Harm Reduction, Agency, and Closing the Loop

Show Notes

Brian closes the arc by bringing the full lodge process back to the launch space: how do you actually respond once a fear has been named, triaged, examined, and prepared? The first tier of response is not elimination. Outlawing a thing entirely, whether it is a substance, a behavior, or a pattern, tends to create conditions the real world will not hold. Instead the work starts with harm reduction, a clinical concept that describes moving stepwise from most destructive responses toward least destructive ones, and eventually toward something genuinely constructive.

What makes this practical is the feedback loop. Each time you run a fear through the full process, the cycle compresses. What took days eventually takes hours, then minutes, then seconds. You move from unconscious reflex to deliberate response, and in that move you gain agency over your own behavior. The tiler, Pursuivant, examining room, preparing room, and lodge floor together form a coherent internal system. Using all of it, consistently, is the work of the lodge described throughout Brian's book A Mason's Work.

• Why harm reduction is a more sustainable first response than elimination
• Stepwise movement from destructive patterns toward constructive ones
• How cycle time compresses as the process becomes familiar
• The shift from autopilot reaction to intentional response
• How the full internal lodge structure works as an integrated system

The point of all of this is not a perfect lodge floor. It is increased agency, and every time you run the process you become more capable of running it faster and better.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Brian Mattocks

Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

[00:00] we started this process this week with a named kind of fear and a situation we were trying to
[00:08] be able to respond with courage to we begin began this process with a certain understanding
[00:15] and that was that this was going to be work right it's a tough process it takes time to cultivate
[00:24] this capacity like any new skill like anything that you're going to learn or grow or develop in
[00:34] a meaningful way what you'll find is that you as you gain agency and capacity and develop that skill
[00:44] you get quicker at it your process here that you're going through to take that knock of fear
[00:54] route it to the appropriate location deal with it in a meaningful way and then move it into your
[01:01] launch base to figure out how to react that process in the beginning is going to take like deliberate
[01:08] work like maybe hours maybe days maybe a couple of weeks even to kind of get through it what happens
[01:18] over time is that process goes from you know hours to minutes to seconds the whole cycle compresses
[01:28] and you are being you know you now have the ability to respond with intention as opposed to
[01:38] all of this stuff was happening on autopilot in the past the fears would trigger a instinctive response
[01:46] that maybe you would run or maybe you would go self-medicate in some way maybe you would go do
[01:52] something destructive and whatever those responses were you have by going through this process
[02:01] began to own them and in owning them you get to control them in the launch space we really want to
[02:12] work through how we can best respond the first tier response might not be to immediately stop for
[02:21] example the first tier response and this you've probably experienced this if you've ever had issues
[02:26] with your eating right the first tier response is to never outlaw all things uh the moment you say
[02:33] i'm never going to eat you know sugary things again uh you have created a situation that is untenable
[02:39] because the world does not tolerate that kind of extremism let's say so when we talk about ways that
[02:48] our lodge can respond that internal lodge that process um we want to start tier one with harm reduction
[02:54] harm reduction is a clinical term uh and what we're really talking about here is the ability to do
[03:01] something less destructive it may be that you self-medicated before with drugs or alcohol or you know
[03:09] some other you know um solution that was not good for you in some way or another your use was abusive
[03:16] your uh the way you did it was you know not productive for everyday life uh counter to flourishing
[03:22] whatever that might be right so when we first reduce harm you might replace going out and having a cigarette
[03:30] with going out and having a vape and then you might replace that with going out and having a stick of gum
[03:35] or a walk around the block but those stepwise changes from most destructive to least destructive
[03:43] to the opposite are also how you turn these fears that you have into the engine for growth into the
[03:52] mechanisms by which you challenge and improve yourself and do the work of the lodge this entire process
[04:00] can happen uh and you are in control of the whole shooting match if you choose to be once you've
[04:08] identified something you want to work on and you've figured out you've named that as a thing or as a
[04:13] problem you want to overcome you can then use these different lodge functions the tiler the persivant the
[04:21] examining room the preparing room and the lodge itself to build a better response to the world around you
[04:27] do everything outside and in that process you increase your agency and you become a better version
[04:34] of the person who entered the lodge to begin with that's our work keep going