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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
Jesse French
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Restorative Man podcast. My name is Jesse French and I get to have this lovely chat with Chris Bruno. Chris.
Chris Bruno
It's good to be with you, Jesse. good to be with you.
Jesse French
too.
We've been in kind of this arc of and a little bit of a rhythm of teeing up some conversations that are born out of something really exciting happening at Restoration Project soon called the Restored Manhead Digital Summit. And so for those that are unaware, like we're doing this and we're really doing things. Yay. Tell us more about this thing that we are doing.
Chris Bruno
We're doing a thing.
First of all, Jesse, like this has been a vision of ours for years, like more than five years. We've been talking about having some kind of summit around manhood and masculinity. And so finally this year we're like really felt like I was saying this is the year to do that. So I am super excited about it. The digital summit is this. It is an opportunity for us to hear some trusted
settled solid voices of men in the manhood space because I feel like the world right now is filled with very polar opposite voices of what does it mean to be a man? Either we're afraid to talk about what it means to be a man or there is this hyper masculinity, know, kind of, kind of manhood and there has to be some space.
And I don't wanna say in the middle ground, but there has to be some truth, there has to be some guidance, there has to be some input into what does it look like for us to be men in the world today. That's where we gathered up some trusted voices and they're part of the summit. And so that is coming up here in just a little bit and we want you guys to be a part of it. So make sure that you sign up. It's a free summit for you to be a part of. And then there will be videos each day, conversations each day. We're gonna end each day.
Jesse French
Yup.
Chris Bruno
with a daily debrief, which is a live experience for us to talk through things. What did we learn? What did we hear? What questions do people have? Like all that kind of stuff. And so it is an opportunity to really get into some of the nuts and bolts of what it means to be a man in the world today. So that's what we're doing. Super excited about it. And we're calling it just like this podcast, the Restorative Man podcast, we're calling it the Restorative Manhood Digital Summit because
We believe that men were designed by God to participate in the restoration of the world. And our uniqueness of who we are as men is part of that, is important for us to step into bringing about the goodness of God in the land of the living today. So that's why we call this Restorative Manhood Summit, Restorative Man podcast. That's what we're all about here at Restoration Project because that's what we're doing.
Today, you guys, we are gonna talk about a little clip from the conversation that we had with Chuck DeGroote. Some of you have heard of him. again, these guys are well-known author speakers. And so we wanna play this little clip and then talk about where it takes us in our conversation about becoming a restorative man. So, Jesse, anything before you wanna play the clip? Are we ready to rock?
Jesse French
Let's do it. on. Here we go.
Chuck DeGroat
There's an invitation there to come home to ourselves, to come home to the uniqueness of who we really are rather than chasing something external to ourselves. I think going back into our stories helps us to maybe better understand how that was missed. They're chasing after some sort of faux self, some sort of self that they can project into the world that will get the love that they didn't receive in childhood. So we go back to our stories once again and what we find is that those who
experienced attachment and an invitation to their own authenticity. Don't have to chase after it. Don't have to perform for it. Don't have to jump on stage and say, look at me, you know, don't have to go on social media and chase after likes. There's a security. I often go to Ephesians chapter three in that prayer that Paul prays that we might be rooted and grounded in love. And I think that's exactly it. When you're rooted and grounded in love.
You don't have to chase after love.
Chris Bruno
There's a few things in there to unpack.
Jesse French
man. Yeah, was like 55 seconds of... Yeah, that good stuff.
Chris Bruno (04:36)
Yes. So before we jump in, the whole interview with Chuck is in the summit. So we're just teasing you up with a little bit here today. So Jesse, where do want to go? Where do want to start?
Jesse French
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to start with this. We sometimes use some language and lingo that we track with. And so I want to go really quick and just go rapid fire Chris Bruno for the like normal person, non nerdy person of which you and I are part of.
Chris Bruno
no.
I didn't know we entered into a game show where I had-
Jesse French
Yeah.
I wish I had like a spinning wheel and there was a prize behind me right now. I'd be awesome. Okay. But I do want to just maybe start like Chuck throughout just a couple of terms. so real fast, Chris, when he references going back into our story, yeah. How does Chuck, how do we kind of like understand that notion of when he says to go back into our story, lots you could say, but briefly like, what does that entail?
Chris Bruno
Yes, it is not going back into the itinerary of your life, just reviewing what happened in your life. It's not only then thinking about not just what happened, but how you felt about what happened. It is about coming to the places of how did you interpret, what meaning did you make about what happened and how you felt about it? What meaning did you make? What did you come to understand about yourself?
the world, God, other people, what core interpretations did you come to as a child that then shaped your existence in the world? So very simple kind of, know, a child may have a core understanding that nobody loves me. So then they exist in the world as if nobody loves me, because that's the core narrative that is shaping their lives.
Now, how did they come to that conclusion? It was through something that happened, how they felt about what happened, and then how they interpreted what happened. And that could be, I'll say it this way, tragedy are the things that happen to us, but trauma are the things that happen inside of us as a result of those tragedies.
Jesse French
one more time. That's good stuff. That's really helpful.
Chris Bruno (06:53)
Tragedy is what happened to us. It's the things that happened. Let's see what happened. And those tragedies often hurt, they're confusing, they're wounding, whatever it is, that is the tragic thing. But the trauma, or in the terms that Chuck is using, the story is what then lives inside of me as a result. So when we go back into our stories,
Jesse French
the events that happened.
Chris Bruno
It's not just looking at the what, it's looking at the how. Not just what happened, but how did I experience that? How did that land? How did I understand it? How did I come to live as a result of
Jesse French
Hmm. It's helpful. It's good. So it is a far deeper look than you said the itinerary, then the timeline, the biography, graduated here, lived here, you know, took this job.
Chris Bruno
Yes, yes, all the things.
Jesse French
Very good. You win $500 in our fake bonus game show for correct answer. Okay. That's good. question. Yes. question. The other one is he uses the phrase attachment and talking about like receiving love and receiving it attachment, particularly when we're younger. I know there is just a whole heap of information and study and a field of study behind that term. But for our conversation today.
Chris Bruno
Okay? Thanks
Jesse French
How can we simply kind of understand or know that term attachment? What does that entail?
Chris Bruno
Yes, it is a whole body of work in the realm of psychology that they've named attachment. Wonderful stuff everybody needs to know about attachment. What I have found is in that body of work they use some language that is less than helpful because it's a little bit confusing. I prefer the term connection. Okay, so this is when you hear the word attachment, hear connection. How do we learn as children to make
connections with people, to connect to my wife, to connect to my children. How do you as a child learn how to connect to your parent or connect to your friends? How do you learn how to develop these kinds of connections? And so it's not just the, you know, attach like you attach a picture to a wall and it hangs there, right? It's how do you develop this emotional exchange between two people?
which is that emotional connection between two people. You learn that as a child. It is something that is unformed when you are born and your brain and body and soul actually learn how to develop connections by being connected to by your primary caregiver or givers. And so over the course of time, you learn how to develop connections because you were trained and taught
and experienced connections from them. Or as Chuck alludes to, disconnections, right? And so disconnections are far more the reality of the world because we were born in a disconnected, fallen, broken world where relationship is broken because of the fall, we all live, which the fall is all about disconnection, by the way, right? So we live in a state of disconnection. And so now the...
Disconnection is we learn how to survive the disconnection. We learn how to live in a world of disconnection. How do I do that? Well, I do that by avoiding connection, running after connection, hoping that it will come, or some combination or both. So when you think about attachment in those terms, I just wanna say like, think about how you learned how to survive disconnection and how did you learn how to achieve
connection with other people.
Jesse French
Okay, I'm gonna say something I'm mad at you right now. Because I've heard you talk about attachment several times and over a course of many years, and I've never heard that definition until now. So I'm kind of upset with you like, how are they helpful like three or four years ago? So good job in your like evolution of language. And I'm kind of ticked at you for not having that earlier. So okay, job. You win the prize and you negative $700 for not
Chris Bruno
not sure.
Jesse French
Like joking aside, that's really helpful. to just be able to, to view that through that lens of connection. That's good. Yeah. Okay. So Chris, with those is just, you know, some background for some of the many things that Chuck said in that, in that clip, right. Was, is understanding, right? Some of that survival, he uses the phrase kind of this faux self of, which I would say like, is the way that we are learning how to survive disconnection, and to navigate that, the performance, the seeking that out.
as one of many ways to be able to sort of navigate that. We've talked about some of this before in some of our other conversations, but Chris, like when we think about this process of becoming a restorative man and continuing after the way that Jesus invites us, with that backdrop of attachment and our stories and navigating that, what is some of the invitation that the restorative man needs to be able to like accept to sit down and to be able to receive that actually enables us
at the end of the clip to live out of this rooted and grounded space that Chuck describes. And there's probably like decades of work, like got into that. And I'm asking you to summarize that, sort of connect some, begin connecting some of those dots.
Chris Bruno
Well, I think the first thing I wanted to say about what Chuck said is, hey, so when we had that kind of connection growing up, then we don't need the faux self and the, you know, the, kind of facade, that fake story, that mask. We don't need that. And I just want to say like, there is no one on earth who has ever existed, who hasn't lived in a disconnected way and hasn't needed
that false self, that faux self that he described. So that's not possible. There's only one human that has ever existed and that is Jesus himself who didn't need a false persona. So I just wanna say like, if you hear him say you shouldn't have needed that, you shouldn't have had that, I wanna say like, no, that's not what he's saying. Every one of us has developed some false persona, okay? Because we have believed that the person that we are
is not acceptable, is not connectable, and therefore we need to create someone who is, who somehow gets better connection because they behave, perform, act, present in some way that we assume will get better connection along the way. Okay? So if you find yourself with a false persona, like welcome to humanity. Let's just normalize that a little bit first.
Jesse French
Hahaha
Chris Bruno
But I think the thing that I love what he said is basically like, are all living on someone else's stage and acting in someone else's play. We're not actually, most of the time, we're not the main character of our own show. And so we're believing that we need to participate in someone else's show, we need to put on, and even the whole word persona and false masks and all that kind of stuff comes from theater. It comes from needing to put on a persona.
I am the actor and the person I am acting is not who I actually am. That's the persona, that's from, you know, theater and TV. So what would it look like for us to recognize, like, what is a play that God actually made us to be in? What is the narrative, the story that God designed us to be in? And then what would it look like for us to actually inhabit fully the main character role in our own narrative? So there's a few things to think about there.
So, I love what he had to say though about we project into this world, this faux person. I think the first step for us is to slow down enough to recognize, like, who is the who that I'm projecting into the world? Who is the person that I believe I need to be in order to receive love?
And his comment, I love how he brings us to Ephesians 3, rooted and grounded in love. The most important thing about us is our belovedness.
That is the most important thing. And I think that's what he's getting at is that if we can just be, and I hate that word just because it's almost impossible, but if we could be rooted and grounded in love, then we wouldn't need personas. I think it's our entire journey of life to move in the direction of returning to our belovedness and putting down our masks and putting down those false selves and putting down those things and risking
being the who that God made us to be and not the who that we think we need to be.
Jesse French
that
a risk? Like on one level you could hear that and just be like, well the beloved son or daughter of God, like of the King, like isn't that like, sign me up, yes. Like that sounds wonderful, amazing. And yeah, it is a risk. And unpack that a little bit of why that actually is a risk to risk our belovedness.
Chris Bruno
well, because from the very beginning we have not been treated as beloved. We've not been welcomed into the world as beloved. Because I'll go, so he's in Ephesians 3, I'll go all the way back to Genesis 3. What God was preventing Adam and Eve from eating in the Garden of Eden, and whether you believe that was actual, like literal fruit or metaphorical fruit, doesn't matter. It's what the scriptures have given us, okay?
is the knowledge of good and evil. And so what he's, prior to them disobeying and eating of the fruit, they had knowledge of good. They knew the good God. They knew the provision of God. They knew that they were naked and unashamed, right? They knew all of the goodness of a benevolent creator who longed to be with them in the cool of the day in the garden.
Okay, they knew good. What God was protecting us from was the knowledge of evil adding into the mix, the knowledge of evil. And so that's why when we experience when every single human from that time forward has experienced the knowledge of evil, we have to do something to protect ourselves because in every one's life, we go back to the stage, right?
everyone's life when they are walking on the stage of their life, there are hecklers in the audience. There are people who are throwing tomatoes. There are people who are booing and yelling and giving them bad reviews in the newspaper, right? Like that is what is happening because we now live in a world that knows the presence of evil. And so therefore we have to survive in this world with these personas and to risk being the beloved.
Right? To step back into the place of risk or step back into the place of being just having the knowledge of good. It actually is so hard for us to even imagine that such an experience could exist. That I don't have any evil around me anymore. That evil is not the main narrative because we've lived in the narrative ever since Genesis three. Okay.
And so it's a risk to step out on the stage. It's a risk to take off that mask. It's a risk because if I show who I actually am, then I have already experienced and will likely experience again, a really rotten tomato in the face.
Jesse French
Mm hmm. Yeah. To say that disconnection to risk a reality where disconnection is non-existent, like what?
Chris Bruno
better armor up than to, and protect myself from that, than to risk that. Because I know what disconnection feels like.
Jesse French
the thing right like yes we know what that feels like and there's also the familiarity of like the faux self the personas like even if that's survival at least that's familiar like yeah we kind of know that we know that role
Chris Bruno
Yeah, we do. The belovedness? I don't...
Jesse French
I'm not putting a frame of reference to that.
Chris Bruno
And some of what Chuck says in that clip also is fully coming home to ourselves. And so what I think he means in that is not only does all of that belovedness have the possibility of coming home, but also, and I'll describe it me by coming home, but also all of the things that are disappointing, sad, broken, sinful, like all of those aspects of who I am.
the good and the evil have a place, not to coexist, but to like, know the goodness inside of me and I'm well aware of the badness. And I can take a deep breath and I can come home to the reality of my need for Jesus in all the places of my life. My goodness is not good enough. My badness is not bad enough. That all of those parts of me can come home and live
integrated all the stories of my successes and all the stories of my failures can equally come sit down at my table because both of them are in need of Jesus.
Jesse French
That's such good news, right? Like to actually say like.
Chris Bruno
Well, the best news is that Jesus actually wants to do that.
Jesse French
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I was listening this weekend to a sermon and they're talking about the parable of the two sons or like the parable of the product of sun is commonly named. And I'll butcher some things. And so I wish I had all of my references, but they were talking about like the younger son goes off to the far distant land. Some of the unpacking and the term of like when the money runs out, one of the words like is dissipate.
Chris Bruno
Next.
Okay. Yeah.
Jesse French
So like the resources dissipate. And what the person was wondering as they were preaching this weekend was like, what if there was also a dissipation of the younger son? And he contrasts that of like, as he, the phrase of, it's often translated like the younger son came to his senses, right? Like as everything falls apart and comes to his senses. And in the King James version, it actually says like, he came to himself.
Right. Which feels like there is this coming home to ourselves that Chuck and you just talked about of like the sort of the opposite of this dissipation and this watering down and evaporation, but more of this, no, there's this acknowledgement of coming home to who we truly are. Right. Where all of this is welcome and to be able to like operate out of that place that really is like the inflection point of that story, right. Of, the younger son coming home to himself, like coming to that realization. Like talk a little bit more Chris of.
Again, so much a part of that, but like the coming home to who we are, you mentioned like the welcome of all of who we are that is the invitation of Jesus. Like what else does some of that process entail for us to embrace that throughout our lives?
Chris Bruno
Yeah, well Chuck talked about, you know, looking at your story. Okay, and so I think that in our story and in the language of the sage book that I wrote and in various parts of what we do here at Restoration Project, we talk about all the ages that we have done. there's looking at your story is recognizing like,
not only what happened to you, but as I said earlier, how did that live, continue to live inside of you? And some of the deep work is, and I'm gonna say this this way, like telling the truth. And I say it, I'm gonna say it this way because I don't mean that you've been lying necessarily, but I don't know that the truth has actually been told about what it.
was like to experience those things and what you then had to do to survive those things and what it cost you along the way and how it shaped you along the way and therefore how you've continued to survive now as a grown man. And so all the ages of our lives, of the shattering of our lives, right, need to have the truth told, to have the actual
of revelation of what you went through and like just like I said what the impact of that has been and then how you survived it. Like all of those things need to come to the surface and be submitted then to the belovedness, the love, the rooting and grounding and love of God to say, hey this was harmful and I yield it unto you for healing, not to my survival skills.
not to my pretending, not to my keeping that secret, not to my protecting my father's reputation by not telling the truth, right? Hiding behind the honor of your father and mother by not saying actually what happened and what it has felt like to be their son. Like all of those, the truth telling needs to be something that we do.
Jesse French
So like put on our, our maybe like hypothesis hat here, cause the scriptures don't flesh it out perfectly. But again, going back to that parable, the two sons or the prodigal sons, we know it like, Chris, do you feel like some of the younger son coming home is his willingness to tell the truth of like what his life has held and the older sons, like my words, like wondering like his unwillingness to say like, this is actually what it has felt like.
in my own life to engage the honesty of what you're talking about.
Chris Bruno
Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think we misread this whole story. And the older son is there's far more darkness in the older son than the younger. Because there is a willingness to tell the truth. And here's the most important truth. I think of the whole story. Not the younger son's willing to acknowledge his failure or his sin or his wantonness or whatever you want to call it, waywardness.
It is his willingness to acknowledge that his father is actually good.
because the older son never gets there. The older son does not acknowledge the father's goodness. And I think that's the part, you said it's the inflection point of the story, when the son recognizes that the father is actually good and may yet still have some goodness for him and even some of the thinking there is flawed, we can unpack that, but that is the shift. The older son does not acknowledge the goodness of God and so therefore we're back in Ephesians three where Chuck has taken us to like,
rooted and grounded in love, rooted and grounded in the goodness of God, rooted and grounded that love is actually at the core of the universe.
Jesse French
Yes.
Chris Bruno
So I love that you bring up that parable.
Jesse French
So much, so much there, right.
Chris Bruno
Yeah.
Jesse French
Chris, as you, I'll ask it this way, kind of again, a little bit in the vein of where we started, like you use this beloved, and it's a phrase in scripture, Henry now and talks about it a lot in one of his books, but like, kind of in the same way, like just put some more flesh on maybe not even that word, but like that character of connection, right? When we're in the space of our belovedness, like what does some of that mark?
Chris Bruno
Well, I want to start first by beloved is an adjective and a noun. It is not a verb. So it is a recipient of love. There is nothing inside of this person that has done anything to become the beloved. It is by nature of the lover that the beloved is beloved. Okay. So, you know, there's a, think about it like you have, you know, you're a fly fisherman, right? You probably have,
a beloved rod that you use, Right? We talk about this, it's all over the Song of Solomon, that there is a beloved, right? I am my beloved and my beloved is mine. Like there is something about, there is an action being taken by the lover towards the object, the recipient of that love. Okay? So that's the first thing I would say as I unpack beloved is that it is the recipient
of love, back to the love is at the core of the universe. The other thing I wanna say about that word I love, I love the actual word beloved because it actually means like to be loved. When you break it down, it just means be loved, be loved, be loved, be loved. I, don't know about it, but I use the phrase, Jesse, the beloved, not only because, you know, now and then others use it.
but it is a constant reminder of, I receiving the love? Am I open to receiving? I think the only thing for the beloved is to be open. Is the earth open to receiving the sun? Right? Not to generate something just opened. And the fact is just like the sun, it does generate things. We need the sun to live, but is the earth just...
Jesse French
generate.
Chris Bruno
open to receiving it. It's not anything the earth is doing, but to just be the recipient of the light and the warmth of God.
And as a result, things happen.
So guys, listen to the summit interview with Chuck DeGroat. It is something that you need to get on. You need to register for and get in there. He is one of many amazing speakers we have as a part of the Restorative Manhood Digital Summit. And so please get in there, listen for more of what Chuck has to say about these things. And everybody has to say about some, what does it mean to be a restorative man in the world?
Jesse French
excited for it. Chris, good to be with you. Thanks for today.
Chris Bruno
Yeah, take care, Jesse.