What it Means to be a GOOD MAN with Phil Treiber

quote unquote real man was like the toxic or problematic masculinity a good man these same group of guys said honest Integrity helping out the little guy sacrifice all of these other characteristics of what a quote unquote good man is I'm a firm believer that a lot of my guys that I work with want to be good men they really really do but it's not safe for them to be good men it's not safe in society even in some of their relationships to be that sensitive vulnerable self because we're actually being policed by society and the world around us so there's so much more pressure and it's so much easier for us to stay in that quote unquote what a real man is as opposed to take the risk and really go into that good man space what is your relationship with your mental health are you the type of person to grin and barar it to kind of White Knuckle your way through all your problems or have you seek help and counsel whether it be a therapist a psychologist a shaman a coach a mentor finding someone who's relatable experienced and well-versed in mental health is super important to combat all the trials and tribulations that we all experience in life which brings me to this month's guest Phil treber he is a well-versed therapist Phil goes by dude breathe counseling on Instagram and he works with men and couples to overcome all the challenges that we interface with life it was a great conversation Phil and I spoke about being a guy in this current climate how to navigate through the choppy Waters of life and much much more so I hope you enjoy my conversation with Phil treber enjoy hey this is Phil treber I'm a licensed mental health counselor I operate dude breath counseling down in South Florida I just had an awesome time on the Vinnie Brusco show you can find me at dude breath counseling on Instagram my website uh www.d breath counseling.com hit me up anybody who does gets responses have a wonderful day and here we go what's up buddy doing well how are you doing well I've never met you before but I feel like I've known you already is that a weird thing from social media maybe are texting back and forth for months trying to figure this out you're also a New York guy yes born and raised Long Island which is um I've been out there quite a few times I worked out in West Babylon at WBAB I remember it yeah uh great radio station but I think there's a New York a New York uh energetic connection yes that you can't replace and is palatable we're we're cut from a very specific cloth yeah yeah yeah and when you're with someone from New York you kind of know you are right they have a different because you're in Florida now and well there's a lot of New Yorkers down there as well yes but there there's a different tone to Florida than New York yeah but again the same thing there's so many Northeast people down there it's like you'll see like bumper stickers on people's cars this is like go back to New York right and it's like okay fine but then if you look at like the economy and everything else down there it's like we're all everyone's from the Northeast yeah right yeah it's it's does the pace down there throw you off or have you you've been down there for a while now so yeah I've been down there eight years it's very it's similar right right um but it's also different so it's not as fastpac as like I was up here for some concerts about two weeks ago in New York City and like the anxiety was building up in me right just I was like okay this is too much like too much it was almost like sensory overload and I grew up coming into the city I mean we us to take the train at like 134 and we would like lie to all of our parents saying like we're going to sleep at you know Johnny's House Billy and then we would go into the City and like take the train back at like 600 or 7 a.m. just calls in a rocket not as bad as the movie kids sure but similar type stuff so I was really used to it but then once I got down to Florida like there is that similar Vibe but then it's also like a very influx of the beach thing so like even like the New Yorkers the people from Philly the people from Mass or Jersey they're all like kind of in Beach mode or retirement mode so it's the same energy but also just like kind of dulled down a little bit it's a diluted version of it yes so yeah it's funny that you say that because you know being in Westchester and being technically time 15 minutes from the city right but then obviously traffic plays a huge factor in that there is an energetic frequency that emanates from the city it buzzes and as you get closer into it you feel it more and I'm only 15 minutes out but right you know there's still that commuter person going to the train and and at especially Monday through Friday there is an energetic frequency here in Westchester that is palatable at times because it just it starts to buzz out from the city it's very weird but it's it's real it's a real thing I mean the same thing like when I was growing up along Island a lot of our fathers or even the mothers themselves like they would commute to the city right almost every day to work there right now like my parents my father like worked in a failing business on the islands like they weren't going into the city but yeah it's like always that like hustle and bustle but then like coming out to the outskirts a little bit it's different but same same like same pasta different sauce it's almost like that escape outside of it right what do you call him the the bridge and tunel crowd right brid and tunnel people right right like you go into the city do your thing and you come back out there but like yeah sometimes you still have that residue kind of on your you still have that soot on your clothes you still have like that that that energy on you and unless you have healthy outlets right unless you have things that are are are going to allow you to lose that um you get stuck in that and that's something that perpetuates and you're bringing that into your home and then you're bring into your life and obviously that's where you you know you help out guys right you're you're you're mental just saying that you're a mental health counselor um and you work primarily with men I mean you do work with some women but your major focus is men um what was that transition for you how did you get into mental health counseling specifically for men so my back like I'm always very open about the fact that I'm a person in long-term recovery right so like my journey into the mental health counseling area and like being a therapist itself like was not something that I had planned right so like I went to uh school in Connecticut a very like red-blooded business school I did my undergraduate in finance but I had like this existential crisis at the end of it to where I was like I was managing the energy sector of the student portfolio and at the same time the BP oil spill happened right so like I was also like drinking a druggin like I wasn't really taking it seriously I didn't do any internships so then once I graduated I like flew out to veale Colorado and I worked on the mountain for like 18 months two years would you do on the mountain I was in the back office like auditor so they have like the fancy RFID passes for like the fancy Veil clientele so when they got to the ski lift and scann their pass if there was a problem with it they would contact Philly fingas in the office because I'm a New Yorker so I'm like just get getting it done right every the guy from New York gets gets it done right I got you I got that way they don't take their skis off and come into the pass office but like I escaped out there because I didn't know my place in the world I was drinking and drugging significantly like I really didn't want to take any like major responsibility so like that was like my first like okay Finance isn't my thing I did a psych minor again like we always joke around people in the psychology field it's like we do psychology to kind of find out holes about ourselves like find out like oh maybe I can fix this on my own type of thing but it was just like I I didn't fall into this right or excuse me I didn't like purposefully go into this field it kind of found me so like throughout the years going to treatment getting out relapsing I went to Maine for sober living at one point did a year of Marine Science at the local Community College there raised kelp in the that's a very main thing to do naturally right I mean like it's you know I started to like buy guns and like flannels and like I was like working a decent program but I like raised brown trout for the St of main to release into like Rivers I like worked in this like kelp processing plan but yeah all like that Norm because I'm a big outdoors guy are you yeah big outdoors guy and that's why like I said like okay I don't want to go to Wall Street help like the rich get richer and then like contribute to the planet being destroyed I mean I was kind of like more of an environmental guy but I'm I've settled down sure right um but that's why I decided like okay I can't do this field of like business or Finance or things because I only reason I studied business was because that's what the men in my family did right right like I was just perpetuating that role of what a man does and who a man is right because I didn't really know exactly what that looked like so I did that in main crashed in burn there came back to New York like what I mentioned I worked at the as a a florist I worked as a plumbers Apprentice for a while after Hurricane Sandy and then like the final aspect of in 2000 in October 2015 I crashed and burn for the last time with a hard relapse and then I went to trib in Pennsylvania and then I got air mailed to Florida and then that's when I initially got sober that was the first time I ever worked as 12ep program and then I like most people do in Florida because it's like the recovery capital of the world is it I mean there's it used to be right then they started branching out to Arizona California Minnesota with Hazelton there's a lot of other areas of the country that are like getting really big into the recovery Hub type thing but like back like maybe 8 10 15 years ago there were treatment centers popping up everywhere right and that's like where it was like the patient brokering and dirty you know pill Mills and then the the Florida government came into uh like they had the sober home task force they started to shut down a lot of like the bad places but naturally in recovery like there's so many treatment centers you can get a job as like a you know a behavioral health technician so I got into like a really good facility that was really only males and I started to you know work as strong program I got moved from overnight shift to second to second to first shift which is like 7 to three and I started to be exposed to some of the clinical work and with like it's just something that just like clicked with me right I'd always been like a really you know kid with like really big feelings and I got psychology I got a lot of the spiritual aspects of it so when I was working at this facility the clinical staff recognized that in me and started to kind of like pull me in a little bit right and be like like we're doing this training like do you want to sit in on it Etc and that's when I made the decision to go back and do my Master's Degree beautiful so then when I did that I was working in treatment full-time going to school full-time and really like clicked with me you know I did really well in school and it was just like I I took to it like a fish with water sure so then I worked in Substance Abuse and Mental Health for a number of years and then this January will be two years that I've been running dude breathe counseling awesome and when I decided to go into my private practice you know being within the men's World and doing my own deeper work I recognized that in that area there was nobody focusing on men right and I was like wait a minute this is not okay right and I knew the statistics I knew our Journeys as men and it was something that was so pivital because I firmly believe that if we focus on the pain of men we reduce the stigma of pain of men and we help make it more okay for them to talk about their feelings their emotions their difficulties that'll be like a full real trickle down yeah and we won't have a lot of the societal problems that we'll have overall let alone the the high rates of suicide in men the substance abuse the drug addiction all of these issues we make it okay for these guys to talk about the [ __ ] that they're going through right so when I went into prior practice I was like okay this is what I'm going to do and I it's been going from yeah yeah there's a there's a lot there that I think are are all starting points right the first one I start with is that is that existential crisis at that kind of pivotal age that's exactly how I describe it of you want to call it you know post colle 22 23 24 25 years old where you're mucking about still but you're also trying to find your your your SE legs right you're still trying to figure out who and what you are in this world and if you you resort to the norms and expectations of culture then you're going to default most likely to something that doesn't necessarily resonate with you on a deeper level and that's not cultivated through school no one teaches you that there are unfortunately there are very little mentors in the world you know we don't come from a culture of shamans where they're going to take you into woods and and ritual exactly there's no initiation process for younger men at the age of now there are some in in systems like church and things like that but in on a cultural sense there's nothing for those guys that are transitioning into 24 25 26 who need to figure out who they are for this next chapter of life and that's a huge thing that I think is missing from culture today massive problem it's a massive problem because certain cultures right they do have those things right like in the country western or like you know people in the suburbs or rural areas right for some boys you know know shooting their first Buck Right their first like kill so to say when they're out hunting which is a massive component of a lot of those cultures that is really a massive you know like you seen Yellowstone I haven't okay so Yellowstone I started it with my wife and uh and we got like one episode in and we both fell asleep on the couch it's a cool show don't get me wrong I've heard great things but it's just too much of a commitment the first time that I've seen something in popular culture or like even in popular media was there was this thing where I think it's Kevin Cosner is the grandfather his son and then his son's son the Native American Boy yes yes I I did get connected with him on the episode so I forget his name um but someone right now is watches screaming at the screen andam right I mean it's one of the most popular shows in the past like five 10 years right [ __ ] films but they take the sun hunting through like there's a lot of like chaos and turmoil in the family but like part of the settling down is they take the son hunting he pulls the trigger on his first kill right and as they're cleaning the buck they take the first blood and they put it on his forehead right as this very metaphorical mythological s you know symbolic gesture of okay now you're a man right so in today's society there are a lot of things like that right and different families have different um you know what do they called uh rituals or you know family heirloom type things that they'll do as a culture overall we do not have anything like that we certainly don't have it in Long Island and Westchester and the Bronx I mean and and and that's a sad thing and well we shouldn't say that that you don't it's just not prioritized it's not promoted and it's most likely something that is not of altruistic Endeavors right it's most likely something that's from culture it's probably something negative right in my opinion it can be right just not thought about in the fact that this is a major marker for this young man right this boy becoming a quote unquote man and seeing from it at as in that light right there might be things like oh we're GNA take like you know our first you know we're going to go to the first Giants game or Jets game or something but usually happens a lot younger it doesn't hold like that metaphorical symbolic weight to it so it's just like a thing that they just do right it's really the intention behind it that is so vitally important that you know guys like Joseph Campbell Robert blly right John weinland all these greater like guys with the within the men's field have hammered for so long but again it's something that is still so significantly missing from our society it's a travesty really yeah and it's funny you see the word it's a transitional stage for to become a man but you know you're still just a child right but it's what happens from then on out and the cultivation of that boy and really forming him into to a man where in our culture we have the exact opposite we have a lot of grown men bodies but little boys inside who haven't cultivated the rest of the development right I'm working with guys who are these very successful entrepreneurs right they'll pull in in the parking lot Park the rolls have the $120,000 Rolex on their wrist but then they come in and sit down on my couch they're 14-year old right emotionally right because these are things that we are not taught right and it's the same idea with my existential crisis at like 22 23 that like I had strong male figures in my life right I had a lot of uncles my father was there my father was there physically he wasn't really there emotionally for me that's not his fault sure right I mean I've was resentful for him for years because of that but it's this idea is that like okay my father is the is the product of his father's generation my grandfather is the product of his father's generation right and then of course like I forget who talks about it in their book but it's like that father wound if we go back blaming we're going to be going back to the beginning of time hope you are enjoying the show if you are do me a favor subscribe rate and review the podcast wherever you're getting it iTunes Spotify Stitcher YouTube it is greatly appreciated and it took me a long time to realize that my father was human was not the superum nor did he really have the tools that I need did as a young boy who was sensitive who was not the star athlete the way that he was who did not was not raised with four or five brothers the way that he was so like he didn't really know what to do with me right and I remember my mother saying you know my Bruce he's not you right because he didn't know what to do with me right I was short for my age I was really sensitive and I was getting this message from the women in my family right that feelings are okay to express them and then from like my father not being there emotionally with me not really knowing to do but then also the societal expectations of what you know we call the boy box sure which was originally uh David and Brandon in the 70s and then expanded on by Ron Levant these are the OG triple OG clinicians of like the men's World and research sure that like this boy box is you know as Liz plank says she wrote a great book called for the love of men she's like a hardcore feminist um called uh it's written nowhere but understood universally that boys need to be assertive strong stoic no show no emotion vulnerability whatsoever right we need to be able to solve our own problems and and and God forbid we express any emotion whatsoever right be labeled as a girl right or other terms I'm not going to say right now but we all can know what they are right right because if I express these things and I do and perceived as feminine not sexual not gender which is energetically energetically feminine right I will be ostracized pushed out of that boy box and then if we go to the sociological idea if I'm not part of the tribe if I'm not part of the crew then I'm outside of it and I don't get fed I'm not safe but then by and large if I'm steamed at the bottom of the pack I am not going to be chosen to pass on my genetic material so as boys we're not thinking about that consciously right I mean we're [ __ ] terrified of girls right we hold their hands and you know something Happ start your hands start cling up but like at a deep genetic level right that's something that is registering there but you're right right that was the existential crisis that I had and I had no one to guide me through that being raised like I you know the the drugs and alcohol and playing music and guitar and stuff my like what I thought a man was was [ __ ] slash right you know John fante was shooting heroin you know every day for like five or six years still wears long sleeves because of his track marks Jimmy pige right Dwayne Alman right all these like guys who I was like oh music drugs and alcohol money power Etc that's what is it means to be a quote unquote man right but then I realized that there was this something was not congruent inside of me something wasn't right and that's why the whole idea is I had that existential crisis of like oh maybe I don't have to be a successful businessman right my personality is a Meshell putting on a suit and tie every day and then going in and working 60 70 hours a week that's not me right but that clashed so significantly with the Norms of our society and what a man is supposed to be I had no [ __ ] clue what to do so I ran I ran to a ski resort which is not a bad place to run no it's it's a great place right but ultimately it's like what the [ __ ] right I was running for myself right right there's a phrase we have in the 12ep rooms which is like anywhere I go there I am so of course the geographic change can be beneficial sure like you're getting away from the area and the people that would rope you back into that way of life right so to remove yourself fully there is there was a benefit to up and leaving sure but you can't again you can't run from yourself right it's that internal work that is so desperately needed is that all these guys make such these large physical change in their life right like jobs Geographic whatever it might be but then they still have those voids and emptiness inside well even even the body itself you know the body I remember when I was in some of the best shape of my life I was the angriest version of myself like I was lifting to slip knot you know what I mean and I and I'm not against it and it served me right but I didn't know how to alchemize that energy and it was only Built off of just you know piss and vinegar right so I didn't know how to to to fuel that I want to go back to something you said in regards to you know the father wound a buddy of mine Mikey bracket he runs a program that I actually just finished up a few weeks ago which is called healing the father wound and it's really about is he the one out in Colorado yes yeah yeah his wife and I think Nadia yeah I met them randomly did my buddy Phil uh Philly Mack who I grew up in high school with he moved out to Colorado and we went to like took his dog to a dog park he's like oh these are my friends are psychotherapist too and like I linked up with them and I was like oh [ __ ] this is awesome he's a great guy uh we're doing a whole uh we're going to do a whole series on uh the yian archetypes love that yeah the king warrior magician exact exactly um but he has a whole program called healing the father wound and it is that reverse engineering process of who you are and I've I've done it before you know going into the program and looking at your father and looking at your mother and seeing where they came from and that's such a useful tool in any interaction that you're having with someone because you truly don't know where they're coming from you don't know what situation they're walking out of and walking into and although they may come off as an [ __ ] this person's a [ __ ] dick or any of these things you don't know what's happening behind their eyes right and it really is about going back in your own life and being able to see the God within them the Jesus Christ with them whatever term you want to use but seeing yourself in that person that allows you have that empathetic feel towards them that allows you to move forward hurt people hurt people right the whole idea right and the um I'm actually because I'm the big next training I'm doing is that I'm doing John wyland's emerging masculine leadership program right it's like a six-month thing just past the interview process like I'm stoked but I'm I'm part of me is like terrified yeah right just because like oh [ __ ] right and like now I'm going to have to do like because I've done a lot of work in therapy I've done a lot of personal development stuff but like being eight years sober and clean running my own business you know with like the relationships and like me still choosing partners that aren't good for me or ignoring red flags and like all that stuff it's like and I still got a lot of work to do right but that I'm one of the things I'm also doing is I'm reading Connor beaton's book men's work okay and then like the second or third chapter like he has like reflection things every single time and it was like male isolation Okay yep I know isolation versus Solitude etc etc and then it's like the father wound and I'm like I got to go with this again right I literally like I'm doing this outline on Microsoft Word that's like password protected because it's like all my shadow like the deepest darkest parts of myself and I literally like wrote like you know the father wound dot dot dot and then like in parentheses like here we go yeah right and then going into that like recognizing the pain of the father recognizing that they're not superhuman that they have their own story and that their own you know their own Humanity aspects of like letting go of these expectations but I literally I was talking to it's weird right because like throughout my Psychotherapy that I provide to the guys there are these like Cycles I see and I don't know if it's my own personal bias like energetically in the universe but I'll sometimes have the same conversation with like three or four guys in one week to where oh this is a father week right and like no matter what I'm talking about whatever problems that these guys are having right it comes down to like oh this is going to be father stuff and as I'm going through this myself I'm talking to these guys about it and it's like one of the big things I talked about last week was like where was your father's pain right and some of my guys are still so resentful and so angry at the fact that their fathers were not able to provide to them exactly what they needed that it's still really difficult for them to recognize the fact that they were actually human being with their own crosses to bear so it's that process of going into it but I think part of that process of looking at the father wound and looking into the anger and the resentment and almost sometimes the hatred for the father is also a grieving process because as they look into that pain of the father they have to really just identify the fact that oh my dad was not able to provide me what I needed I'm going to have to provide that to myself now through like with me it's like the pmel inner child work and doing some internal family system stuff depending on who it is and them for like okay how do I provide these needs to myself now but still also love this man who they can recognize some guys didn't try their best some fathers did try their best but then also looking at that as sometimes we return to the father in the 40s and 50s because we're more mature and then there's that role reversal of like oh [ __ ] now I got a caretake but then also how these guys with their father issues well then how the [ __ ] do I parent my kids how do I break this cycle right and one of the things I tell guys and it seems somewhat of a cop out but I'm like dude just the fact that you're sitting here in therapy with me as a man asking these questions you don't have to have all the answers just the fact that you're [ __ ] asking those questions you've already broken the chain you don't may not know exact L what to do how to raise them etc etc but just the fact that you were asking these questions and trying you've are you're already doing the work right but as men we want answer answer outline answer outline and it just doesn't work that way it certainly doesn't and it goes back to the idea of and you had mentioned it like the man that it's kind of stuck in that space that energetic space and there right there's the flying boy that never grows up the Peter Jaan right and you could be two men you could be this hyper productive guy that's you know super successful and business oriented or you could be the stoner on the couch who just never grows up who's and there's nothing wrong with smoking weed there's nothing wrong you know with playing video games there's nothing wrong with with subscribing to those things but when that is all you do when you identify only in those things and you don't break outside that mold that's where you're still whether you be super successful right and you drive the car and you have the watch and you have the house or you're still in your parents basement with Cheetos on your fingers smoking weed you're the same person right you're the you're the yin and the Yang of the same energetic right you're the same person and that's where it's hard to navigate it's hard to kind of be like am I do I have to be this super successful guy or can I just be this guy who's just going with the flow or you know how do you how do you help guys with kind of guiding that that energy it's it you're right because it is the Opposites but the guy who has the car the wife the the the watch the vacations whatever social media thing we're putting out there to tailor this beautiful life right society's going to look at that guy oh no he's better then right he's better than that guy who's Failure to Launch who's still in the basement smoking weed or like you know My Little Pony like whatever the [ __ ] it is right it doesn't matter right whatever Butters your muffin let it butter your muffin but it comes down to this idea of balance right because we could be really imbalanced like the pendulum can swing two separate ways right we can be very black you know so to say with like the career the job etc etc driven that way or very white so to say on the other side where we're not doing anything but it really comes down to guiding these guys to identify what needs are not being met for them in their lives so the big thing is like if this guy is you know driving his life toward success and power and money right he may not be seen he may not feel heard he might just be driven by this whole idea of these expectations for what it means in society as opposed to actually doing what he really wants hey guys just want to take a quick break from the podcast to talk about something I'm super passionate about and that is men's mental health for those of you who may not know I am a certified life coach but I prefer the term journeyman for hire and four years years ago I started the Council of dudes a men's group that has monthly meetings to lean on each other to have open and honest conversations to build community so if you're a guy and you're looking to find like-minded individuals to help you see your blind spots and point out some insights and perspectives they may have in their own life head on over to Vinnie bros.com click the counsil of dude's banner and sign up and join the council right or the other guys doing exact actly what he wants but not also rising to the occasion of what it means to be a quote unquote like good man right there was this guy I forget his name maybe he was Skinner um this is part of my big three-hour presentation I did for Lynn University a few months ago on like men's issues but was mostly for clinicians about how we can approach men from a much more culturally competent standpoint but they took one population and study group of men and they asked them what are the components of a quote unquote real man versus what a good man was right in the same group of participants in the same questionnaire real men are strong you know stoic aggressive or assertive you know driven successful you know it really come down to like get laid make money right conditions conditions right all conditional things right of course and that's the way that most like the way that we are raised as men is to get our our our self-esteem externally it's either performance-based attribute based or others based all external factors right outside in but we know that real self-esteem is inside out right so we are taught again the same thing like you mentioned with the lifting you know just grunting out squats to slip knot right you know we are taught that if we do not have a specific body if we do not look a specific way right I will not be loved from outside well think about from the and and the women's perspective is you know well Barbie is a standard that no woman could live up to it's like look at [ __ ] He-Man right look at G Joe super he's called [ __ ] Superman okay so grow up with those action figures in your toy box grow up with those comic books in your shelf and grow up with those things on your television and how could you not have men who are empty inside who are only looking to achieve this aesthetic or this car or all these external validation pieces versus finding the Superman within not to be cheesy but but then moving from the inside out because that's we we've never taught to go inside out right right we were taught to cleave off anything that can be perceived this feminine right Terry reel who's a big guy in the men's field he does he something called relational life therapy right and he's identifies as a recovering narcissist I've done a couple of his trainings but he calls it the great cleaving The Great Divide right which is like a big circle and there's a line down the middle one sign is masculine things the other side is feminine right so that's the masculine size is that boy code that I mentioned earlier which is the strong assertive you know solve all of our problems not showing any emotion but anything that can be received as feminine right in characteristics or personality wise such as vulnerability softness everything else we're taught to cleave all that off right so the thing is that like if we look at you know like bodybuilding right it is a perfect example of hyper masculinity now there's nothing wrong with being yolked right I just started lifting again myself cuz I I want to get big too right but the thing is that I'm not doing it because if I don't have a six-pack I'm not good enough no I want to be fit right because my body mass and my muscle mass now is going to translate 30 40 years from now of me living on my own now of course I want to look good and feel good right but it's not to the point where if my shoulders or my bicep do not match a specific measurements then I will not be good enough I already feel good enough but I want to be better right right because the whole thing is that again that's that emptiness outside of it if we look at guys like on steroids and everything else that's not for women that's for other men right that's 100% that's of them asserting their masculinity of like this hyper masculinity which is really a lie right those guys with those overly you monster muscles etc etc they are selling a false sense of goods to females right or other men right that hey I have this masculinity that you're looking for but then when they're actually pulled into the relationship they're missing all of those other characteristics that our partners really want from us well it's it's a billboard right it's a billboard of of the self and if the product behind the billboard isn't of quality it's going to come through right and and that's where it is you know it's the Mind Body Spirit when you when you feel so good inside you can't help but want to have a body that can harness that spirit that can harness that energy and if you are and you could have a fat Buddha don't get me wrong but there's but it's almost like this energy inside you and you have to get it out of you and express it in a way that the outside world can see you which is such a huge thing that I want to talk about where the outside world can see you you know for the billboard but know that what's behind that is of quality it's it's it's the concept that Michael Glover who is this great book called No More Mr Nice Guy about nice guy syndrome right the sensitive new guy syndrome right he calls it the integrated male right Trevor Bame calls it the uncivilized male right there's this also this massive movement towards mindful masculinity it doesn't really matter what we call it you know because right now we really do not have a really good or cohesive model as an answer to this as most people will know it as toxic masculinity I don't like that phrase because nobody wants to [ __ ] be labeled toxic so Us in the men's World We like to use the term problematic masculinity right because masculinity in itself is not a bad thing right we need it of course right to the to the point where if a if a man is not in his masculine place it forces his female partner to be in her masculine and she will [ __ ] resent him for it sure right there's this little um snippet in uh man un civilized by Trevor ban where he talks about how one of his clients that he worked in his coaching thing like three years he said no to his wife and his like hand was shaking right and they went to dinner later that week and she said for the first time in three years I can trust you right I can respect you because you finally stood up for yourself you set this boundary Etc right to be in that masculine energy so it doesn't matter like you said whether it's video games or you know the working or anything else like that or the success it's about the balance in between of really identifying which needs are being met for you and which ones are not right like I have a lot of guys that I'll work with that are much more on the and I work with both got both sides Failure to Launch as well as these guys who are like hyper successful but then have completely empty relationships is running through Tinder Bumble or hinge just trying to go for the nines and the tens sure right like personally right I could meet a woman who as our societal standards right meets a nine out of a 10 scale on beauty or whatever body image or whatever else like that but if she doesn't have the Mind behind it or personality like kick Rock sister there right I have nothing to do with that right right even for most of my life right I need something more substance I need substance right because me being myself I know that if there's no personality if I don't have that chick is g to stick her finger in my face like no no no no I'm not okay with that I'm gonna end up steamrolling true right like I will be much too strong in my masculine so I need that sacred Divine balance of the masculine and feminine or else like I'm not going to be happy and I'm going to get bored sure right I forgot the original question that's okay I want to go back to the sery that they conducted ver a good man versus I want to go back to that yeah so the good the the re quotequote real man was like the toxic or problematic masculinity a good man the same group of guys said honest Integrity helping out the little guy sacrifice right all of these other characteristics of what a quote unquote good man is I I'm a firm believer that a lot of my guys that I work with want to be good men they really really do but they it's not safe for them to be good men it's not safe in society even in some of their relationships to be that sensitive vulnerable self because we're actually being policed by society and the world around us so there's so much more pressure and it's so much easier for us to stay in that quote unquote what a real man is as opposed to take the risk and really go into that good man space because a good man is going to be channeling a lot more of those feminine characteristics of softness of vulnerability of expression right of allowing our pain to come up allowing ourselves to experience those true real human emotions but that's going to leave us vulnerable and we've been taught our entire lives that vulnerability is synonymous with weakness if I'm vulnerable right let's say for some reason we get into some heavy [ __ ] here in the OD right and I start to tear up and cry right there's still even though I've done so much work there's still going to be this little piece of coding this little piece of conditioning saying should have cried in that podcast right like a man like that what's going on but then I still even after all these years and being a men's issues expert and speaking about this and being on so many podcasts talking about these things there's still that little piece inside of me that's like no no no that wasn't okay but then I have to talk myself through and be like no no no that's me that's authentic I'm safe to do that two things coming up for me yep one I think that from my experience that changes with having children I cry at everything and I am Unapologetic about it I can cry right now be unapologetically masculine I cry on the way to school I cried three times on Wednesday before I dropped before I even got to work and I told my wife and my mother I was like i ph my mom and she's like we're talking she's like oh it's I was like I just cried three times she like what I told my wife the other day I was like she's like why did you cry I like well I dropped off hammer and I saw a big book bag and she was walking into school and then I was explaining uh a song to Vincent I was crying and then he helped the little boy walked into the classroom and I cried three times before I even got to I cried between the hour of 8 to 9:00 I cried three times [ __ ] and I don't care I don't care because I want my son i i w I've seen my dad cry so many times that's a lot of guys not beautiful he's a veteran so that stuff really hits him and I've seen it and it's and it's a beautiful thing to witness so I have no problem crying in front of my children I don't care I'm like cry with me let's go let it's so it's good laughs and good cries are rejuvenating it's the full spectrum over Humanity it's it's it's beautiful for the the soul needs it the soul needs it and to to to hold that back I mean I'm like I'm L holding it back like I just hold like get it together man depends on the situation cont of course of course but it's a beautiful thing and the other thing I want to bring up is you say the word balance and I think that's a really tough word to wrestle with because what is balance you know and then and then my mind would always transition to well I don't want to be balanced I want to be uh harmonious and then I was listening to iron I was reading iron John and he talks about you know in the book I'm going to paraphrase he talks about how living a harmonious life is like a having a child's dream like it doesn't [ __ ] exist to say I want to be a balanced person or I want to live in a harmonious life it's not reality there is no balance it's always going to be es and flows and the dark and the light like Bruce Lee said me to be like water exactly and it's going to be it's going to be the Jedi and the siths it's always going to be the the the two two always need each other they need each other to exist because without the day you don't have the light well that's the same thing with us as men we need to integrate that shadow side right like the same the idea is that like if we don't bring in that dark side of ourselves and just try to live only in the light we're not going to be able to integrate both sides of ourselves but then also just to live this harmonious balanced life because the thing is that you're right it's always that EB and flow we could never be only on one side the like one of my guiding values in my life is always going to be growth I will never be done right if I make it to 80 85 I will never be done growing or working on myself and I'm okay with that because every day it's like the the idea of Kaizen just 1% better each day just try to tweak it so when I actually eventually crack these [ __ ] guys I'm working with right because it takes some time right some guys come in they're already broken house is burning down sometimes guys are most of the time guys are coming into therapy like hey I I need help with my profession my professional life and like they come in the door that way but then we started identifying I trickle in this I was like tell me about Dad about Mom and this and that then over time that could be a turnoff too yes that could be a if you go into like not but if you go into that world too quickly like off the Jump it's like you know what uh work's a little tough like tell me about your father no no there's it's like what this isn't about my dad it's like you don't know that it is but we'll get there I yeah I you know 20 minutes in dude right but the whole idea is that I have to pace and lead them appropriately so I have to sus out and go into it a little bit right but one of the biggest things that I do in out the gate is I really try to install this idea of emotional intelligence in them which is because we have never gotten that before right we are taught our entire life to just cleave off emotion and feeling where with girls after the age of six they continue on to grow you know with their smaller groups on the playgrounds much more intimate emotional type play boys were larger groups competitive Sports Etc right so the idea is that like as when I start to get guys to that place and some guys is quicker some guys takes a hell of a lot longer right the pendulum and that balance idea will swing the other way well they will call me midweek and be like dude I'm [ __ ] cracked open right I'm like okay that's okay right allow those emotions and feelings to come up in you but one of the biggest aspects of that is not judging themselves for it right to where it's like they're all right they'll be sitting in work or anything else like that and the emotion will just creep out okay remember then I and I prompt them out the gate I'm like listen dude this is going to get [ __ ] weird right you're going to experience a lot of things you've been holding in for a long time there's going to be this period couple weeks where anything is just going to hit you right you're on Instagram and you see like you know the the soldier coming home and being reunited or for me cuz I'm single no kids right but like my hormones like my dad stuff is trigger like my sister's had a kid I'm holding the kid I'm like I was holding her last night they were all like finishing uh a little Christmas project that my sister they're very festive um and I'm holding this child and I'm like she's gonna go to school she's gonna go [ __ ] like her heartbreak and life everything else like that and like this caveman like protective like thing came out in me right and I was like going through that whereas like for me the biggest thing like it used to be the soldiers coming home being right out with their dogs and their families now there's times where if I'm in my fields and really want to get something out on my couch I'll go watch pregnancy announcements where the female will go to the PO the boyfriend or the fiance or the father and like hands him the pictures or some [ __ ] yeah and like their emotion like it's coming up I'm getting Goosebumps a little bit right like that is something at my deepest core level that I want so [ __ ] desperately yeah that it just hits me at that level right but again it's the integration of that side that we've been taught to cleave off completely and sometimes that overwhelmed especially if these guys have been shoving this down for so long they will become irritable like Restless discontented they'll become somewhat aggressive at times so it's really about normalizing what that looks like to for them to actually access in this emotional side because sometimes it can be so overwhelming or they start to experience it and then fall back on that classical conditioning of shut it down right I'm just going to go lift this I'm going to go box this out right you know some guys if they have some unhealthy mechanisms they'll message girls on Instagram or they'll get on Tinder right they'll cheat on their Partners they'll gamble they'll drink more heavily whatever it might be so it's like I really have to be aware of like okay if this guy starts to crack open one is it safe for me to go there with him two I have to ask myself as a clinician does this guy have the healthy amount of coping mechanisms necessary so he doesn't [ __ ] burn his life down right and then three talk to them and understand and really like a big aspect of the work that I do is explaining to guys why we're doing things sure and like the logic behind it so they have an understanding of like okay well Phil is gonna ask me to do this really woo wooy [ __ ] inner child work right right they I need them to have an understanding of why they're doing it right and then that integration that harmonious aspect of pulling out these parts that they've been shoving down but yeah it gets gnarly sometimes do you find any specific therapy that's most effective whether it be like gestal therapy humanistic approach CBT is there anything that really works well with men it yes I mean most of them are really going to work well it's just about actually that's the thing in my training that I'm starting to develop for clinicians and when I do like my larger talks is that I'm not there to tell them what's going to work and what's not going to work right A lot of these clinicians have been doing this a hell of a lot [ __ ] longer than I have right so I'm not going to try to patronize or talk down to them be like oh yeah what you're doing is not working who am I say that sure right it's really about having the underlying understanding of how to approach men the specific clinical components that we do have like ma like masculine gender role stress gender Ro strain normative male leathia right all like the boy code our Developmental and societal expectations on us having a really firm understanding of what those things are and then integrating those things into whatever their approach is is really great now homework and being that logical approach is extremely important for guys so CBT is always going to be a gold standard sure that's a big one right the psycho education aspect behind actual homework assignments so even if you're doing something woo wooey like sematic experiencing which is helping guys tap into their physical Sensations in their body and being like getting okay with that are allowing these things to express you need to give these guys assignments to do this when things are okay so they get integrated into it right but things like EMDR great right um rebt great I mean even things like DBT which is you know created by Marshall linan specifically for like borderline you know borderline personality disorder right right these things are all great because there's a lot of skill building but the same thing is like whatever the approach is I think can be really beneficial for men it's just about how you're doing it yeah right so I'm not trying to reinvent the world I'm not trying to become famous from creating my own therapy or anything else like that on my goals is to provide clinicians with the proper information so that whatever approach that they have whether it's like trauma based stuff in EMDR I don't give a [ __ ] as long as you're approaching it from a culturally competent standpoint and just applying that knowledge to be able to actually approach these guys and guide them much more effectively but also from a culturally competent standpoint because they don't teach us how to approach men in in school well you're seeing I think you're seeing a big shift in in in therapy and psychology and and people are getting away from the traditional mold of what a therapist is and I think that's a big part of of just the culture itself realizing that everyone's just not a data point right you know and obviously young was a big advocate of like the The Shadow right the deeper part of he invented essentially tral Insight based Psychotherapy exactly it's mostly my Approach exactly my guys and and and going deeper and going to the next level and going to the depth the depth the depth and then pulling out whatever is deep with inside and allowing that to come out right and then and then you integrate the golden Shadow and the golden thread which has corre been my own personal journey and then you have the things like Victory Franco with logo therapy and really huge logo therapy guy that's a huge logo therapy guy yeah I love it I love it the myth and the meaning behind all this right I mean that's like a big root for my own recovery right there was meaning to my suffering the thing was is that like what okay what does that mean how do we apply these things so if you actually look at logo therapy like the will to meaning like Victor wrote a lot of great books y but there are like almost [ __ ] no interventions right besides like I mean what is it a paradoxical intention right okay you're having panic attacks good as soon as you leave my office I want you to to implode I want you to have the biggest you know Widowmaker panic attack that you possibly can have and then clients would realize like oh I can't actually induce that in myself or they do then they learn to actually you know uh it's like overexposure therapy right it's like Erp or whatever it is like that right but the thing is that like for my Approach is that I go very mythological meaning Insight based but with a lot of men how the [ __ ] do we apply this to our normal day life right that's the thing is like whatever the approach is whatever theoretical orientation you have great we just have to learn to like okay if you're doing like deep psychotherapeutic like Insight based stuff right okay or like inner child stuff and we're learning a lot there how do we actually apply that to their daily life so it can become integrated right so one of the things that I'll do is that like I'll do inner child visualizations with these guys I'll have them go back and co-parent or reparent but then on a daily basis how do they continue that so like my the one of the biggest questions that I asked my guys that asked them once we start the inner child stuff or is like a scanner to identify specific stuck points when they were younger right if your boss comes over to you and starts giving you [ __ ] for something I want you to ask yourself how old do I feel in that moment right okay right my my boss comes over starts yelling at me or I [ __ ] something up at work and I feel shame and and hurt and less than feeling okay I'm feeling 101 and if that consistent pattern comes up right then we come back into the therapeutic space like all right let's go back and talk to that 10 11y old what did he need what was happening for them there that is that is one of the biggest shifts that I've had in my personal Journey was going back to the version of me that's energetically stuck that's now making a decision as a almost 40-year-old man who's I'm making decisions in my current state based off of a previous emotional state and now giving that or that teenager or that version of me what they needed at that time and now being able to integrate moments that I hate the word trigger but now trigger that version of me and say Here's that thing coming up again in this new way yep how do I now move forward from being that child again right and such a huge part of being a father is you know we talk about the emotional state that your father provided my father provided a huge role of the father I think the primary role of the father and I've heard this before is to see the child it is to see the child not yes to cultivate and to push and to kind of test the ropes but to truly see the child the mother sees the child the mother held the child birth the child right created the child so how could she not see them it's it's unconditional in most cases yes and it's innate for the father it's a completely different relationship so to see your child ows them to feel fully immersed in who they are you're good man don't worry about it it's okay you drop something we're okay um is for them to feel okay for who they are moving forward but so many people get stuck in that energetic space of a child that they're not able to move forward and when things do come up that trigger them they Resort back to those tendencies in that emotional state and it's absolutely brutal right so being that's kind of that that that experence erience of I'm different I'm going through something and then just to have that cookie cutter whatever idea just placed on to you like no no no men do this right men do that like you're gonna play sports don't even hear or you don't even hear that right or or nothing or the thing is or the kid expresses that they don't want to do something but no no no like this is what we're doing yeah you're not going to be a quitter oh right or whatever that is but you're right because the whole idea is that with that emotional intelligent aspect of it most men were never given that so we don't operate from that standpoint nor can we identify or empathize whatever young children are actually experiencing but the thing is like we actually through our parenting and again like I always preface when I talk about the parenting stuff I am not a father right I do not have children right so the same thing is like I can't say that I understand but I can say from like a professional standpoint of what I know what we can provide our young boys and and our young girls right to help them understand exactly and having a different experience going forward with it right if like showing right you see like the uh the stuff on Instagram right it's like um you know exposing like it's like a big uh a big father weight you know weightlifting like she's in the garage as he's doing like sure 350 lb you know dead lifts in the garage like doing a little squat or something Ador I'm showing her what like a man looks like so she doesn't you know when you swing your cattle Bells I'm a huge I'm a cattle Bell guy right but they're looked up down upon the weightlift incor they right yeah it's like just move real iron kind of thing I love kettle bells me too it's one of my main trading components I love good a good old Russian kettle bell swing probably not the one you want to be doing nowadays but you know a good kettle bell swing we'll go that one single oh Turkish G Turkish Get give me a good Turkish get up any day of the week I go into a gym and I do sometimes I'll do the Turkish getups but like I'll do traditional weightlifting as well but it's like I'll get like some looks of the guys with weight belts on just deadlifting like doing the compound movements it's like oh actually I want fun full functional yeah you know type stuff but it's this idea that like oh I'm going to show my daughter or my son what a real man looks like so when you come along like she's not going to love like your dusty ass [ __ ] whatever else I'm paraph terribly right but the idea is is right like you know the way that we hold ourselves as men and Break These Chains is going to again show our young daughters and our young Sons or who however they want to identify right what their goal can be in the future right because what the thing is is that like again like it's very cliche it's whatever right women are going to move towards men who appear to be their husbands or complete opposite or their you know fathers and women are going to move towards their mothers in some capacity right there's men are G move towards their mothers men are G to move towards dating women similar to their mothers whatever right it's cliche as [ __ ] but is it true is that like a i you will see patterns I think I think on like on a soul level probably we repeat what we know right like there's a why wouldn't you right I mean that's the only thing that we know know right so the whole idea is that you know when I work with guys and their fathers were you know alcoholics or you know not really there for Mom or taught mom in a specific way or whatever it else like that right they will unconsciously be repeating these same relationship Dynamics with all their female Partners right and again it's not to blame the father for this but like one of the biggest things that Terry reel says is like [ __ ] dude you didn't stand a chance you were set up to be this way right you're you're a good man who's been you're a decent man who's been acting indecently let me help guide you to being something different right so I'll see guys that like they will literally be in relationship after relationship after relationship just mimicking the same patterns that were modeled for them as kids right like if their parents like you know got married and divorced a couple times on either sides in different relationships I will work with guys who then are no they're not able to commit in relationships they're not able to provide their partner what they need and they just keep repeating what we know right it's the same thing within ourselves right like some guys were raised with alcoholic fathers and they're sober or they're able to moderate or you know like some of us we try everything in our capacity to be not like Mom or Dad right but then we become the drug addict alcoholic anyway sure right but we're still different yeah so to say so we we're going to repeat what we know until we break that chain and that does you don't need a therapist to break that chain right right we're going to [ __ ] help right right guide through it I I advise it right right yeah it might it might it might move the process along in a more adaptable way right that's one of the biggest things I tell my guys like listen man like my job is not to have you on my couch for two or three years right my job is to work myself out of a job right right I have enough [ __ ] business God bless you right right yeah business is great right IED with coup's counselor I'm going to be expanding again in the new year right my goal this is how I break the tension on the phone call because guys usually are calling me hey dude like I've had your you know my my chick sent me your Instagram CU my Instagram at dude breath counseling yeah um I've seen your videos dude you're like because I show up the same way right got my necklaces My Tattoos my beard I'm cursing like I'm not an old stuffy dude in a jacket and a coat taking notes and you're facing away from me right right we're busting balls we're chopping up in session I tell them on the phone my job is for you know you to do the work necessary I'm going to guide you on that path I'm not going to do it for you right so then you can spread your beautiful little butterfly wings and fly away right then I crack the joke and then you tell all your friends how amazing of a therapist like you continue to keep buting guys my way exactly that's that's the system but this thing it's it's short term right like a lot of guys I work with like three to six months and then go [ __ ] live your life right go do this right right act yes take action yes I have my my coaching certification and I I never liked the term life coach I never liked it it's just it's too Grand iOS it's too pompous it just doesn't work for me I have very specific uh opinions no no yeah absolutely life coaches and and so I always went by the term journeyman For Hire cool because I'm not here to tell you how to live your life with that we're gonna walk the we're going to walk the trail you're going to go into the cave I'm going to be outside with the honey me and and the snacks and you're going to go in there and you're going to come out and you're going to face the dragon and then we're going to go on to the next cave and we're just going to walk together and you're going to unpack whatever you saw in there and we're going to keep on going but the but that's another thing that gets thrown around life coaching and I'm a everyone's a coach everyone's a this everyone's a that and I think experience doesn't you can't dismiss experience but there's a lot of charlatans in the mental health and wellness space especially now and it becomes it goes back to that New York City thing you you feel it right you feel it there's there's a feeling there that's there's an authenticity piece that's missing and that's that goes for the same thing in like physical health and wellness right yep because you could be aesthetically Perfect Right perfect but if there's no depth there it's it's almost superficial yeah you're an right and this and it's the same it's I did a podcast it hasn't been released actually been asking the guy when he's going to release it right where I went off on life coach just a little bit sure right and I uh I actually was like laying in bed that night excuse me on B and being like hey should I message him and have him take that out right because again it's like that first talk second talk third talk and like driving home later and be like I didn't say this like why did I say that the thing about like I have no problem with Journeymen For Hire which I love that phrasing or life coaches the problem is that a lot of these individuals that you will see on social media you will see out there in the world will they how do I phrase this we as mental health professionals right we are regulated by state and federal laws we have met very specific educational requirements of culturally appropriate ethical work to guide people through significant traumas significant issues right when I see people on Instagram when they've taken a course or something and they say like I will heal your traumas the stay in the lane right there's a lot of people who can do people a lot of harm by not and they actually like ret traumatizing them without the actual interventions that are so highly regulated that you need malpractice insurance you need federal and state regulators and ethics boards to regulate us actually working with these people right so there's nothing wrong with like what's going on there I mean I work with guys who are coaches right I'm working with guys as a clinician which is why it's like some life coaches are going to be more expensive than therapy but it's so much easier for men to be like oh I got a life coach or I have a coach now as opposed to I'm seeing a therapist because of the stigma behind it and that's what I think is [ __ ] up because as a mental health clinician with a number of other letters after my name you do let me read some all for you hold on I wrote down you're a l MHC licensed mental health counselor correct you are a mcap don't know what that is master level addiction certified professional okay you're a cc a or did I write C twice certified clinical anxiety treatment professional you're an NCC National Certified counselor there you go yeah those are those right i' I've done a lot of work to get those things and sometimes it'll be cheaper quicker and easier for guys to come to me to work on these things as opposed to going to a life coach for a year or two right to where they can come in do that deeper work and have results faster from a professional in my capacity or a licensed mental health counselor or an LPC or a a full doctorate psychotherapist psychologist right right because the thing is like oh no men going to therapy that's not okay life coach fine right so there's nothing wrong with that I mean I've worked with guys in Junction with life coaches sure right so that I'm there to kind of guide this more like deeper aspects of it I just think you're right like a lot of charlatans etc etc there's really no major regulatory boards sounds like one or two yeah there's two there's two yeah there's some national things which are much better right but to the point where if I [ __ ] a client up I could lose my license I could be adjudicated against right to where there have been some people who were therapists who [ __ ] up right bad right whether it was like you know significant malfeasance where they were not taking care of a client and they died by Suicide they slept with one of their clients some really heavy gnarly [ __ ] have their license taken away then they just go get a life certification life training certification or whatever and just remarket themselves that way because they can go do whatever they want then right right so like that's my I just want to make sure that people are being treated appropriately for the issues that they have which is why I talk about it that way I have no problem with it I just think it's really important for people to understand what's in their scope of practice and what's not right yeah and I think I think experience is the ultimate teacher because you could fill out all the bubbles on the test and get 100% but if you don't have the lived experience it's fairly you're just going by the text training the specific trainings which then are there you're G have supervision hours with it or having supervisors who have been clinicians for 15 20 25 years guiding you along that path to make sure that you're the most effective clinician that you can be yeah right and that's the thing is like I know I'm I'm part of a supervision group years into my practice right years into my full licensure I don't have to do it it but I'm a part of a group of like veteran clinicians I'm the youngest one in there because those ogs have a [ __ ] ton of experience right I still don't know what I'm doing at times right right and it's so important to have that but also be have that mentality of The Beginner's mindset of like no I'm an expert in specific areas but if a guy contacts me and he's like yeah dude you know I'll pay you a month in advance and he comes to me about something like gambling right or an eating disorder I'm not going to take them my expertise is not in that area I can work hey man go work on that and if you want to come back for the masculinity and the life type stuff cool come back to me right but I'm going to send people to specific experts in those areas because I don't have any [ __ ] experience or expertise in there sure now I could treat it I could go do the research I'm capable I'm licensed to do so but I don't feel comfortable doing that but isn't something like that also no different than the job being the issue like isn't something like an eating disorder or some or gambling isn't that something that is a surface level uh expression of a deeper problem that you would be able to essentially get to 100% but the thing is that it's the trainings and the interventions along with it to help them with that because the thing think about this way right and this is where like again most men are like all right what's what this is the problem what's the solution right like guys will come in if they feel comfortable like start dumping childhood trauma on me out the gate right they're like okay what do I do about it I go whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa right we'll get there right like I'm capable of assessing and treating sexual abuse emotional abuse physical abuse depending on the experience of like what it looks like and how it's impacting their life then right I much might be okay cool if they can afford it right see me and then once a week right I want you to go see like a trauma expert which that's that's the only thing they do right right it's the same thing it's like okay well you know technically a regular MD or like a practitioner or doctor can write you scripts for ssris or other medications right but why would you not want to go see a psychiatrist who specializes in those things so those guys will come in and be like all right man like you know I was sexually assaulted as a child right what's the solution like okay let's talk about this for a second let's say I have a gunshot wound to the chest two bro a broken arm and broken legs which one is the ER going to address first right they're going to go for the gunshot wound right so if I got a guy who comes in say that he was sexually abused right or he's about to get divorced whatever it is like that right some really heavy [ __ ] in his life and he's also an alcoholic and he's and he's womanizing he's out there just cheating we need to talk about the alcoholism first that's the major issue we need to learn to deal with life on life's terms first so that I know this guy can cope with going to that deeper deeper trauma work so the thing is that like yeah we'll get there but I need to to be ethical I'm not just going to start ripping open wounds out the gate I need to make sure that you are capable of self-regulating and that if we don't have a session where we talk about the childhood trauma then you go down to the seminal Hard Rock Casino down the road in Hollywood get an eightball of blow a hooker and you know two bottles of Jack Daniels when your wife and kids are at home right right we need to do these things in a proper sequence or or with an intervention that is not going to ret traumatize them because there's a lot of trauma interventions like EMDR where like you don't have to tell me what [ __ ] happened you don't need to say it I can guide you through the MDR protocols and you can process this stuff on your own right but we're still going to make sure that we're doing it ethically in the right sequence and making sure that you can handle your [ __ ] afterwards right so that's the idea of like really having that expertise but then making sure that you're being ethical in your treatment and making sure that you're not [ __ ] people up yeah yeah and that's and you know it's it's letting them swim out to the deep end right rather than just throwing them in which there is something to be said about dropping someone in the deep end and letting them figure their way out right figure their way out of the deep end but when it comes to things like trauma y um that can just open up a whole completely different world and floodgates that that's why we have impatient facilities right like I got guys who can you know they're they're wealthy right they have resources or they have insurance right because I'm a cash pay practice like listen man cool right q1 right my business guys all right man hey let's uh let's look at some programs you can go do an executive program for two weeks and use Deep dive right you're in a safe secure environment there's no risk of you leaving and going and overdosing right because every single [ __ ] drug has fentanyl in it now right you think you're Bu you're buying like SX on the street no no no no no break some of that up put in a test kit guarantee you it a fentanyl in it right they go and they can do these inpatient days for two three weeks a month you can step down to intensive outpatient where you're living at home but then still having support throughout the day we can do these trauma deep Dives you can do what are called quote unquote intensives right but you need to do in the right way Hello friends how are you just want to take a quick brief break from the podcast talk about a piece of gear that I've been rocking nonstop and that's woi shorts wo life.com The Nomad 2.0's they are super diverse they're super comfortable they've got this unique little stylish trim on the pocket different on each color I got them in green I got them in blue the blacker in the laundry they come with a a lining so you don't have to waste a pair of underwear which is huge I wear them to jiujitsu I wear them on the trail I wear them to the beach I wear them out to dinner they're super diverse they're super comfortable their familyowned which is always awesome and they just released new pair of sweatpants called the Ramblers and the flow which they are so dope um I can't get enough of them I wear them all the time they're pretty much the only pair of shorts I'm rocking these days and for listeners to this podcast you can get 15% off of your entire purchase with the promo code VB show so head on over to wo life.com grab yourself a pair of The Nomad 2.0's those are my personal favorite and you will not regret it check them out wo life.com now back to the show like I know a lot of clinicians that will do weekend intensives with couples and everything else like that I I work in the same building as some therapists who like their clients will fly in from across the country stay there in a home with with a sober companion and they will do deep intensive work for a week and just crack them the [ __ ] open right and then you can slowly integrate back into your home you can go home and do a lot of work that way that's not the way that I operate personally um we're going to start my my colleague and I are going to start developing some couples intensives but again it's going to be not doing deep intensive trauma work yeah yeah you you bring up trauma and you you had a quote on one of your post is and from Dune uh fear is the mind killer is The Little Death that brings little uh total obliteration yes fears fear is a [ __ ] fear is but Insidious but if you're able to point out the fear yes I I find that when I am feeling anything right and this is you know usually with my children or um whatever I'm coming up against if I'm able to speak it out loud and say it if you name it you can tame it right I am in a better position to wrestle with it 110% so when my kids are on my last nerve right before I'm about to [ __ ] snap I say guys Daddy's here yep and you know what happens when I go past here so I'm giving you the warning and in by speaking it out loud I'm able to manage the hear yes I'm able to okay I'm giving myself this space and fear is no different than that no if you're able to and you could replace fear with anxiety I think oh one of the biggest components of doing anxiety work is just AGN knowledging that this is anxiety right right yes because then you know it's like oh okay this is just my anxiety and and then alchemizing that because anxiety is no different than than excitement right it's the same exact thing very very close they they're part of the same Reptilian Brain with the autonomic nervous system right so the same thing like I go to a lot of concerts right pre-show Jitters right just that excitement is it mimics anxiety it's almost the exact same thing I just competed in a jiu-jitsu tournament yesterday mhm you did very well out I got gold I did well congratulations thank you very much I'm not sure when this is coming out but I did and I realized you know leading up to it and and and the days before it and even the day of I was just feeling I like I'm I'm I'm getting anxious about this and I'd stop myself and say no dude you're excited yes and that's okay yes like lean in observe the just observe the feeling don't give it a name because the name is what's going to put you down the rabbit hole and that's what's going to snowball and that's what the result is going to be not if you just say I'm feeling this thing what is this thing it's anxiety okay but it's also excitement okay I'm gonna lean towards excitement yeah because anxiety is going to cost me to lose it's the St it's the narrative that we have in our heads right we tell ourselves a specific story we're going to run with that it's going to go down those very well-worn neurologic Pathways oh they're so comfortable that rut is beautiful right it's the same thing guys and people in recovery early recovery right I'm much more comfortable sitting in my little pile of [ __ ] using knowing that I'm dying right than to break outside of it because that's the the the it's not so much the fear of the the unknown it's fear of losing the known right so one of the things like with the fear aspect of it there's another quote like I'm a huge fantasy guy love reading dark like Grim dark fantasy swords dragons magic Etc ET right who are you talking to my jam right I just started the Dr in Chronicles like 14th time right but there's in the first law Trilogy I'm reading the Bible yeah love it yeah um it's there's this uh character called Logan nine fingers right and he's like kind of like a uh he works at he works at a ski resort as well no Logan he's a gnarly like Berserker like character right but he has this quote it's better to do something than to live with the fear of it because the whole idea as a fear is the mind killer once we identify that we're afraid of something we're it's going to push us back right because again if we look at what fear comes from the same root as anxiety this is an evolutionary holdout that has been keeping our species alive and all other animals alive for hundreds if not millions of years fear is there to keep us safe of something that we identify is a risk or we may be potentially harmed by so the whole ideas when we came in I came into sobriety right I went in and looked at okay I have been have been living my life by all these fears and it's something that we look in the fourth step inventory right I have all of these fears if I continue to live my life by these fears what's the [ __ ] point of getting sober so the whole idea is that when identify that there's fear there right like I'm before I get on stage right and I'm an expert in this field there's no one else in my area down in Florida that really focuses on the men's issue stuff and is as public with this information as I am right now if I was doing a a presentation on codependency most of those other clinicians in there know more about it than I do right so I'd have much more of an impostor syndrome but when I'm up there talking about the men's stuff no no no I'm the [ __ ] expert here so I feel much more comfortable even with that and I know this presentation by heart I know the little quip I'm reading off of the slides right my personality is going to come out and I'm going to bust chops and take make jokes FKS I still have that drop in my stomach full Panic like fear as they're introducing me to come up onto the stage right every single time and I label it as anxiety and fear but if I knew and I know that that fear is going to hit I know that anxiety is going to hit if I made decisions to not put myself out there to present on these topics to not go on podcast to not do these things the shame and guilt that I'm going to experience afterwards is going to be brutal I will not allow myself to be ruled by that anymore now of course I'm still human right there's still things like ah I'm not going to do that I'm not going to do this right but the whole idea is that if I walk through this fear I say there's gonna be two potentialities either it's going to blow up in my [ __ ] face and it's not going to go well at all and my worst fear is going to come true or I can walk through it and it can go really well or somewhat well right but regardless of those two outcomes I can still turn around round at the man that I was in that moment and say you know what I still went for it and that is for me personally far more important to actually walk through the fear and challenge it as opposed to shrink from it and step back because that's the old version of me right I want to think about in those moments where I'm faced with some type of decision what would the man that I want to become do in this moment what would the idealized version the self-actualized version of myself do in this moment and nine times out of 10 if I try to do that thing it's going to go well I'm going to be proud of myself right I'm going to have a healthy sense of autonomy and self- efficacy these things I didn't experience for years even if it blows up in my [ __ ] face right it's almost that that that whole concept of better to have loved than to have never loved at all sure I'd rather go into a relationship be crumpled right where she chooses a uh in those moments of pain a better man than I sure taller better looking more money right probably has a [ __ ] bigger [ __ ] right all of those things go there and be on the floor of my bathroom curl up in a little ball crying right right than to have not gone into it at all right 100% now in those moments when I'm really feeling it yeah no I don't want I don't want to do why did I do this I knew I saw the red flag what was I thinking why would you want to be with me in the first place but then it's like after all that comes out then hey come back to it I am good enough I'm perfect just the way that I am if she didn't want to be with me power you grant her all the peace and love yeah all the peie of love I hope she has everything that she wants in her life the same way I want it for mine yeah but it's going to take time before I get to like [ __ ] I hate the right yeah right it's it's interesting because you mentioned the word unknown and I think creating a relation a healthy whatever that even means a healthy relationship with the unknown is one of the things that so many people run away from and that's why I have that quote all of Humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone I I reference that a lot and I reference my personal journey in in sensory deprivation tanks and there's nothing more unknown than the depths of your own soul that's what we avoid that's what we've been taught to avoid for our entire lives is to avoid avoid that shadow side what we're possibly capable of that discomfort that pain that heartbreak when we were young kids we've been taught to shove it all down right because we don't know what it's going to be like if we actually go towards those things and in that jiu-jitsu tournament I the UN that's that's that's a huge unknown oh yeah and walk and and my wife is like hey do you want us to come and I was like I I don't know and I asked myself well why don't you want them to come and I said I don't want them to see me lose M I said well then you shouldn't go at all cuz if you're walking there and you're already lost don't even bother don't even bother it's not worth it or if you lose what your wife and your children might think of you right what is what does that even mean I know I know how much they love me I know it doesn't matter what the outcome would be it truly doesn't and I know that but this the self that was protecting me and the fear of of just them seeing me lose and not being the best man I could be was was literally crippling me for like a quick minute and then I just I literally just ask myself well why right why don't you want to come I was like I'm afraid they're GNA see me lose and I said okay it's that ego thing just try I need to present this idea this concept of being cool etc etc I just you know because I'm I'm dating now right so I'm trying to like identify people etc etc and a little while ago there was this young lady I was talking to and she's like oh I'm I dance right she like loves to dance right now I I can I have rhythm I go to shows I can dance and stuff like that but like the idea of being in a dance class or at like a space specifically for dancing right terrifies me because again it's that ego well it's like I'm this cool guy I'm this integrated male I've done all this work on myself look at me look at me like this this spiritual I've got malab bead right because it's the same thing it's like my my initial go-to yeah right is that I one up right right if I walk into a room right my initial instinct is like oh like this guy does this or he has this or etc etc right external validation pieces how can I cut them down in my head so that I feel good enough right and it used to be I would live there I now I go up a little bit like nope my brothers and sisters in this thing right we're all unique in the same way ETA like the much more new you know spiritual stuff right but the is that again it's that if I might be perceived this less then right how am I going to overcompensate that right it's the whole idea of that balance of idea of like and for me at times it's like you know there's I'm well integrated knowing what my defects are right one of the things that I hear from people right is that like oh Phil Phil's arrogant he's a dick right and it's part of my Northeast thing I'm around a lot of not a lot of North easterners like if I'm busting your balls it means that I like you right right but I do come off at times as arrogant as somewhat self-interested Etc and I [ __ ] hate it because I know I identify that in myself as a characteristic that I have that I do not like and I do not want to be perceived that way right and it's the same idea is like if it's the with embarrassment or like looking goofy or kind of looking stupid right there's a massive part of me it's like who gives a [ __ ] whatever just go do it right and I do sometimes but there's other parts of me that are like m right don't go towards that so it's this idea of like again that back and forth of like well I'm not going to do something unless I know I'm going to be good at it but then how am I going to grow like if I don't go into the you know J Jiu-Jitsu competition and potentially lose right because it's like a battle right then am I really living to these value systems that I have am I going to be showing you know if I quit or not go right just because my son or my daughter might see me lose am I am I putting out there am I teaching them the right way to handle loss how do they handle adversity well that's That's What It ultimately came to was the fact that no matter what the alcome there's there's something there that I can show them yes the end result of it no matter what the outcome is I love that I knew I knew that's where I knew that AR right you you you did you did uh you did something you did five stages of a midlife crisis yes on the my Instagram on your Instagram reals and I want to talk about that because I it goes back to what we were talking about earlier obviously the midlife crisis this this cultural uh preconceived idea that that men reach a certain age and then we're all just going to Resort back to our childlike selves and just seek nothing but validation and and all these these things where and we kind of spoke about it as well at the time of you know that 20 year old age late 20s you there's there's a real crisis going on with that as well yes and I think with the lack of integration at that age it now leads into the midlife crisis which really is an opportunity for an Awakening and really a realization right yes and you you brought out five major points of that um I'm going to read them off and then just use any one of them as a particular you know uh crisis of value uh crisis of inter uh Intimate Relationships the child aging parents and letting go yes and we could talk on each one of them but the two that really stood out to me probably the most were the the first and the fifth obviously the the bookends of those which is the values and the letting go because one leads you into it right the values everything you know is being challenged everything you are is being challenged nothing nothing is free of this nothing makesense crisis of Faith career choices it doesn't matter anything is up for grabs there and then the Letting Go which is almost the end result of that right and then you have that great book letting go um yeah Michael Singer yeah yep it it it it allows you to to step into a space where you ultimately have to let go in order to surrender to something bigger than yourself right the the thing with all of these is that up until that point in their life whatever they thought that they were going to get to right and this can be for females as well right 100% like when the empty nest syndrome sure right the the mother was a mother for you know 18 20 years depending on the like the spacing of the kids and the kids go off and it's like okay well now with the [ __ ] my identity like what is this right but it is this point in their lives right specifically with men is that there was this guiding force this guiding idea right of they hit you know their early 50s mid-50s they're still middle management they're not the CEO right or they didn't achieve a financial goal that time or they thought that they would be somewhere different at that place right and they're like oh [ __ ] what now right because the value system like this could be crisis of Faith right is that they the value let's say it was power and success that that was their guiding force of like going into the City and working the nino5 for 60 70 hours a week hitting midal management making 200 Grand per year and they get to this age of like oh none of these things made me happy I'm still unhappy right the the the intimate relationships we've been married for 20 30 years my body's changed her body's changed our our lives have changed significantly what is this relationship we feel like we've Grown Apart the children this is where the idea is like oh my kids are turning out to be shitbags right or the goals that I had for my family or my kids are not lining up from where their lives are actually coming to right the same thing with the caretaking the flip of the parents the whole idea is that whatever was their guiding force Concepts ideas political affiliations Faith systems right their own goals themselves they realize at some point that it's no longer working for them something isn't right I think of and and goes back to the sessions you have with your clients the job seems to be the leading one of the leading sources of that because you know you do climb this ladder and you go into this this world of what you should be doing and you know a good barometer for me and i' I've spoken about this before in the podcast but with jiu-jitsu this podcast with the coaching with with the brick and mortar I'm opening up in the you know in the spring if it doesn't become the most successful version of it if I do not become a black belt do I still do it and if the answer is yes you're good if the answer is no figure it out it's you're you're moving in the wrong direction right correct I have a guy I'm working with he's a younger cat um like he just wants to make money I'm like good [ __ ] luck dude right it doesn't matter what what he wants to do just wants to make money for a specific lifestyle again because it's that pattern and that counter to him growing up and he grew up in a decent family right they had resources but again his parents got divorced there's some Financial stuff that happened right and he doesn't want to have to like deal with that right so of course I can understand why he's doing that but again if I'm working with a guy and it's the only motive for working is money right it will never be enough it's never gonna be enough he will never find that contentment right because I don't talk to guys about happiness happiness is a fleeting state right we go into it we come out of it what I ask my guys to shoot for is to really look at their value system and I have different ways of doing this like you put like there's like 70 different values I'm like all right pick 20 they pick 20 all right take that 20 15 10 and then the top seven and I have them rank the bottom four and then each one going up to that to be their most important ones and then I asked them the question how in your current life life right now are you integrating these values into it most of the time is not right like if these guys have like family in growth and they're working 70 hours a week and they're collecting all these things Etc ETA like all right man well it's [ __ ] [ __ ] you're not you're living in congruently with what you say that you want to do so we work on how we integrate that back in but again if like if they're operating on a value system of like money power women etc etc at some point these guys are going to identify they're empty they're not going to be values that are going to filling up their purpose their meaning right so it's about coming back to it and identifying what their needs are inside that are not being met or they identify oh [ __ ] these things I've been dedicating 10 15 20 25 30 years of my life towards are not going to check the box [ __ ] I need a huge change divorce the wife get the sports car right move the stereotypical mid stereotypical thing because a massive part of that is like oh my God my body's breaking down I'm not able to lift as much weight right my bones hurt in the morning I just watched my father die right he worked every day for the union raking his body etc etc I'm I can't let that be me so they make this overly huge shift and just like try to change everything but again it's going to be empty because they're doing it for the wrong reasons they're taking the wrong way of going about it right the same thing living in Florida right I see these guys who are in their 70s jet black hair right they're still wearing like Affliction t-shirts right you have like some decently looking 30-year-old woman right but I look at that and it's like again this is my own like initial better than mentality sure of like looking at that and like almost sympathy of like that sucks for that guy yeah he feels that he has to live that way in order to be happy and have these things right it's the spirit high top like oh he's walking around asleep he doesn't know how good it can be right but then come back into it and be like well who the [ __ ] am I to say that right so again that's the constant battle in between this one up and going back forth for me who are you to say that but at the same time no the the knowing that resides within you you can only say hey that wouldn't work for me correct you know like knowing yourself my own biases coming out correct and like the way that I view the world and that's like the initial way that I do it but then I come back into it and be like okay no like who am I to judge this guy this might be he might just be repeating these patterns sure I might be able to guide these guys differently he might just be [ __ ] happy right right right he may not want to do the deeper work he doesn't give a [ __ ] about meditation or archetypes and Shadow sides he's like [ __ ] that man I'm gonna I'm gonna smoke cigars and play golf and I'm pick out these young chicks [ __ ] right right like who who am I to say that right right right I still do my own that's my own [ __ ] well that that's that's you know whatever you want to call it God the universe Source the force what every that's that true way of living coming through yes and it really is why you're in the position you're in is to you know to honor the best version of good right to step into a space where you are doing the best thing and what's best for you may not be best for everyone correct but on a deeper metaphorical level you want to go Game of Thrones you want to go whatever the Bible whatever you want to go with there's something that ties time and space and Humanity together that's rooted in what you're perceiving as good yes and that is something that is undeniable you may he may just want to play golf and smoke cigars and live that life but deep down deep deep down on on the deepest level that he may not be willing to go into the elevator and go to the basement there's somewhere deep inside himself that he knows no matter who it is the sole level he knows it's not all of it correct it's just a matter if he wants to go to the depths of it and and whether you know whether it'll be worth it right whether I think it's always worth it yeah well for we understand some other people it's like no right it's not worth it right it's not worth to go through that pain like why rock the boat now I'm having a decent life I'm having a good life etc etc right some people are not called to that side and it's the same thing it's like if I start working with a guy right and like I never assume they're going to come back right so in the first couple sessions before I actually establish a relationship with a guy right I always say like hey man assuming you come back and you're cool with my face right right this is what we potentially could do and I always tell guys guys I'm like listen man if we work together for a couple a little bit of time even if it's like for like a couple months and you come to me like hey dude this isn't working cool man like what are you looking for right I don't give a [ __ ] who you're going to get it with just as long as you're going to get it right if you you want to do deeper trauma work or you want like a female clinician or whatever it might be dude I have a huge network of referral sources I have no problem handing you off to someone I will make that transition as easy as humanly possible just do not go dark on me do not run right work on some things we talked about come to me hey man this isn't working out for me all right man cool is there something that you know you feel comfortable speaking to me about that I might be able to modify and we continue to keep working together if not that's cool man just tell me what you're looking for and I can help put your hand in somebody else's it's the same thing with my my recovery if I'm working with the spony he's like yeah dude this isn't working out for me cool run it right I got no problem with you going to somebody else as long as you're going to get it from somebody else right as long as you I really want you just to continue on with this journey towards your betterment towards your self-actualization towards your quote unquote Enlightenment so that you can become the man that you want to become right yeah and I think a big problem is that most people don't know who they want to become right because they don't sit quietly by themselves and and muster through all of the soot and the different difficulties and realize that you are not your thoughts you are not your experience you you are your experiences but you're those experiences are only based on the person that was experiencing at that time and you're able to shift past that and move past that and for me again just to to Circle back to it it was it was meditation and sensory deprivation and sitting with very uncomfortable thoughts and just sitting there and sitting there and Rubik's cubing my brain and then it became a a a rubber band ball and I was plucking away at the rubber bands and then it became a flashlight behind a piece of construction paper and then it became this the the the zero point that John culu talks about where you know it's it's void and abundance floating through the cosmos completely you know feeling absolutely nothing but feeling everything and that's just the beginning of it right that's just the begin of it but most people do not want to face that Mo that that feeling of the zero point was the most debilitating thing I had ever experienced and it was and I only pecked its lips and it was completely beautiful it was so wonderful but there was it was it was wild I try to explain to people I'm like this is not doing it any justice you know it's it's the same thing it's like trying to explain the bottom right it's the same like you know being a clinician who's in recovery guys will come to me and talk about what it's like to you know not want a drink or drug but literally not being able to not do it and I can say like yeah dude I get it right I understand what it's like there but most people right if we look at you know most of their lives like they don't have anyone in their life who has done this steeper work they're not even aware of it or if it is they do like see it on Instagram feed or they see it on this or that right it doesn't call to them from a deep level and that's okay right some people it's like they're not meant for it in this life right who knows how many other iterations that they've been through like whatever your faith system is ETC of like the suffering that they have to go through before they get there right who [ __ ] knows right I might be looking at that guy with the jet black hair and you know this you know hitting links hitting links and stuff like that like he might become one of the next like Buddhists I don't [ __ ] know right in the next I don't I don't know but that's still like my human bias my human way of like approaching things but then again like stepping back from it then putting it through like the the new Agy spiritual filter right right and that's where I think like a lot of my work right like I love that analogy of like the Rubik's Cube like what the [ __ ] do I do with this the rubber band bald the construction paper with the light because there'll be times where I'll be working with guys or even within my own personal development of like I'll think I have a pretty clear idea of what's up and then it's like oh man what about behind that door right like a door pops up or like a curtain you're like Oh shoot what the [ __ ] is that right good here trust tree we're not good [ __ ] oh [ __ ] that's and that's what for recently right like I did that huge three-hour presentation I recorded it and it was like my kind of like the reason why I was doing all this work for and then afterwards I was like oh what no I was like ah so then a few months ago like to the white yeah I had that void I'm like okay what's up and I was like considering the PHD which I'm going to do just a matter of when and I started like this and that and I was in that supervision group of the veterans like yeah Phil like I don't think you need any more accolades as we read them off yeah like uh and I was like yeah it's time to do the deeper work myself so that's why I'm doing the John Wyland training that's why I'm doing like the the Trevor Bame the the Connor eating like all these guys like the personal development men stuff and starting to go into some of those areas that I thought I had done a lot of work on but I feel like personally I've been walking on the plane right I still like I I'm walking on the plane and see a Ravine and I'll jump in a little bit with like the weightlifting or the cold plunges or like you know you know diets and like all these ways of challenging myself but then it's like oh that's where I've been walking on this plane in One Direction but the mountain mountain range is over to my right and there's a massive Canyon that I'm kind of just walking along like waiting for an easier way across to get to that mountain range and I think of like Frodo and Sam and all that like oh no man I gotta go into that Canyon so that's where I'm kind of orienting myself towards now like knowing from January through June is going to be [ __ ] gnarly personal development wise on top of like growing the business and doing all those things but again like I feel that I'm in that position of having the tools necessary to walk into the woods Asar johal would say right or or Robert you know Robert fly would say right like there's that Call to Adventure there's that call to getting to that deeper level and I'm scared sure I don't know what it's going to look like right and my brain is doing that well how do we mitigate how can we do this like how I feel this out like how do we can do this how can we make it more comfortable Etc but it's like no man like I have to in order not to be a hypocrite with the guys that I work with and be like hey man you're going to have to go into that dark corner where the devil wouldn't go with even a flashlight when I haven't done mat work personally in like a year or two like okay no I have to go do that work now yeah and it's scary yeah but I know without a doubt in my mind that it's exactly what my energy and what my soul and what Phil needs and what little Phil needs sure right those younger versions of and future Phil yep and future Phil yep future Phil needs it just as much as little Phil and curtain Phil yep right all all the Phils need uh need that work and God willing Phil Jr maybe oh all right I mean I don't know if he'll name my kid Phil but I well I'm I'm the second my son's my junior my son's the third yeah but my future children of gods or my higher power of the universe Source great spirit sees out of my cards I'm GNA have to do that work in order to be that best version of myself not only to attract the partner that is going to be able to meet my my needs and I meet her needs at an energetic and spiritual and physical level I have to to make sure that I'm that best version of myself before I can attract those things yeah yeah or or you have to do it while you're in limbo with those things while you're in Dancing with those things and then becomes a completely different different Dynamic yep you know um but beautiful nonetheless for me it's the only way now there's no going back oh there's no going back no me course I can start drinking again but for me it's not even about the picking up a white chip or resetting the clock for me to drink again would amount to a spiritual death yeah it I don't know if I would be able to come back from it yeah personally no it's not it's uh it's not worth it no it's just not worth it you know and uh you know you gota you have to tap into that uh that golden thread that golden thread that and that and that that's something that uh and we'll we'll talk about it more at another time but uh that is that's real you know that magic of life is real you know and people want to dismiss it and it's so easy to dismiss and people will say oh well not everything's that deep and you know but when you when you live in the mythological and you could see the Narnia of the world that you're playing in it really is just it's magic it's it's [ __ ] magic you know and uh so cool it's almost impossible to explain to people like when I sit down with a guy who's like two three weeks out of drinking just got a treatment or detox to explain to them the feeling of knowing that no matter what happens I'm going to be okay because my higher power source Spirit whatever HEI they them it is I don't know what my higher power is right but to try to explain to them that innate sense of comfort and contentment that knowing that no matter matter what horrible tragic things happen to me or the people around me knowing that I am going to be safe and protected and okay and I will be able to handle anything that comes along my way it's nothing like there's this Joy inside yeah right it's this deep it's almost like a weight but like like a like a weighted blanket right it's like scary but like oh no I'm save I'm okay like this well that's I mean that's something I've learned through Jiu-Jitsu to be honest with you is when there's when there's someone trying to smother you and you can't breathe and you're like you want to go into oh [ __ ] and and that's the worst thing you could do because you have to just settle in and it goes to your last point right goce the suck let go right even in in the ice bath the plunge right the more you're the more you're that you are and if you could just let go it's it's it'll be okay you know you may be in that desert but if you use that that compass and that thread and that magic to guide you you will find your way through it where I have no idea neither do you neither does anybody that's the unknown y that's that's the beauty of it that's the beauty of unknown because the beauty unknown could be going to the tournament and losing in front of your family or the beauty they known could be going to the tournament and getting a gold medal yep and standing with them and then having your kids go Oh I want to compete you know other ways exactly two ways I can go exactly and that's the idea and you don't have to do it alone you don't people like the desert and know that like hey there's guys who have walked this desert before we can Guide You Beautiful yeah where can people connect with you where can people see more get your services hear more Yep so I'm uh in Del Beach boto in Florida um you can visit uh like an olda yeah you're an old y well that's the thing is I always make jokes like I'm a yent like I love like I'm Voyer right guys like give me all the tea tell me everything the thing is like I say swe sit down let's talk I get it let's talk tell me about it I say he's like listen man like I'm gonna die with a lot of Secrets there's not mine anymore right so people can find me in my website uh dude breath counseling.com on Instagram my handle is dude breath counseling anybody who reaches out to me for assistance or help I will contact back even if you're out of state you can't afford me you're not sure what the [ __ ] is going on anybody who contacts me I can use my resources in other states ideas I can connect people if I know people in the area but anybody who contacts me is going to get a response from me directly I will talk to people on the phone I will message with you on Instagram or my my cell phone number is out there business number not personal Google Voice yeah Google Voice number right it's the whole idea is which one do I have personal oh look at that all right all right um anybody who contacts me my whole goal is to just be of purpose right it's not about having the Ted Talk it's not about writing the book of course these are things that I want to achieve in the future but if I don't achieve them great I've already made a purpose I already know what my deeper you know iy guy is oh oh I love the iy guy doing this right I go in I chop it up with guys I get paid good money to do it I don't feel like I'm going to work some days I'm going in [ __ ] shorts and a t-shirt and a hat be like what's up dude what's good that's the dream right so you know at dude breathe counseling on Instagram right message me share the reels my website has a bunch of free resources about how to talk to men to getting into therapy I do individuals work my colleague Victoria Chile she specializes in working with families and fathers we are here to assist if it's not us we will get you in front of somebody else if you're not not sure how to talk to your partner male partner your father your brother your friend your employee about getting into therapy [ __ ] contact me I will give you guidance I will give you ideas about how to potentially approach this guy so that they can actually take that jump into getting somewhere where they can potentially be a better version of themselves right because I've been there before I get it and just want to be out there as a resource to help people that's beautiful and and I think the underlying theme of that is make the call right pick up the phone whatever you're going through and it's the cliche of like I rather hear your story than be at your funeral type of thing but there are step on your toes than be you know step over your grave exactly and uh and that's the thing is is reach out like whoever it is just like do not be a man who lives a quiet life of desperation I do not hard sell I do not Pitch I do not do the Instagram you know classes about you know value points and anything else like that you like hey man I don't know what's going on all right dude what's up man right what's good right yeah listen you don't want it all right man just think about this man here's hey try this try this maybe that'll help Orient right whatever it is man I'm only here to be of service and to try to help guys out if they come in and get my services [ __ ] run it great right but again if you there's no fancy stuff you will see me texting you back yo what's up dude like what's what's good man right it's very friendly comfortable it's only here is to be your resour SCE to hopefully get more guys in so that we stop killing ourselves three to four more times than anybody else on this planet we have the highest rates of violence among ourselves we have the highest rates of drug and alcohol abuse we suffer in [ __ ] silence and I don't want that to happen anymore so that's why my primary goal is just to be there as a resource beautiful and and thank you for bringing my white flowers it was very kind it was my pleasure I I was invading her home on a Sunday it was the least that I could do very yeah but thank you for inviting me on here you know we talked about doing this on you know through zoom and tella health and I was like listen man I'm going to be up in New York visiting family for an early Christmas let's do this in person but I just wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here and speak authentically and be vulnerable and to really model what it could be like for some other guys out there who are on the fence and be like hey man I'm I'm just like that [ __ ] [ __ ] he's no different from me and I'm not yeah right just another dude from Long Island was going to say if a dude from the Long Island a dude from the Bronx tattoos a beard and a gold medal winning Jiu-Jitsu practitioner I have those if if we could sit here and have this conversation then there's no reason why anybody else can't this is what my therapy sessions look like you know right it's not fancy [ __ ] just like all right man what's good yeah and what what do you what what are you feeling right I mean dude that sucks man I'm sorry you're going through that man yeah let's talk about how we might be able to have some solution to it yeah and that and that breaks out you know what you said earlier that enant expectation of what a therapist is and I think that's what that's what men need and once uh Agora which is the uh the membership based community space that I'm opening in in the spring I want to have you come back up give a speech give some speaking points and uh and we'll we'll chop it up again thank you thank you so much man it's pleasure [Music] absolutely

Channel: TheVinnyBruscoShow

Views: 33

Keywords:

Id: PVmuz4y3mrg

Length: 117min 18sec (7038 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 08 2024