Speaker 1: I think the broader meaning of lover is just having
Speaker 1: your heart wide open, living with your heart right there
Speaker 1: for everybody to see. Welcome to the one you feed
Speaker 1: Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think ring true, and yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf YEA, thanks for joining us. Our guest on
Speaker 1: this episode is Tony Rezach, and author Men's Coach and
Speaker 1: the creator and host of the podcast base Camp for Men.
Speaker 1: Base Camp seeks to be a resource for men looking
Speaker 1: to live more courageously, authentically and from the heart. Tony
Speaker 1: participated in the Mankind of Projects New Warrior Training back
Speaker 1: in May of two thousand four and has been a
Speaker 1: leader in the field of men's personal development ever since. Today,
Speaker 1: Tony and Eric discuss his book Body and Soul, The
Speaker 1: Essential Handbook for Men. Hi, Tony, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Eric, it's great to be here with you.
Speaker 1: I am happy to have you on. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about a book you wrote called Body and Soul,
Speaker 1: The Essential Handbook for Men, And we'll also be talking
Speaker 1: about your work in your Base Camp for Men project.
Speaker 1: You've You've done a lot of work about, you know,
Speaker 1: what does it mean to be a man in the
Speaker 1: modern world and how do we do that more wisely
Speaker 1: and skillfully. So we'll get into that, but let's start
Speaker 1: like we always do with the parable. There is a
Speaker 1: grandparent talking with their grandchild and they say, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second, looks up at their grandparents, says, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandparents says the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd love to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: does that parable mean to you in your life and
Speaker 1: in the work that you do well. First of all,
Speaker 1: it packs a punch in a very few words, it
Speaker 1: says a lot. And you know, I think in the
Speaker 1: Men's work we talk about working with the shadow, and
Speaker 1: so the bad Wolf would really represent the shadow and
Speaker 1: men's work, and I think we're always feeding both in
Speaker 1: a way. I've been sober for nine years. Certainly prior
Speaker 1: to that, I was feeding the bad wolf more or
Speaker 1: with my drinking, I was. I was feeding the bad
Speaker 1: wolf a lot of bourbon. Back then. Bad wolf loves bourbons.
Speaker 1: It's in its top three favorite drinks exactly, and you know,
Speaker 1: and so as you know, like when you're in a
Speaker 1: battle like that, the bad wolf's getting fed not just bourbon,
Speaker 1: but a lot of shame and guilt and just feelings
Speaker 1: of unworthiness. Am I ever gonna be able to get
Speaker 1: a handle on this all those different things? But I
Speaker 1: was also feeding the good wolf back then, I was
Speaker 1: doing a lot of good work in the world. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like it was just one of the other. Just
Speaker 1: like today I'm sober, so I'm not feeding the bad wolf,
Speaker 1: the bourbon and all that goes. But I can still
Speaker 1: have moments where for me, like the bad wolf is
Speaker 1: is my self care? Am I taking good care of myself?
Speaker 1: Because I can junk out on food, which is feeding
Speaker 1: the bad wolf? Where I know this isn't really good
Speaker 1: for me, but let me just scarf down these potato chips.
Speaker 1: Or gossiping, maybe judging a particular group that doesn't see
Speaker 1: things the way I do, could be feeding the bad wolf,
Speaker 1: not giving people space to makes sense of everything that's
Speaker 1: going on on their own terms. So you're always kind
Speaker 1: of looking at you know, how do I feed the
Speaker 1: good wolf more consciously? And where is the bad wolf
Speaker 1: sort of getting fed without me being that aware of it?
Speaker 1: Because a lot of times when we're gossipy and saying
Speaker 1: things about groups or people, it's kind of happening under
Speaker 1: the radar, like other people will pick it up. Oh,
Speaker 1: he's got to me about his his brother again, or
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be, and you don't know. And
Speaker 1: I think that's part of what the bad wolf thrives on,
Speaker 1: is when you're not quite on the finger of what's
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, as you're saying that, it made me
Speaker 1: think of this idea that I've heard before that you know,
Speaker 1: oftentimes on a spiritual journey, in some ways the road
Speaker 1: gets narrower. In some other ways, I think the road
Speaker 1: gets broader too. I think it depending on how you're
Speaker 1: thinking about it. But in the sense that I think
Speaker 1: it gets narrower, certainly as you were describing is you know,
Speaker 1: the me of addiction years would look at the me
Speaker 1: of today and be like, that guy is an absolute angel,
Speaker 1: like an act, you know, But the me of today
Speaker 1: knows that's not true. The me of today knows, like
Speaker 1: you know, of course, I've still got areas that I'm
Speaker 1: continuing to grow, and there's ways that I'm not the
Speaker 1: person I fully want to live into. And so I
Speaker 1: think it's really interesting how what feeding the Bad Wolf
Speaker 1: looks like changes for us as we move on, and
Speaker 1: if our journey is one where we continue to grow,
Speaker 1: we kind of constantly have to be looking at that absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I have a saying that each chapter
Speaker 1: of your hero's journey will require a different version of yourself.
Speaker 1: It's nice I'm like you and that sometimes I can't
Speaker 1: believe who I am today relative to when I was younger.
Speaker 1: It's not like you know, wow, not from an ego
Speaker 1: point of view, like wow, look at what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Just how aligned I am with my mission and my
Speaker 1: speaking and just like not that there's no bad wolf,
Speaker 1: there's no self doubt at times or whatever, but there's
Speaker 1: times when I'm like, I can't believe I get to
Speaker 1: do this show, for instance, right, Like that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Like I would have never imagined I'd even be on
Speaker 1: a podcast, let alone have my own podcast. Back in
Speaker 1: the day when I was drinking a lot, I was
Speaker 1: just trying to get my bills paid, and there was
Speaker 1: a lot of thought about what am I going to
Speaker 1: do creatively or as a as a life purpose. So
Speaker 1: I just feel super blessed and I just can't believe it.
Speaker 1: And it just seems like once you're tuned to it,
Speaker 1: like I can plan for what's coming, but I really
Speaker 1: don't know what's coming, and it's going to require another
Speaker 1: different version of myself. So I'm looking forward to it
Speaker 1: on game and uh, it's been super exciting. It's kept
Speaker 1: me on my toes for sure. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: pivot into your work in a minute, and you know,
Speaker 1: you primarily do men's work, and so we're gonna orient
Speaker 1: in that direction as a podcaster who knows I've got
Speaker 1: people of both genders for sure in our audience. Is
Speaker 1: that you know a lot of what we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about, I can read it through the lens of
Speaker 1: being a man, and I can also go, you know what,
Speaker 1: you've got the same sort of thing going on through
Speaker 1: the lens of women. And I'm thinking about specifically. The
Speaker 1: thing that brought this up was you mentioned somewhere in
Speaker 1: the book you were talking about shame, and you were
Speaker 1: you were mentioning some writer who says shame is clustered
Speaker 1: around these sort of core areas, and as I was
Speaker 1: looking at him, I was like, Yeah, those are definitely
Speaker 1: things for men, and then I went, wait a second,
Speaker 1: those are just things for you know, women too, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I think, you know, there there are levels
Speaker 1: and there are ways in which being a man or
Speaker 1: a woman is different, and I think it's important that
Speaker 1: we know what those are and we nurture and connect those.
Speaker 1: And then there is a universality to human experience that
Speaker 1: lies under all that. Absolutely, I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: this stuff is universal. Hero's journey the word hero really
Speaker 1: isn't male. It's not a gender hero is men and women,
Speaker 1: and there's tons of women that are just absolutely heroic.
Speaker 1: And the reason that I do work that specifically for
Speaker 1: men is I just felt called by the divine to
Speaker 1: help men. I saw there was a need for men
Speaker 1: to open up conversations that were authentic, where men could
Speaker 1: speak the truth about what's going on. The women were
Speaker 1: doing that in spades. The women were growing and manifesting
Speaker 1: and being creative, and they're doing all this great work,
Speaker 1: heart centered work, and I saw a lot of really
Speaker 1: good men that were sitting on the sidelines, repressed, maybe
Speaker 1: drinking too much, midlife crisis, whatever it was. So there
Speaker 1: was a part of me that said, you know, I
Speaker 1: just really felt that's where my work is. And I
Speaker 1: love women and children. It's not to say I'm going
Speaker 1: to do something for men. It's not for women. And
Speaker 1: on the show, on my show, you know, I do
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of topics that are about
Speaker 1: consciousness and spirituality, and certainly those are for both genders.
Speaker 1: But I created it for men as an extension of
Speaker 1: of what I was doing in the world. So the
Speaker 1: other thing that I'll say to your work in that
Speaker 1: way is that throughout the book you're certainly quoting and
Speaker 1: talking about leaders in the men's movement, but I would
Speaker 1: say there's an equal amount of wisdom in that book.
Speaker 1: Is it also coming from women, So it's it's definitely
Speaker 1: a very balanced thing. And like you, I found there
Speaker 1: were periods of time in my life where I did
Speaker 1: things as part of men's groups that I found powerful
Speaker 1: in a very different way. And I'm not saying a
Speaker 1: better way, but in a different way than work that
Speaker 1: I did with females. You know, some some a a
Speaker 1: things that were men lated. There was a different poignancy
Speaker 1: there and and I know, you know, women would say
Speaker 1: the same thing. My women's group is different, you know,
Speaker 1: than our mixed gender group, and so I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of benefit in finding our way into it.
Speaker 1: And as you say, I do think by and large,
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that we talk about on
Speaker 1: your show my show women more naturally orient towards and
Speaker 1: men are a little bit more like I don't know
Speaker 1: about that, you know, and so we need help being
Speaker 1: pulled in. I'm going to pivot to a line from
Speaker 1: early in the book that I think is very powerful.
Speaker 1: You said, to be a man in the modern world
Speaker 1: is to live with ambiguity. In what ways do you
Speaker 1: feel like that's the case. Well, we get a lot
Speaker 1: of mixed messages as a man. It's like, be tough.
Speaker 1: Women value toughness in a man, but be sensitive. Don't
Speaker 1: be too sensitive. If you get in a struggle, don't
Speaker 1: talk about it with your friends, like that shows weakness.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is kind of the man box that
Speaker 1: you and I were brought up. I mean I didn't
Speaker 1: see a lot of example until I got in the
Speaker 1: men's movement of men who were powerful in their expression
Speaker 1: of their inner life. I saw men that did not
Speaker 1: express that, even though I knew there was men around
Speaker 1: me that were hurting. That was not the thing to do.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've made the point many times. Growing
Speaker 1: up men you know, they could get a cancer diagnosis
Speaker 1: and not share it with their best friend. Their marriage
Speaker 1: could be completely coming apart and nobody knows about it
Speaker 1: because he's so repressed, and he's like, I can't show that.
Speaker 1: That's not what men do. There was always this mixed
Speaker 1: message of be tough. Then it was like be sensitive, right,
Speaker 1: So then it was like then you saw this whole
Speaker 1: other thing where it was like these new age men
Speaker 1: that are like, Okay, now there's going to be the
Speaker 1: sensitive man shows up on the scene. But there was
Speaker 1: problems with that. It's like, if that's all you're gonna
Speaker 1: do and you're not going to have any of men's
Speaker 1: natural strength and toughness and ability to handle yourself, then
Speaker 1: that's an issue. So there was always this kind of
Speaker 1: like which way do I got to be? It wasn't
Speaker 1: until I arrived and I saw men that gave me
Speaker 1: examples at entered me, you know, and I correct Whenever
Speaker 1: I'm on a show and they say vulnerability, I say,
Speaker 1: men don't really like that word. We prefer authenticity. It's
Speaker 1: a more a masculine word for vulnerability, right, And so
Speaker 1: um yeah, I think I think authenticity is kind of
Speaker 1: that sweet spot between the natural strength of men and
Speaker 1: being available with your inner life and what's really going
Speaker 1: on and be willing. Authenticity says I'm willing to speak
Speaker 1: the truth and the emotional undertones of what's going on,
Speaker 1: and I'm not afraid eric as you're my friend, to say, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is what's really going on. I really want to
Speaker 1: tell you this because it's gonna light my burden. And
Speaker 1: you you have natural wisdom that you might share with me,
Speaker 1: or I know that you struggled in your marriage, So
Speaker 1: what did you do? What did you find? And that's
Speaker 1: not weakness, that strength in in community and strengthen the
Speaker 1: male tribe to be able to do that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you make a couple of really good points there.
Speaker 1: I think that growing up, you know, and seeing that
Speaker 1: man box, I very strongly rebelled against it moving into
Speaker 1: my teenage years, very strongly like Nope, don't like that.
Speaker 1: And then you know, became maybe more of what you
Speaker 1: might say a sensitive man, right, But what came with
Speaker 1: that was a deep almost dislike of some of my
Speaker 1: more masculine tendencies, right and saying like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be like that. And it really wasn't kind
Speaker 1: of like you until I met some developed mature men
Speaker 1: where I went, oh, wait a minute, these things coexist.
Speaker 1: That these are both false distinctions that don't need to
Speaker 1: be made. They are societies labeling of us. And I
Speaker 1: love the use of that word authenticity because it became
Speaker 1: about like, all right, let me really see what all
Speaker 1: is in here and be able to touch base with
Speaker 1: the full range of possibility. Right, Yeah, absolutely, I mean
Speaker 1: I think that's for any man that's done some inner work,
Speaker 1: you're inevitably going to arrive at this place of Another
Speaker 1: way of saying it is including both the masculine and
Speaker 1: feminine aspects of yourself. Right, you could frame it that way.
Speaker 1: You know, men are so afraid of their inner feminine.
Speaker 1: But that's your heart, that's your care, that's your ability
Speaker 1: to say I love you, or I care about this,
Speaker 1: I care about the planet and its people. Right, you
Speaker 1: have to have that or the wise, you're just a
Speaker 1: working machine, you know. Yeah, you've got ten base camp
Speaker 1: essentials in your book. We're going to move into those.
Speaker 1: But I really want to start by focusing on archetypes
Speaker 1: because we've never covered that on this show yet and
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in it, So I would love to first,
Speaker 1: you know, talk about when we say archetype, what do
Speaker 1: we mean? You describe it from both a you know,
Speaker 1: mythological or literature perspective as well as a psychoanalytic perspective.
Speaker 1: So what are we talking about when we say an archetype?
Speaker 1: You know, it's used in the men's movements, specifically with
Speaker 1: the Mankind Project who created the new Worri. You're training
Speaker 1: using those archetypes, so anybody that went through is kind
Speaker 1: of steeped in that way of seeing things. It's tied
Speaker 1: to myth. Joseph Campbell talked about it a lot, and
Speaker 1: then Carl Yung, the famous psychotherapist, really developed it, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of this lends this collective energies that men
Speaker 1: exhibit and you can be conscious of them are unconscious.
Speaker 1: So when you're unconscious, there can be shadow tendencies. So
Speaker 1: for instance, clean warrior energy is exhibited by a man
Speaker 1: or woman who can draw boundaries, is really clear in
Speaker 1: their speech, knows what their mission is. One of the
Speaker 1: shadows of the warrior would be the victim. So whenever
Speaker 1: somebody's like always blaming everything else on their life, oh
Speaker 1: it's this, it's this, it's this, that's a lack of
Speaker 1: healthy warrior energy. So it's a diagnostic tool. You would
Speaker 1: start to say, you would point that out so it's
Speaker 1: not in the shadow any longer, and then start to
Speaker 1: work with a conscious expression of the warriors, saying what
Speaker 1: are the behaviors that we can do to bring that out?
Speaker 1: Because you keep deflecting responsibility. That's a big problem, and
Speaker 1: you can make the case. I mean, I work with
Speaker 1: five basically warrior, king, lover, magician, and the hero. And
Speaker 1: there's just all kinds of processes and ways of talking
Speaker 1: about each arc type that bring a recognition in the
Speaker 1: men that I work with. And then there's often you know,
Speaker 1: a man will have strengths in particular arc types and
Speaker 1: usually shadow or weakness. Um and that includes people that
Speaker 1: have been working with it for twenty years like myself.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm really strong in warrior and magician, and
Speaker 1: I'm always at the edge trying to develop lover and
Speaker 1: king basically hero I'm fine on So there's two there.
Speaker 1: If I'm using my own methodology on myself, it's still
Speaker 1: lover where I'm like, am I expressing enough with a
Speaker 1: full lover? Is my self care good? And up? On
Speaker 1: the king? Am I really looking at the legacy of
Speaker 1: seven generations? Am I blessing the younger man? Am I
Speaker 1: bringing younger men along as a king would? Am I
Speaker 1: making alliances? What's the vision for this or we sovereign?
Speaker 1: You know, there's always edges to each one with questions
Speaker 1: and processes that help the development of men. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: say in the book that you can think of arc
Speaker 1: types as inner potent realities, allies or guides that are
Speaker 1: always available to you. They can act as collective wisdom,
Speaker 1: like living libraries that contained essential information. So you mentioned
Speaker 1: five archetypes there and you mentioned the Mankind Project. Did
Speaker 1: they develop those or those come from earlier work that
Speaker 1: they've just sort of codified, do you know? I think
Speaker 1: it's from earlier work, to be honest with you. There's
Speaker 1: a woman, Carol Pierson who wrote The hero Within and
Speaker 1: then she wrote another book I can't remember the title
Speaker 1: where she talks about twenty four different archetypes and Young developed.
Speaker 1: I mean he was talking about all kinds. So I
Speaker 1: think when the Mankind Project, when they were forming it,
Speaker 1: they knew they wanted to bring arch types in that
Speaker 1: was going to be a mythological They were developing a
Speaker 1: hero's journey initiation for men, and they were saying, this
Speaker 1: is a really good way to frame it, to give
Speaker 1: them tools to create processes in all of these different archetypes.
Speaker 1: So they grab those. It could have been different. You
Speaker 1: could have the trickster in there, for example, right with
Speaker 1: with that have worked, Yeah, it would have been a
Speaker 1: different processes for that, and the trickster has a different energy.
Speaker 1: So they brought those four, I think because there's kind
Speaker 1: of a yen and yang to the four. There's more
Speaker 1: forceful ones like the warrior, and then there's more yen
Speaker 1: ones like lover, almost like a masculine feminine balance with
Speaker 1: what they selected. But you know, if somebody is working
Speaker 1: with arch types and feels really drawn to a particular
Speaker 1: other arch type, that's completely available. And Carol Pearson, to me,
Speaker 1: is is a master at sharing what archetypes are, what
Speaker 1: different ones are, and what they could maybe provide is benefit.
Speaker 1: And even though these archetypes were developed by the Mankind
Speaker 1: Project to be used on men, the idea of finding
Speaker 1: archetypes and using them in your life really transcends gender,
Speaker 1: right absolutely. Yeah, Carol writes about that, and I think
Speaker 1: there's probably women's trainings where they do archetype of work
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be king, it would be queen. They
Speaker 1: would probably still have lover and magician, but they may
Speaker 1: or may not have Warrior. They might have something else
Speaker 1: for that just depends on what their creators wanted to
Speaker 1: emphasize as their edge of development. Yeah. In the Buddhist tradition,
Speaker 1: there is the Shambala lineage, which is a type of
Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhism, and and there's a lot of writing in
Speaker 1: there about the peaceful warrior. And I know there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of women, Pema children being one, who have
Speaker 1: really written about that energy, you know. So I know
Speaker 1: some women certainly align with that warrior energy in that
Speaker 1: way without you know, trying to unpack the entirety of
Speaker 1: the archetype world. Let's talk about these archetypes. So you've
Speaker 1: mentioned warrior, so obviously we don't mean fighter here. What
Speaker 1: do we mean? Well, I think warrior is the part
Speaker 1: of a man or a person who is principled. It
Speaker 1: evolves over time to it like myth, it evolves with you.
Speaker 1: So your idea of warrior maybe when you're younger, might be,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have any mental toughness, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to develop that well at my age as a
Speaker 1: as a mid fifties guy. The warrior to me is
Speaker 1: a symbol of putting first things first. So for instance,
Speaker 1: you know, I used to do a lot of fantasy
Speaker 1: football because it was fun and I was with all
Speaker 1: my football friends. But there was a point in I
Speaker 1: was doing a lot of work and leading men's groups,
Speaker 1: and I just felt like a fraud, Like wait a minute.
Speaker 1: The warrior test is is this putting first things first?
Speaker 1: Is this where my energy needs to be in the
Speaker 1: answer to doing fantasy football? Not that there's anything wrong
Speaker 1: with doing fantasy football, but when you do archetype of work,
Speaker 1: you may look at something like this and go, is
Speaker 1: this an expression of warrior? Does it pass the warrior test?
Speaker 1: Is it helping the world? Is it helping my development?
Speaker 1: The answer to the question for me was no, So
Speaker 1: I let it go right. Um, there might have been
Speaker 1: a touch of the warrior when I quit drinking where
Speaker 1: there was there was a little bit of fierceness there
Speaker 1: where it was like I had a dream of three
Speaker 1: of my closest friends who were not drinkers anymore, and
Speaker 1: I had a dream where they were sort of looking
Speaker 1: at me with their arms crossed from a hill and
Speaker 1: I was coming through this doorway with a suitcase and
Speaker 1: I couldn't get through the doorway. And when I unpacked
Speaker 1: the suitcase, it was full of booze, and so I
Speaker 1: was not going to be able to go higher on
Speaker 1: the mountain without letting go of that. And there was
Speaker 1: a real warrior quality of what is your life going
Speaker 1: to be about because you can keep drinking and do
Speaker 1: men's stuff and you can make that work. But is
Speaker 1: that good enough or do you want to live by
Speaker 1: the principles that you're speaking of, deep in your connection
Speaker 1: to spirit and be a true kind of agent of
Speaker 1: change and an agent of inspiration because that might take
Speaker 1: some letting go. And so there was definitely a warrior there.
Speaker 1: And I think also the warriors okay with saying no.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I meet men that our people pleasers. I
Speaker 1: used to be a horrific people pleaser when I was younger.
Speaker 1: Just I just wanted you to like me, Eric, and
Speaker 1: I would do any you know, I just didn't want
Speaker 1: to have any conflict. Well, the warrior is okay with
Speaker 1: uncomfortable conversation. The warriors okay with saying no to your requests.
Speaker 1: You're like, hey, let's go out and let you know,
Speaker 1: we're having a big party, you know, and and for
Speaker 1: me to just say that's not in my best interest.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the invite, but no is very warrior. It's
Speaker 1: drawing a boundary at saying that doesn't work for me,
Speaker 1: and being a ka with that. And so yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's my take on that particular arch time can't
Speaker 1: really see it, but you can see like, well actually
Speaker 1: you can. Right there there's a there's a statue, a
Speaker 1: little statue, and he's got a holding holding like that.
Speaker 1: That is man Juicerey who is a Bodhisatfa. And that
Speaker 1: thing that he's holding there is a flaming sword and
Speaker 1: it's for cutting through allusion to find realization. So this
Speaker 1: idea of a fierceness is even in you know, someone
Speaker 1: like a Bodhisatfa who's dedicated to basically not achieving liberation
Speaker 1: until all beings are saved. You know, there's a deep
Speaker 1: love in a Bodhi Sotfa, and yet he's carrying a
Speaker 1: flaming sword, right, you know there's a fierceness. And I
Speaker 1: agree with you. I think there's a fierceness to stopping
Speaker 1: drinking and a lot of different things. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: let's move on to magician. M hmm. Magician to me
Speaker 1: is the quadrant of working with the invisible realm and
Speaker 1: that sounds really woozi wu. Well, it's the MAGICI and
Speaker 1: so it is going to sound that way. But it's
Speaker 1: anything that you do to connect with the divine, like
Speaker 1: we did before the show started. Is very magician. So
Speaker 1: you have prayer, you have mysticism over there, things like
Speaker 1: ayahuasca even live over in the magician realm, anything where
Speaker 1: you're in direct communication with a dimension that's not the
Speaker 1: concrete dimension. So even poets, musicians would be considered magicians.
Speaker 1: I know men that don't ever do work in this quadrant.
Speaker 1: Everything is in the material realm. It's just I'm just
Speaker 1: doing this and it looks to me and feels to
Speaker 1: me like a missing like if you're not going to
Speaker 1: access this deeper realm. It's right there. As you know,
Speaker 1: thousands and tens of thousands of mystics, musicians, poets have
Speaker 1: have said, and there's a reason that when we read
Speaker 1: poetry or listen to music, or read any of the
Speaker 1: great books of mysticism. You you mentioned Buddhism, there's plenty
Speaker 1: of mysticism there. There's a reason it resonates with our
Speaker 1: soul because there's there's ruth there, there's an inner knowing
Speaker 1: that grows as you work with that quadrant more where
Speaker 1: you become really confident in the soul's journey and become
Speaker 1: kind of a spiritual warrior of Look, this is super
Speaker 1: important to me and I teach it in my groups
Speaker 1: because it's so important to leave out that particular way
Speaker 1: of seeing things or creating accesses or portals for men
Speaker 1: is super important because it's how they grow their inner knowing.
Speaker 1: I work with them for a short period of time,
Speaker 1: then they're going to have their whole hero's journey the
Speaker 1: rest of their life. So you have to give them
Speaker 1: tools like stuff around the Magician where they're going to
Speaker 1: be able to use that, whether it's a meditation practice
Speaker 1: or a contemplative practice, or they just take time to
Speaker 1: slow down with intention to feel these kind of deeper
Speaker 1: mysteries that are happening all the time. There are two
Speaker 1: lines that you used in talking about that that I
Speaker 1: really like. In addition to the music and art and
Speaker 1: transformative and creative, was sees everything as a lesson and
Speaker 1: able to find multiple meanings in each situation. And I
Speaker 1: feel like those are such such valuable skills. That's the
Speaker 1: area that my Magician works fairly well. I think as
Speaker 1: I read that, I was like, Okay, I guess like
Speaker 1: I have some of that going on, because that's one
Speaker 1: of my superpowers is that you know, multiple meaning kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Absolutely absolutely, yeah, beautiful. So lover, lover, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the full spectrum of lover. There's sexual in there, but
Speaker 1: only as part probably less so I think men will
Speaker 1: commonly blow up the sex is that's what lover is, right,
Speaker 1: But I think that is where you get shadow cree aided,
Speaker 1: because I think the broader meaning of lover is just
Speaker 1: having your heart wide open, living with your heart right
Speaker 1: there for everybody to see. And I think for men
Speaker 1: there's a little bit an edge there is that men
Speaker 1: don't often like to say, I really care about what's
Speaker 1: going on. I'm really concerned. I care. I care about
Speaker 1: the state of the world. I care about the seven generations.
Speaker 1: Are we doing the right thing? Who do we got
Speaker 1: that's in council to help us with this? You know,
Speaker 1: I I deeply care how you express yourself, how affectionate
Speaker 1: you are, Are you closed off all these different things.
Speaker 1: There's a collective with men where we've got work to
Speaker 1: do in there, because there's a lot of men that
Speaker 1: just aren't comfortable with affection and particularly around other men.
Speaker 1: You know, they just don't want to hug another man.
Speaker 1: That means that means I'm gay, you know, like just
Speaker 1: there's some limitations there, and I think there's always an
Speaker 1: edge there. And I wrote about it in my book
Speaker 1: as well, that sexually, we're always developing our skill or
Speaker 1: our understanding of it. I think, to my detriment, I
Speaker 1: kind of stopped learning about X when I was in
Speaker 1: my twenties, and then I just said, well, I know
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. I said in the book. You know,
Speaker 1: it was ironic that I was looking in all these
Speaker 1: different areas and then sex I was just kind of
Speaker 1: leaving alone. Is like, I don't have to do any
Speaker 1: work there, but I still have work to do in there,
Speaker 1: to be vulnerable, to be authentic, to be fully expressed.
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, sex is such a
Speaker 1: loaded topic for men that it can be a you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about this. It's it's just
Speaker 1: a very tender topic for men. You know, we get
Speaker 1: shown a lot of images about what sexual men are
Speaker 1: supposed to be like, but they missed the mark often
Speaker 1: about what it really means to be a mature lover.
Speaker 1: I think, so we've done lover Warrior, magician, King. Yeah, King,
Speaker 1: that's the one that I think collectively we have the
Speaker 1: most work to do. It's funny Eric I would lead
Speaker 1: men's groups and we do four rounds in a men's group,
Speaker 1: we do lover, warrior, magician, and King, and there would
Speaker 1: be all these different creative processes and dynamic things going
Speaker 1: on in the first three processes, and we would get
Speaker 1: to king and there would be just kind of like
Speaker 1: this dot dot dot, Like we were taught, well, the
Speaker 1: king expresses gratitude, and the king right sizes his ego,
Speaker 1: and it's comfortable in silence and blesses other men. All
Speaker 1: of those things are true. But I believe right now
Speaker 1: we're living at a time where this particular arc type
Speaker 1: is asking to be reinvented or rediscovered by the tribe
Speaker 1: of men, because I have a feeling that I don't
Speaker 1: really know what a full expression of the king is,
Speaker 1: and I don't think there's many men that I know
Speaker 1: that do have a quick answer or have a direction.
Speaker 1: So I think that this is the one that gets
Speaker 1: fleshed out in men's groups as we meet, and it
Speaker 1: sort of needs to be co created by the whole tribe,
Speaker 1: or at least the part of the tribe that's willing
Speaker 1: to do the work. And I think it's the part
Speaker 1: of men that where we carry this kind of collective wisdom.
Speaker 1: You and I sharing conversations like this helps the archetypal king.
Speaker 1: But I also think there's there's something in groups that
Speaker 1: might emerge over the next few years or a few
Speaker 1: decades where there's a reclaiming of that. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what that looks like, but I just recognize it
Speaker 1: as a need. I think that there's important work to
Speaker 1: be done there, and I'm I'm, for one, am willing
Speaker 1: to do the work. And it's gonna take all of us.
Speaker 1: It's going to take the ones that are leading into
Speaker 1: their development and leading into these conversations to sort of
Speaker 1: flesh that out. Yeah, a phrase that stood out to
Speaker 1: me was able to hold space for the voices of
Speaker 1: the kingdom. And that's a really interesting idea because you know,
Speaker 1: we are in a place where there's a lot of
Speaker 1: voices these days, and there's so many there's so many
Speaker 1: perspectives and ideas, and how do we, from a place
Speaker 1: of strength allow for those voices and also seek wisdom.
Speaker 1: It is an interesting archetype at this point, and you
Speaker 1: brought up something there that you know, it's a very
Speaker 1: in the king quadrant to hold space for the different voices.
Speaker 1: You know, um, the vaccinated, unvaccinated, the mass to no mass,
Speaker 1: the shutdowns and no shutdowns, the all the different things,
Speaker 1: all the different things that are being put out there
Speaker 1: for us to digest. And you know, there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of separation, and I think part of the king
Speaker 1: energy and men were sort of tasked with seeing through
Speaker 1: this and really being a stand for the unity. I'm
Speaker 1: okay if you're on this side, I'm on that side.
Speaker 1: I'm okay. If she's here and I'm here or they're here.
Speaker 1: The King is like, I'm totally fine with it. This
Speaker 1: is where we have arrived at this point of our
Speaker 1: hero's journey. How do we get to the next spot?
Speaker 1: How do we get to the next base camp? Knowing
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of division, we can't keep bickering
Speaker 1: down here where we're at. We've got work to do,
Speaker 1: and we've got new chapters to create for humanity. How
Speaker 1: do we go about doing that? Excellent? Well, let's move
Speaker 1: on to something that you said, which is that I
Speaker 1: learned that as men are, emotional lives are at the
Speaker 1: core of our power. This is a statement that most
Speaker 1: people wouldn't immediately think is obvious. Right. You know, as men,
Speaker 1: we don't often think that, you know, men are a
Speaker 1: known for their emotional lives and be if to the
Speaker 1: extent they have them, is it really the core of
Speaker 1: their power? From your perspective, what do you believe that? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that it's an untapped superpower for men. I
Speaker 1: believe I think many, many, many of our leaders. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at Dr King for example, you know,
Speaker 1: full of emotional power. If you look at any you know,
Speaker 1: look at Tony Robbins. You might not be a Tony
Speaker 1: Robbins fan, but you can't deny his authenticity at the
Speaker 1: front of the room. He changes people, he directs him.
Speaker 1: He's using his emotional life. I think any man that
Speaker 1: has charisma and is committed to the tribe has to
Speaker 1: bring the emotional Jews Um, great athletes, Tom Brady, I mean,
Speaker 1: they bring something of their emotional life in there. Not flat.
Speaker 1: It's hard to listen you. You're an emotional man, so
Speaker 1: you're speaking has those emotional undertones that make it very
Speaker 1: interesting and I want to lean in and find out
Speaker 1: what you know. The emotion is the attractor. That's why
Speaker 1: I'm there. That's why the the technologists they're they're not
Speaker 1: such charismatic leaders. They can speak about technology, but they're
Speaker 1: spending too much time with ones and zeros and not
Speaker 1: enough time, you know, expressing their emotions in a real
Speaker 1: free flowing way. So I just I just think there's
Speaker 1: an attractor there. The the leaders in the conversation about
Speaker 1: where are we going will be emotionally astute, being able
Speaker 1: to speak from the emotions of the tribe, and both
Speaker 1: that in the trans personal sense and the personal sense.
Speaker 1: I can tell you what's going on with my inner
Speaker 1: life on a personal level, but I can also sense
Speaker 1: the emotional undertones of what's going on with the tribe,
Speaker 1: and I can speak from that and to that. I
Speaker 1: think that's a really important, uh superpower that men possess
Speaker 1: and often don't claim. You describe five lessons that you
Speaker 1: learned from growing up kind of in some of these
Speaker 1: men's groups. I don't know if you're gonna remember them.
Speaker 1: I'm pulling something out of a book that you wrote
Speaker 1: years ago, but maybe i'll cue you as unless you
Speaker 1: remember what they are, I'll cue you as do what
Speaker 1: they are and ask you to sort of expound. The
Speaker 1: first is that men are courageous. Absolutely. I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that I see in everyday men,
Speaker 1: we tend to think that courage is like Muhammad Ali
Speaker 1: is courageous. Oh, dr King was courageous. Gandhi was courageous. Right,
Speaker 1: Tony Robbins is courageous. But I'm I'm just an ordinary guy.
Speaker 1: I'm not courageous. But if you speak with any man
Speaker 1: and start to unpack some of his stories, you hear
Speaker 1: all kinds of courageous acts. Quit drinking. I was terrified
Speaker 1: of therapy, but I got in because I wanted to
Speaker 1: save my marriage for my wife and my kids. Quit
Speaker 1: my job. It was really well paid, but I really
Speaker 1: felt compelled to start this business. Right, they diminished their
Speaker 1: own courage, And my experience of almost men universally is
Speaker 1: that we are a really courageous bunch. And I think
Speaker 1: part of what I do in the men's groups, part
Speaker 1: of the thing that I provide is a witness to
Speaker 1: men's courage that I'm a stand that they see their
Speaker 1: own courage and own it. Because we're all eric, We're
Speaker 1: gonna need courage for the next chapters of our hero's journey.
Speaker 1: We're getting older. It takes courage to age, right, It
Speaker 1: absolutely does. There's a lot of letting go that takes courage,
Speaker 1: and so I just think I try to broaden courage
Speaker 1: as much as I can, because I think I'm blown
Speaker 1: away by the courage of our tribe and the courage
Speaker 1: of men, and I just want to magnify that as
Speaker 1: much as possible so that men understand. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got that too. I can own that I'm courage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna combine several of these remaining ones because I
Speaker 1: think they grouped together. But which is under sort of
Speaker 1: you can handle on us feedback from men you trust
Speaker 1: um or that you know men can be trusted. Right,
Speaker 1: And again, I think it's important that when we hear
Speaker 1: a statement like that, because I know, the minute I
Speaker 1: said men can be trusted, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: out there they go, hang on a second, and you
Speaker 1: can bring up a long list of men who simply
Speaker 1: cannot be trusted. That is absolutely true. So we're not
Speaker 1: saying that every man is trustworthy, but by no stretch
Speaker 1: of the imagination, right, what we're saying is that that
Speaker 1: capacity is really there. Yeah, And it would be naive
Speaker 1: for a man to think I can trust everybody that's
Speaker 1: not a mature warrior at all. Right, that's not that's
Speaker 1: not what we're saying. You know, when you get into
Speaker 1: men's work and men's groups, you know there's this kind
Speaker 1: of dropping of the guard, dropping of the facade. You
Speaker 1: know that. You know, men come in there, I got
Speaker 1: all my ship handled, right. They got there like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've I've got everything handled. And then they start to
Speaker 1: see how authentic the sharing is, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they're like, wait a minute. The way to be in
Speaker 1: this group is to tell the truth about what's going on.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, you
Speaker 1: see the sharing like you were talking about in the
Speaker 1: men's a group, the sharing gets really deep and soulful,
Speaker 1: and then that leads to other realizations. So to your
Speaker 1: point earlier when you said you can handle feedback from
Speaker 1: other men, most men have been brought up. They did
Speaker 1: not get constructive criticism in a good way. In other
Speaker 1: it is when we were younger, we usually got it
Speaker 1: with shame. Right, it was you dot dot dot dot right,
Speaker 1: it was from an elderly an older man that maybe
Speaker 1: didn't have our best interest or was acting out of
Speaker 1: his own wound. And so we say, there's a difference
Speaker 1: between when you get sarcasm in criticism of a young man,
Speaker 1: it's like being cut with a rusty blade. It stays
Speaker 1: with the man and then he'll avoid criticism or getting
Speaker 1: feedback from other men because he's got that wound. But
Speaker 1: when you're in men's circles where the trust is there,
Speaker 1: we can call each other out with compassion. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been on the hot seat where I've got called out.
Speaker 1: It's not comfortable, But when I know the other man
Speaker 1: has my personal development first and foremost, Tony, do you
Speaker 1: know you're doing this, you're avoiding this, You're saying this
Speaker 1: thing and you're doing something else. It stings. It's like
Speaker 1: being cut with a clean blade. It stings. It brings
Speaker 1: my attention to it, but it doesn't fester because there
Speaker 1: was no sarcasm, there was no snarky, there was no
Speaker 1: shame me. The man was simply pointing out, Tony, I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you this, This is this is important. Nobody
Speaker 1: else is telling you this. When you receive criticism, that
Speaker 1: way you can be like, oh my, our feedback. That
Speaker 1: way you can work with it, and you're grateful to
Speaker 1: the man for showing you something that you weren't seeing
Speaker 1: on your own. In a semi recent podcast interview with
Speaker 1: a guy named Ethan Cross. He wrote a book called Chatter,
Speaker 1: all about the voices inside our head, the way we
Speaker 1: talked to ourselves. But he was able to articulate something
Speaker 1: that I've not been able to articulate well until I
Speaker 1: hurt him. Read it, and I think you're going to
Speaker 1: relate with this. He talked about how when we go
Speaker 1: to someone else with a situation, we really have two needs, right,
Speaker 1: and very often we only get one of those two
Speaker 1: needs met right. One need we need is some degree
Speaker 1: of emotional validation. Man, Tony, that's tough. I understand. Jeez boy,
Speaker 1: I really feel bad, like, oh, that must have been
Speaker 1: really difficult, right. We need that, right, But a lot
Speaker 1: of times that's all someone gets. The flip side is
Speaker 1: we also need kind of what you said, which is
Speaker 1: a little bit of help going. You know, it must
Speaker 1: have been really hard for you, Tony, and I know
Speaker 1: you a little bit, and I'm wondering if this might
Speaker 1: have been happening or I wonder if you see this
Speaker 1: part of it for you, right? And I've often seen
Speaker 1: this delineation be at the heart of a lot of
Speaker 1: difficult conversations between men and women. I think John Gray
Speaker 1: probably first articulated this, at least in the popular culture,
Speaker 1: which was that women want emotional validation out of their conversations,
Speaker 1: whereas men just want to solve problems. And my experience
Speaker 1: is actually, and I was glad to see some studies
Speaker 1: from this guy that sort of show this like a
Speaker 1: mature conversation, one that integrates our masculine our feminine, gives
Speaker 1: us both those things. It gives us the emotional validation,
Speaker 1: it gives us being seen, it gives us being heard,
Speaker 1: but it also moves us into solution in some ways. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if you ever experienced this.
Speaker 1: I have experienced wanting my wife to be a sounding
Speaker 1: board but not be coached, where I just wanna vent
Speaker 1: and I just want to unpack, and I don't want
Speaker 1: her saying, well, I think you should do this, I
Speaker 1: think you should do that. And sometimes I really do
Speaker 1: want the coaching piece because I might be like frustrated
Speaker 1: that I'm not finding the solution on my own, and
Speaker 1: so then I'm like, yeah, I do want to hear
Speaker 1: what your take is on that, and the same thing
Speaker 1: for her. So we we sometimes want one, uh, and
Speaker 1: sometimes we want both. It just depends where you're at, right, Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And what I liked this guy was sort of saying,
Speaker 1: you know, looking at the studies about like, you know,
Speaker 1: who benefits from talking to other people, was the studies
Speaker 1: seem to point to if you only get one of
Speaker 1: those two, you actually don't make a lot of progress.
Speaker 1: You know, just venting is great, but it doesn't actually
Speaker 1: move you forward. My experience is it's a prerequisite for
Speaker 1: the second. I don't want to be coached by anybody
Speaker 1: who's not hearing me, listening to me and understanding me.
Speaker 1: Once I hear that you understand me and you know
Speaker 1: how I feel, then I'm willing to listen. Right. But
Speaker 1: so many times, particularly men, were that you know, I'm
Speaker 1: this way, Like you know, someone will start sharing something
Speaker 1: that's going on, and I'll be like, I know the answer.
Speaker 1: Here you go, Here's what I think you should do
Speaker 1: as a coach, right, Like it's a constant tendency I
Speaker 1: have to sort of like just stop, slow it down,
Speaker 1: slow it down, let's listen, let's listen. I also discovered that,
Speaker 1: like you said, in men's groups about sort of like
Speaker 1: having other men really say, Eric, here's what I see
Speaker 1: in you and that feedback being oftentimes difficult. But the
Speaker 1: reason I was able to take that feedback to your point,
Speaker 1: the reason it was a clean blade was because of
Speaker 1: their authenticity and vulnerability ahead of that, so that I
Speaker 1: knew they were trustworthy and they had my best interest.
Speaker 1: That I feel like it is the prerequisite for that
Speaker 1: blade to be truly clean well. And and some of
Speaker 1: the greatest blessings inside those circles is men will hear
Speaker 1: what their gifts are as seen through the eyes of
Speaker 1: other men. So if you're in a men's group and
Speaker 1: you've been at it for even just a few weeks,
Speaker 1: your flavor, the things that you bring start to become
Speaker 1: very evident to the other men. And just I mean
Speaker 1: I remember, you know, we did processes where a man
Speaker 1: would sit in the king's chair we called it, and
Speaker 1: every man would take turns telling the man a something
Speaker 1: that he saw that that was kind of his edge
Speaker 1: of development and done with compassion, but also the gifts
Speaker 1: that he brings to the group in the world. And man,
Speaker 1: those were some of the greatest blessings you'll ever hear
Speaker 1: because a lot of men they never were you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of us were never blessed. I had a
Speaker 1: really good father. I was blessed. But there's a ton
Speaker 1: of men that never got seen by a mature man
Speaker 1: with a good heart saying I see you bringing so
Speaker 1: much heart, so much passion to the world. You're a
Speaker 1: good man, and you've got a ton of fire, and
Speaker 1: you know you're you're moving the needle and you're making
Speaker 1: a big difference. And you know, to hear that from
Speaker 1: men that you respect, Oh my god, I mean you
Speaker 1: leave their standing taller, going Okay, I've been seen, I've
Speaker 1: been witnessed. This, this kind of part of me that
Speaker 1: never got seen when I was a boy and a
Speaker 1: young man is now seen and blessed for what I bring,
Speaker 1: and it kind of strengthens the things that you're already
Speaker 1: good at because you realize, Wow, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: was such a evident strength of mind, but it's evident
Speaker 1: that five of the men pointed that out when I
Speaker 1: was in the circle, so it must be true. I
Speaker 1: think that some of that is one of the reasons.
Speaker 1: It's not. It certainly doesn't account for all of it,
Speaker 1: But why men are sometimes so sports obsessed, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of times that's the first
Speaker 1: time a man has ever gotten any of that from
Speaker 1: a mature man saying like great jobs, emmer, like all
Speaker 1: of us sudden and you just inside it's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, like you know, it's a really powerful thing.
Speaker 1: And so if we look at sports from the outside,
Speaker 1: we go, Okay, it's a bunch of people running around
Speaker 1: with a ball, like why is it so big? But
Speaker 1: I think it's because for a lot of men, that's
Speaker 1: where that first happens, and it creates this deep connection
Speaker 1: to this thing because it's like I know it's in there.
Speaker 1: You know. It's sort of like you know, me chasing Heroin.
Speaker 1: It's like I knew that at one point in their
Speaker 1: well being was sort of embedded in there. Now I
Speaker 1: know it wasn't truly there. But it's a similar, similar
Speaker 1: analogy in some ways. Although I think watching football or
Speaker 1: even playing fantasy football in your case, is listeners better
Speaker 1: than Heroin just as a as a broad guideline, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go out on a limb. Yeah that's a controversial statement,
Speaker 1: that's right, you know, Yeah, I think I can relate
Speaker 1: to the sports thing. It's really where I first It's
Speaker 1: where I was first blast and seen for what I
Speaker 1: could bring to the world to your point, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was a safe place to be a
Speaker 1: young man, to be a boy, because men are you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're rough and tumble, We're not women. There's things
Speaker 1: about us. We're kind of more canine than feline if
Speaker 1: you get us in a group or like a little
Speaker 1: pack of wolves, right, especially when you put a bunch
Speaker 1: of boys on a sports team, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of got that that kind of rough and tumble feel.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it gave me a taste for maybe what
Speaker 1: my life was going to be like as a man,
Speaker 1: and that some of the men's groups kind of feel
Speaker 1: like an extension of the bonding and the acceptance that
Speaker 1: I felt when I was first there in those in
Speaker 1: those early sports teams. Yeah, and it's one of the
Speaker 1: few places again, the world is changing but not fast enough,
Speaker 1: but it's one of the few places that most men
Speaker 1: get some it's okay to show some degree of affection
Speaker 1: and love for another man, is you know, on a team.
Speaker 1: You know, like, you know, I'm not gonna do that
Speaker 1: with your best friend, but you know, so, I think
Speaker 1: there are reasons why that it is the thing. It
Speaker 1: is your podcast US is called base Camp for Men.
Speaker 1: What's your program called your newest program? You find it
Speaker 1: at base Camp for Men dot com. It's all part
Speaker 1: of the same kind of brand, but it's the Life
Speaker 1: Renewal Program for men. And the tagline is eight weeks,
Speaker 1: eight modules, one big reset button for men. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's really four a number of different kinds of men.
Speaker 1: It could be a young man, let's say, in his
Speaker 1: twenties or thirties, that's never really had a mentor. Or
Speaker 1: it could be a middle aged guy that's hitting a wall.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's just like I've worked hard and
Speaker 1: I don't feel great, I don't feel inspired. It's kind
Speaker 1: of this reset button along the ways that we've been
Speaker 1: talking about, and men will come out of it with
Speaker 1: a lot of new tools. We work with the five
Speaker 1: archetypes that you and I have been talking about. One
Speaker 1: thing that I'm decent at is creating a mythical kind
Speaker 1: of context for the men. So treating everything as a
Speaker 1: hero's journey and getting them ready for the next versions
Speaker 1: of their themselves in the next chapters is really what
Speaker 1: the program is. And it's a comba nation of one
Speaker 1: on one coaching. There's also an opportunity to do group
Speaker 1: work and some of my men's groups, which opens up
Speaker 1: a lot of other things. I just love it. I
Speaker 1: love doing it. Um. The first session that I do
Speaker 1: is free. So if you are interested, there's a forty
Speaker 1: five minute call that's really a discovery to call to
Speaker 1: see if you're ready, if it feels like working with
Speaker 1: me is a good fit and all that, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I try to share that as much as
Speaker 1: I can, just because I know that there's men out
Speaker 1: there that are feeling isolated and feeling like, you know,
Speaker 1: what do I do? And finding programs like yours and
Speaker 1: programs like mine where they can get out of their
Speaker 1: comfort zone and start to create forward movement and upward
Speaker 1: movement on their hero's journey is super important right now. Excellent,
Speaker 1: And we'll have links in the show notes to that.
Speaker 1: But if you want to give people the U r L,
Speaker 1: that's that's fine too. It's base Camp for Men dot com. Okay,
Speaker 1: so back to that name, base Camp for Men. You know,
Speaker 1: your Body and Soul book we've been talking about has
Speaker 1: the ten base Camp Essentials. Your podcast is called base
Speaker 1: Camp from it? Why that? You know? It's funny? I
Speaker 1: got hired to do the show a men show by
Speaker 1: the Epoch Times way back when, and they said, we
Speaker 1: want to do something specifically for men. So I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that works well for me because that's a lot of
Speaker 1: what I do. And the subtitle of the show is
Speaker 1: Men Myth and the Hero's Journey, and it was just
Speaker 1: kind of the divine wanted it to be named that.
Speaker 1: So when I was looking over all my journals on
Speaker 1: a journal or I was looking back, I'm like, looking,
Speaker 1: what do we want to call this thing? We were
Speaker 1: kicking the tires on all kinds of stuff. Base Camp
Speaker 1: for Men kept coming up. The team kept saying, I
Speaker 1: like base Camp for Men. It kind of indicates a
Speaker 1: hero's journey, and it just ended up being the one.
Speaker 1: You know, it just felt right to me. And then
Speaker 1: then it was like, yeah, no, let's let's go with that.
Speaker 1: I like the way that sounds, I like the way
Speaker 1: that feels. You know. It's funny that I look back
Speaker 1: eric on my journals two years prior before I even
Speaker 1: had a podcast or even knew what a podcast was,
Speaker 1: I was writing base Camp for Men in my journals,
Speaker 1: So it was it was in my creative thinking already
Speaker 1: in The Magician. You know, in The Magician, our type
Speaker 1: was already dropping clues as to what I might be
Speaker 1: doing in the next versions of myself Excellent. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the idea of being right that a base
Speaker 1: camp be in a place you set off from right, Yes, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: place that you set off on your hero's journey from.
Speaker 1: I want to just hit a couple of these essentials
Speaker 1: before we wrap up. We've we've talked on some of these,
Speaker 1: but I'd love to talk briefly about base camp essential
Speaker 1: number six, which is manage your energy. Talk to me
Speaker 1: a little bit about you know, in your mind, what
Speaker 1: does this look like, and you know, how do we
Speaker 1: go about doing it well. I think framing a particular
Speaker 1: lens when you're looking at self care is does this
Speaker 1: increase my energy or does this decrease my energy or
Speaker 1: my chy as they call it right in Asia. And
Speaker 1: I think when you're really kind of looking at it
Speaker 1: through that kind of contemplative lens, you'll see there's some
Speaker 1: things that you're doing that add energy, whether you know,
Speaker 1: for me, like it's if I'm playing, if I'm playing
Speaker 1: out anything that's play oriented, throwing the football around, kicking,
Speaker 1: the soccer ball. That increases my energy. It's really good
Speaker 1: for me if I'm not in nature or if I'm skiing.
Speaker 1: I noticed this is really great for my energy. Eating
Speaker 1: junk food tends to deplete me. Right, And there's some
Speaker 1: sneaky ones in there. I think, um I did an
Speaker 1: episode on porn. I think porn is a really bad
Speaker 1: depletion for men in their energy department, and men will
Speaker 1: do it on the sly. It's there's this shadow aspect,
Speaker 1: this kind of addictive quality to it, and I think
Speaker 1: if men were honest about it, they would say that
Speaker 1: is a no go. That doesn't help me. Really, I'm
Speaker 1: just getting my ya yas out. But if I'm honest,
Speaker 1: doesn't deplete heck yeah, it deplete your energy. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't lift you up. You don't feel better afterwards.
Speaker 1: We're like ready to conquer the world. So it's like,
Speaker 1: being really honest with does this help? Does gossiping? Talking
Speaker 1: about you know, people that you don't agree with in
Speaker 1: a negative way. Is that uplift my energy? No? It doesn't.
Speaker 1: I don't feel really good. I feel disconnect it from
Speaker 1: the tribe when I do that. That's a clue. I
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. So it's like cultivating this
Speaker 1: habit of It's not like you're never going to feed
Speaker 1: the bad wolf, but how do I keep feeding the
Speaker 1: good wolf to the point where anything that's depleting my
Speaker 1: life force becomes very very evident. Even thinking about it,
Speaker 1: I go, ah, that doesn't sound that great, So yeah,
Speaker 1: does that help? It does. In that section, you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about body work. You know, massage is
Speaker 1: one type of body work, but you actually go into
Speaker 1: some different types and the different benefits of each. Is
Speaker 1: that a conversation we could wait into for a second totally? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think there is a ton of different modalities.
Speaker 1: I used to be a body worker for twenty years.
Speaker 1: I was a structural body worker. They call him roll
Speaker 1: Thing back in the day, which had a weird name.
Speaker 1: But it's really deep tissue work and there's just tons
Speaker 1: of benefit from it. I think that men, you know,
Speaker 1: they can get disconnected from their body. That might sound
Speaker 1: really weird, but whenever I've gotten skilled body work, and
Speaker 1: it could be direct like stuff that's kind of painful actually,
Speaker 1: but you work through it over time. Really, it's almost
Speaker 1: like going through accelerated yoga working with somebody that's skilled
Speaker 1: at deep tissue work. And then on the other end
Speaker 1: of it, the subtle body works, something like cranial sacred.
Speaker 1: It's got this kind of magic quality to it. It's
Speaker 1: it's definitely over in the magician quadrant. But you know,
Speaker 1: I've gotten results from getting subtle body work. Whether it's
Speaker 1: cranial sacred, whether it's body mind centered. There's a ton
Speaker 1: of modalities out there, and the people that practice this
Speaker 1: they feel called by the divine to serve the healing
Speaker 1: of people, so they're in service to us. And my
Speaker 1: experience with body workers, there's some of the most tuned in, intuitive,
Speaker 1: sensitive people and they've just got a knack of putting
Speaker 1: their finger on what's really bothering you. Sometimes you're like,
Speaker 1: I just can't seem to you know, my shoulder and
Speaker 1: my shoulder, and they start talking to you. Realize, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, this is called my dad in six years
Speaker 1: here whatever, you know, whatever, right, whatever it is. I'm
Speaker 1: being a little exaggerating it. But there's this kind of
Speaker 1: wisdom to body work. I think that is right there.
Speaker 1: I I highly recommended as a way of healing. I
Speaker 1: think it feels good and I think that you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's always good to feel good in your body.
Speaker 1: I think it gives you a sense of youth and energy.
Speaker 1: When you feel your best, you look your best. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it interested me because I love massage, but I haven't
Speaker 1: really explored anything beyond the you know, the basics like
Speaker 1: walk in okay, deep tissue massage, Okay, that feels good,
Speaker 1: you know, but I haven't explored any sort of where
Speaker 1: it combines to something deeper. I think if you ask
Speaker 1: around your community, there's almost always a few people that
Speaker 1: people are talking about, like if you've done a session
Speaker 1: with That's how it always was with me. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: have you've done a session with so and so? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's transformative, it's I can't you know. That's
Speaker 1: when they start talking that way about a particular You
Speaker 1: don't have to know what the modality is. Just know
Speaker 1: the person is an artist and they've got a craft
Speaker 1: that they've developed over probably decades. Right, So, yeah, have
Speaker 1: you heard of something called the Alexander technique? Are you
Speaker 1: familiar with that at all? I've done a ton of
Speaker 1: Alexander Technique sessions. In fact, that was the first foray
Speaker 1: into that Alexander technique is really subtle but very powerful.
Speaker 1: Um it's used a lot with performers, So actors use
Speaker 1: it a lot because it helps free up the voice
Speaker 1: and free up the instrument to be tension free. But um,
Speaker 1: I probably did maybe ten sessions over my life with
Speaker 1: probably three different practitioners, always big thumbs up. So yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe in the post show conversation you and I can
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit. Because I just started nice,
Speaker 1: I'm interested. I am still in the like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what to make of this. Yeah, but we'll we'll,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that in a minute. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the last piece before we wrap up, which is your
Speaker 1: base Camp Essential nine, which is about embracing forgiveness. Talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about why that is important and where
Speaker 1: you see the biggest barriers to that. Well, the biggest
Speaker 1: barriers are sort of ego, wanting to be right, not
Speaker 1: letting your loved ones off the hook. So I had
Speaker 1: a piece that I wrote in there. I love my
Speaker 1: dad and I get along with him fabulously. But I
Speaker 1: had a piece in there, as I wrote about where
Speaker 1: we just weren't on the same page and I needed
Speaker 1: to forgive him for you know, now, I can see
Speaker 1: it was just he was just being himself. He wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to cause me any harm, but there was a
Speaker 1: lot of wound there for me. And you know, there's
Speaker 1: a forgiveness peace waiting to be gotten when you don't
Speaker 1: call your brother or sister for years on end, when
Speaker 1: you have not forgiven somebody for being themselves. I mean
Speaker 1: I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was drinking.
Speaker 1: You know, none of us are perfect, and it's like
Speaker 1: embracing forgiveness. And I put a forgiveness process in there.
Speaker 1: There's a number of me you can do. It just
Speaker 1: restores sanity, It restores unconditional love. I mean, everybody is
Speaker 1: fighting a soul battle. Everybody's got baggage, everybody's got wounds
Speaker 1: to deal with. And when you're unforgiving, it's almost like
Speaker 1: you're standing above somebody going, you know, I forgive everybody else,
Speaker 1: but you for you know, for wronging the I mean,
Speaker 1: people have done some stupid things to other people. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying they haven't, but at the point when you're
Speaker 1: still holding onto it, the shadow, it lives with you.
Speaker 1: It's like if you can forgive the perpetrator, the person
Speaker 1: that your ex wife, whoever it is when you think
Speaker 1: about where have I lost affinity? When you can put
Speaker 1: your finger on some people and it's an ongoing thing.
Speaker 1: I've got a thing with my brother in law right now.
Speaker 1: I have to work with it as an active principle.
Speaker 1: It's not a one time thing and it's done. I
Speaker 1: have to circle back around and say, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: think thoughts of him that he's not so great and
Speaker 1: and that's that's where I'm starting to get in that
Speaker 1: judgment mode. And so it's a dynamic piece, but it's
Speaker 1: so powerful. Almost everybody has at least one person, and
Speaker 1: often you'll have a few. You know, a best friend
Speaker 1: from twenty years ago that you had a tough breakup
Speaker 1: and you just never you never did the work. And
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily have to have a conversation with the person.
Speaker 1: The forgiveness can be done in a meditative process where
Speaker 1: you just send them love and say I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: love you, I forgive you, Please forgive me for for
Speaker 1: not talking to you for so long. It's just like
Speaker 1: this conversation you're having almost with your higher self to
Speaker 1: their higher self, so that you don't carry that resentment,
Speaker 1: because that's a type of poison that doesn't help you
Speaker 1: on your hero's journey. Excellent, Well, Tony, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on. You and I will continue for
Speaker 1: a little bit in the post show conversation and talk
Speaker 1: about the Alexander technique. We might talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about sobriety, maybe a little bit about depression. But thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on. This has been a
Speaker 1: real pleasure listeners. If you'd like to get access to
Speaker 1: that post show conversation, you can go to One you
Speaker 1: Feed dot net slash Join. There are ad free episodes,
Speaker 1: I do a bunch of special episodes, and there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of great stuff there when you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash Joint. Again, Tony, thank you so much for coming on. Eric,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to talk
Speaker 1: to you. If what you just heard was helpful to you,
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