Integrate the shadow of your masculinity before it drags you to hell

Lately, I've been listening to a lot of masculinity podcasts. One of them that doesn't suck is ManTalks with Connor Beaton. So I dove into his personal growth book for men, which also doesn't suck! It really lives up to the second word of its subtitle, A Practical Guide to Face Your Darkness, End Self-Sabotage, and Find Freedom. The book is about a topic I've long shied away from (for some reason)...

Shadow Work

This comes out of Jungian psychology. Your shadow is not bad or good, but it will royally fuck with your life if you don't integrate it consciously...

And this is where the shadow exists. It is the conglomeration of all you have tried not to be, wanted to hide from others, and avoided about yourself. (p.27)

It is the insecurity you hide in your relationships, the neediness you can’t control, the lies you tell your family, and the judgment you have toward yourself and others. It is the sabotage that shows up when you most wish to succeed. (p.27)

The Shadow of YOUR Father

Chapter three was by far the most meaningful for me. I knew my father's shadow was something I needed to explore when I started to get uncomfortable merely from listening to the audio chapter. I have a decent relationship with my father (I actually interviewed him on my podcast), I'm not particularly bitter and resentful at him for his failings, but when I reflect on our relationship I have a deep sense of longing for what I wanted and needed from him.

It's important for every man to dispense with the ego defense urge that tells us, I'm my own man. I make my own choices. My father doesn't hold any influence or sway in my mind now. Because...

The shadow of your father is neither good nor bad, only inescapable. (p.55)

I found the release the father exercise particularly liberating. It is described...

Finally, write a letter to your father and create a ceremony to release him. You may write the letter and read it out to your men’s group before burning it, or read the letter when out hiking in the deep woods before burying it. Regardless, the letter is not for your father or to be sent to him, but it should cover two important elements: 1) Everything he did and didn’t do that you’ve held resentment, pain, bitterness, or sadness for, making it clear what exactly you wanted/needed. 2) Forgiving and releasing him entirely from being at fault for the man you are today. Reclaim your sovereignty and make it clear that you are in charge of developing yourself into the man you wish to be. Declare how you will love him and honor him moving forward as a son.

I'll refrain from sharing my letter here, Per the instructions in the book, it's something I won't even share with him.

It also includes prompts to explore the gradations and depths of your father’s anger - a seed planted in you decades ago that can bear poisonous fruit in your life, even if you promised yourself you'd never be like him!

“The One Rule of Men.”

The rule is simple: Don’t talk about what it’s like to be a man who is struggling.

I think this is kind of like the one rule of The Roughnecks who get slaughtered by giant arachnids in the awesome 90s movie Starship Troopers: "Everyone fights. No one quits." and it makes about as much sense!

Isn't that the truth? With few exceptions - one dude comes to mind that I befriended in Costa Rica (a fellow entrepreneur in the Nootropics space, actually) - the peer-to-peer conversations I have with men burst with bragging. I think of the million stupid conversations I've had with a buddy about how many women he was bedding or how he was killing it in his new hustle.

On Suffering

The truth about pain and suffering is that it’s usually asking you to build yourself into the kind of man who knows how to respond when suffering comes knocking. A man who knows he can navigate through hardship is a man who has immense value to himself, his family, community, and the world. (p.85)

Habituate some arbitrary suffering, so that you're prepared to handle the suffering that this entropic world is going to blindside you with. So cold showers, 24-hour fasts, arduous workouts, combat sports (if you are into them!)

On Women

The truth is, the way you treat and view women represents the way you treat your own feminine qualities and unconscious mind... In short, women are a mirror reflecting what you are unaware of about yourself as a man. (p.127)

If you habitually treat women like crap or discard them quickly, that reflects deeply on how you regard and respect yourself. That speaks to a gapping disconnect between your values and your actions.

On Cheating

As Henry David Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” I was one of those men. I lived in quiet despair and desperation, and cheating let me believe that I was doing something with my life. As if sleeping with countless women would somehow fill the void of living without purpose. Don’t get me wrong, it’s one thing to date around and be intentional about enjoying an active sex life while building a meaningful existence. But when sex, women, or dating have become the way we find meaning in our existence, we will surely be left unsatisfied and unsatiated. (p. 167)

Sexual Freedom

This is the topic of an entire chapter because it's something almost every man craves; whether he's single and not getting laid or in a relationship and not getting exactly what he wants in the bedroom. Reading the first page of the chapter, I was filled with gratitude because sexually I feel totally free and satisfied. I have no yearning for something different, no feeling of constraint. I think this has a lot to do with the Tantra I've been practicing for half a decade now; taking back control of my sexual energy and focus. Jocko Willink, a highly decorated retired US Navy SEAL and bestselling author, is perhaps most famous for saying that...

Discipline equals freedom.

And that applies in sexual matters. At least for me, the more disciplined I've become, the more I get exactly what I want and am freed from FOMO, comparison, and adolescent fantasies (of threesomes with green alien babes).

On being "vulnerable"

When a woman says she wants you to open up or be more vulnerable, what she is really saying is that she wants to know that you are aware of your own internal experience and capable of regulating your emotional state. She wants to be able to validate that you are in some way dealing with the stress, pressures, and chaos of your job, finances, kids, and whatever else you may have on your plate. She doesn’t want you to feel like you have to entirely hide what you’re going through, she just wants to know what its like as you go through your challenges. Yes, she may want to hear about the details of your distress and frustration, but ultimately what she is looking for is not to solve your problems with you or validate your feelings, but to know that you as a man are aware of how you are feeling and capable of navigating through it.

I appreciate that my wife has never bugged me about being "vulnerable!" Maybe it's because I do share with her everything I do on the emotional regulation front, one of the best tools I've found for this (which I don't think gets talked about enough in the personal growth sphere) is