Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
Ruin and Redemption with Drew Boa
00:00
Well guys, welcome to another episode of the podcast. My name's Jesse French. I'm here with my cohost Chris Bruno. Welcome you guys. Glad you guys are here and we're especially excited today to have a conversation with our good friend, Drew Boa. And Drew is a friend of Restoration Project. He has an organization called Husband Material, which is just a wonderfully valuable resource that helps men engage sexuality and greater levels of freedom. And Drew,
00:29
Thanks for coming back. Thanks for joining us for another conversation here. You're welcome. I like talking to you guys. Wow, we enjoyed too. I wanted to start maybe in an unlikely spot, but I found out in a earlier conversation with you that you lived in Canada for a portion of your life. And my ears just kind of pricked up when you said that because I also spent a year in Canada. I didn't live there. I only lived there for a year going to school, but I have this dear space.
00:59
Maybe it's kind of idealized for the Canadian population and the country of Canada. But what I want to ask you about is, what about the time that you spent in Canada was formative to you? I grew up moving around all over North America, Atlanta, Georgia, Puerto Rico, Mexico City, Texas. And when I got to Toronto in Ontario in Canada, I for the first time felt
01:29
myself, I felt a sense of belonging. It was easier for me to make friends. Toronto is a very multicultural city. Even though I didn't know I was a third culture kid growing up between worlds, I found that I could be one of the guys there. And that was so refreshing. And then when we moved out of that place, I not only lost my friends, I also lost the person who I was when I was there.
01:59
Yeah, would you share just even just a little more about who you were in that space? Like describe that young teenager that found himself in Toronto in the space that offered him a level of belonging. I was a hockey player that holds a lot of weight in Canada. Yep, for sure. Yep. A lot of currency. Yes. And I went to an all boys school, which was so helpful for me.
02:26
formatively being able to connect with my peers and then out of that, begin to go on little adventures to into the world of girls and the all girls school. And it felt like we had very clear roles and I knew what to do. So I just want to note real quickly here that Drew is a hockey player and he still has all his teeth. At least that is true. And his nose looks normal. His nose, your nose, you know, it,
02:56
Congratulations. That's a hard-won trophy to come out with all your pieces. True. Thank you. True. Did you ever break your nose in hockey? You require boys to be safer than men. No, I didn't. I did break a collarbone. Oh, okay. Okay. That was after I moved to Texas where the local religion is not hockey. It's football and hockey is played like football down there. And that's where I broke my collarbone. Okay. It's a little bit more dangerous.
03:26
Yeah, I would imagine that had to be incredibly disenchanting, traumatic to like, just from the hockey level of, man, this is a sport, this place that I love who does this really well. And now I'm in this place where they have just totally, I don't know the right word, like just practice the sport in a dishonoring way, maybe I would imagine. Yeah. If you've ever seen the movie Inside Out, I felt like Riley who
03:52
moves, her family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. And you see all the little emotions within her, anger, sadness, disgust, fear. And so that movie really told my story and I think it's a beautiful picture of what's going on inside of us. Why are those important categories and emotions to be aware of? Like, why are those, for you even to be able to articulate and say there was,
04:20
these different things that I was feeling, that feels like a big step, a step that often I'm not able to do, or I know other men can struggle with that. But why is that sort of emotional awareness, particularly as you look back in that move, why is that significant now? I mean, a huge part of it is that nobody was engaging those emotions. So I didn't even know what they are. I was crying myself to sleep every night.
04:50
But my parents didn't really do emotions. They did solutions. They did advice. They provided a lot of financial support and academic support, but my heart was not part of that equation. And so I experienced what I now know as alexithymia. Alexithymia means I don't know what I'm feeling, right?
05:15
So that's a great vocab word. It totally is. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna use that one for sure. Vocab word of the day, people. Vocab word of the day. Yeah. Go look it up. There's a lot of great content out there about alexithymia. And when we're not aware of our emotions, sometimes they can become sexualized. And the only way we really can understand what I'm feeling is to explore those deeper sexual urges and see like, oh, what's underneath this? Oh my gosh, I'm really feeling stressed or afraid.
05:44
or frustrated. And so if we don't make space for our emotions, sometimes they get relegated to a sexual energy. Yeah. Man, I love that you brought that word because I don't know how many times people have asked me or I've asked other people like, tell me what you're feeling. And you're like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And, and I wonder if like, alexithymia is a ubiquitous experienced among most men because we're not trained well as boys to know what
06:14
we feel there's not a lot of education around that. There's actually the, can I put it this way? Like the anti education of just get over it, whatever you're feeling it's not now, not for now, not welcome here. We're not going to spend time exploring what that is because you just need to move on. And that feels like so much of the atmospheric culture or whatever that, that us men are raised in, unless there is.
06:41
someone who is wondering about the inside out experiences inside of you, you're probably going to end up going like, I don't know, which then leads to an adult man who still doesn't know. And when an adult man doesn't know what he's feeling, he's also not equipped to be able to engage the emotions of others. Right. Yeah. So Drew, tell us a story from
07:08
the Texas years or maybe even the Toronto years right before you moved to Texas, either one where it felt like this is a hinge point moment, a forging moment for you where there was a before and after. A moment that you kind of recognize like things in my world, you know, something happened that the before is very different than the after. And I mean, even a small thing, we could say the move from Toronto to Texas, but even just
07:38
moment of your life. You're like, oh this, I remember this and I remember feeling different after that. Do you have any stories like that come to mind? Yeah, if you want me to zoom in up close to a moment in our previous episode, I mentioned MySpace and some of the social media that was just emerging back then. I remember feeling so displaced in Texas and this grief and loss and anger
08:08
And all these feelings I wasn't aware of, but I uploaded a picture of a girl from Toronto to my page, to my profile saying, my old girlfriend from Canada. We had never dated, but I put that up there. And then somebody from Canada saw it and said, oh, I didn't know you dated. My face went beet red. I deleted the picture and never talked to her again. And I felt so much humiliation that I had
08:37
gone to the point of making up a relationship that never happened to try to prove to these people in Texas that I was not a complete loser. And so what, thank you for that. And I'm curious, like what is the before? What is the after there? You know, the before I think was still grasping to hold on to some of my former self and my former life. And then the after was, I think that version of Drew died that day.
09:06
And in the aftermath, I really escaped even more into isolation. And every day I would just get through the school day, hoping that I could go home and play video games or look at pictures of girls on the internet. And that was my, my daily existence seeking an escape, seeking a way, maybe even to get back to who I was or where I was. And it was actually during that time of emptiness that I
09:35
I became a Christian and Jesus came into my life. That does not minimize the tragedy or the trauma. It is a gift that in my lowest place, Jesus lifted me up to a new life with him. And I think it could be easy to put a nice little spiritual silver lining on it and see, oh, God was at work the whole time. Don't you see that God had a plan that he...
10:04
took you out of your comfort and led you to Texas so that he could be everything for you. And that just bypassed all of the real and raw pain, you know? Mm-hmm, yeah. So I hold this tension of seeing the ruin and the redemption at the same time. What does that ability to hold that tension that you just said, I would totally agree with you. I think that's really well said. What does that?
10:33
the holding of that tension enable of both the ruin and the redemption of a willingness not to just bypass the grief and what was ruinous, but a willingness to engage that in the same way that Jesus's presence in pursuit of you enables. Why is that tension important, Drew? It's so important because if I only accept one side, then I don't have a real relationship with Jesus. Say more. Yeah, I mean.
11:00
This probably applies to everybody. When we look back at our suffering or the ways that our life shouldn't have gone but it did and the various grief and loss and trauma that we have, whatever it might be, if we get totally absorbed in that, then obviously we miss out on God. Yet if we view God and if we have a relationship with God that's just glossing over those things, then it's going to be a…
11:27
a nice little spiritual faith on the outside, but I'm probably not going to feel loved. I'm probably not going to experience His kindness the way that I would if I can have Jesus weeping with me in some of those places. So, you know, we know from previous conversation that it was at the same time that, you know, you just mentioned the uploading to MySpace and stuff like that. So we have the redemption and the ruin. We have Jesus and pornography coming into your life at the same time.
11:58
Yeah. Isn't that something? And I was just in the conversation, two saviors, two competing saviors. And I was just in a conversation a couple of days ago with somebody and they're like, you know, so Chris, can you speak to, you know, when you become a Christian, everything is not all of a sudden. Okay. It doesn't all of a sudden go away. And I think this conversation right now is no, actually the competition between the saviors,
12:28
is happening in the tension of the ruined and the redemption just that you're talking about. It's so important to kind of acknowledge they can be there both at the same time. Yeah. And porn was very attuned to my pain. It was showing me, hey, here's exactly what you needed but didn't get. Let me give you a false version of that. And so for Jesus to win, he also needs to engage my story. Yeah. And he does.
12:57
I think the question is, do we? Which savior are we more partnered with in attuning to our story? And I think that some of what you do in the work that you do with helping guys recover from pornography addiction and unwanted sexual behavior is helping to attune to the Jesus who is attuned to them. And you know, just again, another totally separate conversation I was in with someone
13:26
her husband's addiction to pornography and how the desire that he had was, you know, I want to grow and become a better husband. I want to become, you know, I want to grow in these areas. And porn just kept showing up as a lot easier, as a lot more accessible. It didn't take as much work. It didn't take as much, you know, it was just this default into like, yeah, and just what you said, porn is very attuned to me in some ways that I'm not.
13:56
And it's also very predictable. You know exactly what you're going to get. Yeah. There's a certainty. Yeah. Which which is appealing in this uncertain world. Totally like uncertain world. And I would say in that, too, like uncertain, mysterious relationship with Jesus, too, like no knock on you, Jesus. But like you are the least predictable relationship I have. So there's no, you know, this is.
14:25
Yes, huge difference. Certain and incredibly mysterious, vastly different saviors in that realm, to use your language. Yeah. No, knock on you, Jesus. I love that. Sorry. I'm not trying to be sacrilegious or disrespectful. I'm sorry. Maybe carry on from it. I think what we're naming, you guys, I think what we're naming is there is the certain present physicality of sexuality in pornography, and there is the uncertain feeling not present.
14:53
lack of physicality, spirituality of Jesus. And so of course, the embodiment of the pornography is going to be something far easier defaulting to go into. Yes. And I would add, we often experience Jesus through his body, through each other. And many ways that's how he becomes physically present to us. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's one reason why
15:22
Brotherhood and vulnerability is such a great antidote to attachment to porn. Yeah. Well, and even just you saying that, you know, attachment to porn, I feel like one of the things we have to do is develop other attachments that replace porn in our lives. And I think so many guys are trying to stop an addiction to pornography without finding an alternative place for their hearts to go first.
15:51
And so I think some of the work that Restoration Project is about and that Husband Material is about is creating the context in the community of brotherhood unto a deeper connection with actual people and attachments with actual people instead of to processes or screens or, you know, or other ways of engaging. So love that. You just said the word attachment. So. And hard add too, it is actually the work of the gospel too, right? Like,
16:20
Jim Wilder is one of Dallas Willard's colleagues who his book renovated is, I don't know if you've read it Drew, but like is this, I love his framing in that book of he actually, him and Dallas Willard talked about, hey, what if when Jesus talks about salvation, what he actually means is healthy attachment to Jesus. Like that's actually what salvation means is this healthy, significant attachment to Jesus.
16:49
memorization of doctrine, but it is healthy attachment to Jesus. So I would say, right, yes to the healthy attachments with other humans. And ultimately that is the gospel too, that can we have a life giving and healthy attachment to Jesus. Amen. Yes. That was good. Amen to that. Amen. Amen. Well, Drew, thanks again for being on the show with us. Thanks for a great conversation. Remind our listeners where they can find you. You can find me at husbandmaterial.com and I also
17:19
have a really exciting course that's free now called 10 Ways to Heal Your Trauma. And you can get that at healyourtrauma.com. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well guys, thanks for being here. Thanks for listening to another episode of the podcast. We'll be back next week. Take care. Thanks, Drew.