0:02

Welcome to the Dad Edge Podcast.

0:04

The Dad Edge Movement creates leaders of men,

0:07

leaders of families, and leaders of

0:09

communities. We will not only

0:12

impact this generation of fathers, but the

0:14

next generation as well. The

0:16

kids we are raising will have better chances

0:18

and odds stacked in their favor because of

0:20

the amazing example that their fathers emulated for

0:23

them. We are here

0:25

to change the world. We are

0:27

here to change relationships. We

0:29

are here to positively disrupt this generation

0:31

of fathers so no man goes to their

0:33

grave with regret. We

0:35

disrupt the drift of busyness and replace

0:38

it with razor focused intention, passion,

0:41

purpose, and direction. We

0:44

are the Dad Edge and we are

0:46

here to change the game. What's

1:02

up gentlemen? Welcome to the Dad Edge Podcast. I'm

1:04

Larry Hagner, your host and founder of this podcast,

1:06

this show and movement. I hope you guys are

1:08

doing well and this show is dedicated for

1:11

all my guests today is dedicated for all

1:13

you men out there who are trying to

1:16

navigate marriage and

1:18

the minefield that that can

1:20

feel like sometimes. And

1:23

if you've been married for any amount of time, well,

1:25

you know it's not a cake walk. And

1:28

last time I checked, there really wasn't a manual

1:31

for this and my podcast guest

1:33

today, Jason Schnitzer, it's

1:36

really interesting. His background

1:38

and his frustrations with

1:40

marriage really did mirror mine and

1:43

we had very similar experiences meaning that

1:46

we both wanted

1:48

to provide and we thought we

1:51

were and from a financial means,

1:53

from an emotional means, but something was

1:55

missing and something wasn't right and

1:57

we just couldn't figure out what it was. He

2:00

wanted to be a husband that he was proud of

2:02

and for his wife to feel the same way. Someone

2:06

she knew that she could count on

2:08

no matter what. And he thought he

2:10

had everything he needed to accomplish that in life. He had

2:12

the six figure job, the bills were paid, the

2:15

roof over their head, investment properties, the

2:17

cars, the vacations, the beautiful wife to

2:19

share it with. However, even

2:22

with what he thought was having it all,

2:25

there was still trouble in paradise. His wife

2:27

and he became distant and they felt like

2:29

roommates. Always walking on eggshells

2:31

to avoid the next argument or conflict.

2:33

They tried a ton of different things

2:36

like couples counseling, individual therapy. He

2:39

scoured the internet and YouTube for information of what

2:41

he was doing wrong and how he could fix

2:43

it. He tried to have better

2:45

morning routines. He did martial arts. He went

2:47

to the gym, cold plunges, sauna, meditation, breath

2:50

work, so many other things. But no matter

2:52

how many hours of self-improvement podcasts you listen

2:54

to or books he read, nothing seemed to

2:56

make a lasting change for him and his wife.

2:59

Even amidst deep depression and anxiety,

3:01

he realized the transformation he thought

3:04

was actually possible. Thus,

3:06

he founded The Husband Coach,

3:08

offering a roadmap for marital

3:10

fulfillment, drawing over seven years

3:12

of personal growth. He's determined

3:14

to help others navigate marriage

3:17

and to do it successfully. And in

3:19

this interview, he's gonna share fascinating insights

3:21

on the psychological effects of conflict, shedding

3:24

light on what happens in our

3:26

bodies and our mind during tense

3:28

moments. He described arguments

3:30

as resembling an upside down traffic

3:32

light and illustrating how emotions can

3:35

hijack our rational thinking and communication.

3:38

Don't worry guys, you're probably scratching your head like, what

3:40

are you talking about upside down traffic light? Not to

3:42

worry, we're gonna get there. But

3:44

moreover, we also explored the role

3:46

of instincts during conflicts, uncovering how

3:48

our natural responses can

3:50

sometimes exacerbate tensions rather than

3:53

resolve them. By understanding

3:55

the dynamics and embracing counterintuitive

3:58

approaches, he empowers husbands. to

4:00

forge stronger and more resilient marriages.

4:03

Through his journey and expertise, he

4:05

offers a beacon of hope for

4:08

struggling relationships, demonstrating the right

4:10

guidance and mindset shifts that are needed for

4:12

a lasting transformation. So I'm

4:14

excited to give you guys

4:16

an experience today with my

4:18

guest today, Jason Schnitzer,

4:21

really just very calming

4:24

individual, very, very authentic

4:26

individual and really imperfect.

4:28

Like this is not a guy that preaches

4:31

from the pulpit. This is a man who is

4:33

just like me and you, who just got really,

4:35

really tired of trying to figure this

4:37

out on his own and winging it. And he's done

4:39

the work and he's now helping

4:41

others. And so for all you guys out

4:43

there that are navigating marriage and just

4:45

scratching your head from time to time, it's like, man, this

4:47

is tough. We've got a real treat for

4:50

you guys today. So without further ado, let's

4:52

just jump right into it. I think you guys will enjoy

4:54

it. All right, Jason, come on, man. Give

4:56

us some married game tactics

4:59

here, brother. It's good to have you on. Yeah,

5:02

dude, excited to be here. And

5:06

yeah, would love to jump into kind of like my

5:08

approach, if

5:11

you will, that I take with men.

5:13

That's all right? Yeah, before we do that, let's

5:15

start off with some fun questions about that. Okay,

5:17

yeah, let's do it. All right, so let's talk

5:19

about this. Growing up

5:22

for you, what was your

5:24

favorite sport that you liked to play? I

5:27

was a baseball guy. Played baseball up

5:29

until I was 21. Yeah.

5:32

Very cool. What

5:35

was your position? I was

5:37

a pitcher. And fun fact, I

5:39

was drafted out of high school by

5:41

the Boston Red Sox around 37. What?

5:44

Did you play for them? I

5:47

didn't. I opted to go the

5:49

college route. Yeah. Was

5:52

that tough to turn down? You

5:54

know, yes and no,

5:56

because the draft, typically

5:58

how it works in baseball, baseball to get a

6:00

little nerdy on it, is like really

6:03

the money rounds at that time were like the top 10.

6:06

So if you didn't get drafted in the top

6:08

10 rounds, you got like a few thousand

6:10

bucks on a plane ticket to wherever it was

6:12

that you were playing minor league ball. And

6:15

I got the contract over for what minor league pay

6:17

was at the time and it was like a thousand

6:20

bucks a month. So

6:22

you have to really love to play baseball.

6:24

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

6:28

and the way I saw it, I had a few more

6:30

years in college to give it

6:32

a shot, so. Yeah. And did you play

6:34

in college? I did. I

6:36

went to junior college for

6:38

two years and then I transferred to

6:41

UC Santa Barbara. So the

6:43

good part about it was is I got

6:46

my school paid for. Oh, that's great. Yeah.

6:49

What was your pitch of choice? Like what was your

6:51

favorite thing to throw? Oof,

6:54

my curve ball probably. That's

6:57

awesome, man. Yeah. I've

7:00

had a few MLB guys here on

7:02

the podcast. One was Todd

7:04

Stottlemeyer, he's three times, three

7:07

time World Series champ and

7:11

heck of a personality at that too. Yeah,

7:13

dude. He was fun to interview. Interviewed

7:15

him I think three times on the show. Oh,

7:18

nice. Very cool, man. So baseball

7:21

was your jam. I know you

7:23

have a son. Mm-hmm. Are

7:25

we hoping that maybe he plays a little bit

7:27

of Little League action as he gets older? You

7:30

know, that's so funny. I'm

7:32

going to expose him to everything

7:34

that I can and it kind

7:37

of pig tailing on sports. I

7:39

transitioned from a baseball guy to a

7:41

jiu-jitsu guy. So I'm actually

7:43

like full transition now into

7:46

jiu-jitsu. But yeah, I definitely Little League,

7:49

definitely some kind of martial arts. And

7:51

I'm really trying to make an effort

7:54

to be the person that exposes

7:56

him to everything and kind of let him

7:59

feel what it is that. he wants to do for

8:01

himself. We're the same way. My

8:04

wife was an athlete. I was a bit

8:06

of an athlete growing up, but

8:09

I was a wrestler. I love wrestling, but I'm one

8:12

of those people too where

8:14

I just want my kids to do something

8:16

that they love. Just

8:19

get involved. And we've got all over the

8:21

board here. My oldest is a wrestler and

8:23

he's also in the marching band. So

8:26

he's the only kid, I think,

8:28

his school's been around for 10

8:30

years. We've heard that he's

8:32

the only kid that does marching

8:34

band and wrestling. Since

8:36

the inception of the school. And

8:39

my 16 year old, he's a

8:41

football player, just loves football, just

8:44

breathes it, eats it, could drink it up, right?

8:47

We've got two younger guys and one's a

8:49

basketball player and the other one loves soccer.

8:51

So we're literally, it's a variety of different

8:54

things, but that's cool. How long have you

8:56

been doing Jiu-Jitsu for? This'll

8:59

be eight years now. Yeah. Wow.

9:02

And is it, was it

9:04

at least 10 years for a black belt? Is that correct? Am

9:07

I wrong? Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the same. It's

9:10

all really subjective to

9:12

the degree that you put time in and how well

9:15

you're able to apply and all that stuff. But yeah,

9:17

I've been doing it eight years and

9:19

I've been a brown belt for two years now.

9:21

Wow. That's really cool, man. Yeah,

9:24

thanks. So I started

9:26

Jiu-Jitsu several months ago

9:28

and then about a month after I started,

9:32

I got hurt really bad. Yeah. I

9:35

injured my knee, but I wasn't

9:37

doing Jiu-Jitsu. I was doing a workout

9:39

and long story short, it knocked

9:42

me out for about five months. I'm now finally

9:44

on the road to recovery. I

9:46

was bleeding internally in my knee

9:48

for 12 weeks. Wow.

9:51

I had no idea why and I ruptured the synovial

9:53

membrane around my knee and it just

9:55

kept bleeding. It wouldn't stop. And finally

9:57

they went in, they had to scope it. The

10:00

doc told me he was just like, I expected to be in there for

10:02

30 minutes, but I was in there for an hour and a half. There

10:04

was a lot of crap I had to clean up. So

10:07

he cleaned it up and I've been doing

10:09

rehab and hopefully within the next few months,

10:11

I'll be back to 100%, I would say I'm at, about

10:14

75% right now, which is a

10:17

lot better than I was. But I had

10:19

a really good time doing

10:21

the few classes that I did, I mean,

10:23

with my wrestling background. And I'll tell you

10:25

what, man, every morning that I went, the

10:29

breakfast was a huge

10:31

slice, served up nice and

10:33

warm of humble pie. Yeah, that's that, dude.

10:36

I will say though, guys like you, like I

10:38

can always tell when guys like you that have

10:41

a wrestling background come in and it's like their

10:43

first day or first month, and

10:45

it's like you can tell by your base and the

10:47

way that you move, it's like, dude, this guy's trained

10:49

before in some capacity. It

10:51

did not help me at all. You don't

10:53

see these guys though. Like, I mean, and don't

10:56

get, I did, I've done 13 years

10:58

of just different martial arts in the

11:00

past, so I really love it. You

11:02

know, I probably have a very similar

11:04

passion as you do. And

11:07

I'll tell you, man, my oldest son, who's the

11:09

wrestler, he's like, dad, I really want to do jiu-jitsu

11:11

with you. I was like, okay, let's just go try

11:13

it. And man, the first day

11:15

we were there, and I mean, I was in a

11:17

class, all these dudes were probably about 10 years ahead

11:19

of me. I mean, they were in their late 50s,

11:22

a couple of guys, they looked like they were in their 60s. And

11:26

these guys just threw

11:28

me around, man. Like, I was nothing,

11:30

like nothing. And like, they

11:33

just, one guy in particular, we

11:36

went, you know, we were standing up, and

11:39

I'm sitting there thinking like, I have no idea what

11:41

to do. Like, the only thing

11:43

I know how to do is do a two-point takedown,

11:46

and like, no clue what I'm doing here. And

11:48

I don't even know how it happened. All I

11:50

know is like, as I went through the air,

11:53

I was like, wee! But like, literally, this guy

11:55

grabbed the sleeve of my gi, and

11:58

I went to go grab his arm. And

12:00

then he like somehow

12:03

like rolled to you probably know what

12:05

move I'm talking about He like went

12:07

down on his back rolled and threw

12:09

me over him and I literally nailed

12:11

over him I'm like, I have

12:13

no idea what just happened That's

12:15

great, dude. And yeah, I was about to

12:18

ask you if you train gear no gee

12:20

I'm actually mostly a no gee guy, but

12:23

yeah, that's that sounds about right for for

12:25

you know In their first month regardless

12:27

of wrestling especially in the gee Yeah,

12:30

those salty bets that have been doing

12:32

this for like however many decades. I

12:35

Loved it though, man. I just get in the

12:37

box the best man got crushed every day Yeah,

12:40

but I was like a kid in a candy store

12:42

I'm like, oh, it's so cool like in my yeah

12:44

our instructor was just he's kept laughing He's like dude

12:46

just got crushed. I was like, yeah, it was awesome

12:51

Yeah, man, there's no I mean there there's probably

12:53

are but there are a few better feelings than

12:56

just like After a good, you know workout like

12:58

that just like, you know, it's like being back

13:00

if you find a good school It's like being back on

13:02

a team in a way, you know, yeah Yeah,

13:05

and that camaraderie that community is is

13:07

so incredible. It's a game

13:09

changer. I think so Yeah,

13:12

very cool, man. So baseball Jujitsu

13:15

tell tell us about your wife you guys

13:17

been married for a decade a little decade

13:20

Yep, a little over a decade now and she is

13:22

an educator She's

13:24

a teacher for gosh, probably

13:27

like six or seven years and then has now

13:30

transition into administration

13:32

so real great With

13:35

kids and like really one of the qualities that really

13:37

attracted me to her was just like how good she

13:39

was with kids It's like I just knew she

13:42

was gonna be an awesome mom one of those You

13:44

know, I feel like all women are kind of like,

13:46

you know, it's in them to be an awesome mom

13:49

And I just she's got that in spades

13:52

Well, you're you're a better man than me because

13:54

like the thing that attracted you my wife was

13:56

how great she looked in jeans There's

14:00

probably an element of that too. For

14:04

sure, for sure. No, I feel you

14:06

on that one too, because when we're

14:08

dating, I remember I met

14:10

my wife in college and one

14:12

of the things that attracted me to her was, yes, how

14:14

great she looked in jeans and her beautiful hair and all

14:16

this other good stuff, right? But

14:19

she came from this really amazing family

14:21

herself and nobody in

14:23

her family, like going back

14:25

four or five generations have ever been divorced, not

14:27

one. And just

14:30

a very solid traditional, solid foundation. They

14:32

get through everything type of an attitude,

14:35

they don't give up. And I thought

14:37

to myself, I was like, man, I was like,

14:39

if I'm ever gonna marry somebody, someone who has

14:41

that type of attitude, along with I

14:43

know she's probably gonna be good with kids, this is a

14:45

gem, somebody I need to hold on to. So you know

14:48

what I did with her? Yeah, dude, you

14:50

broke up with her. I broke up with her, like

14:52

an idiot. I know that some of the things are

14:54

good. Classic, classic. I know that some of the things

14:56

we're gonna talk about, but I literally broke up with

14:58

my wife. It actually became a joke with her family.

15:00

I have no idea how I'm not dead today because

15:03

we dated for seven years and

15:06

every year I broke up with her at least one time.

15:08

Like it was seven times where I broke up there in

15:10

seven years. And but here's the crazy thing.

15:12

I know you and I are gonna be talking about like

15:14

things that happen like physically in our bodies

15:16

and conflict. And we kind of have this blueprint

15:18

of how we grew up and how we react

15:21

to different emotions. But here's the fascinating

15:23

thing when you and I were talking before we hit

15:25

record, some of the things you were saying to me

15:27

and some of the things we're gonna drop bombs on

15:29

the audience here is that I now

15:31

know being 20 years

15:34

ago, what was actually happening? I

15:36

just didn't know it from a conscious level.

15:38

So for me, when we would get into

15:40

an argument, like I really liked this girl,

15:42

like in my one in five years, I was

15:44

just like, oh my gosh, this is like the woman. But

15:47

in my mind, like I came from like this

15:49

broken home and saw so many broken relationships. And

15:51

like literally I was raised that you get married

15:53

for a while, then you get divorced,

15:56

then you move on to the next marriage, like that's how. So

15:58

when we would get in conflict, I would

16:01

just be like, well, we're done. If

16:03

we're not gonna work out, we're just done. Like,

16:06

and I didn't understand conflict resolution

16:08

or any of those things. So

16:10

anyway, that was my background. And

16:13

I see that actually

16:15

a lot with couples. They

16:18

have conflict and they just wanna give up or

16:20

they're done. But I'm

16:22

keen on your story because your relationship

16:26

with your wife, like it started out

16:28

great. You guys hit some roadblocks

16:31

and then it became like

16:33

the situation where you were walking on eggshells, probably

16:35

arguing about the same things. And then

16:37

you got really curious and started pursuing personal

16:40

development and trying to figure things out. But I would love

16:42

for you to just share with us, how

16:44

did this whole thing begin for you in your

16:46

own relationship? Yeah, that's, well,

16:50

awesome questions. And

16:53

there comes a point, I think in every

16:55

man's life where it's like, huh, maybe

16:57

it's me and

17:00

maybe I should be the one looking in the mirror.

17:02

And I would catch myself, after

17:05

like a couples counseling session, just

17:07

like reflecting on it, right? And

17:10

it was

17:12

the story that I was telling in my

17:14

head was it was always the other person's fault.

17:17

And that was like a through line, not just

17:19

in my marriage, but in my business, where

17:22

I was with my physical health, like where I

17:24

wanted to go in life. And

17:26

it was just, that's what it took was

17:28

finally just going, you know, maybe it is

17:30

me. And the crushing

17:33

effects of ego death

17:36

that happens after that, of

17:38

course it was helpful to have jujitsu

17:42

while I started kind of working through that.

17:45

And I'd say like the

17:47

turning point really was my dad passed in

17:50

2015 and I had

17:52

a serious back injury. And

17:55

that's when I was finally like, you know,

17:57

there's no more of this like playing the

17:59

victim. Like, if I'm

18:01

going to go for this, like, I

18:03

need to start doing things for me,

18:06

you know, instead of expecting

18:08

other people to know how to take care of

18:10

me and

18:12

basically being a victim of

18:15

circumstance, like, life is happening, you know,

18:17

to me rather than for me in a way.

18:21

So that's when I started training jujitsu. That's

18:24

when I started, you know, basically

18:26

taking responsibility for my actions, cleaning

18:28

up my side of the street in

18:31

a way and starting

18:33

to be more curious about, like, what's

18:35

actually going on here. Because

18:38

like you, you know, I didn't grow up

18:40

in a family where there was a lot

18:42

of healthy rupture and repair. And

18:44

I thought that every conflict and argument was

18:46

meant to be one. And

18:49

so, like, I was really good at winning

18:51

arguments. Or at least

18:54

I thought when really what I found

18:56

out is, like, winning an argument is

18:58

being able to thoroughly express and

19:01

understand where the other person is

19:03

coming from. And that's

19:05

the real win is when you can articulate

19:07

that back to your partner, see their side,

19:12

and you know, repair from the

19:14

situation as opposed to try to

19:16

win your right, she's

19:18

wrong, or whatever the circumstance may be.

19:21

And then you're left with no

19:24

conflict resolution, no repair, and

19:26

you get stuck in that cycle of

19:28

the same arguments over and over again,

19:30

which eventually leads to, you know, not

19:33

good stuff, especially in a long term

19:35

relationship. Wow. So,

19:39

I think a lot of people do that.

19:41

Why do we do that? That when conflict

19:43

arises, and I don't know if

19:45

it's instinct, I don't know if it's been

19:48

taught to us, but when conflict

19:50

arises, what usually is on the

19:52

forefront of our mind is I need to be

19:54

right. I don't even care about being effective. I

19:56

need to be right and I need to win.

20:00

One of the things that we do when we train our

20:02

guys when it comes to conflict resolution is what's

20:04

most important is you can be right,

20:07

right? But what's really important is

20:10

how do we both, her and

20:12

me, how do we be effective? But

20:15

do you think that that's just something that is

20:18

instinct in us as human beings that

20:20

if we're confronted with a fight, that

20:23

it's just we're going on

20:25

instinct that we have to win and it takes

20:27

actually a conscious decision to override that? Or

20:30

what do you think it is? Yeah,

20:32

I mean, that's really well

20:34

put and awesome question. And

20:36

I think to really, at least in my

20:39

opinion, fully understand that is like when

20:41

you wanna, what you wanna do is

20:43

start diving into actually your physiology of

20:45

what happens when you're in a conflict.

20:47

And for that, you need to understand

20:49

your nervous system. So

20:52

we have three main

20:54

categories of the states that we can

20:56

be in. And to simplify this, because

20:59

I like simple, think of an upside

21:01

down stoplight. So you've got green, you've

21:03

got yellow and red. Your

21:06

green and the nerdy

21:08

word would be your ventral vagal complex

21:11

is a state that you're in when you're in

21:13

joy and love and connection. You

21:15

feel safe in your environment, you wanna be

21:17

around people, you feel that

21:19

like you're connected to the infinite possibilities

21:21

of the universe. So again,

21:23

that's green. You have yellow, which

21:25

would be if you're experiencing

21:28

a threat, it's your

21:30

fight or flight response, it's the

21:33

sympathetic state of your nervous system

21:35

or mobilization where you

21:37

perceive something as, this

21:40

could potentially be dangerous, but

21:42

you also believe that you have the ability to

21:44

fight the thing or run away

21:46

from it. And this, the key

21:48

to this is it's your

21:50

physical, what's around you,

21:52

but also perceived things

21:54

in your head like thoughts, looks,

21:58

tones of voices, those. all

22:00

things can trigger you into this

22:02

sympathetic state. And then lastly, there's red,

22:04

which is the

22:07

dorsal vagal system, which

22:09

is shutdown immobilization. So

22:11

this is like sadness, depression, when

22:15

you're feeling like you just want to shut down.

22:17

And then going back to yellow, experiences

22:19

in fight or flight are like anger,

22:21

frustration, stress. So

22:25

when we think about the nervous

22:27

system with regards to conflict, a

22:29

lot of times what happens is

22:31

your nervous system gets trained over

22:33

time, right? Its job really is to

22:35

keep you safe. So it

22:37

learns based on your experiences, it

22:40

starts collecting data as early as when you

22:42

were born, there are actually

22:45

studies done of, you know, the

22:47

baby's stress response based on what

22:49

happens to the mom while you're

22:51

in the womb. So this whole

22:54

training, your nervous system actually happens

22:57

before you're even born. But certainly once

22:59

you get born, based on your environments,

23:02

based on your needs being met, based

23:05

on your learnings of, you

23:07

know, what you saw your caretakers do,

23:09

parents, grandparents, whoever was close

23:11

to you, you start collecting

23:13

data, right? And when

23:16

we finally get to the point where

23:18

we are in relationship with, you know,

23:20

friends, etc., certain

23:23

emotions come up, certain situations come

23:25

up that trigger

23:27

us into let's say a fight or flight

23:30

state, right? And

23:32

if that is just basic

23:34

conflict, and it is about

23:36

who takes out the trash, well, you

23:38

could go from an easy conversation into

23:40

an all out war. And the

23:43

key here is all of

23:45

this happens outside of your

23:47

conscious awareness. So when you talk about like, Oh,

23:50

is this like an instinct, it feels like an

23:52

instinct. And in a way

23:54

it is your body outside of your awareness

23:57

is putting you in a different state.

24:00

So where men kind of

24:02

get the short end of the stick is

24:04

generally speaking we are very heady

24:06

and Logical we do a

24:08

lot of like thinking and processing and

24:11

when things happen outside of your conscious awareness

24:15

The key is is actually what happens first

24:17

is you get like a body sensation? So

24:20

for example, if I experience a threat

24:22

something that's pretty privy to

24:24

me is like my chest starts getting tightened

24:27

Right. I get this tight feeling in my chest.

24:29

My breath starts getting shallow My heart rate goes

24:31

up which if you're not

24:33

in tuned with you know Physical sensations of

24:36

your body you can miss pretty easily and

24:39

then next thing you know If you do

24:41

miss those key signs, you know You're in

24:43

a full-on knockdown drag-out war with your wife

24:45

as opposed to like ooh I'm

24:47

a little upset about this and

24:49

here's the cool part When I

24:52

you know when you start working on this

24:54

one of the best questions to ask

24:56

yourself When you start to be

24:58

able to tune in on your physical sensations

25:01

with regards to when you're in a fight Ask

25:04

yourself is this feeling familiar? Right

25:08

when you're in a fight because a lot of times it is

25:10

right and a lot of times It's

25:12

so familiar that feeling was there

25:16

before You met your

25:18

wife Before you met your

25:20

partner Hmm

25:23

if that makes sense to you, so what

25:26

do we know about that if that feeling has been

25:28

there for that long This

25:30

isn't necessarily about her This

25:33

is about your belief about what is

25:35

happening which you you know Basically

25:38

that was formed when

25:40

you were younger based on your

25:42

experiences because again Your

25:44

nervous system is really really good

25:46

at collecting data right

25:50

and so Yeah, that's that's

25:52

really kind of like the the foundations

25:55

of the stuff that I do is just

25:57

like getting back in tune with that and

26:00

And like if I can say one more thing about

26:02

like what I meant by men are

26:04

at a disadvantage to this is

26:06

like generally speaking, the masculine

26:08

isn't necessarily allowed to have

26:11

emotions when they're younger. And

26:14

you know, you know, toughen up,

26:16

you know, suck it up kid. There's

26:19

there's there's there's generally not as

26:21

much leeway for men to experience

26:23

those body sensations and those emotions

26:25

that come along with having

26:28

a difficult experience as

26:31

women, right? So then

26:33

not only that, but you know, you get to a certain

26:35

age and now all of a sudden you have

26:38

peers that have all the

26:40

same sort of conditioning, where they weren't allowed

26:42

to have emotions as a kid. Now

26:44

you're older and you have emotions and they're all saying,

26:47

ha ha, look at this guy for having

26:49

emotions, right? So

26:52

it makes it even more difficult

26:54

to sit there and be with

26:56

certain things, right? You almost feel bad like,

26:58

oh, why do I have these feelings? I

27:01

shouldn't have these feelings. When

27:03

I have these feelings, it's not safe for me to

27:05

have these feelings, I'm going to push them away and

27:07

repress them or suppress them. But

27:10

what we resist persists. And

27:12

that's like, you know, face the storm

27:14

is the idea is like, hey, let's

27:17

stop running away from those feelings and

27:19

let's turn towards them. And

27:21

really, like, when you start to

27:23

think about conflict, the more you start to

27:26

build your capacity to be able to sit

27:28

with your own like, inner

27:30

storm, all those feelings, you'll

27:33

start to find that like, hey, they're just

27:35

feelings. And

27:37

there's a lot of wisdom stored in them.

27:40

And hey, by the way, the more I'm able

27:42

to like hold my own stuff, wow,

27:45

all of a sudden I can show up in my

27:47

marriage and my relationship. And like

27:49

when that emotion comes in from my wife, because

27:51

you know, I don't know about your

27:53

wife, but my wife has a few emotions, right?

27:57

Instead of that impacting me in a way

27:59

that brings up the past stuff, I'm

28:01

able to notice that, set

28:03

that aside, befriend it, and understand, hey,

28:06

that was the past. This is now.

28:09

That way, I can actually listen

28:12

to what's going on and have it

28:14

not be about me and have it

28:16

be about, hey, let's better understand the

28:18

situation. So I can understand you, you can understand me,

28:20

and we can have a happy marriage. It's

28:23

really fascinating that you talk about

28:26

these triggers physically

28:29

because I used

28:31

to ignore them. As

28:33

you say that, I'm very keenly aware

28:36

of them, but to be honest, until

28:38

this conversation, I didn't put the

28:40

two and two together. So

28:42

for instance, when

28:44

I'm triggered or

28:46

when I feel attacked, and

28:49

let's just say I get an email from, maybe it's

28:51

a nasty email from

28:55

an audience member. Luckily,

28:57

that rarely happens.

29:00

So we get a lot of love in our community

29:03

and in our podcast, which is good, but every now

29:05

and again, you get some haters out there. Or

29:09

the conflict I'll have with my wife

29:11

or my kids. Another one was,

29:13

this was actually

29:18

about a year ago. So I put

29:20

something out on social media, on

29:23

Instagram, and it got something

29:25

ridiculous, like four million views, like this

29:28

one reel. The day

29:30

that it happened, so the recording that it was

29:32

from, my very

29:34

best friend, one of my business partners within

29:36

Dad Edge tragically lost his daughter, a 19

29:40

year old daughter in a car accident.

29:42

Like literally, like I'm

29:44

sitting there. This was Valentine's

29:46

Day of last year. It was right

29:49

at the beginning of February because it

29:51

was a Valentine's Day celebration. And I get

29:53

this text message from my best friend and one

29:55

of my partners within Dad Edge. And

29:57

he stated the name of it. He said, my

30:00

beautiful daughter has died.

30:04

And I didn't believe it at first. I

30:06

was like, what? I was like, this

30:08

is a sick joke, man. And

30:10

I just replied back to him and I just said,

30:13

Jason, this is really heavy.

30:15

Are you being serious? And he's a jokester.

30:18

Are you being serious right now or are you

30:20

joking? He's like, I

30:22

wish I was joking. She was just getting on a car

30:24

accident. And I was like, and

30:26

like literally like you just, I

30:29

felt like this physical reaction that

30:31

I have when I'm

30:33

faced with conflict or whatever.

30:35

And I felt it then, but let me get

30:37

to the story. So the very next day I

30:39

had this podcast interview and I had managed to

30:41

talk to my friend and

30:43

he was, this was before the podcast, he

30:46

was a wreck man. Like a

30:49

wreck. In fact, over the past year, I

30:52

don't know if I've ever seen a human being go

30:55

through as much pain as my friend,

30:57

Jason. Just

30:59

the evolution and the experiences

31:01

of dealing with that

31:03

loss of your daughter is just

31:06

overwhelming. Father's worst nightmare. But

31:08

anyway, that morning I had a podcast interview

31:12

on a really big show and I was

31:14

really fiery. And I

31:16

was just kind of like, I was upset. My

31:18

friend had such a horrible loss. I

31:20

was angry for him. I was sad and just

31:22

trying to comfort him. And I was just sort

31:24

of like, I was numb, I was

31:27

fiery and I just was, right? So

31:29

this, I was on a

31:31

podcast called The Citizen with Dan Holloway and

31:33

he's just a great dude. And he asked

31:35

me this question like, what

31:37

do dads do wrong to connect with their kids? And

31:40

I said, I go, you know what? The heart

31:42

of a man is good, but what we do is we

31:45

ask really shitty questions. Shitty and we

31:47

don't even know it. He's like, well, give

31:49

me an example. I was like, one of the shittiest questions you

31:51

can ask your kid is how was your day? Because

31:54

you're gonna get the same crappy answer, man. Like

31:56

it's gonna be good, it's gonna be fine, it's

31:58

gonna be busy, it's gonna be whatever, right? They

32:00

don't really care. No brain power to ask the

32:02

question, no brain power to answer it. The very

32:05

thing that we want, connection, doesn't happen. I

32:07

was like, if you really wanna elevate the connection with

32:09

your kids, ask your kids, what was

32:11

the best part of your day? Tell

32:14

me something that challenged you today. How

32:16

did you overcome it? These different questions

32:18

that create that connection that we want.

32:20

But here's what, so he posted it

32:22

on social media. It got all

32:25

these views, like four million views, and it has over

32:27

2,000 comments on it. And

32:31

so many people were bashing.

32:33

I mean, there was a lot of good there. They'd be like, oh, I never

32:35

really thought of that. That's really good. Yeah, that is

32:37

great. Some people were like, what do

32:39

you mean? That's the shittiest question on the planet.

32:42

It's not Shash, man. Like, and then just rage

32:44

come out in people, right? Like,

32:46

I find like, you know, I'm

32:49

like reading that and I'm

32:51

like triggered by it, but it's also

32:53

the same triggering that happens that if my wife and

32:55

I get into a disagreement with

32:57

her or my kids do, what happens to me physically is I

32:59

literally feel like tension

33:03

and tingles like in my neck

33:05

and even like in my shoulders, right?

33:07

And then I sense like this

33:10

overwhelming feeling that trickles down the bottom of

33:12

the base of my skull

33:15

through my neck and through my shoulders. Like I

33:17

feel like this sensation. I don't know where

33:19

it comes from, but here's the interesting thing. As

33:21

you said that, a lot of

33:23

times when I was growing up and

33:25

things were bad, like I said, there

33:28

was a lot of chaos growing up. I've

33:31

now realized that I had those sensations

33:33

even back then. I didn't even put

33:35

the two together until you just said

33:37

that. Wow, that's so

33:39

powerful and thank you for sharing that.

33:41

And I'm so sorry for your friend, Jason, that it

33:44

sounds unbearable

33:46

to a degree. I'm glad that

33:48

he's got awesome support like you and

33:51

dead edge people around him for that. Thank

33:54

you. That's so cool. But

33:56

you mentioned something else in there that I want to dig

33:59

a little deeper on. and that is if you're

34:01

in the masculine, so I had this father, I

34:03

had a dad from the ages of four to

34:05

10 and he was

34:07

ex-military and anytime I'm four or five, six

34:09

year old kid, you cry, stop.

34:14

Only men don't cry,

34:16

only babies cry, stop it. And

34:19

I remember that vividly, man. And

34:21

even to this day, being in

34:23

my 40s, if

34:26

I feel sadness and

34:29

even though I teach this stuff, all

34:31

day long, there's a part of

34:33

me that's like, I shouldn't feel this way, what's wrong with me?

34:37

If we've been married for any amount of

34:39

time, we experience from time to time that

34:41

we don't really have these deep

34:44

conversations that we used to when we

34:46

first started dating. It's totally normal, but

34:48

I can guarantee you, it doesn't have

34:50

to be the norm. Many

34:52

of us want to get to know our wives,

34:54

we want to connect, we want to communicate, we

34:56

want to actually build intimacy through conversation. And it's

34:58

been a while since we've usually done that if

35:01

we've been married for any amount of time. I

35:03

know I went through that in the first 10 years of my

35:05

marriage, but what I can tell you is over the past

35:08

10 years, my

35:10

marriage has gotten better and better and better.

35:13

And it's because I have become

35:15

a better conversationalist and

35:18

that's not by just winging it. I had

35:20

to learn how to do it. And

35:22

now I'm actually going to share this

35:24

training with you guys, it's completely and totally

35:27

free. It's called 25 Intimate Conversation Starters.

35:29

It's a video training as well as

35:31

a PDF of 25 intimate conversation starters

35:33

and questions that you and your wife

35:36

can go back and forth with on

35:38

a date night or just sitting on the

35:40

deck or just sipping a glass

35:42

of wine together, whatever it is. And

35:44

what I can tell you is if

35:47

you use these questions, it will build

35:49

intimacy, it will build connection, it will

35:51

create a deeper connection within your marriage.

35:53

Head on over to thedatedge.com/25 questions. Again,

35:57

thedatedge.com/25 questions. Take

36:00

the video training, download the PDF, go

36:03

back and forth, use it as a conversation

36:05

with you and your wife and just enjoy

36:07

the connection. Alright, back to the show. Even

36:11

to this day, being in

36:13

my 40s, if I feel

36:15

sadness and even though I teach

36:18

this stuff all day long,

36:20

there's a part of me that's like, I shouldn't feel

36:22

this way. What's wrong with me? Yeah, that makes

36:25

sense. Yeah. Yeah. Why

36:27

do we do that? That makes perfect sense. Yeah.

36:30

So, whenever we are younger,

36:33

one of the most important things to

36:35

understand is like we do

36:37

not have a fully formed prefrontal

36:40

cortex. So for

36:43

the people that don't know what that is, it's basically

36:45

the smart part of your brain. It's

36:47

responsible for like all of

36:49

your executive functioning, delayed gratification,

36:52

impulse control, your ability to

36:54

discern, you know, like decision

36:56

making, all the things and

36:58

appraisal of situations,

37:01

but also appraisal of

37:03

emotions or the feelings about

37:06

like what the situation really is. And

37:10

why that's so important is because

37:12

when you have an experience when

37:14

you're young without the prefrontal cortex,

37:17

let's say in your situation where

37:19

you experience deep grief or sadness,

37:21

right? And the person that

37:24

is supposed to be your caretaker wasn't

37:26

able to attune to being able

37:29

to allow those feelings probably because

37:31

it wasn't allowed for him. But

37:34

what your nervous system learned was,

37:36

ooh, Larry, you better

37:38

not feel sadness again because that was

37:40

too much. Yeah. Right?

37:44

Sure. And so we hold

37:46

that belief forever because it becomes stored

37:48

in our bodies, right?

37:51

You know, those feelings, those physical

37:53

sensations. So

37:56

you have this, again, Record

37:58

of your whole life. Of

38:01

that. And so it makes perfect

38:03

sense to me that a part of you

38:05

feels like. You. Don't. You.

38:07

Shouldn't experience sadness because it hasn't been

38:09

safe. Now there's probably another part of

38:11

you like you had mentioned like hey,

38:14

I teach this. Like. I

38:17

you know sadness is okay. like

38:19

it's. Emotions are bad.

38:21

All emotions If there was a bad

38:23

emotion over the last however many hundreds

38:26

of millions of years that we exist,

38:28

that as a human species like. Emotions

38:31

would have like evolutionarily been.

38:34

Ah, Gone right.

38:38

But instead the the healing part is been

38:40

able to go back and be there for

38:43

your. Four. Or five year old self

38:45

and actually. Allow that sadness.

38:48

For you and. Take your

38:50

ventral to that, reappraise that

38:52

with your prefrontal cortex and

38:54

away of like hey, It's.

38:57

Okay, to be sad, I see you four

38:59

your old part of me. And

39:02

allow that sadness. And

39:04

really. Start.

39:06

To tie trait the. Safety.

39:09

Of feeling sadness like oh, it's okay

39:11

to feel sad. It's. Scary.

39:13

There's apartments. Really afraid to feel

39:15

the sadness because it wasn't okay.

39:18

right? To this: emotions really big.

39:21

And. The thing about this what's really

39:23

important as is when we experience something

39:25

like that. Like the your

39:28

therapist and doctors would call out like

39:30

little T trauma and away. His.

39:33

We. Fracture when we haven't experienced such

39:35

overwhelming and that part of us can

39:37

to get stuck in the past. right?

39:40

So that's why it's like you

39:42

haven't experienced now and really want

39:45

to trigger is is an experience

39:47

of the past and present. So.

39:49

Your body. Is real, Live

39:52

in the past and away. In

39:54

the present moment because it thinks this

39:57

thing is gonna happen. does

39:59

that make sense So

40:01

the key is, yeah, the

40:03

key is being able to go back to those younger

40:05

parts of us and show them that

40:08

it is safe to experience

40:11

sadness, slowly but surely.

40:16

So let me ask you this, I'm just being

40:18

devil's advocate here. And I'm

40:20

being devil's advocate because I think there's

40:22

probably men in the audience who

40:24

are genuinely curious about this one and so am

40:27

I. Here's

40:31

the question, I'm gonna butcher it, but I'm gonna try to

40:33

get it out there the best I can. So

40:36

still to this day, I still

40:39

have a problem with that. Like and

40:41

it's something that quite frankly has been one of the

40:43

hardest things for me to overcome. Yeah.

40:46

So for

40:48

instance, if I

40:50

feel sadness, or

40:53

you know what, let's take it a step further. If

40:55

I feel fear, like

40:57

if I'm actually fearful about

40:59

something like, oh my

41:02

gosh, like, and let's take

41:04

out the fact whether I think it's

41:06

actually real or not, right? Because some

41:08

of our fears are just not quite

41:10

frankly, they feel real but

41:12

if we look at the

41:14

breadcrumbs and we look at proof, you know,

41:17

is this thing going to happen or is

41:19

it just maybe my anxiety is just getting

41:21

out of whack, right? Yep. So

41:24

let's just say the feeling of fear. I

41:27

can't even tell you how difficult it is.

41:30

Like I can actually, it's

41:32

easier for me to

41:36

look another trusted man in the eye that I

41:38

trust that I have a conversation with and can

41:41

say, you know what man, I'm kinda, I gotta

41:43

be honest. I'm kinda scared

41:45

right now. Yeah. Because

41:47

I don't know what the future holds for this, this or

41:49

this. I'm just kinda freaking out about it. Yeah.

41:52

But here's the crazy thing. My

41:55

wife and I have like this incredibly

41:57

close relationship and we

41:59

have, for a long time and my wife would

42:01

be like, you

42:03

better feel really okay to tell me that stuff because

42:06

I want you to. But she's

42:08

like sometimes she's the

42:11

last person that I'll tell. And

42:13

I'll have like this kind

42:16

of front that I have where she'll be

42:18

like, is everything okay? Yep, everything's fine. I'm

42:20

good, fine. She's like, are you

42:22

sure? Because you're not really acting on yourself. No, I'm

42:24

fine, just I'm good. Or I'll say this, I

42:26

have a lot going on in my mind right now. And

42:30

she'll be like, you wanna talk about it? No, I'm good, I'm

42:32

good. And then here's the thing. I'll

42:35

finally go and have a conversation with her

42:37

about something I'm stressed out or fearful of

42:39

or whatever. And I'll do it in a very masculine

42:42

way. Like I'll simply say,

42:44

you know what? You asked me a while

42:46

ago what's on my mind. And to

42:49

be honest, I've had a lot of things on my

42:51

mind. This one in particular, here's this, this and this.

42:53

Thought a lot about it, not exactly sure what to do

42:55

about it. But that's what's really

42:58

going on for me. So I don't sob or weep

43:00

or anything like

43:02

that that doesn't feel right

43:04

for me. And

43:07

then of course, she's always like, well, I'm

43:10

so glad you told me, let's talk about it. And she

43:12

receives it just fine. But there's

43:14

still that part of me that, well,

43:17

she knows that I'm fearing this, will that make

43:19

her feel fearful? And if she feels fearful, how

43:22

am I supposed to console her if I'm the

43:24

one who feels this way? And

43:26

is she gonna look at me like I'm weak, I

43:28

can't handle it. Is she gonna look at me like

43:31

unattractive, like all these really dumb things. And like I

43:33

said, I've known her for 28 years. All

43:36

the proof always leads to back to the same thing. I'm

43:38

so glad you told me. I feel way more connected to

43:41

you now that you've told me. And

43:43

it actually elevates our intimacy, but I never,

43:46

it's like I'm stuck that way sometimes. So

43:51

your specific question is

43:54

why does that happen? Yeah, it's like why,

43:56

even though I... on

44:00

a conscious level, like I know better. Yeah.

44:02

But my instincts always want to fall back to like,

44:05

Oh no, no, don't let her in. Yeah. Great

44:07

question. There's a lot to unpack there.

44:10

Um, and I'll start with most

44:13

of us, like you said

44:15

stuck, right? I'm stuck here. And

44:17

like the latest neuroscience

44:19

would say that the reasons

44:22

why someone stuck is

44:24

because you're either avoiding or

44:27

fearful of feeling certain

44:29

feelings. Right. And there's

44:31

really only seven categories

44:33

of feelings that people are like

44:36

afraid of feeling one of

44:38

them is like that sympathetic state. So,

44:41

you know, anger, stress, you know, asserting

44:43

yourself. So that would be

44:45

like associated with fear. The other one would

44:48

be like a dorsal, a

44:50

shutdown. So sadness and grief. And

44:53

then they're afraid of feeling the

44:55

green feelings, the ventral feelings of

44:57

attachment and closeness with being in

44:59

social relationship with people. And

45:01

then there's sexual feelings, depending on how you're

45:03

raised again. There's a lot of, um, stuff

45:07

that can happen in your childhood where, you

45:09

know, you have different feelings about that. Positive

45:12

feelings towards yourself is

45:15

the fifth one. And then interest and

45:17

excitement. So like when you're excited about

45:19

something you're interested in, how have people

45:21

responded to you? And the last one

45:24

is, it's just like, Hey, you're enjoying life and you're

45:26

in a state of joy and like,

45:29

what's your relationship to that?

45:32

So I would say that that

45:35

makes really good sense to me. Why

45:37

when you experience a fear feeling,

45:39

that would be like a sympathetic

45:41

response feeling, and I would

45:43

ask you like in the past, has

45:46

it ever been safe for you to, when

45:49

you had a fear, take it to

45:51

somebody and have it met with safety

45:54

or curiosity or help or,

45:57

you know, attunement. Okay,

46:01

well it would make it was the opposite,

46:03

you know, it's so it was

46:05

met with like if it was

46:07

my father It'd be like man

46:10

up like what's wrong with you? Yeah. Yeah,

46:12

if it was my mom depending

46:14

on the situation It

46:16

was is sometimes sometimes I'm not gonna say

46:19

all the time because there were sometimes my

46:21

mom would be very caring Yeah,

46:23

but there are other times where she'd be like what's wrong

46:25

with you? Yeah, how dare

46:27

you even think that or how what's

46:29

wrong? Why would you feel that way?

46:32

Right? Yeah, you're just like a kid

46:34

and then I mean dude, I remember

46:36

like being like a

46:38

teenager I think I was probably like really it

46:40

was like early on in high school Like

46:42

I remember like consciously making the decision. I

46:45

ain't saying shit to these people anymore Yeah,

46:48

I'm not if my mom asked me

46:51

anything that's going on. My response is

46:53

everything's fine Period. Yeah, and

46:55

now that's what I did and I feel

46:58

like this turning into a counseling session But I'm sure

47:00

this is common. No, dude, it's so

47:02

common bro and like thanks for sharing all

47:04

that and It it

47:06

makes perfect sense You have like what I

47:09

heard you say is like you have these

47:11

like intense feelings of fear anxiety stress Whatever

47:13

it is you take it to the people

47:15

that are responsible for you and you

47:18

know again at that age We don't have

47:20

a prefrontal cortex. So we don't have the

47:22

ability to like regulate our emotions Right.

47:25

It's like kids when they get overwhelmed even

47:27

though they're excited. They'll just like hit you

47:29

in the face, right? It's

47:31

not that they're bad. It's like they don't know

47:33

what to do with all this crazy energy So

47:36

it's like your responsibility as dad and

47:38

mom to be like, oh, wow. My

47:40

son is having a sympathetic experience right

47:42

now Whatever it is

47:44

I need to ask questions figure out which emotion it

47:47

is so I can figure out how to be there

47:49

for you and like going

47:51

back to what you said you're like, I You

47:54

know, I know in my head and my thoughts

47:56

that this is not right, but I feel this

47:58

way and like I don't know And

48:01

maybe even sometimes you feel bad about feeling

48:03

that way. Well, going back

48:05

to our green, yellow, and red, being

48:07

triggered outside of your unconscious or

48:10

your conscious awareness, what happens is

48:12

when we get triggered, our

48:15

smart part of our brain shuts off. So

48:18

we go into subcortical

48:21

brain, limbic system. The

48:23

fight-or-flight response is below and outside

48:26

of our conscious awareness. So

48:28

it would make sense if you think a certain

48:30

thing, but you feel a certain way. It's because

48:32

you are in those instincts that you talked about

48:35

and your body keeps the score. Your body

48:37

stores this information. It's

48:40

like I just did my own little podcast

48:43

on like change your thoughts, change your life, and

48:46

why I like that's so difficult to do is

48:48

because most people try to

48:50

do that from like a yellow or a red state.

48:52

So if you were in yellow, change

48:54

your thoughts, change your life, happens when you

48:56

have green on board and you have your

48:58

prefrontal cortex online and you can reappraise old

49:01

emotions and old feelings. So

49:03

it makes perfect sense to me. Your

49:05

whole story makes perfect sense to me, but

49:07

especially like, man, I know this

49:09

to be a true, but guess what? There's a

49:11

part of you that's like, can

49:14

I cuss on this podcast? Yeah. Okay.

49:16

The fuck it is, bro. I

49:19

made this decision when I was 13 years

49:21

old. We're never gonna do this again.

49:24

So what I would suggest

49:28

is like the next time you feel those

49:30

body sensations, you can even acknowledge it and

49:32

be like, oh dude, there's there's

49:34

13 year old Larry, name it.

49:37

Like and then you'll

49:39

be surprised like when

49:41

you name it and you actually acknowledge it and

49:43

you welcome it, like there's a saying that,

49:46

you know, my mentor taught me, it's like all

49:48

parts welcome. Right? They're

49:50

all there for a reason and most

49:53

of us spend a lot of our lives

49:55

trying to get rid of them, like push

49:57

them away. You're not welcome. Like I

49:59

don't know. want to feel this way, but

50:01

the problem is, is like, again, what you

50:03

resist persists. There's no way to get away

50:05

from that storm. You have

50:08

to face it. You have to welcome it. And

50:10

actually, the way that I like to

50:12

think about it the best and what really like changed

50:14

my thoughts around this is like, so

50:16

remember when I said when you have an

50:18

overwhelming experience and it fractures off and you

50:20

remain in that, like a part of you

50:23

just like freezes. So you

50:25

only when you get triggered outside of your conscious

50:27

awareness, and let's say you're in yellow and red,

50:30

you only have the resources that you

50:32

did at that time of the experience

50:34

that your nervous system is perceiving in

50:36

the present. So, you know,

50:38

I'm 37 years old, but if there's something that

50:40

happens to me, and I get into yellow and

50:42

red, and I don't have awareness to it, I

50:45

could be operating from like a 12 year

50:47

old, right? Like we

50:50

all know that like raising our voices

50:52

and yelling at each other is not

50:54

productive, right? Can we agree

50:56

with that? But we see

50:58

men and adults doing it

51:00

all the time. That's because outside of their

51:02

conscious awareness, they're typically triggered

51:04

into a younger part. And there's like two

51:07

12 year olds fighting that have no idea

51:09

that the smart part of their brain is

51:11

shut off. Does

51:14

that make sense? It does. And

51:17

so I, my

51:19

feet are firmly planted with what you're saying,

51:22

you know, what we resist persists. Here's

51:24

the interesting thing, at almost 1200

51:26

episodes, like I've never had anybody put this

51:28

together like you are, which I really, really

51:30

appreciate. I love this, this

51:33

visionary exercise of, if I

51:36

could go back, like man, like if

51:39

I could literally go back to my six year old

51:41

self, yeah, you know, crying

51:43

and like I remember, like I remember what my

51:45

room look like, I remember what my dad's face

51:48

look like when he was nose and nose with me,

51:50

what his brows smelled like. I remember

51:52

all that stuff vividly when he's like,

51:55

shut your mouth. Baby don't

51:57

cry. Grown men don't cry. You

51:59

don't cry. You know and I

52:01

remember like holding back tears being like

52:03

and like I remember actually what it

52:05

felt like as a kid To

52:07

try to physically hold back tears. It's like

52:10

darn near impossible I think when

52:12

you're older like probably work that muscle a

52:14

little more But like if

52:17

I were to have a conversation with

52:19

my six-year-old self I

52:21

would wait till my dad left the room and

52:23

then I'd be like listen man. This is me from the future Yeah,

52:26

40 years from from now don't

52:28

buy into one word that guy just said Yeah,

52:31

like where you're at where you fit what you're

52:33

feeling emotions are neither bad nor good They just

52:36

are if you're sad then just be sad. It's

52:38

okay to be sad, right? It's okay

52:40

for a little boy to cry like

52:42

don't ever don't ever think any

52:44

differently of that I think if

52:46

I would have had somebody at least saying like

52:48

hey what you're feeling

52:50

is okay I think I would

52:53

have had just a different experience with it

52:56

Oh, dude night and day and

52:58

do you want to hear the good news? Yeah, it's

53:01

like you can do that now. I Mean

53:04

you did such an amazing job of that

53:07

just like in the last 15 seconds And

53:10

I would like highly suggest when it feels

53:12

right if it feels right to you

53:14

know I don't know if you have

53:16

a mindfulness practice Meditation

53:20

you can sit there and you can connect with that

53:22

you can again a lot

53:24

of stuff that I teach guys to do is

53:26

like connect with the part by

53:30

Noticing where it's most presenting in your body

53:33

Like where is that physical sensation feel

53:35

into that? Close your

53:38

eyes and then you can replay all that watch

53:41

your six-year-old self go through that

53:43

and Then like turn

53:45

to him because there's a part of you that

53:48

knows like you just so beautifully put exactly what

53:50

that kid needed to say and Just

53:52

know that every time there's a physical

53:55

sensation that comes up. It

53:57

is that part trying to get your attention So

54:01

tying this into, you know, that practice

54:03

that I was talking about and the

54:05

thing that changed my thoughts

54:07

about how

54:10

to start paying attention is like when you

54:12

feel that physical sensation, think

54:14

of it like this. Think of it like your six-year-old

54:16

self is reaching up to your shirt and kind of

54:18

tugging on you, right? Hey, I need you right

54:21

now, right? How old are you,

54:23

Larry? Like,

54:27

hey, 48-year-old needs

54:29

me right now, basically. And

54:32

just by turning towards it and acknowledging

54:34

it, again, like, hey, this

54:36

feeling is welcome. Like

54:39

that is going to bring you

54:41

so much relief because when

54:43

you think about it, that

54:45

part of you has been protecting you from something,

54:47

right? Protecting you from experiencing

54:49

an emotion that wasn't okay for you

54:52

to experience for 42 years

54:54

now. So

54:56

I could only imagine if you

54:58

did this, the amount of relief that

55:01

you might feel knowing that, hey, that

55:03

six-year-old part doesn't have to do

55:05

the job of protecting

55:07

you from sadness, right?

55:10

And the same goes for any

55:12

other of those like real hard emotions that

55:15

I talked about, those big seven. And

55:17

really, because there's a part of us in every person

55:21

that's big enough to hold everything

55:23

that we've experienced. I truly believe.

55:26

And when we are able to start

55:28

being more conscious, like, and

55:30

again, one of the things that I highly suggest

55:33

is a mindfulness practice so

55:35

that you can start tuning into your

55:37

body and not to like zen out

55:39

and like not have any thoughts because

55:41

that's not possible, but just start to

55:43

learn like, hey, what kinds

55:45

of things do I think about? What does my body

55:47

do when I think about these things? Or

55:50

like when you have an argument where you

55:52

feel an activation or a reflex, it's

55:55

like, oof, man, I'm starting to notice I

55:57

have consistent, Like you said,

55:59

like neck pain. like right from the

56:01

you you you are so articulate with

56:03

it. From the bottom of your head

56:05

down to your neck it's like that

56:08

is at something trying to get your

56:10

attention because it's perceiving something in your

56:12

environment. As a threat. And.

56:15

It has had to protect you

56:17

from that threats for ever since

56:19

it was born. Basically the original

56:22

incident, let's just say that it

56:24

noticed your nervous system was overwhelmed

56:26

by an experience. Most.

56:29

Of us until the age of twenty

56:31

five, don't have a fully formed prefrontal

56:33

cortex. Probably a lot of us have

56:36

these experiences. And now that

56:38

you know you're older and you have

56:40

a prefrontal. You. Can

56:42

start going back to those situations.

56:45

Dropping into it and then

56:47

helping your your yourself unburden

56:49

the responsibility to really have

56:52

to have such a visceral

56:54

reaction like us matic body

56:56

reaction to certain emotions and

56:58

over time slowly but surely

57:00

your body. Luckily.

57:02

We have this thing called neuroplasticity.

57:05

Which. Which means basically are neurons

57:07

can form new pathways, right? Not to

57:09

sit at? The old ones aren't there,

57:11

right? Because you know relapse rights. You

57:13

can have new patterns. The.

57:16

Old ones are still there and

57:18

we can show ourselves through experiences

57:20

where we have a big emotional

57:22

reaction. Weekend. Combat,

57:24

take deep breaths and realize oh shit

57:27

like I'm triggered right now and just

57:29

saying that and know to seen it.

57:32

Allows for your prefrontal to come

57:34

online for you to be able

57:36

to like, stay grounded in a

57:38

moment, to be able to like,

57:40

maybe reappraise the situation, and maybe

57:43

consider hey, Weren't. Feeling

57:45

and what I'm thinking is happening might

57:47

not actually be happening. Is

57:49

the stealing familiar? yet? is. Oh man. I feel

57:51

like I'm six years old right now. Okay,

57:54

What? Would my six year old self need to hear

57:56

and steal from me and see for me? To

57:59

feel safe, So that I

58:01

can take the responsibility from him To say

58:03

it's not, then it's now. And.

58:06

Show him. That. It's okay

58:08

to experience these emotions slowly but

58:10

surely. baby steps, iteration little drops

58:12

at a time. You know you

58:14

would want to go into the

58:16

gym and just lift hundred pound

58:18

dumbbells, right? Started. Twenty Five's

58:20

you know, forty pass it and eventually

58:22

work your way up for that sort

58:25

of the that process. Do.

58:27

You find that. Just and

58:30

Real. Just and having this conversation with

58:32

you. I. Could

58:34

see this. This

58:36

technique right out of basically going back.

58:38

And what? Isn't this? What did? What'd

58:40

this kid need to hear it this

58:42

time when he spit out this room

58:44

there there I can see without a

58:46

doubt how healing. Us Eve.

58:49

You literally just become your own,

58:51

your own hero. Or. Yes And

58:53

yes. And the very thing that you

58:55

needed to hear in that moment when

58:57

you're younger. Absolutely

58:59

As you're talking. I.

59:03

Can actually see how this would help

59:05

in real time. As. Well my

59:07

god. So for instance, if I was going

59:09

to like a tough time. I. Lowered

59:12

the void. The version of me.

59:16

A. Year to from now. Tell me Right

59:18

now. Rain. Or

59:20

like, how would I challenge myself in some

59:22

way, shape or form, like stepping outside yourself,

59:25

to basically getting out of your head. right?

59:28

There and almost. Guiding

59:32

you are encouraging you from

59:34

an outside perspective. To

59:36

worry like if if you had your best

59:38

friend come to you at the same things where

59:40

would you tell him rights to throws things

59:42

that I think a lot of men fall

59:44

into a trap of. It's like we can give

59:46

insane li amazing advice to somebody else. Yeah,

59:48

but don't give an exact same situation where

59:50

are not in our own head. can we do

59:53

the same most a time frames know. Absolutely

59:56

And like. that

59:59

but that one more point that I'll make, well,

1:00:01

I'll probably make a few more. But the

1:00:03

thing about when we experience those things when

1:00:05

we're younger is like we

1:00:08

have a very egocentric like

1:00:10

understanding of the world. And what

1:00:13

I mean by that is like if there's

1:00:15

something hectic going on in our environment, if

1:00:17

our parents are upset at each other, if

1:00:19

we have like big emotions and like they're

1:00:22

shunned or not attuned to, instead

1:00:24

of being able to realize like, oh wow, you

1:00:26

know, my parents aren't really attuning to me or

1:00:28

like, hey, that was like really tough, but you

1:00:30

know, I know enough about life to know death

1:00:33

happens and all the things. We

1:00:35

just go right to, oh, if

1:00:37

something's wrong, it's probably my fault

1:00:40

and I'm bad. And so, especially

1:00:43

men, again, going back to what I first started

1:00:45

about with like we just don't talk about our

1:00:47

feelings. We don't talk about all

1:00:49

these things. We have a lifetime of

1:00:52

feeling that shame and that

1:00:54

guilt and that, you know, we have

1:00:56

our own worst inner critic and like

1:00:59

we harp on ourselves, right? But

1:01:01

like really, and why why

1:01:04

this information was so healing for me,

1:01:07

it's like it's just you

1:01:10

make perfect sense that this is you. What

1:01:13

you're doing is you're going through an

1:01:16

adaptive response to

1:01:18

emotions that were unsafe and

1:01:21

you are doing the best you can with what you

1:01:23

know to keep yourself

1:01:25

in regulation, right? So what

1:01:28

I mean by that is, is we

1:01:30

all have different coping strategies, right?

1:01:33

When we don't feel good, there's something that

1:01:35

we do to feel good. But

1:01:37

the problem is, is a lot of us, we

1:01:41

make decisions from a yellow or

1:01:43

red state without green online and

1:01:45

we're so uncomfortable being in that

1:01:47

anger, aggression, anxiety, or

1:01:50

sadness, or grief, we will

1:01:52

do, you know, we'll buy,

1:01:54

you know, binge eat, we'll buy

1:01:56

things off Amazon, we'll use substances,

1:01:58

we'll do basic basically anything to

1:02:01

not feel those feelings. Again, going back

1:02:03

to those big seven. And

1:02:06

what's so important to know is it's like, hey, dude, you're

1:02:09

doing the best you can with what you got. And like,

1:02:12

look how resourceful you've been this

1:02:14

far. And it's like, you

1:02:16

are just going basically, you're

1:02:18

just doing the best you can to get back to green.

1:02:22

The way that you know how the way that you

1:02:24

were shown by people in your life. And

1:02:27

there is a better way. Once

1:02:29

you start to understand like what's actually going

1:02:32

on in your body, you're like, Oh, I'm

1:02:34

just experiencing stress, or I'm

1:02:36

just experiencing sadness, or I'm trying

1:02:38

to avoid feeling sadness.

1:02:41

And then not only can you bring those, you

1:02:44

know, go to those parts

1:02:46

of you that aren't capable of experience

1:02:48

that or have experiences where those emotions

1:02:50

are too much. The

1:02:52

best part is, is like you want to

1:02:54

get into co regulation.

1:02:57

So all of the stuff that I'm

1:02:59

talking about is actually rooted in a

1:03:01

neuroscience called polyvagal theory. And

1:03:04

there's three foundational things.

1:03:06

There's understanding neuroception, which

1:03:08

is that triggering out of your unconscious

1:03:11

awareness or conscious awareness, it's

1:03:13

called neuroception is kind of like your radar. And

1:03:16

like they've done brain scans, one

1:03:19

100th of a second, your body is

1:03:21

scanning for stuff, right? So

1:03:23

there's that concept, there's the stoplight

1:03:26

of the hierarchy, the green, yellow and

1:03:28

red. And then the last thing is,

1:03:30

is co regulation or togetherness. Unfortunately,

1:03:33

for us avoidance, it's like,

1:03:35

we are budget biologically wired

1:03:38

for connection. Okay, so

1:03:40

and like, to your point, going

1:03:42

back to like, hey, when I finally brought this

1:03:45

to my wife, or I brought this difficult thing

1:03:47

to a friend, and we were able

1:03:49

to pitch and catch about it, man,

1:03:51

I felt so much better. It's because

1:03:53

you're, you're bringing that togetherness. And

1:03:55

there's a level of safety that

1:03:59

happens when you have somebody that you trust,

1:04:01

it's like social baseline theory tells

1:04:03

us, like, when we are gonna like at

1:04:05

the bottom of the hill, and we look

1:04:07

up and it's steep, right? If

1:04:10

there's somebody next to us, that like

1:04:12

we love or we trust, or like we, you

1:04:14

know, they're part of our lives, we

1:04:17

look up at that same hill, it's not,

1:04:19

it doesn't seem as hard. Excuse

1:04:24

me, that makes total sense. You

1:04:26

know, that I can understand why

1:04:28

this is so

1:04:30

healing. And now that you're bringing this to

1:04:32

the surface, I can understand probably

1:04:35

why people react the way that they do, you know,

1:04:37

they fight and argue the way that they

1:04:39

do. One thing that we always say in

1:04:42

our community is how

1:04:44

someone is operating, it makes total

1:04:46

sense to them. Yeah, whether

1:04:49

we think it's crazy, or ludicrous

1:04:51

or whatever, it's like that person just

1:04:53

did that. Well, they did that because

1:04:55

it makes total sense for them to

1:04:57

do that. For sure. You know, and

1:05:00

but it's fascinating to me that a lot, you know, if

1:05:04

you take something like

1:05:06

marriage, and you have two totally

1:05:09

different people from two

1:05:11

totally different life experiences, and

1:05:14

their blueprint is

1:05:16

so different, you know, oh, yeah,

1:05:18

and their experience and how they experience

1:05:20

the world is fascinating.

1:05:23

You want to hear kind of an interesting story

1:05:25

to really kind of hit the thumb. So my

1:05:28

wife, she grew up Catholic.

1:05:31

Our family is Catholic, I grew up Catholic as well.

1:05:34

There was a while there, we,

1:05:36

we, I would say we definitely

1:05:38

weren't really into our faith, right.

1:05:40

And believe it or not,

1:05:42

so my wife is very, very strong with

1:05:44

her faith. And, you know,

1:05:47

she, she prays a lot, she's

1:05:49

bold about it, but she's never one of those

1:05:52

people in your face about it ever, right. She

1:05:54

more or less kind of keeps it close to

1:05:56

her, right and our family. So

1:05:59

my wife had this

1:06:01

experience with her best friend growing up. And

1:06:03

it was right in the heat of the

1:06:05

high school days. So her

1:06:07

best friend went like guns

1:06:09

blazing into this new church

1:06:12

and was in a very aggressive

1:06:15

way, suddenly

1:06:18

flipped a switch and tried

1:06:20

to get my wife to join this church and was

1:06:22

basically telling her, like if you don't do this, you're going

1:06:24

to hell and you do this, you're going to hell

1:06:26

and everything was, was God, God,

1:06:28

God. Everything was God. Every single conversation

1:06:31

was about God and about how she

1:06:33

was. So I share

1:06:35

that because like that's supposed to be a great

1:06:37

topic to discuss, right? The

1:06:39

interesting thing is I've known my

1:06:41

wife for a very long time, 28 years, and

1:06:43

I would say it's probably only been the past

1:06:45

10 years that we've

1:06:48

been able to have a conversation

1:06:50

about faith. And if I'm the one bringing

1:06:52

it up, especially if I'm the one leading her,

1:06:54

right? She'll run this through a filter

1:06:56

of like, you're acting like

1:06:58

so and so, right? And

1:07:01

by the way, let's get one thing

1:07:03

straight. I don't tell my wife she's going

1:07:05

to hell because she doesn't read the Bible.

1:07:07

What I'm saying is any discussion, any

1:07:09

discussion around faith automatically

1:07:12

triggers an experience with her that she had

1:07:14

with her best friend and

1:07:17

she texts that up to like, I

1:07:19

lost my best friend. Like-

1:07:21

That's what I was just thinking to. Yeah, and it was

1:07:23

traumatic for her. So at any

1:07:25

time, like I'll never forget this, man. We

1:07:28

were in college and I will

1:07:31

never forget this, man. Like

1:07:33

I asked my wife one time on a date, I

1:07:35

was like, what's your relationship with

1:07:38

God? And

1:07:40

I was just really curious, like, you know, and she's like,

1:07:42

why do you want to know? And I'm

1:07:44

like, what? And she's

1:07:46

like, why do you want to know? And I'm

1:07:48

like, I just, what's your faith like? Like, and

1:07:50

the next question was like, well,

1:07:53

If I tell you, is it going to be a deal

1:07:55

breaker? I'm like, oh my God, like, what are you talking

1:07:58

about? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Like all these things, A

1:08:00

total sense in might even to this day. Me

1:08:02

now is a long time ago. You.

1:08:04

Know she'll be like, ah, That.

1:08:07

Experience whatever else reminded me of dealing with

1:08:10

so and so and I'm like Isis on

1:08:12

the anchors and they are certified gasol as

1:08:14

that so far south as really fastening like

1:08:16

Dallas or template like that was her sounds.

1:08:19

And it. It was it, an

1:08:21

experience that definitely trickled into. Other.

1:08:24

Experiences other conversations and I would

1:08:26

say like even if he asks

1:08:28

are now you know does that

1:08:31

still on patches day Oh yeah

1:08:33

absolutely. Does that mean that's a

1:08:35

Texas and that as like such

1:08:37

a beautiful example of. Of

1:08:39

a trigger, the and how it

1:08:41

conceals so real. For. A

1:08:43

part of you like in the present day,

1:08:45

even though that happened however many decades ago.

1:08:47

Yeah, it's like it's almost like you're saying,

1:08:50

like with your dad, like he could smell

1:08:52

the grass on the field. And

1:08:54

the same way that it was that

1:08:56

day. Depending on how profound on that

1:08:58

situation was an impactful it was on

1:09:01

your life and that that's really the

1:09:03

process of else. Getting. Back to

1:09:05

healing and like this understanding like oh

1:09:07

yeah, cannabis As part of me that

1:09:09

had that experience. And. Like really

1:09:11

been able a name that as it comes

1:09:13

up and you're you're more conscious of it.

1:09:16

You can really take the reins back from.

1:09:18

From. That. Hum feel younger part

1:09:21

from having to protect you from that

1:09:23

happening again and present day down. Now

1:09:25

it's really good man. So that was

1:09:27

we wrap up here. I want to

1:09:29

make sure that the guys can can

1:09:31

find you and and everything's you doing.

1:09:33

This was really really really awesome for

1:09:35

me. I mean guys like was have

1:09:37

now follow and Jason go follow him.

1:09:39

or this was a think a wholly

1:09:41

different spin, a different perspective, I think

1:09:43

a much needed one. I think it's

1:09:45

one out there that's probably am devastating.

1:09:47

Most relationships try because it doesn't have

1:09:49

the awareness. That you're talking about. So

1:09:51

still them were coming fine You. Feel.

1:09:54

A mostly on Instagram right now,

1:09:56

so Jason's nuts or coaching. I'm.

1:09:59

Cheryl. Will get tagged in

1:10:01

the interview you instagram post. Phil.

1:10:04

Fan mail there and this is what I help

1:10:06

do the due south of Love it man! Will

1:10:09

guys make sure you follow Jason, head on

1:10:11

over to his Instagram. Follow him is pretty

1:10:13

good content outs. I've been following him myself

1:10:16

that's why is on the show and we've

1:10:18

been actually gone back of more than a

1:10:20

couple T M's here and there but you

1:10:22

can find I'm everything you're looking for. Head

1:10:24

on over the Data Zoc Com Force last

1:10:26

Friday. One for five for the Shogun, The

1:10:28

Data Zoc Com Force last Friday. One for

1:10:31

five. Jason From my heart years man. Thank

1:10:33

you for coming on man! And ah thank

1:10:35

you for the for the counseling session I

1:10:37

would say to. Help me

1:10:39

understand a lot Man like this will grow

1:10:41

novel. Yeah thanks for let me just like

1:10:44

like a said or if it there and

1:10:46

that Thanks so much for being so open

1:10:48

is vulnerable on on us with with their

1:10:50

experiences so that's awesome I was same and

1:10:52

that are twelve hundred up says I can

1:10:54

never run for public office I'm very open

1:10:56

for suffice my dumb ass moves on this

1:10:58

podcast like my dirty laundry is hanging out

1:11:00

to dry twenty four seven so I don't

1:11:03

mind being a guinea pig if we can

1:11:05

help guy if you and I can help

1:11:07

guys and I'm the guinea pig like. Was

1:11:09

is doing right as with as awesome and

1:11:11

and I bet you you're going to help

1:11:14

more guys than I do. You have helped

1:11:16

more guys on his podcast and run it

1:11:18

any office so mister denigrate out their success.