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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. Hello, everyone. It’s great to have you here on the podcast. It means a lot to me. Today I’m talking with Dion Elliott Jensen, who is the author of Conscious Footsteps, an Intense Unraveling. Dion has an amazing story that I hope resonates with everyone listening. Dion Elliott Jensen. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Bryce. Appreciate it. Welcome here from ⁓ the other side of the world. Dion is in Australia at he’s about sixteen hours ahead of us right now. So thank you so much for tuning in today. I really appreciate you being here. And I just wanted to start with a little bit about your journey. And, you know, I’ve read your book and so I have a a a sense of it, just to give some context to our listeners about, you know, your life and how it’s kind of led you to this point. Sure. Well let me say nothing good has happened overnight. So even though I’m 16 hours in advance, this there’s nothing to worry about. My journey, I’m a man in his mid-40s. I’ve grown up and and been in Australia all of my life. And I was a parent at a very early age from 20. And then I went into the corporate world and really thought and made that my identity. From there I’ve had a range of of wonderful experiences that have been really enjoyable from the outset or difficult from the outset and ended up being enjoyable, but they run the full gamut from loss to creation to ego death to transformation. And it’s really brought and shaped who I am now. And I couldn’t be prouder of it. Yeah, that’s wonderful. Maybe I’m curious a little bit about, you know, some of that transformational moments. You know, some of the things that really shifted you out of this is who I am to whoa, that’s not who I am. This is more of who I am. Some of the things that really kind of tipped you away or moved you out of that way of experiencing yourself or believing this is who I am. Curious about that. Well firstly I love the way you phrase the question because I’m a big believer in it’s not about necessarily searching for who you are or understanding who you are. It’s also about understanding who you’re not. And those can be, albeit polarizing, they’re still two very, very important lessons. And for me in discovering who I am, a lot of that came from experiencing who I’m not. And it was just the converse of that. that began to enable me to understand authentically what my identity is. I should also say, and I I I hear this from a lot of people, that tibbing point was not something that was elective. That catalyst point wasn’t an elective experience where I thought, I’m about to transform now or let me go and find out who I am. It was really brought to me like a thunderclap from the unexpected. So it started with being fired from a job that I allowed my identity to be built around and scaffolded by. And once I’d lost that job and that was ripped away from me, I’ve been on an incredibly difficult but incredibly rewarding journey that’s really brought me to where I am now. And I wouldn’t change it for the world. Yeah. I mean I think that’s kind of the thing about transformation is it’s it sounds like a cool word, transformation, but it’s actually usually quite painful. So when you lost this job, And you were suddenly faced with, ⁓ my God, like this sort of house of cards kind of crumbled. What really like sort of emerged for you at that point or started to emerge? Well, what started to emer when when I lost my job, I lost my identity. So I honestly felt like I had died. I built my entire persona and identity around what I did for a living. The majority or the vast majority of my relationships apart from close family were built around what I did. And when I was no longer of use to people, a lot of those relationships fell away. So you’re also left wondering not only from the external but from the internal, what is my value? Who am I? And because I had outsourced that to a third party, I was left completely empty. And my second chapter in the book is probably one of my favorites, which is I am who I am, not what I do. And I see it in a lot of men and a lot of women as well. And it’s not necessarily just in the corporate world, but we apply A veneer to ourselves based on what we do, and that’s how we walk through life. I’m a doctor, I’m a lawyer, I’m a mother, I’m a father, or I’m whatever label you attach. But that’s essentially a mask. And then when we interact with each other, we don’t spend any time understanding who we really are beneath that mask. And when you think about it more practically, you go and meet someone for the first time. As soon as that moment becomes really awkward beyond the initial hellos, it’s ⁓ Bryce, tell me what you do. Because that’s the only way I’ve got to kind of build a set of talking points and then I apply all of this bias to it and that’s how I’ll interact with you. But we also were doing that to ourselves when we are wearing that mask. So back to your back to your question, how I felt, I was just empty. I was a shell of a person. I had no identity, which you could also argue was a great thing. You’ve got a clean canvas to build from. But for someone that had spent so long scaffolding their identity around what they did, it was a really, really difficult time. To go on that journey of understanding who I was. Yeah. Okay. So maybe give a sense of like, you know, I’m struck was struck in the book about just this capacity of I think it one way to describe it is like being more in your essential self or your who you really are. You know, you talk a lot about truth, speaking truth. Yes. Yeah. I’m curious, like, what was it that kind of helped you discover that? And I know it wasn’t like a moment. hundreds of moments over a long period of time. But I’m just curious, like I think for a lot of people in in my work too, it’s like people have a a sense or an inkling of like, I’m not really me. I don’t know what me is. And then I don’t know how to get to me. So I’m curious for you in this journey, what was it that helped or what was it that like allowed you to get more and more closer to your truth? Well, firstly I think the antithesis of truth is fear. And we we harbor a lot of fear. I harbored an incredible amount of fear. And when I talk about truth, I also talk about your authentic self. And I think your authentic self is the person that we always know is there, but we choose to edit that person for external consumption. And a lot of that external consumption of what we present is based on fear. And when I talk about fear, there’s a lot of fear. There’s a fear of lack. It takes so many forms. Lack, not being good enough, fear of failure. Kind of the list is endless. And I went through a lot of anxiety and also depression. And at the root of that was fear. So I really wanted to understand what fear meant to me. And I hope this definition can kind of hopefully free some others or at least give them a a point of pause and reflection on whether or not it’s doing for them. But fear or peace or the absence of peace is where we are looking at our memories from the past and we’re applying them to scenarios that could appear in the future. And what we’re essentially missing is the present moment because we’re either reflecting or we are projecting. And that’s essentially what I was doing. For me, if I give some more grounded examples of what I was doing in that process, it was a lot of fear of not being accepted. I was posing as a different person. I wasn’t living in my authentic energy. I came out during that process. I was very happily married, in a heterosexual relationship with children. I loved my wife. I still have a a love for her now, even though we’re not married, but I wasn’t my truly authentic self. And it wasn’t until I acknowledged all of the aspects of meat, all of these fragments that were out there in the world, and I gathered them all up and I brought them back into me and stopped being ashamed or having a fear of them that I was then able to live as my authentic self because I didn’t have a fear of showing those externally anymore. Mm-hmm. I got from the book that there was almost, you know, I’m and I know it was like it’s just a very, you know, minimal explanation of your journey and all that, but I almost got the sense from the the book that there were these moments that happened that forced you to transform. Like, you know, that acknowledgement to your wife that, you know, maybe you’d like to check out some men. And suddenly it was like, ⁓ shit, I can’t put that back. And she was like, What? And suddenly it was out there and you couldn’t you couldn’t stop it. And so then you had to face it. And there was like this it was just like this interesting moment of how we something, some little bit of the truth leaks out and then it’s like, okay. And then it becomes like a tsunami of truth. So okay, I have to face it completely now. So I thought that was really fascinating. Yeah, thank you. And that’s where I see that myself as really fortunate when I spoke about some incredibly difficult journey that I would never change. But these catalyst moments, I couldn’t have asked for them. To be given to me in a better way. So the jog loss, which just came out of the blue, was wonderful in the long run because it kicked off this journey. The coming out process was never intended. And why I say I was really fortunate in the coming out process that it was my ex-wife’s strength as an individual and who has such a strong sense of self that I was willing to bring that coming out sentence back in and say, no, no, I’m I’m I’m happy to stay here. But she was really the one that pushed and said, no, if this is in you, this is this is something that really you need to live. So I’m just incredibly lucky that it happened that way. And I love that I can look back on it and see it with the lens of fortune and luck, as opposed to this happened to me and it was imposed upon me. As I said, I’m I’m I’m just really lucky it happened the way that it did. And not everyone is going to have, you know, that experience where there’s either a catalyst or there will always be a catalyst point, but they may not have a a willing participant to help them. Yeah. Uncover who they are. It sounds like there was encourage it. Like in a way the positivity was that there was it was still relatively safe. There wasn’t this judgment and control and, you know, degrading of you or or beating you up for this way. But more like your wife was able to say, I’m going to honor this truth in you. Yes. And even though this is gonna hurt us in our marriage and our co-parenting and all these things, I see this as I’m gonna hold this for it, which is an incredible gift, really. It is. It is. And kind of to surmise it, she didn’t come from a place of fear. ⁓ wow. Yeah. She like an alien or something? How did she do that? Like what’s her secret? Maybe we should have her on the podcast. We we we should. Yeah. It was and who knows where she gathered that internal internal strength from. But ultimately her reaction is where she didn’t project a possible negative scenario of the future, which as I was saying before is the definition of peace or the converse, the the definition of fear. So yeah, I’m gonna talk it up to my lottery win. Yeah. I feel that way about my wife too. I’m the lucky one, let me tell you. I’m the lucky one. Well, that’s beautiful. I wanted to sort of talk a little bit about kind of shift to some of the other things you said about love. There was a lot in there about truth. I thought there was also a lot of in there about love, a couple of your chapters or the the walks as you said in the thing. Isn’t that an Australian thing like walks or walkabout? You know, walk about definitely this, yeah. I was thinking that I just realized that now I was like, ⁓ yeah, that’s a that’s a thing. You know, we’re gonna we’re gonna walk for a walk. It might be like, you know, 12 days or something. I just was struck by this idea of purpose. Like purpose for me is always around it. I guess I want to say, kind of pulled into like mission, right? Mission is like what I do, purpose is like the thing that I have to give to the world. You know, that’s kind of how I understand it. But one of the challenges I think around finding purpose is that it gets so con kind of clouded by this thing of like, well, how am I going to do it? How am I to do it? And I love this idea of your purpose, life’s purpose is to love. Like that’s it. That’s it. And I I thought that was like and I I’ve heard that before, but ⁓ no, something when I read it, I was like, ⁓ God, that makes it so much easier in a way. I mean, it doesn’t like solve my, you know, financial challenges or my chronic disease or something like that. But it just makes it like, I’m here to love. That’s it. So I just wanted you to just if you have thoughts about that, I just really appreciated that reflection in the book. Yeah, of course. Well I think a lot of the a lot of the times that we initially hear about mission and purpose tends to be in a corporate sense. They’re the first times we really come across those terms. And then some corporates will either layer in vision on top of that as well. So you’ve got these three statements That carry this weight of grandiose expectation where it’s meant to solve the world, where my belief around purpose is more resonance and alignment. So when you find your purpose, it should just feel safe. It should feel easy. It should feel simple and it should resonate with you through the good and the bad. And you should feel a sense of alignment. And we all, whether we we all feel whether or not we have resonance or alignment with our purpose. Whether we choose to acknowledge and act upon a resonance or a lack thereof is probably where the problem lies. So for me, when I talk about the purpose of life is to love or the purpose of love, firstly, the biggest challenge there is the definition of what love is. And I think it can get really misconstrued, particularly in modern culture, where love carries this weight of expectation. It carries a weight of it being returned. So you should never give it. unless you know you’re going to get it back. It carries a sexual bias in the majority of majority of cases it is difficult to show depending on gender dynamics. So men find it difficult to show love to men because they are afraid of what they believe it ca what light it casts them in. Women are afraid to show love to a man. man is afraid to show love to a woman outside of a relationship context as well. So we’ve got this really blurred definition, almost a commercialized definition of what love is. Whereas for me, what love is is almost the hum of the universe. It is the only core and organic emotion that we feel. I write in the book about when a baby is born, that sense of love for their parent or their caregiver or who gave birth to them. is innate. Every other emotion that we teach a human beyond love is a taught emotion. And whether it’s greed, fear, hate, deceit, all of those things are are not innate. The only one we have that we can confidently argue is love. And for me, that’s why the purpose of life is to love. That’s what we’re born with. And it’s about practically how that turns up in the day-to-day that I think is really important because there is a danger of saying the purpose of life is love and it just becomes this esoteric concept that no one really understands how to live. But it’s very easy to live in alignment with love by simply allowing it to pour out from you. The first way that I would say practically to ground it is you cannot love with an expectation of it being returned. So there’s there’s another chapter in the book. called Love is a one-way street. And that was a really painful journey for me to go on where I always had that traditional concept of love that when you show it, you should expect it to be returned. If it can’t be returned to you, you wouldn’t show it outwardly. But what I came to learn is I find the most amount of peace and resonance and alignment within myself where I just comfortably show love and I don’t have that expectation of it coming back. I just do it because that’s how I feel. And rather than stifling that emotion, I allow it to come out. So some practical examples of that. When I’m with a friend and I say goodbye to them, I always now say, I love you. And often before I would hold that back because how’s that going to make the other person feel? What’s their definition of love? Whereas I know when I just say it truly to them, they know I’m not coming on to them or I’m not expecting something to come back from them. I’m just telling them that I love them and I’ve appreciated the interaction. It could be as simple as Withholding your frustrations when you’ve had a really terrible day when you’re dealing with the kids. Kids throw their throw their dinner at the wall. It’s really difficult to hold back your frustrations when they do that. But it’s an act of love just to allow it to be. You can counsel your child and say, That’s not how we’re meant to behave. But holding back that emotion of frustration is a way to show love. Holding a door open for someone. All simple practical things that can be displayed on a day-to-day basis, although the one percenters are incremental. If you could create a mental picture, if if you constantly acted in that way throughout your day, those one percenters would really add up. And who would your energy be or how would your energy appear as an individual if you were just constantly doing that with no expectation of it coming back to you? I know when I picture that, I feel a real sense of peace and I feel a sense of alignment. It takes them getting used to because you’re like, Well, I did something for you. Why aren’t you doing something for me? But if you can push past that barrier, I think you can reasonably see that it would be a wonderful existence. Then the more that we do that, if you can imagine that just growing exponentially, where you have families, villages, tribes, troop groups of people, communities all acting in that way, the world would be a tremendous place. And I think would overcome a hell of a lot of the problems that we currently experience. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. That’s beautiful. I guess what I wonder about is for you, it’s kind of I have like two thoughts here. Like one is this sense of like living your life in this state of, you know, continually expressing love in all the different ways you described. I think what I wonder comes up for people who are listening to this is like the impracticalness of that. You know, like the impracticalness of like Almost like sometimes it could be almost is it sometimes inauthentic to do that? Like I guess I guess what you’re saying is it’s you’re doing an out of authenticity, out of your truth always. It’s not it’s not something made up. But I wonder about like, you know, there’s that idea of love as being purpose. And then I really appreciate this idea you had of like being on a spiritual path had always meant to you that I have to live this like, you know very austere life where I I have nothing and I I can’t, you know, have beautiful things or enjoy my life in any sort of material sense. And I think actually what resonated with me is how I think a lot of people who are curious or seekers in some way are actually afraid of almost tipping too far into this like spiritual journey, like too much loss of their ego because then they’re gonna like wake up one day and they’re gonna be living in like a cardboard box or something. And they they actually think that’s I mean, I think that they actually fear that. And so I I really appreciated your way of describing the spiritual path of like, and I still love beautiful things. And I still love like luxurious travel and I like these things. And they can still exist in the confines of a spiritually dedicated human being whose purpose is to love. So I I guess what I’m saying is like there’s this sense of like purpose is love. And then the fear of like what? I’m just gonna be like, I don’t know, I I’m not gonna have anything if I live like that. You know, if I if that’s my purpose, then I’ll just I’ll just I’ll just lose everything. And I think you’re right. But I think everyone is afraid of the outcome of not being sort of focused and purposely oriented towards these other kinds of things that they think will then get them to some kind of, I don’t know, material nirvana or something, you know. Yes, you’re right. And we have to face that we live in a material world. And it’s also a beautiful material world, no matter kind of irrespective of what flects your boat in the material world, it could be, you know, a really great restaurant, it could be a beautiful car, a lovely home, great travel. Those things aren’t irrelevant. In fact, they’re they’re still very important. But it’s what grip do those have on you? And how does the grip that those things have on you augment your behavior and whether or not they take you away from living in your authentic self or they bring you further towards it? And you’re right, fear. Fear is something that takes you definitely away from living your authentic self. But again, we do need to acknowledge that we live within an environment of a cohort of people that aren’t on a spiritual path. But that shouldn’t dictate whether or not we are. And it’s about integrating those behaviors without losing sight of the fact that you’ve got passions or wants or needs in this material world that still need to still need to be fulfilled. The few things I would say on that. A lot of the behaviors that we hold true at the moment are simply stories that we’ve been told of the past, ⁓ in the past. Those stories can come from religion, they can come from politicians, they can come from families, they can come from education bodies. The first thing when you feel a lack of resonance, because remember that feeling of love is simply a feeling of alignment and resonance with your with your authentic self and your and your purpose. Whenever you feel that lack of resonance, it’s important to Gently challenge why. We don’t need to throw out the current system, but we need to acknowledge why we believe what we currently believe. And it could be just a matter of beginning to unlearn some of those held beliefs. And those beliefs, as I said, could come from anywhere. As you begin to unlearn or firstly challenge those and then unlearn them, it becomes easier to stand in that, stand in that purpose of love. Then when you look at a lot of corporates, we all have jobs again to to be able to provide for the lifestyles and for our families. And again, I’m not purporting at all that we throw all of that away. But it’s about turning up to those roles as your authentic self. There are so many books, Bryce, written on authentic leadership. And there are all these 10 step plans to being a more authentic leader. Ultimately, what people are crying out for and what people really want to follow is people that are authentic and enable them or give them permission to live as their authentic selves and to come up into the corporate world and turn up as who they are while still achieving a corporate objective. And again, it’s not about what that corporate objective is or what that mission statement for that corporation is, whether you believe in it is important, but it’s also about turning up within that institution as your authentic self. Now maybe very difficult for a man to hear or a woman, it doesn’t matter who they are, to turn up and be more loving at work. Because again, it’s how does that land at work? But It is not stifling the emotions that we have, whether it’s in a one-on-one. You might feel something for that person you’re having in a one-on-one, but you might push it back down because you’re afraid of how it may seem or how it may come across or how it is counter to the culture that exists. And again, I’m not being impractical and saying these are sexual things because that’s not what love is. Love is that true, innate emotion of peace and alignment. But it’s about feeling that with a person and of course. in an appropriate sense, revealing that. So everyone feels safe to be within their authentic selves. Yeah. I love that. I think the challenge is is that like for me, R like I’m I feel incredibly fortunate because I’m surrounded by people that generally for the most part can receive the love that I want to give and well, not always give it back, but there’s, you know, there’s like a reciprocity there. And but I imagine people living in other communities or other settings, it would be very difficult because I just I just wonder if it would be safe. Like I just curious for you, having sort of, you know, gone through this transformation and then you’re still in this world, however you want to call it or define it, and then you’re trying to live this authentic experience and purpose yourself around love, is it hard at times for you to sort of step into that vulnerable place and express that? Yes, it can be uncomfortable, definitely, to experience it. Do you need to be vulnerable? Yes, of course you need to be you need to be vulnerable. Should it ever be dangerous? I would hope that it’s not dangerous because again, it’s it’s not love in the traditional sense of what everyone perceives or the vast proportion of of the population is perceiving love to be. So it’s not the biggest shift of what it’s not is it’s not sexual. And I think that’s where love gets caught. Love gets caught in it is sexual relationship based. But love exists with beyond the confines of a physical relationship as in a as in a sexual relationship. And yes, you would you would be extremely cautious, you’d be extremely vulnerable, and it would be very dangerous if that was your definition of love. And that’s how you brought it, obviously, to the workplace or to to any interaction where it was unwanted. So I think the most important point for me to get across around love is the definition of it. And that definition of love is about that innate feeling and peace and resonance that everyone feels in their heart. And that’s what you’re trying to bring across. Think of it more as an energetic emotion and a a feeling of of peace rather than a rather than something that’s there to build a relationship, so to speak. Or the feeling that you would feel when you have an attraction to somebody. They’re two very, very different, different emotions. Others may also call it intuition. And again, it’s the labeling where we can really get caught up with this. Intuition also speaks to us in a loving way. It guides us on how to how to behave. It gives us advice or that gut feeling. Again, that’s a better definition of what I’m referring to when I talk about love as opposed to something that is relationship based. Mm. Yeah, I think I mean, I’m on your side on this for sure. Like I really believe that people are desperate for the thing you’re talking about. This like authentic love. And I also think that it’s really uncomfortable for people to fully engage in that in a way that is safe for everyone. You know? That’s where I think it gets tricky for people is like, okay, yeah, you l I said you love me. I don’t know what to do with that. It gets really I mean, you know, and then if it’s like a woman, it’s almost like you’ve evolved outside of the what the culture can hold, you know, you’re you’re past that edge and the culture I just wonder about like people being able to do that. And saying all that, I think you’re right. I think you’re right. Like I think you that’s what we all want. And it’s unfortunate if we can’t generally as a culture, as a society, as a as a human species, contain that in a really beautiful way, like the way you’re describing it. Yeah, I agree. And thank you. I think that the biggest the biggest challenge is to come to that realization that it doesn’t need to be returned to you. And once you’ve reached that point where there’s not an expectation of love being returned, then it’s about practicing the output expressions of that. Yeah. In small ways and allowing them to build. Yeah. There’s a quote in the book that I’m gonna just say here This is the sacred dance of souls, not to possess, but to witness, not to cling, but to cherish, not to measure by time, but by truth. And the context of the quote was in this sense of like we often think of friendships as being value based on the amount of time we’ve spent with someone. And I thought that was a really wonderful idea. But it sort of speaks to this idea of like, can we meet someone for the first time and find this depth of connection and really almost like in a way, based on your definition, fall in love. You know, because we’re really both willing to open ourselves and be really real and authentic and clear with each other and share our truths. And in that sense, I feel like I do that all the time. Like, and I’m very fortunate because I can meet people and just say, wow, I’m I’m so curious. I want to know more. And there’s a depth. And then it’s like, I think in a way, you’re right. Like I think in a way I follow in love with those people. Fall isn’t maybe the right word, but I I feel love. I don’t know. You feel love. You experience it. Exactly. Exactly right. And I think it’s about reframing those connections as experience and not having that expectation of permanence on them. Viewing every interaction as valuable, even if it’s brief. The chapter or the the walk in the book is stay for a minute, a month or a lifetime, because duration is, you know, a really poor measure of depth. Yeah. But If we look at everything kind of through that mirror concept that I that I talk about is every person is reflecting something back to you in yourself. Sometimes it’s positive and it’s your light, you know, it’s your love, it’s your joy, it’s your alignment. And sometimes those people are reflecting your shadow. They’re showing you your insecurities, they’re showing you your fear, they’re showing you your ego. But they don’t just come into our lives. They are there, I believe, to also reveal us kind of to ourselves. You know, a difficult colleague is going to show you your triggers. A partner might show you where you’re constantly seeking validation. You know, a friend might help you see what kind of authenticity feels like because friendships are really beautiful. They don’t have a lot of those expectations that romantic partnerships have. And that’s where you’ve got that ability to kind of say, you know, why did this happen to me? Or what’s it here to show me? It just helps you move from that passive state of experience to more of a conscious one and allows you to create More ownership over that experience. Yeah, I love that. That’s great. Well, so many questions, so many thoughts here. I guess one of the things that comes up is this sense of like your relationship to your sense of manhood. And you know, going from being in a marriage, children, the sort of this is what society expects of men, and then shifting out of that. in becoming, you know, in a relationship with another man. I’m just curious like how that shifted for you, or if there was a shift, you know, I’m not even assuming there was. I’m just wondering like, you know, for so many men, there’s this real question, I think, of like, especially some of the younger men I work with, it’s like, what does it mean to be a man? You know, and I’m sure it’s different, a little bit different in Australia than it is in the United States, different cultures, different histories. But I’m just curious like for you what that was like, that sort of sense of I’m a man, I’m married, I have kids. ⁓ I’m a now I’m a a gay man with a partner, another man, I have kids, I have an ex-wife, and like how that all sort of settled for you, or I’m sure it’s not settled completely, but just just what that was like for you. Yeah, it’s been quite an interesting kind of journey and reflection as well. There’s a concept here in Australia and judging by I don’t know if you’ve seen Louis Threw’s new. documentary on Netflix could man a sphere. But there is I did. I just watched it actually, yeah. You just watched it, yeah. There’s this very strong concept here, which now after watching that makes me believe it’s it’s wider than just Australia of toxic masculinity. And toxic masculinity has really begun to shape a proportion of of the younger generation now because they are being told that to be a man you need to behave and act in a certain way. Mm-hmm. My definition of a strong man is a male that understands his purpose and can live authentically. That’s my definition of a man. Let’s also have my definition of a woman as well. I don’t think a the behavior of a a male or a female should should differ in any way. We don’t necessarily, from my belief standpoint, don’t have a series of roles that are gender based that we need to conform to. My journey as a man though, I wasn’t fortunate enough to have a relationship with my father. So A lot of my initial beliefs around manhood came from wanting I guess what I didn’t have. So it was wanting to create a stable family unit where I was the provider and I was the stability and the rock in that relationship. And I wanted the family unit to rely on me. And that was my definition. If I was doing that well, I was being a good man. How that has transformed, it’s taken me quite a while to separate the idea of masculinity and that provider role. And I still have this really lovely blend now. My ex-wife and I co-parent, we’ve got the kids kind of half half the time each. So I get this blend of a gay relationship and also a gay relationship with children 50% of the time. So we’ve got a really great family dynamic where almost all of it’s incorporated. If I look at my emotional state as a man now, I feel really comfortable in almost a duality where sometimes I am seen as the stronger one or the more dominant. Sometimes I’m more passive emotionally within the relationship. But what it’s really great about it is it gives a space for it to be both. And you don’t need to be one all the time. You get to to shift and shuffle in between the two based on what you’re Your need state may be at any point in time. I still have the wonderful experience of parenthood where I’m probably the best way to put it is the softer rock for them, the more present rock, I think for the girls, where because my emotional needs are being met, I’m in a better, more authentic space to meet their emotional needs in a more dynamic fashion rather than a very defined as a father fashion you should. just do this so I can react more to how they are. I have a lot more peace and a lot more patience when I’m interacting with them. But to kind of circle back to your original question of what is the definition of a man, yeah, I strongly believe the definition of a person is someone that is calm and comfortable in their authentic self and gets to live by that every day. Yeah, that’s beautiful. What I wonder about from all that is like, what do you do? To keep yourself in that space? Like is it something that you have found that seems kind of continuously stable, or is it something that you have to work on on like a daily basis? It is it was something I used to have to work on more regularly. I think anything anything we do rec we should be constantly changing and growing. But that also doesn’t mean you can’t slip and fall back into old habits or old thought patterns. And I would be lying if I said that never happened. It it happens, it happens regularly sometimes, depending on whatever I’m dealing with. So that should also be something that the listeners take away is that you’re never a finished product. You never reach a point and it’s like a you you cross a finish line in a race and you’re like, I’m done now, the the race is over. It’s a a constant practice and a constant learning of new things, a constant realization of more of your authentic self, a constant realization of Who you’re not as well. But I also think that’s the fun. Yeah. It should be something that we embrace. Yeah, it’s it’s like that sense of like, you know, I sometimes get this with my clients. They come in and they want me to take them to happy land where everything’s easy and simple and they don’t have to struggle. And it’s just ⁓ and I always say, ⁓ I can’t really help you with that. But it is it is this like longing for ease or just I don’t have to try so hard. And it’s like that’s not how this works. That’s not it’s it’s like struggle is baked in, suffering is somewhat baked in, pain, all those things are baked in. And it’s not baked in because it sucks. It’s baked in for our evolution. It’s baked in for our growth. And I think that was the thing that really has helped me recognize all these things are happening for me, not against me. Exactly. It’s all helping me become, as you say, you know, my authentic self, my truest self. I think that is what is so beautiful about the human experience. Yeah, I agree. I mean if everything was revealed to us all at once, we wouldn’t appreciate it at its granular level. Yeah. What would you do then? You’d just be like, I’m just gonna sit and be happy all the time. Like it sounds so boring. How boring. Well Dean, I think that’s a great place to end. Could you give a little plug for your book? I’ll put it in the show notes. Sure. The book is called Conscious Footsteps. You can buy it on Amazon or at consciousfootsteps.com. Alright, I’ll put that in the show notes. Deanna was such a great time to be with you. Thank you so much for calling in from the Down Under. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks, Bros. Thanks for having me. 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.