Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This podcast is focused on challenges that are routinely encountered by men aged 50 - 70, but
not often discussed. Although targeted to them, this is also applicable to older / younger men
who are looking for ways to age differently, as well as the women that are involved in their lives.
Stress, relationships, male friendships, diet, mindfulness, aging with vitality and dying are just
some of the many topics that are covered. A rotating series of guest speakers join the podcast
to provide insights and wisdom relating to other relevant topics such as EMF radiation,
emotional intelligence, mindfulness and hair health.
(upbeat music) - Welcome, good day. Hope all in the audience who are listening are having a good day today.
Welcome to the 50 to 70 meaningful conversations between men podcast. My name is Peter and I'm here with my co -host,
Dorias. Darius. Darius, how are you doing today? I'm doing wonderful, Peter, and yourself. Doing great. Glad to be here. Really looking forward to the topic we're going to be covering today. I am with trepidation,
but... Oh, explain. Why are you reluctant or hesitant on this one? Well, because we're going to be touching on a topic that I think men don't do well with.
And I have more years of not doing well with it than you do. do. - I don't know about that because for many years I did absolutely awfully by choice at this topic.
But I think this is a topic that men are not comfortable with. They avoid, they have been culturally trained to ignore and to transfer from one state to another.
And for those of you that haven't figured out you're not comfortable with it, you're not comfortable with it, we're talking about, it's something really simple. It's your feelings. - Yes. - It's emotions. - Emotions. - It's as simple as that and the fact that men have emotions and they have the same gamut of emotions that women do.
And we in a human body are going to feel. - Yes, we are. We do naturally. What do you mean we've been trained not to notice our emotions?
- Emotions. You said something very profound in that Yeah, it must have been somebody else that was saying that If I think back to how men are raised When you're playing a sport you don't cry if it hurts you quote -unquote tough it out and you suck it up Yeah,
right if you're afraid You don't show fear you translate that fear into anger, into aggression, into hostility. And if you think about the quintessential male role,
at least growing up in the 70s and 80s, he was independent. He was strong. He was confident. He could always figure something out. You know, you look at Harrison Ford and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
You look at Rambo. You look at any Schwarzenegger movie. Mm -hmm These guys were never afraid they stared down death multiple times and they always came through it just fine Yeah, and so that's how the culture treats young men and even men of all ages Expecting them to be like that.
So that's the instance of fear that you're talking about Mm -hmm sadness How about anger? I Would say anger is more culturally acceptable coming from out of a man than many other emotions.
How about when they're a boy or a child? Is anger really that acceptable? Well, I guess you have to look at is anger acceptable? And it's an emotion, and it is a healthy emotion in my mind.
It is. Anger means that a boundary has been crossed and you need to defend yourself. How you... you choose to express your anger is not always healthy.
- No, no it's not. My experience with anger is one from the perspective of a child and witnessing anger but not being allowed to express anger.
- I think that's a pretty common example. - Yeah, yeah. - Not being allowed to have those feelings of anger. Being on the receiving end of those feelings of anger.
Yeah, I agree. If I think about emotion, and we're talking about emotional intelligence, for many years, Peter, I made a simple decision. I just chose not to feel.
- And why did you do that? Because feeling is hard. And why is that hard? I don't understand. I mean, it's just naturally, it's there,
it's evident. So why isn't it expressed? What happens to it? Oh, there's a, so let's ask this. There's a whole bunch of questions here to break apart.
One, why did you choose not to feel it's hard? What is that? mean? Emotions can be unpleasant sensations to deal with.
Think about grief. Grief in my mind is one of the toughest, most profound emotions that anyone's gonna experience. And unfortunately, if you love,
you are going to experience grief. It's the flip side. It's the passing. It's... it's permanent. Feeling grief is very,
very challenging. Feeling deep sadness, very challenging. I don't think there are negative and positive emotions, there just are. But if you haven't gotten comfortable with your feelings,
feeling them can be overwhelming. But you're stating, maybe something that's obvious if you're not comfortable with your feelings.
Are we taught to be uncomfortable with our feelings? I would say yes. A good chunk of the society as men is taught that their feelings are not appropriate.
Yes. We need to be shut off. Yes. Yeah. That's why I asked. It's the impression I get that when it comes to emotions for men, we're trained,
conditioned. There are beliefs that we should just, like you said, the term you use, suck it up. We should just repress them.
In most environments, you mentioned sports, obviously in the military, you mentioned sports. and war, there's no room for it. And there's a lot of training that flows from the military into our civilian life.
And in particular, in the corporate environment. We'll talk to that a little bit about how men and feelings and emotions in the corporate environment conduct themselves.
- Yeah, it's very similar. to the military environment at least in my experience The man showed emotion weak quote -unquote weak emotions He or she he was looked down on he or she was perceived as being ineffective Not being authentic not being able to put in a position of leadership and in many organizations eventually exited but isn't that how organizations,
institutions, maintain their viability and have their success by keeping this kind of uniform emotionality? - Oh, that's a wonderful question.
And if I think back to business philosophy of the '80s, IBM, everybody wore the same colored suit, probably. If I think back to business philosophy of the '80s,
what I've seen in the organizations that I've created, it's the exact opposite. I want people to be comfortable expressing what is really going on. I want them to share.
And I think a lot of leaders now want people to share. Why? So that they can help the organization grow so that people are comfortable coming to them with real problems and not doing the alternative,
which is saying, wow, this place is a bit of a disaster. Nobody hears me. Nobody values me. Nobody cares about me. So I'm going to go somewhere else where I am. Does it have anything to do with focus and clarity?
And here's the big word, creativity. Does emotions have anything to do with creativity? The, your leadership style, your preferred way of leading within the corporate environment.
I don't know how I would answer that. I think my leadership style is summarized as a servant leader. I work for all those people that are in my organization,
and it's my job to help them excel. Okay. And excelling, and that's where I was directing my question. How does that style help the people?
people that you're managing excel? It's a biased answer because I'm the one who is obviously passionate about it. I think it helps them feel comfortable to share their truth,
to share their feelings, to be vulnerable, to connect in a more authentic way, and then to perform at a different level knowing that if they go out,
and I'll always tell people if you make a mistake I'm not gonna be mad at you. I'm gonna ask you why you made the decision you made and what you learned If you make the same mistake twice we're having a different conversation Mm -hmm,
but you want to create that environment where people are confident to go and take that risk and Not worried that if they take the risk and it fails. I've lived in that environment you're gonna get crucified for it.
- But I still come back to that seems to have worked for organizations in the past. Why can't it continue to work today? - Has it worked for organizations in the past? - Well,
that's the debate we're having. And I'd love to hear your opinions on whether it had ever worked for organizations in the past. - It's a tough.
for me to comment on because I wasn't at many of those organizations where it purportedly worked. I have been at organizations where I was espoused and the definition of work needs to be quite lenient if attrition of 25 % to 30 % is working,
if people hating the job they're doing but feeling like they're forced to stay for financial reasons. or other reasons Yeah, I guess it could work, but is there a better way?
Absolutely, so this a emotional literacy We've been spending a bit on the corporate environment Is there any other area where men perhaps don't have real good focus and clarity?
Maybe the R word relationships. I would change your question around, Peter. I would ask me the question, is there an area where men do have good emotional intelligence and awareness?
I would say across the board in my experience, most men are challenged with their feelings based on the course. We live in the beliefs that they have internalized along the way and their perceptions of what a man should be I Have blind spots upon blind spots upon blind spots and every time I pull off one of the blind spots I have this brief moment of huh,
isn't that nice and then inevitably I see the next blind spot that I need to start working on relationships Absolutely Absolutely. My biggest blind spot is my relationship with my significant other,
Wendy. Blind spots on blind spots that I'm working on. Parents, kids, friends, co -workers. I mean, it's all about feeling and allowing those feelings to be and getting comfortable with them and doing something that's really simple that,
I'm gonna say this, I actually had to get a book. that defined what all the emotions are so that I could actually start to, when I was feeling something, put the right name to what it was I was feeling.
And before that book, let me guess. What were the words, I won't guess, I'll let you say what were the words you used to describe what you were feeling? Oh, pissed off. Did you use frustrated or disappointed?
No, I learned frustrated again. We've thought about this is not an emotion It's where your state of being is blocked or your outcome is being blocked. I was pissed off. I was blue. I Was tired.
Hmm. That was it There wasn't a lot of discrepancy between the two well I I use the and you've explained this in prior episodes,
but I think it's good to highlight here. I've worked with a number of people in my MBSR classes, in my mindfulness coaching, and oftentimes there's no description of the emotion.
It's I'm frustrated or I'm disappointed. If they get to pissed off, then I can gently guide them. It sounds like you're angry. That doesn't happen too often.
It's so generalized, so generalized. generalized. And if you think about the nuances and the complexity of the emotion, so let's look at fear, for example, men do not do a good job saying,
I'm afraid. It's ironically, it's terrifying to say that I am afraid because it's admitting that there's something beyond your control,
but then there's fear about what's going on right now. - Yes. - There is fear about what is going to happen in the future. And fear in the future is anxiety,
right? You're worried about that. That's because you're afraid this is gonna happen. If you're fearful of what's happened in the past, well, that's shame.
- Well, I wanna challenge you for a second. - Please. - Something you said. There's fear of what's going on. right now. Where's that fear, that perception of fear,
where's it learned? Is it learned in that moment? - I guess it depends on what is stimulating the fear. And it goes back to our conversation on stress. If it is fear of giving a speech to your boss or presentation and that's triggering your flight,
fight or fight. flee response, okay, there's something that needs to be handled there. If there's somebody who has a knife in front of you and says, "Give me your money," well, that's a very different level of fear that is going to be activated.
So I think it depends on what is causing that fear, and it's being mindful when that emotion comes up, and it's not easy. Am I actually in physical harm?
or is my millennia old nervous system being hijacked, co -opted is a word that I like to use and guided in a way that is not becoming of me?
Yeah, understood and I'm glad you clarified that. We live in a culture society. You mentioned...
mentioned another C word that always gets my attention. And it's a particular aspect of being a male that, and not just a male,
I would say most people, women as well, feel is critical to their well -being and their success. Can you guess what that C word is?
- No. - Control. - I was gonna say conditioning. Yeah. What can we really control, Peter? - But do you notice how it affects how we're feeling?
- Oh, absolutely. - How does it affect you? How has it affected you? - That's a different question. Before, I would try to control outcomes.
And what I mean by that is, is I'm going into this situation with my significant other and this is the outcome that I want to create to have control over.
Doesn't work very well. What I've come to learn is the only thing that I can control is myself and what I mean by that is I can control what I choose to do I can control what I choose to say.
I can control how I choose to act. But that's counterintuitive to everything I've learned, right? I learned that if I don't control, then the world and my environment will buffet me around and I won't be able to maintain my balance and I won't be able to find happiness and joy.
And then I must control. my environment. Where did we learn that cultural element that we all need to control everything in our world? Yeah.
I don't know, but I have to tell you one of the most liberating things has been giving up that illusion because it is an illusion. I can't control your next comment.
I can't control what anyone is going to do next. Yeah. And I bring it back to you. that up because you mentioned the experience of trying, the anxiety of, you know, what's going to happen in the future.
And controlling all aspects, as many aspects of the present as you can to kind of anticipate those uncertainties. And I just recall, you know, for a large portion of my life,
just being afraid, if I don't control this, you know, my young children will suffer. If I don't control this, my financial situation will suffer. erode. I need to make sure I have,
I can monitor all the risks and make sure they're all controlled, all the factors under my control. And, you know, with time, I learned it's kind of ludicrous. - It's exhausting is what it is.
- It is, it is. - But it's interesting because what we're talking about in those analogies you just used, what was the emotion If you didn't know what you were talking about, you're going to have to go back to the world. If you didn't know,
you're going to have to go back to the world. deep enough, that was actually underpinning yet anxiety? Underneath that was fear. What's the emotion that's underneath all of that?
- Well, I would say, and this is often ignored and neglected or just completely hidden away, the control, and the need to control for the safety and well -being of my children and my family and my financial situation,
financial situation, not so much. But the people I'm in relationship, the people who, as a man, and then some of this is the conditioning construct,
yes. We have a responsibility to provide. and protect. But at the foundation of it is the emotion of love. It's love.
We do these for the most part, whether we admit it or not, because we love these people who are under our charge or who have, we have spawned or who we've decided to partner with.
Regardless of what may happen in the future, the initial. initial reason for bonding in the relationship has a foundation of love. We've talked about this. Yeah. I think the reason I bring it up is the first time you shared your construct on the duality of love,
it really blew my mind. I thought it was quite profound. I think that's something that our audience would really benefit from hearing. Well, I remember we were talking about my my having lost my mother and maybe even before that someone who lost a parent and we were talking about grief and I had mentioned to you that grief is a difficult hard experience.
How is it ever? It's almost unfathomable how you feel it's something that maybe Context is hard to find because you know,
you've lost a loved one whether it's a parent Regardless of what kind of relationship you had with that parent you still Feel grief and if it's a friend I have a client who lost a child and You know just that kind of grief grief and I learned and I tried to share you wouldn't feel this way if you didn't love them.
Exactly right. And if you can remember that love maybe there's a balance to this overwhelming grief and you'll remember that this love had a joy and an abundance to it that yes it's missing now.
But at least you had the opportunity to experience it. And so there's a balance to it but if you couldn't agree with you more grief is It's insidious if you've never been through it.
You can't explain it because how it manifests is So arcane in some ways and so like direct in others But if you look at the emotions that we most commonly experience fear I'm afraid for someone because I love them I'm afraid for myself because I love myself yes regret I have hurt someone that I love how about sadness sadness I am losing someone that I love they have moved away or something has happened So here's one
quite common in our culture these days At least according to news and press how about loneliness Yeah,
absolutely You love people, but they're not there. Yeah, they're not either physically or Emotionally or energetically present.
Yes The That's an interesting point you make. They're not there energetically. Yeah. So let's transition to another one of our wonderful topics and you use two words that I thought were just profound.
Energetic acuity. What in God's green earth does energetic acuity mean?
Let me lay some foundation to that. I think you probably have to. It goes back to the philosophy and understanding from these years of these threads kind of weaving a fabric of of call it mindfulness or wisdom.
That we're not just our minds. I've mentioned this in earlier episodes. We're not just just our bodies. We are, as we've been talking about, emotions as well.
And they all factor into every single moment of our existence. We just maybe are too distracted to pay attention and notice. But what if we did? And that's that's the philosophy or the attitude.
The mindset I try to share and encourage. What if you did? What would be different? How much? of a difference would it make to suffering less and being more joyful?
Yep The other component is the one we're talking about now, which is we are also energy And that's a hard one to explain because we don't have Scientific evidence and we rely quite a bit on scientific evidence so I'll just go to maybe inviting our audience to to reflect on their own personal experience and whether they've ever noticed their instincts,
had experiences with it, or their intuition. What is that? Is that a thought? Is it a physiological feeling in your body?
It feels like that. But, you know, are you digesting? Yeah, I think so. What was, or was it something in your heart? What if it was energy and you just happened to notice it?
So if you can notice energy in yourself, intuition, instinct, that epiphany, whatever you want to call it,
can you notice it in others? people? Now we're really going into forbidden worlds.
I suspect so. My own experience, yes. There are sciences, there are experiences throughout history around the globe that demonstrate that.
that perhaps and I like using the word perhaps so that then it's not like out. Yeah It's not like I'm Mandating or judging that it's an absolute mm -hmm,
but there are Examples of energy healing There's a science that's thousands of years old that is based on the meridians of energy in your body.
We call it acupuncture. The West is much more familiar with it. It's being used more and more commonly. And again, not to say that it's absolutely so,
not to say that it's true, not to say that it's an absolute, but perhaps it works sometimes. What is going on?
[BLANK _AUDIO] What happened? You know, how is it that somebody was energetically healed from a cancer,
for instance? You hear stories of that. Is it true or just fabrication? I don't know. But if it is, maybe we,
you, I would like to know about that. We'll have to say it. it on a very practical level. Wendy, my partner, is incredibly energetically attuned.
I can walk into the room and she can look at me. And before I even know something is wrong with me, she will tell me what's going. She will ask me what's going on and I'll say nothing.
And she will be able to pick up and look at me and say, there's something going on. Okay. I love that you're bringing this up because this sounds like something many people can relate to.
It's real. I walk in and then I have to go away and think, "What is going on?" And it takes a little time. It used to take me days, if not weeks,
to figure it out. Sometimes it still does. Now it's down to minutes or hours usually where I'm like, "Oh, this is what is going on." on. But having that barometer where someone can pick up on you and I think it's really acute with those people you spend a great deal of time with where you see them and you can observe them physically and you know the minute you see them,
something's going on and there's got to be an energetic piece to it because you're not even reading the body language, you're just looking at them and you're feeling them for lack of a better word.
word. It's a profound skill. Wow, 28 minutes. So we've talked about emotional intelligence and how men have been conditioned and programmed not to feel.
And on that topic, I will say, in my experience, if you choose not to feel, you can repress it for an extended period. of time. Months, easily, years.
- Yeah, decades. - Yeah, too much difficulty. Decades, it will come out. - It has, it does. We just choose to be distracted by something else.
- It will come out, and if it doesn't come out emotionally, it's gonna manifest physically. - Yeah, and that's where the stress that we talked about, We're not going to be able to repress it for an extended period We're not going to be able to repress it for an extended period our episodes comes out. And I think there's an important point to make here.
It comes out these emotions, these feelings. They do. We may not notice them, but they have a life. Oh, they do. A long life, maybe longer than your memories,
maybe longer than the scars on your body. Maybe even generational. Who knows? That's right. Who knows? That's right. We talked about the duality of love. and Peter's nascent construct that,
again, we're going to post this like all of our other episodes on AgeDifferently .com. We'd love thoughts on this as we're just banting it right now. This is the first time anybody aside from Peter and I have even heard of this construct that I'm aware of.
So please share your comments, your thoughts about this, your experiences with it. Yeah. We also talked about energy. energetic acuity and the fact that the body is made of energy and there's healing methods that focus on energy and the dynamic interplay of energy between multiple human beings.
And you know, there's some people you're just with and you give energy to each other and you vibe and you leave feeling great and there's other people, you walk out of time with them and you are energetically... depleted.
You feel like somebody has, like a vampire sucked you dry. - Yeah, and again, maybe Darius and I know nothing. So, experience for yourself,
whether what we're saying is true or not. - The only true knowledge lies in knowing that you know nothing. I think that's something you and I espouse. We always end with two things,
Peter. - A call to action and a call to action. So we've talked about emotional intelligence, energy dynamics and the duality of love. What's I mean,
they're pretty broad, reaching more ethereal, theoretical constructs. What's a good, practical call to action for men that may have been like you and me and just put our emotions off for,
well, in my case, decades. Yeah. Yeah I would say I would invite our audience to identify their emotions and first notice them.
Notice how you're feeling and you might notice that it's not necessarily in your mind. It might actually be physical. But see if you can then identify if it's real.
to an emotion, your feeling. It's doubtful that you're going to right away feel I'm feeling fear, it's probably going to be more physical or more mental. And so the invitation the call to action is try to notice that.
And then identify what emotion is this? And perhaps for the coming weeks, just write down, make a note, maybe even keep a journal. journal of what you've experienced.
And then after you've done this for a while, try to notice what's different. - And I can tell you, as someone who's practiced this, grief is the one.
When grief hits as a loss, I still go back to those old patterns of shutting down, of looking for an outlet for my anger in my immediate vicinity.
And it's something to be cognizant of that as you start to get into this and process it, there's patterns that continue blind spots that we continue to work on. - So Darius,
why do you choose that? - We're trying not to use the answer right now because it's not working out very well. So Peter, a poem please to wrap us up.
- I thought you had it. - Oh, I do this time. time, don't I? I don't have a poem, I have a quote. And this is an anonymous quote, which is don't make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions.
And I think that struck Peter and I when we were discussing it this morning, because you know we're in the middle of anger. Words come out of your mouth that you don't mean. You know when you're deeply despondent and going,
going. the grief, you might make decisions that you later regret. So it's an invitation to be with those emotions, to sit with those emotions, and to recognize that every moment is different.
And just because the last couple of days have been challenging emotionally, that does not mean that the next couple are going to. - Exactly. - Exactly. Sometimes it's just that moment is...
trying and challenging. - Absolutely. - And a lot of what Darius and I have learned and we're sharing is being attentive to these moments is so important to keeping your balance and keeping your joy and seeing your abundance in life.
So with that. - We're gonna wrap up. Thank you everyone. Really appreciate you joining us today and we're looking forward to the next one already. - Thank you. All right. Take care, everyone. Thank you.