Transcription
Today, I'm going to break down the four things that every man must do if he wants to go from being the emotionally immature boy that lacks emotional capacity in his work, in his relationships, in how he shows up as a leader in the world to becoming the safe, grounded, emotionally mature man who has capacity to not only hold himself, hold his frame, and live from his truth, but also hold a woman and hold the strength resses of life of what it means to be a leader in the world as a man.
If you implement the things that I'm about to share with you in this video, you will experience a fundamental shift in your life as a man. What I'm about to share with you is a level of depth of work that is missing in the personal development industry when it comes to men's work specifically. And if you're doing any sort of men's work and you're not touching on these four things that I'm about to share with you, you're completely wasting your time when it comes to doing the inner work.
And one thing I found from being in the personal development industry for over 10 years now is that this depth of work is something that's been lost on a lot of men's personal development work. You've probably experienced doing all of the right things, saying all the right things, doing all the right things. yet she still feels like it's not enough. Maybe you feel and you know that you're not meeting a woman in the depth that she's truly craving from you and it leaves you feeling shame that you're unable to actually meet her in that emotional depth.
Maybe you find yourself easily reactive or shut down or avoiding intimacy because of the overwhelm or the feeling that it creates of of being consumed and it leaves you keeping love at at arms length, arms distance. Or maybe you found yourself as the insecure man, the nice guy who easily shuts down his truth, doesn't speak his truth, and just becomes the people pleaser to keep the peace, to to keep his woman happy so she doesn't leave you and abandon you. And because of all of this, she's losing attraction over time.
And not only that, in your relationship, but you're not truly leading in your life because you're operating as a boy in relationships, which heavily impacts how you feel and show up in your work as a man. I've sat with hundreds of men in circle, in retreats, through our online mentorship, and I can tell you right now, a lot of men are high-erforming, high achieving men, doing amazing things in the world, yet unconsciously operating from the emotional maturity and capacity of the little boy, leaving him completely sabotaging his life and relationship.
I've seen it all. I've seen these men break down from no matter how much they've achieved or whatever level of success they've created. Behind it all, beneath it all is a little boy who has been craving the love that he didn't receive in childhood. And it leaves him completely contaminating every area of his life, relationships, and especially how he shows up as a leader in the world.
Okay, so the first point, you might want to write this one down. You can't heal what you can't separate from. In the work in the study and the theory of internal family systems therapy, they speak about this concept called unblending. And basically what this is is when the younger versions of us or the the little boy within us is triggered, what happens is we become blended with that part of us. The way I like to describe it is if you think of the eclipse with the the sun and the moon, right? The sun is is the man. It's the fullness of who you are. And the moon is the little boy. And in an eclipse, what happens is the moon moves in front of the sun and you can't tell what's what. It it becomes one, right? And basically what happens is this is when a man can't tell the difference between the boy and the man. And he becomes blended with this part of him. And what happens is this little boy is the one who's now in control. where a man can't tell the difference between the little boy who feels afraid that he's going to be abandoned and the man. So he starts operating from the uh emotional state and consciousness and energy of the boy.
Now this concept of unblending is when we separate from this younger part of us and we're able to witness this younger part of us. So it's no longer the one in control. And this is really where the reparing comes in. the refathering of this inner child of this younger vulnerable scared part of you that's trying to protect you as a man.
Now just to provide a bit more understanding as to what I mean when this part of us takes over moves in and we can't tell the difference between the boy and the man and it comes in with this idea of what's called implicit memory which is our body's emotional memory and it's kind of like when you're driving down the road and you see the police lights flashing in your rearview mirror and you hear the sirens it triggers a response in your body and and it triggers a response based on every single experience you've had with authority or police. So, your body's emotional memory triggers a physical response that brings you back into the energy of fear or whatever it is that you associate authority or police with. So, this implicit memory, it's our body's emotional memory. It doesn't operate on a timeline. And maybe you've seen this through some of my other trainings and videos, but our body, our subconscious mind doesn't know time. Operates on no timeline. So what happens is as soon as we enter into relationship, this implicit memory is triggered automatically. And your body can't tell the difference between the 30, 40, 50y old man that you are today and the 7-year-old boy who didn't have his needs met in childhood.
So what happens is when this part of us is triggered, this younger version of us, our body, our subconscious mind doesn't operate on a timeline. It triggers this implicit memory where you regress back. Maybe you've heard of this before. It's called age regression. This is where you regress back into the consciousness, right? the psychology and the maturity of when you last had your developmental needs met. So basically, you turn into and you become the little boy. And this is why men struggle and they lack emotional capacity in relationship. This is why when they're triggered, they just get taken over by this younger part of them that comes in, right? Like the eclipse, right? this this little boy comes in to protect. And this is where maybe you've heard of anxious, avoidant, uh disorganized attachment styles, right? These attachment styles are these younger parts of us coming in to protect us from the original pain that our subconscious mind can't tell the difference between today and when you were whatever age you were.
Okay. So this idea through internal family systems therapy of unblending is separating from this younger part of you from this little boy so you can hold the boy and operate and respond from the man. So I'm going to give you a very practical thing that you can do to implement to actually start this unblending process. And I want you to try it with me here today right now.
Now what happens when this part of us, this younger part of us takes over and we we become blended, we become imshed and we can't tell the difference between the boy and the man. What happens is when let's just say for example the little boy who felt emotionally alone in his family system that was me right. I felt more alone in my family in my family system than actually being on my own. So what would happen was as a grown man today when I would feel a sense of loneliness, right? Maybe something would trigger my partner would say something or do something uh or something would happen that would trigger this this emotional memory that would bring me back into the consciousness of this boy. This part of me would come in and this loneliness I would feel it would feel like, you know, I I'm lonely, right? I I have this loneliness that's just taking over me where I can't tell the difference between the little boy who's feeling deeply alone and abandoned and on his own and the man today. It's like the eclipse. This part of me just moves in front and I'm now just this lonely boy, this lost boy.
Now, maybe you can begin to see the danger here when a man is unable to unblend from this younger part of him. how he then operates from this lonely part of him, right? And the things he then needs to turn to to soothe and to cope and to manage in his life because he's actually operating from this wounded part of him that that that's trying to protect him. So what we're doing here with the unblending is it's going from what you're going to say to yourself, right, in this example is you're going to notice how you're feeling, right? So, let's just say for a moment I'm feeling lonely, right? I'm feeling this deep loneliness and I might feel it somewhere in my body. I'm going to notice the emotion. Okay, there's loneliness here. I feel deeply alone. What you're going to say is, I notice there's something within me. There's a part that's feeling lonely. And you're going to say it with a real sense of curiosity. So, maybe you want to try this right now.
Now, if there's an emotion that you're feeling or have been feeling, right, maybe it's anger, right? You know, I'm really angry or I'm really sad. I'm really frustrated or I'm really happy. I want you to say to yourself, I notice there's something within me. There's a part of me that's experiencing loneliness, anger, sadness, happiness, joy, whatever it is. And what you might begin to notice and feel is the shift in your nervous system from being anger or being loneliness to I notice and I can witness and observe a part of me that's feeling this way. And this is where you get to become curious and uh hold this part of you that's feeling this knowing that it's not all of you. Because when we're blended this part of us takes over us. When we unblend, this part of us is no longer in control and we can be curious about what it's actually seeking to bring forward to us.
So, I want to share with you this little quote to wrap this first point up. And this is from Richard Schwarz and he is the founder of internal family systems therapy of IFS. And it goes like this. The goal is not to eliminate parts but to help them release their burdens. So what he's saying here is, and there's such a big misconception around doing inner child work and healing the boy, healing these younger parts of us, is we want to get rid of them. What that does is the more the more you try and get rid of this little boy within you and push this part away, the more it's going to persist. What you resist will persist. It will push back harder. The more you reject these parts of you, the more they're going to come back and smack you in the face.
So in this quote, the goal is not to eliminate parts, right? So the goal is not to get rid of these parts of you, right? But to help them release their burdens. So this is separating from the part, unblending, and then as the man creating the safe space for this little boy, this younger part of you to be witnessed and loved and for you to bring love and light and uh a sense of safety to this part of you. And what really happens is this is where the deep grieving work happens. This is where you get to create space for this younger part of you to grieve the hurt and the pain and the loss that this part of you felt in childhood. And until that part is felt and grieved, right, it will continue to control your life, contaminate your life, and sabotage your relationships. So to wrap this up, what we're doing is we're welcoming these parts of us. We're we're separating, we're unblending from them, and then we're witnessing and observing these younger parts of us and bringing loving presence to them. So this little boy is not the one in control.
The second point, what a man needs to do to heal from being the boy and really step into being the man is he needs to acknowledge the hurt and the pain that he has caused the people that he loves because he's been operating from these wounded parts of him. Until we truly acknowledge and feel the shame, the guilt, the grief of how our actions and behavior has created pain, suffering, or led us to sabotage a a good relationship or a good business opportunity or a business relationship. until we actually feel that right from these these mistakes that we've maybe made or you know these hurt these hurts that we've caused in our life from operating from the boy. You can't truly gain the lesson until you've grieved it and felt it. You can't truly learn the lesson until you've felt the grief from the hurt that you've caused and created from this place. And it's really important to acknowledge this. Because what a lot of people do is they try and jump to forgiveness too early, way too early. There's a real gift in allowing yourself to actually feel the the shame from or the grief and the sadness from the hurt that you've actually caused from operating as an uninitiated boy in the world.
So I was in a relationship once where I was very much operating from this scared wounded boy. I was deeply afraid that this woman was going to leave me. And I was just anxious and reactive and shut down and really operating from this boy that was afraid of love leaving him, abandoning him or betraying him. And because of the level of fear that I was living in and how scared this little boy was within me, I caused a lot of hurt from the emotional uh you know the the weight of of how much reassurance I constantly needed uh the hurt from the manipulation trying to manipulate and say the right things or you know plant seeds in roundabout ways. is so she would meet my needs and things like that. Uh passive aggressiveness where my anger, my unresolved resentment and anger would come out in passive aggressive behaviors or comments or just my my energy. And it wasn't until she of course eventually left me because of right the state of survival that I was living in and from the hurt that I I then caused her this this emotional uh abuse if you call it right from you know this this wounded part that I was operating from. If I hadn't truly felt the shame and the the grief and the sadness of that hurt that I had caused, I would be bypassing learning the actual lesson that was there. Understanding that my actions actually have a consequence. The things that I say, how I behave, my energy, how I show up in a relationship actually has a consequence. And there's a depth that you will meet within yourself as a man and that a woman will feel within you as a man when you have the capacity to not only grieve the little boy within you and these younger parts of you that take control, but the hurt that you've caused in your life from this. Because until you've actually felt it, I I can tell you right now, you haven't fully received the gift and the lesson that was in this for you.
Just to quickly recap what we've covered so far is the grief of the wounded boy, the wounded in a child actually grieving your childhood. Okay, so that's the first one. Then the second one was grieving the hurt of the pain that you've caused in the world from operating as the uninitiated wounded boy. Which leads us to the third point which is now starting to work with healing the family system. Your relationship with your mother and your father is a blueprint that is imprinted in your consciousness in your psyche. So your unresolved mother and father wounds from childhood from your family system is literally your foundation and blueprint of relationship.
Now what happens is as soon as you enter into relationship implicit memory it triggers this emotional memory this blueprint right that you've been passed down from your family of what it of what relationship means and that naturally gets triggered whether you know it or not. As soon as you open your heart to a relationship you're triggering your original blueprint of relationship which is the relationship with your mother and father. So until we actually heal the wounds from our family system and separate from the family system, okay, remember what I said, you can't heal what you can't separate from until we separate from our family system and we grieve the wounds that we've experienced from our mother and father and we have the conversations needed and we start creating the healing that's needed in our family system. You won't be able to choose your mother and father from a healthy place until you can choose your mother and father and see the reciprocity of of love that flows both ways with and from your mother and father. You'll have blocks in relationship because your mother and father is the representation of the masculine and feminine energy.
These mother and father wounds that we experience show up in many different facets, many different ways in adult relationship which would be a whole video in itself. Uh but basically I want to I I just want to share this quote with you. And this is from one of my favorite teachers and mentors around inner child work uh John Bradshaw and he says we cannot create healthy intimacy if we are still controlled by the wounds of our family origin. Let that land. We cannot create healthy intimacy if we are still controlled by the wounds of of our family origin. So until we heal from our family system, separate from our family system uh by all of these points that we've literally been speaking about, we can't create healthy intimacy because this blueprint and these wounds are literally how we're going to be viewing relationship and experiencing relationship.
For example, I and this is just a prime example of of how this shows up. And this is just one very very small example of of many. Uh I remember one morning I was with my partner and it was beautiful sunny morning, Sunday morning. We're driving down the road going to get a coffee, going to go hang out at the beach. Really, really beautiful morning. And driving down the road and I'm happy. Tunes are blasting and I look over to my left and I see she's on her phone. She's texting away. She's swiping, doing her thing. And I got so triggered. I regressed back into this childlike state. I went quiet. I shut down. I wanted to react. I wanted to get angry. Why are you on your phone? This makes no sense. The reaction far outweighed the actual situation. But what happened was it triggered my unresolved wound around my father when I didn't feel like I was priority or that I was important. And I always felt that with my father, there was something outside of our relationship that was more important than me, right? He worked seven days a week, 15 hours a day. And that unresolved wound from my father, I wasn't seeing my partner through the lens of the man or the or that actual situation. In that moment, that was my father and that was the little boy getting upset or sad or reactive. the dad wasn't there paying attention to him. And this is just a very quick example and short example of of many as to how these unresolved mother and father wounds contaminate our life. So that's a a really great quote.
But what I'm going to do is give you an exercise that you can do right now to actually begin to notice your family system and where you are in your family system in relation to your mother and father. So what you're going to do, you're going to get a piece of paper and you're going to draw a big circle in the piece of paper. Okay? So trust me on this. This is a feeling process. You're going to draw a big circle and then what I want you to do is this. Inside this circle is your map. What we spoke about before the blueprints to relationship. This is your blueprint. This is your map. And within this circle, what I want you to do is draw another little circle. And this is you. So I want you to place and draw this wherever you feel that in this map you belong. So go and do that.
Now once you've done that, once you've drawn you, I want you to close your eyes and I want you to feel into where do you feel in this map in reference to where you are in the map. Where do you feel that your mother is or goes or belongs? And I want you to go ahead and draw where she is in the map. Okay? Don't don't think about this too much. Just draw it. Just do it. Okay? So, wherever you feel she belongs in this map, draw her there in a little circle. And then I want you to draw an arrow in which way she's facing and draw an arrow in which way you're facing as well. The second one is your father. I want you to feel where do you feel your father goes in this map. Go ahead and draw where your father belongs in this map. And I want you to draw an arrow in which way you believe he's facing. Cool. And if you want, you can go ahead and do the same with your siblings as well.
I want you to look at this map and notice what you feel. Notice how it feels to to be here when you look at you. Maybe you place your finger on it. Notice how it feels to be here. Notice what role you're playing or you had to play as a little boy in this map in this family system. What are the beliefs that you have about your mother or your father by being in this position? This may bring some awareness, right? This is a practice I normally do live with men. So, I'm just trusting that you're just doing it on your own. And uh there's a lot here. There's a lot that I coach and mentor men through when it comes to this work. And this is just awareness, right? This is not the real inner work. This is just awareness. Okay? So, hopefully this brings to you some awareness as to the relationship you have with your mother and father and how you've literally just drawn it on a map. And maybe you feel like, "Wow, this is very familiar. I didn't tell you what to draw. You drew it." Because that is literally the blueprint and the map that you have in your consciousness and psyche of your family system. And that's the map and the blueprint that is going to sabotage and contaminate your relationships if you don't heal these original wounds from your family system and separate from your system. Because until you separate from where you are in this map, from this system, you'll continue to play the role that you've played your entire life in this family system. You can't heal what you can't separate from. So when a man separates from this, right, he's no longer playing into the role and dynamic of being this little boy uh in this family dynamic.
And lastly, point number four is that if you truly want to level up in your life as a man, you need to prioritize building healthy relationships with men who are doing the inner work, men who are leaders in their life, men who are mature, men who are on mission. There's a big big [ __ ] difference between spending time with the boys, hanging out with the boys, chilling with the boys, and spending intentional time with initiated men. Initiated meaning they've gone from being a boy to they're in their man consciousness and their life has revolved around their mission, their purpose, their family, being in community, being of service. and they have a connection and a relationship to something greater than themselves. Boys think about themselves only. Right? Men are in relationship to something greater than themselves. And there's one of my favorite quotes by Les Brown. He says, "Birds of a feather flock together. If you run with eagles, you'll soar, but if you run with turkeys, you'll never leave the ground." And that is exactly what I'm speaking about here when it comes to when you spend time and you're hanging out with the boys. There's a very very very big [ __ ] difference between that and intentionally investing your time, your energy, your money into being around the right men that are going to challenge and support you to being the best possible man that you can possibly be. the best leader, partner, husband, father, whatever it is, your environment is stronger and will far outweigh your willpower. When you're around the right men, the right leaders, they will naturally start to rub off on you. And this is why I'm so deeply passionate about brotherhood and community and men being in the right space with the right guidance and right support with men who are going to truly help him go from being the boy to not only the man but a true leader in the world.
Now, if this video resonated with you, you're going to love the hour-ong training that I did on how to heal the boy. It'll be linked somewhere here and you can go there and check it out. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next.