of like, I’m okay, you know, you’re okay, this is okay. ⁓ man, what a devastating moment. I mean, if he if he had any training and started going into it of like, you must feel so devastated. I mean, I just would have like the layers of the protection would have just fallen away from me, right? And they even did just. Those two words that he kept saying over and over again. And so I d I remember that. And, you know, again, when like people are just protecting and just to for them to remind that ultimately we want people to say that for themselves, young people, I’m okay. You know, not like as a, you know, chanting it, but just to feel that I’m okay. Cause that’s the antidote to shame, right? If I can say I’m okay, then it’s very difficult for shame to exist inside of us because that shame, you know, it thrives in the darkness. So the more that we can be that, that we can be that for the people that we’re connected with, we just become so powerful, you know? Yeah, that’s so good. I really appreciate all that. I think the thing that I would you were starting talking about modeling, and I agree, that’s kind of a weird word, but I think the thing that’s really powerful is the reflection. And it’s not even a reflection of words, it’s a reflection of I’m here, I care. And in that is the words is the sort of sense of you’re okay. You’re okay. Cause I’m not going anywhere. I could hold this for you. You were devastated. I get it. I think that’s one of the things I think is interesting is how, you know, as you know, I’ll just be gendered here. It’s like as men, you know, when we’re in that masculine energy, one of the challenges that men have is that ability to hold space. And what I mean by that is I’m just gonna be here, I’m just gonna listen. I’m not gonna shut down. I’m not gonna get grandiose or big or intense. I’m not gonna try to fix anything. I’m just gonna be here. And for a lot of my clients, that’s really difficult. That’s really difficult to just sit there. Yeah. Cause it feels like, well, what am I doing? And I’m like, it’s hard to get them to understand until they get it. Like they’ve actually had the experience of like, this is so helpful. And sometimes when I’m w working with couples, I’ll say that to the guy. I’m like, you just have to sit there. And she’ll just be like, ⁓ my God. I feel so much better. And he’s like, I didn’t even do anything. I’m like, you have no idea how much you just did right there. You just held it. You just held it. She wants, she desperately wants you just to hold it for her. And that’s just such a powerful moment for the couple to be and the guy’s like, okay, just sit here and I just listen. Yeah, that’s all you gotta do. It’s it’s kind of so fundamental. And in some ways I feel like it’s easier. You don’t have to think about anything. You just have to just breathe and listen and care. That’s it. Breathe, listen, and care. And they’re like, I think I can do that. Great. This is gonna get so much better then. It’s like that doing is being, right? The doing is the being, right? It’s just if I could just be there. Like you said, what what was it? Listen and care. What was the first one? Listen, breathe. Breathe and care. Listen, breathe and care. Yeah. I I usually use the the breath as like their object. So they don’t they’re they’re trying to like figure something just notice your breath, stay there, care about your wife, and listen. Okay, okay, here we go. ⁓ Right. And then like if you could actually understand, I mean what a bonus is, right? Like that’s probably the the next tier of learning is like if I can then understand what they’re what they’re going through via like just being curious. Cause this is the big thing that that I work with parents around is forget about doing something about whatever the conflict is, forget about solving it, forget about your agenda around how this is gonna impact their life or what they’re gonna do tomorrow or They’re gonna to school or what’s gonna happen next month. It’s like forget about all of that because all of that becomes obstacles to them feeling understood, which is the ultimate goal. And that the way to, I think the only way, there are probably maybe some other nuances in this, but the only way to feel understood is through curiosity. And curiosity can’t exist with agendas or judgments or ideas about the future for now. And that’s that that paradox of acceptance, right? Is that if I if I can just practice accepting this person in this moment, then they get to shift. But if I resist how they’re being in that moment, like I don’t like that they’re being whatever, frustrated or angry or sad or giving up or whatever it is, if I resist that they’re that way, then they’re more they feel more compelled to continue being that way. Yeah. And it’s it’s you know, that that’s where that power struggle, the inception of the power struggle right gets ignited. And so the more that we can practice being curious and like not being thrown off by some wild thing that what a teenager is saying, or, you know, in your case, probably the husband just like. Practicing understanding. I mean, how deeply satisfying that must be. It’s like, so wait, you’re feeling upset because of some of what I did yesterday, even though I didn’t mean that. And she’s like, Yes. They’re like, he’s like, ⁓ okay. And they’re like, ⁓ my God, how come you have to? It’s just a glorious moment, right? To just have someone be patient and curious enough and to set aside and like again, just that innocence of curiosity, how healing that is. It’s so healing. People can set aside their own like selfish desires in a way. And again, I have them myself and I have to practice this every time I’m talking with somebody that, you know, there’s a crisis happening. It’s just forget about like what we’re gonna do tomorrow or tonight and just focus on really understanding. Because as soon as people feel understood, there’s just that, ⁓ my god. All right. You know, because the understanding then leads to connection. And that’s when and when connection happened, that’s when that relief or that ignition of life can occur. It’s so beautiful. So I like that. I like that. The breathe. Listen and care. Yeah. That’s great. I’d like to just jive in a little bit around your book. I just wanted to let all the listeners know that they should get this book, even if they’re not a parent, because the ideas in here are so fundamental to, you know, human relationship, in my opinion. But I think it’s maybe magnified in the parental child relationship. You know, I think a lot of my I’m thinking about a couple of specific clients, but it’s like there’s this sense of The woundedness is nobody really wanted to understand me. Nobody wanted to care about what was going on inside me. I had all this sh I had a house. I had a clothes, I had food, I went to school, I did my homework, but no the parents never were like interested in my internal world, like what was happening for me. And there’s this sense of like, ⁓ well, I guess if nobody cares, then one, it becomes very undeveloped on one hand, but the other part of it is. Nobody’s going to care about that. So why would I ever share about that? Why would I ever be vulnerable? Why ever express my feelings? Nobody’s gonna care. And so I loved how your book really starts with this idea of understanding. Like that’s the fundamental basis. And you said so many other art very articulate things I can’t recall off the top of my head. But I just I just wanted to to let everyone listening like, go get this book, especially if you’re a parent of adolescence, but even if you’re just starting as a parent, because start this stuff now. You know, listening to your kids, understanding them, it’s just so fundamental. Or it should be fundamental, unfortunately. That’s not the way I was parented, unfortunately. Or mo most of us I had very well meaning parents too, but they didn’t understand how important it was to understand me in that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean same, right? I had great, great parents, so well-meaning, tons of heart. And I don’t think there was a lot of education for parents back then either. You know, I think there was no act. I mean, the the internet didn’t exist, you know, when I was in high school. And so there’s just like not a lot of excess around how to be the parent that maybe even they wanted to be. And you know, I my poor mom especially was just desperate to connect with me. And she just couldn’t, you know, for a variety of reasons. So, you know, one of the things that I was just visiting, my sister who has a daughter, she’s five. And I haven’t spent a ton of time around kids that age, but I had a wonderful time with them. And one of the things that she taught me about parenting, especially like younger kids, but I think it’s applicable in its own way to teenagers. I was hanging out with her and we just had this most amazing time, being silly and being astronauts and bathtime and all this stuff. And one time she comes out of her room, my my my niece, and she has these cute little jean shorts on. And I was like, ⁓ my God, those are so cute. I just impulsively said that. And my sister’s like, Do you feel confident? And she was like, Yeah. And I was like, what a great thing to say to some to a kid, right? To reflect how she felt instead of how she looked, you know, in my own kind of like bumbling way. And then there was another moment where we were doing bath time and she was like making these little colors, these little like tablets that dissolved in water and like made all these cool colors. And she was like drawing, and I was like, that looks so cool. ⁓ my God, that’s so great. Great job. And then my sister jumped in and she was kind of like, Are you having fun? Do you like making these things? I thought that was such a great paradigm shift around focusing on their experience as opposed to the final product, right? Because if I was, you know, bumbling my way through raising this kid, they’d probably just become so performative and like want to please people and do a good job, quote unquote. And it was another insight that I had in terms of like working with teenagers around focusing on their experience as opposed to. Again, that performance paradox that we talked about around like looking a certain way or doing a certain thing. I thought it was just so brilliant to reflect how they feel and reinforce how great that is versus whatever the end product was, right? Whatever the the being results driven in that way. So I thought that was fascinating. And one of the things in the book that I’ll just I’ll segue to and be brief about this, one of the parts that I just enjoyed the most about this whole experience is that pulling together all these decades of experience that the parents who were the most effective. In helping their teenagers were the ones who became so good at connecting with them no matter what was going on. It was easier, it’s easier for parents to connect with their kids when they’re doing great, when they’re feeling good. But when you know things get hard and they become very anxious or very depressed, or there’s a they’re going through a breakup or some kind of catastrophe with school, the parents who learned, and they weren’t perfect at it, but the parents who learned their kid enough to practice how. to connect with them first through curiosity and then through understanding. And if they were patient enough to do those things, their kids got through the crisis. And they became resilient and stronger because of it. And so one of the things that I did is I looked back, certainly in my role, but more importantly in how looking at all these hundreds of parents who found their way through crisis by and I had to, you know, look back and look at the anatomy of like, what did they actually do? And it was that they practiced curiosity when it was compelling not to. That curiosity led to understanding when it was again compelling not to be patient. It was compelling to like get into rescue mode, get into what’s the problem? Let’s fix this. Let’s talk to the teachers. Let’s have you do this. Go to therapy, go talk to this person, go exercise, eat better, right? Which are all very critical, actually very important things. But without the foundation of the child being gotten. By their parents, the influence that parents have is so drastically limited because the kid doesn’t really feel understood or or just gotten in a certain way. So all the things that parents want to do to help, it becomes there there become so many obstacles of that looks like resistance, which interesting resistance is actually protection. Kids do push away because they don’t feel safe being open. So the ⁓ in the antidote to that of like doors magically appearing in protection or resistance is through curiosity and understanding. ⁓ wow, so tell me about that. So how did what was that like for you? You know, when she broke up with you? That sounds just absolutely heartbreaking. How was that? And they probably won’t open up in right away in the beginning, but the more that parents start to make that a norm in their family that we talk about feelings that I actually I share feelings appropriately, number one. So I am that kind of a person. And number two, in a way, I kind of expect you to do that, or I want you to do that. You’re welcome to do that. You’re invited to. And the more that that starts to happen, it’s amazing how. Hard times become less hard because there’s something magical that happens when kids feel understood and seen, teenagers, even young adults, when they feel understood and seen by their parents. They allow their parents to help them in the ways that I think only the the vision that parents can only have. They have a certain level of experience and knowledge and just being in the world longer than their kids, that the parents have influence when kids feel understood. I loved that. I loved that in the book. And never like thought of it in that exact way around influence. A lot of the men that I work with who are struggling in parenting stuff, they’re usually more in that early stage, you know, they’re like newer dads, you know, their kids are like three or five or something like that. But what I often it’s not so much about being understood, but I often will say when your kid’s not compliant, move towards connection and see what happens. And what I get back is I’m in fact, I just had a client, I think last week. A couple of weeks ago, he was like, ⁓ my gosh, that makes it so much easier when I just connect with them and then I just take a couple minutes and then they just are like willing to do what I need them to do. And I was like, it’s the same kind of thing. It’s like, if you get me, I’m way more in invested in our relationship than if I feel like you just kind of are there and I don’t really matter to you. And so I think it’s in the same way. I think it’s just really about. fundamental things that humans need is like a seeing me, seeing me, getting me. And just I so anyway, I there’s so many things about your book that I loved. So I think you’ve really hit upon one of the key components though, or maybe the key component is I care about your inner world, your inner experience. I think, and maybe kind of to what you were saying earlier, you know, this achievement-oriented culture that we’ve created is what disconnects parents because they’re focusing their kids on an external thing that they have to get to and they’re not spending enough time, which isn’t wrong. You know, like sure, you do your homework, get good grades, go to a school, you know, da da da. But it’s it’s in the absence often of this internal focus of this, and how is that for you? Wow, you had a lot of homework. That sounds really stressful. How are you doing? That’s the part that gets missed. It’s all like, well, did you get your homework done? Okay, great. Go to bed. Get up tomorrow. Go back school, do it again. And it’s like, ugh, you know, kids are on a treadmill and they just get exhausted. It’s amazing because I and I love what you’re saying there around that connection. It’s like we parents go from being an adversary to an advocate, being on the team, you know, and we feel like you’re on the team. And it’s like, ⁓ we’re actually kind of in this together, you know, going towards whatever this thing is. And it’s I think sometimes when the people become more black and white about the parenting paradigm, it’s like, well, you know, I can’t just like talk about how they’re feeling all the time. They eventually have to like Do their homework or go to school. And it’s like, absolutely, but just take the time. One of my mentors said, if you take the time it takes, it takes less time. Totally. That’s the thing. It takes less time. ⁓ right. So it’s like if you focus on that connection for like a few minutes. And afterwards they can be like, I don’t want to do my homework. And you’re like, well, you need to, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I know it sucks. I know you don’t want to. And you need to. And you’re not going out actually tonight or on Friday night if you don’t do your homework right now. Like, what? You know, I thought you understood me. You’re like, ⁓ I understand. You know, I get it. It sucks. What you’re going through is stressful, it’s painful, it’s embarrassing, you know? And there’s a thousand reasons of why you don’t want to do what you need to do. And you know what? You gotta do it. So, you know, it’s like, and I think that’s actually one of the amazing benefits or strengths of the masculine or the the father is just like, dude, I get you. I I you you have done a great job, son, daughter. You’ve done a great job communicating to me. what your internal world is like and what’s going on right now. And I think I get it. And you gotta repeat back, you know, is it like this? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Now just do the thing that you don’t want to do. You need to. And in fact, I’m gonna hold a boundary around this. And it’s sort of like one of the ways I talk about it is making the relationship big enough to hold any boundary, right? The connection big enough, the connection robust enough that parents can then come back and say, Yeah, you have to do this. I know it sucks, but you just you you need to. Like you really do. And if you don’t, it’s fine. It just means I’m going to limit your independence because you’re proving to me that you don’t like have what it takes to be as independent as you want to be. You’re not doing the hard thing, which is one way of defining like how you expand independence, I think, for a child is like, can they handle it? Do they do the hard thing when they need to, even in the way when there’s compelling reasons not to? If you can, great. Like I feel inspired to give you more independence in that way, you know? And if not, that’s totally fine. It just means that that’s I’m going to limit it until you know you demonstrate that you can be. Right. It’s it’s it’s cool. So cool. Yeah, I always say high limits, high connection. That’s the goal. It’s just like that’s the focus. Like so when I, you know, my kids will say, and my boys are eight and they’re like, I don’t want to do that. And I’m like, I know you don’t and you have to. And I love you. You know, all are true right now. You have to do it. I love you. I know it sucks and it all has to happen. So here we are. It’s quite confusing, I think, for kids, right? I mean, that’s it’s confusing to me just hearing that. It’s like, how can those all be true? But they I know, I know. As an eight year old, they’re probably like, What? Why? If you’re doing this, you must think I’m something’s wrong with me. And I’m like, Nope, I love you tons. And you have to set the table. Right. Well, Jivon, I think this is a good place to end. I really appreciate our time together. That was wonderful. You have so many insights. I really appreciate it. I will put your book in the show notes. Please, everyone, give it a read. It’s beautiful book. It’s got so much good information in there. And I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you so much for having me. And I really appreciate all the great things you’re doing in this world, Bryce. Thanks for having me. All right. Thank you so much. 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.