- 6 months ago
https://youtu.be/jypbAE_SSDw?si=qugC9tJzwBk-0BkY What is the "Man Box"—and how is it quietly sabotaging modern men, their relationships, and their happiness?
In this powerful and eye-opening episode of Rich in Relationship, host Rich Heller sits down with Dr. John Schinnerer—psychologist, anger expert, and host of The Evolved Caveman Podcast—to dismantle the outdated rules of masculinity that keep men stuck, reactive, and emotionally disconnected.
Together, they explore:
The origins of the Man Box and why it once served a purpose—but now holds men back
Why anger is the most socially “acceptable” emotion for men—and how it distorts all others
How cultural shifts in relationships have left men without a roadmap for connection at home
The neurological and emotional cost of staying stuck in the box
Tools for breaking out: mindfulness, emotional literacy, attachment awareness, and more
The transformative power of grief, vulnerability, and modeling emotional health—for our kids, our partners, and ourselves
John also shares his personal journey of losing his son—and how choosing not to "man up" but to feel and heal changed his life and his daughter’s.
This is a must-listen for any man (or woman) who wants to better understand how men are wired—and how we can rewire for deeper connection, emotional strength, and purpose.
👇 Timestamps and links in the description below!
🔗 Visit Dr. John Schinnerer:
Coaching: https://www.guidetoalth.com
The Evolved Caveman Podcast: https://www.evolvedcaveman.com
Couples work: https://www.loveisntenough.net
If you found this helpful, hit LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and drop a comment—what part of the Man Box do YOU most relate to?
Follow us on social media for more relationship advice:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/richinrelationship/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/richinrelationship/
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/richinrelationship/_created/
Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@richinrelationship
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/rich-in-relationship
Website - https://richinrelationship.com/
In this powerful and eye-opening episode of Rich in Relationship, host Rich Heller sits down with Dr. John Schinnerer—psychologist, anger expert, and host of The Evolved Caveman Podcast—to dismantle the outdated rules of masculinity that keep men stuck, reactive, and emotionally disconnected.
Together, they explore:
The origins of the Man Box and why it once served a purpose—but now holds men back
Why anger is the most socially “acceptable” emotion for men—and how it distorts all others
How cultural shifts in relationships have left men without a roadmap for connection at home
The neurological and emotional cost of staying stuck in the box
Tools for breaking out: mindfulness, emotional literacy, attachment awareness, and more
The transformative power of grief, vulnerability, and modeling emotional health—for our kids, our partners, and ourselves
John also shares his personal journey of losing his son—and how choosing not to "man up" but to feel and heal changed his life and his daughter’s.
This is a must-listen for any man (or woman) who wants to better understand how men are wired—and how we can rewire for deeper connection, emotional strength, and purpose.
👇 Timestamps and links in the description below!
🔗 Visit Dr. John Schinnerer:
Coaching: https://www.guidetoalth.com
The Evolved Caveman Podcast: https://www.evolvedcaveman.com
Couples work: https://www.loveisntenough.net
If you found this helpful, hit LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and drop a comment—what part of the Man Box do YOU most relate to?
Follow us on social media for more relationship advice:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/richinrelationship/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/richinrelationship/
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/richinrelationship/_created/
Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@richinrelationship
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/rich-in-relationship
Website - https://richinrelationship.com/
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:01Today at Rich in Relationships, we're going to talk about the man box.
00:06It's like when you're driving and you've developed a thing for BMWs and all of a sudden all you see are BMWs.
00:11Once you're focused on dumbass, everything is dumbass.
00:13If I had that thought of I'm a dumbass, I could look for information to support that.
00:18And guess what? I can find it.
00:20And that riding that wave feels so good.
00:23But when you get to the end and look behind, you've destroyed your children, you've destroyed your wife, you've lost your...
00:28Especially with anger.
00:30Welcome to another episode of Rich in Relationships.
00:33I'm your host, Rich Heller.
00:34And today we are interviewing a new friend, Dr. John Schinnerer.
00:39John coaches men to greater success and happiness at work and at home.
00:44He's got a PhD from UC Berkeley.
00:47He's also, interestingly, done a bunch of micro recordings on anger management and forgiveness for Simple Habit.
00:54And they've been listened to over 200,000 times.
00:56John, my first question is, who was that guy who listened to it 200,000 times?
01:00It was a guy that really needed help with some rage issues.
01:03Really angry guy.
01:05Oh, yeah.
01:05Their seminar petition is one of the ways we manage the emotional mind.
01:09I might have done 100,000.
01:11I don't know.
01:12Maybe I needed to do 100,000.
01:13John, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the show, back on the show, on the show.
01:17I'm looking forward to having you back on the show another day.
01:20Today we are going to talk about the man box.
01:23And John, I'd like to, I'd like our audience to understand what is the man box?
01:33Yeah, what the hell is the man box?
01:34The man box is an idea that was come up with by Paul Kivel in Oakland, California, back in the 80s.
01:40And he was trying to get young African-American men, teenagers, to engage with their education.
01:45And he was falling down.
01:47And so he changed his approach and started asking them, what does it mean to you to be a man?
01:52And since then, this question has been asked of hundreds of thousands of men, and there's themes to it.
01:59And it's the rules that we learn about what it means to be a quote-unquote real man.
02:05And the rules are things like don't back down, compete, win, don't ask for help, or be self-reliant.
02:12It's dominate women.
02:13It's be the provider.
02:15It's be stoic.
02:17Don't feel.
02:18And there's some good and there's some bad in there.
02:20And this starts really early.
02:24The research has shown that it starts about the age of four or five, as soon as we get into groups of boys in preschool and kindergarten.
02:30And we police ourselves.
02:32And so it seems to be something that's just handed down by culture or society that we picked up.
02:38And it seems to be a way to, I would argue, prepare young men to be soldiers to fight off invasion, where other countries are trying to take natural resources.
02:48And one of the things that's interesting about it is it seems to exist in the vast majority of cultures throughout the world, with the exception of some island cultures where there's no bordering neighbor who is a threat to come in and invade.
03:03And so they have less of a need for soldiers.
03:05And so masculinity develops differently there.
03:08So it's actually a tripartite model of masculinity with something in between masculine and feminine, as well as masculine and feminine.
03:15And so the, you know, as I said, there's some good and there's some bad in there.
03:20But I think what happens with most men that I see in my practice and working with them over 30 years is we, we get these ideas in our head and we tend to peg them at a 10 on a 10 point scale.
03:32So for example, be the provider, great value, great, that's great provide for your family.
03:37The problem is we take it to the nth degree.
03:41And I think over time we feel comfortable, we feel appreciated.
03:45We know what's expected of us.
03:46We're rewarded for doing good work in the workplace.
03:50And when we go home, we don't quite know what our role is.
03:53We're less certain and we're having difficulty communicating with our spouse.
03:58We're having, yeah, well, I mean, after all, we went to work and we made the money and we paid the bills.
04:01It's like, why doesn't she just get it?
04:04I did my, I did my job.
04:05Yeah.
04:06And, and so I think we, as a result, we spend more and more time and energy at work.
04:09And then the very people that we set out to provide for have now become increasingly resentful of the time and energy that we give to work, which is not being spent on them.
04:18And that's why I'm increasingly confused.
04:20Right.
04:21I'm going to work.
04:22I put this beautiful house up over us.
04:24I'm paying for that car.
04:26I paid for your whatever, or maybe you're working too, but you know, I feel like I'm doing my job.
04:31And you're unhappy and you don't want to have the annual, it's going up here.
04:37It's been seven.
04:38I see that a lot.
04:40Um, and the flip side of it is when we aren't the main provider in the family, it really hits our definition of self, our self-worth or self-esteem or sense of masculinity.
04:50And, and that's a huge problem, but to go to some other ones real quickly, self-reliance in general, a really good value.
04:57Um, but if you think of that on a one to 10 scale, where one is I'm completely dependent upon other people, I don't want to be that, but a 10 is I'm a hundred percent reliant on myself.
05:08I cannot ask for help.
05:10Right.
05:11And I remember not even no billing.
05:13I mean, we're like hiring hardwired for connection.
05:16And yeah, I mean, it gets dangerous in the sense of we need help.
05:19We need like just the care of a doctor, especially as we age.
05:24But I remember as a kid, my best friend's dad, he worked in an auto parts department at a, an auto dealer.
05:31And when his teeth would rot, he'd go in the garage and pull them out himself with a pair of pliers.
05:36And my dad was the dentist.
05:38So it wasn't like the dentist was a stranger, but that's the ultimate of self-reliance I would argue.
05:44And that's an unhealthy extreme.
05:46And so I think to look at these as existing on a spectrum and to ask yourself, where are you and where would I rather be and fine tune it?
05:55It's not about all or nothing.
05:57It's about nuance.
05:58And so the, the last one, the biggest one to me is be stoic.
06:03And I have a real problem with this one, which essentially translates to don't feel.
06:08And, you know, if we think about growing up like middle school and high school, if you show too much fear or sadness, inevitably, you're going to get one of the following insults.
06:19And forgive me, I'm going to throw some slurs out there.
06:21So I apologize in advance.
06:23But the, the insults that we get are, dude, don't be such a pussy.
06:27Don't be a little bitch.
06:28Or don't be a little girl.
06:30And those insults all indicate the feminine.
06:36And so the message there is don't be feminine.
06:38And I really don't think it takes getting those insults that many times, three, four, five, six, before we're like, screw that.
06:45I'm never showing that again.
06:46And you kind of jump back in the man box, so to speak.
06:49On the other side of the emotional spectrum, the positive side, if we show too much joy, love, romanticism, excitement, flamboyance, it's dude, don't be so gay or don't be a fag.
06:59And again, I don't think it takes getting those messages that many times before we're like, well, shit, I'm never doing that again.
07:05And we jump back in the man box.
07:07So the question to me is what emotions are we allowed to show or can we show without fear of being embarrassed or humiliated?
07:14And I would say it's three things.
07:16I would say it's lust, because if I indicate lust for a woman to you, I'm straight, right?
07:23I'm a heterosexual, so that's safe.
07:25The second one is stress, because if I complain to you how stressed I am, it says I matter, I'm important.
07:31And the third one, the biggest one, I would argue is anger.
07:34And think of anger on a one to ten scale in terms of intensity.
07:37So it could be irritation, frustration, annoyance, anger, all the way up to rage.
07:41But the majority of our emotions, because we're still human, we still feel all the emotions, but our emotions get funneled through that anger lens.
07:49And they flip in like a third of a second.
07:51So I've seen embarrassment flip to anger, guilt, shame, anxiety, fear, and then depression or sadness shows up as irritability in men.
08:00I get that.
08:01I'm not sure funneled through, I'm not sure I say funneled through, but they can, it's like when those emotions are triggered, the only expression that's acceptable to us in the box is anger, because that feels empowering.
08:15Whereas, you know, hurt, sad, fearful, oh no, men don't care for where, because, and it goes back to this thing you were talking about.
08:23I want to make sure I got this.
08:24You know, it sounds like the box that in our culture, uh, you're identifying as necessary for warfare.
08:34And well, we know that we've, we're in a culture that's, that's been in warfare for a significant period of time.
08:41Uh, but also there's a whole cultural shift happening.
08:45And actually you're landing in the middle of a series on this.
08:48And one of the arguments we made in the beginning of the series was that the shift is that a hundred years ago, let's say 1925, you know, the man's role, the man, the household was much more dependent on the man to protect the household period.
09:04Right. There just weren't as many cops. There wasn't as much, any of that, you know, um, and we're, you know, without getting into the politics of 1925 and over a hundred years, the culture over, not only is the culture overall become safer, but, you know, with world, the end of world war II and women, you know, being in factories and really having the sense of empowerment and getting the boat and all that stuff.
09:29There's been a massive, there's been a massive shift in what, uh, what it means to be a protector, you know, in 1925, you protected your family by, you know, with, with a, with a gun or a stick or whatever in 2025, it's, you know, it's a whole nother ball game, but because of this shift in the culture, you know, women have been, which women have been driving to a large extent for the last 75 years.
09:56Because, because, because they're claiming their equality that was denied to them for so long. Now that there's more physical safety, they're not being held hostage in the home by the guy who's protecting them.
10:06So they've got the freedom to say, look, I can make more money. Look, I can do these things. Look, you can change a diaper. Look, they've, and you know, the men haven't adapted to it.
10:17You know, that, so it sounds like that box is an, was muddying been necessary at one time. Uh, but now it's a box because it's not, it's dysfunctional and we can't seem to get out of it.
10:30So I'd love to hear more about, you know, there's a, there's an old saying in the coaching world that, um, everyone's in a box, but the, the problem is the instructions are on the outside.
10:42So, you know, that's what I love about the man box. So here we, here we have this man box, cultural man box that I would say every man in America, I don't know about on the planet, you know, maybe not in Maui, you know, every, every man on the planet, uh, to some extent has implanted in them.
10:58How do we get out of this box?
11:01Well, and let me back up a second, because I agree with what you're saying. And what the research shows is that it really started to shift in the 1970s when women got access to the pill, which then financial or reproductive freedom.
11:12And then they started getting more and more into the workforce and they had more financial freedom. And then their expectations of a romantic partner in marriage began to shift over time. And quite dramatically, the problem is nobody told us.
11:26Yeah.
11:26So, you know, one of the things I love about this man box idea is it's not our fault in the sense of none of us asked to be socialized in this manner. It just happens. And, you know, as I said, I think there's some good and there's some bad in it. And I think it is our responsibility to take a look at it and how is it impacting our behavior and our identity and then look at how we want to evolve beyond it.
11:51Yeah. Let me reinforce what you just said about the pill. The new thing is like I work with, like, guess what? I've got women who I work with and their new thing is I can freeze my eggs now.
12:02So I'm no longer limited by my biological clock. I can have a baby at 50 if I want to, or I can have someone else have my child for me if I want to. And now that is even more empowering. I'm even less limited by my womanhood, you know, and that's changing the game on a whole nother level.
12:22Right. And I think, you know, for me, I'm a big fan of happiness, of life satisfaction, of meaning. And one of the things that really hit me hard when I started looking at positive psychology in the early 2000s is this idea that connection and relationship is a fundamental pillar for a happy and thriving life.
12:44Yeah.
12:45And we men are not socialized to be relational. We're socialized, I would argue, in the opposite direction. We're socialized to be the rock, the island, the lone wolf. And yet that really hamstrings our attempts at connection, whether it's friendship or romantic partnership.
13:04And so one of the things that I think we need to do is to really work on, well, to understand that we need relationship, we need connection if we want to be happier. And then how do I get there? What's limiting me in creating the connection that I want and need?
13:20Yeah. What is it about the box? Right. There's like, you know, what is it about that box? Actually, I'll, let me just feed that.
13:27So the studies on connection now indicate that connection is like a survival level need. And being survival level, it's genetic, it's burned into us. It isn't just, oh, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, social was down here. But it turns out that social is like right up there with, I got to eat.
13:48Right. Because, yeah. Because the way our culture was wired up before food became incredibly abundant was, I mean, if you didn't, if your crop was failing, you needed to know somebody, you know, or if your hunting was hunted out, you needed to know somebody.
14:02Belonging is a fundamental need that we have as humans. Because if you go back to tribal times, if we get kicked out of the tribe, that's truly a life or death situation. And our emotional system responds to it now in the same way.
14:14And we've got increasing numbers of young men who are isolated alone. They've been rejected. They've been bullied. And they are at home in a basement on the internet going down these rabbit holes and they can't connect. And that's a huge problem.
14:28Like the kid who created his true love on chat and wasn't talking to anyone, was talking to his, he named it after one of the queens in, what's the series? Doesn't matter.
14:45So anyway, fell in love, threatened to commit suicide. Chat said, oh, don't do that. And then he said, you know what? I'm going to be joining you soon.
14:53And Chad didn't know that that meant he was going to leave this world and go to that one. And he killed himself. And afterwards, everyone was like, oh my God, people were like blaming the mom and dad for not being in touch with their kids.
15:04But he's doing all this on his phone, right? He's just another kid with a phone. It's like, it's not really their fault. He's a teenager. They thought he was well adjusted.
15:11I mean, I'm not going to say they don't have responsibility, but they got a lot of negative social repercussions what happened there when really we should have been in there going, oh my God, what a terrible loss.
15:25But anyway, the point being that, yeah, kids are so disconnected today that they are creating AI friends that they can go to.
15:32Actually, I bumbled into this app called Replika, R-E-P-L-I-K-A. And you can buy your, it's like, you can buy your app tattoos. You can buy, you can decorate your app. You can buy your boss, your AI tattoos. You can decide what it's going to look like. You earn points where you can give it plants in its room. It's like, it's this whole, like the Cyrus, but next level.
16:00Yeah, it's, it's exactly, exactly.
16:03But yeah, to get back to your earlier question of what do we do about it? I think, you know, Tasha Yurik has this research from a few years ago that shows that 95% of us will self-report being highly self-aware, which means we're aware of our emotions, our thoughts, how we impact other people and what their impact is on us, our values and so forth.
16:24And in fact, the research shows it's only about 12 to 15% of us that are self-aware. And so that's a huge problem.
16:32And one of the barriers to creating greater self-awareness, which I think is the foundational skill of kind of breaking out of the man box or evolving beyond is we got to be more aware of the anger within us and the dynamics of anger in general.
16:47Because if you and I are really angry with each other and we're in a heated discussion or an argument, the only thing I'm thinking is I just need to get him to understand how right I am and how wrong he is so he can apologize to me and nothing you're saying is getting into my head.
17:03Now, the other part of the dynamic there is I'm externalizing all blame because we get an all or nothing black and white thinking when we're really angry, but I'm putting all the blame onto you.
17:14And I'm like, Rich, if you would just stop being such a fill in the blank, I wouldn't be so pissed off.
17:19Now, what's the problem with that?
17:21The problem is that when I do that without awareness, I'm effectively cutting myself off from any possibility of introspection and growth and evolution.
17:31Because in my mind, it's all on you.
17:34And I'm completely ignoring my part in this dynamic, which is incredibly dangerous in my mind.
17:40Yeah, this this dynamic you're describing is unbelievably prevalent.
17:44I mean, I can't tell you how many couples reach out to me because they see that they're in a spiraling, destructive dynamic that's taking them nowhere and they and they don't know how to stop.
17:55They know where they want to be relationally, but they don't know how to stop that, what you just described.
18:00And it shows up different ways for men and women.
18:03It's interesting how they do the dance together.
18:04But once the once that part of the brain is activated and there isn't much rational thought and it's just I got I got I got I got it just it's a go nowhere conversation.
18:15Yeah.
18:16Oh, here we are.
18:17We're guys.
18:18And the part of the work in terms of relationships, there's all kinds of problems with the box.
18:25But in terms of relationships, the real I think this thing of anger that you're bringing up is really a challenge because part of the presentation today is we're equal.
18:34And if I'm talking hetero relationships right now, I'm not sure how this shows up in same sex marriages.
18:40If my wife is showing up angry and we're equal, I should be allowed to show up angry, too, except that the experience of a man's experience of a woman's anger is different than a woman's experience of a man's angry.
18:54Typically, I agree.
18:55Yeah.
18:55Well, I mean, yeah, there's definitely exceptions.
18:58Look, I have known some ass kicking women.
19:01I practice martial arts my whole life.
19:02I have literally known ass kicking women.
19:04I'm not talking about that.
19:06And it depends on physicality and size and then the degree of intensity of the anger in the individual.
19:11But yeah, generally, I would think I believe that male anger is just scarier.
19:16So that makes this box, in terms of actually having a relationship, we get into a relationship with someone intuitively, you know, we know we need it.
19:24We love them.
19:25We want to have a relationship that we want to have a future with them.
19:28It checks a lot of boxes for us.
19:30Guys love to check boxes.
19:32And then, as you pointed out, part of the box is there's certain feelings that are very difficult if not there's no permission.
19:42It's verboten to express.
19:44So what does that leave us?
19:45That leaves us happy, happy, joy, joy, or anger.
19:48Yeah.
19:49And so we get it.
19:50How do we, self-awareness, I don't think, self-awareness is a beginning.
19:56What comes next?
19:57Well, I mean, the foundational tool in my mind is mindfulness or some form of meditation.
20:03Because that allows us to get more acquainted with our internal landscape of thought and feeling.
20:08And that's critical.
20:09Because we're so focused on the outside world that we need to put a little bit more time and effort into the internal world.
20:15So that we can increase emotional awareness, emotional granularity.
20:19And then we can use that to build greater communication skills.
20:23And then, you know, down the road we can look at, you know, how do we kick our parasympathetic nervous system into high gear?
20:29How do we, you know, activate that relaxation response so that when we do get activated in anger or some other discomfortable, uncomfortable emotion, we can have a shot at getting out of it more quickly.
20:41And then, you know, I think attachment styles is a big part of this as well.
20:44And figuring out what your attachment style is.
20:47You're making me very anxious right now.
20:48How does that impact your relationship?
20:50More importantly, how does it impact the way in which you argue?
20:54And what's your, you know, are you an avoidant where you want to get the hell out of there during an argument?
20:58You need a timeout to calm down because you're getting flooded.
21:00Are you an anxious attachment style where you pursue in desperation and panic and you need to reconnect in order to calm your physiology when your partner who's the avoidant needs time and space to calm their physiology?
21:12And then you're doing this anxious avoidant dance.
21:14So to me, it's a bundle of tools and skills that we got to really prioritize to get better at in order to show up as the partner we need to be and deserve to be in a relationship.
21:28I want to reinforce something you said on the front end.
21:32It's kind of this realization that's so important for human beings.
21:35Forget about freaking men, right?
21:37And that is we are not our brains.
21:40We are not our bodies.
21:42We are impacted, you know, but the reinforcing the mindfulness meditation prayer thing, the studies show that when we engage in regular habits like that,
21:55that the part of our brain that drives that intense emotionality actually shrinks and the part of our brain that's more rational actually grows.
22:05You know, I think one of the misconceptions about the brain is, oh, well, it's like this jello thing that's between my ears and it kind of runs the show and I just do what it tells me.
22:15And to some extent that's true, but also I think it's more if we start thinking about our brains more, there's a group of muscles in there, right?
22:24And because we've been allowing as men, now let's just leave women out of that for a second, because we've been allowing ourselves to go to anger again and again and again,
22:32the part of our brain that gets triggered when we're angry has gotten really strong.
22:37And if we want to be, if we want to end that spiral, what you're, you know, exactly what you're advocating is necessary.
22:44We need to choose to be in the rational part of our brain, choose to exercise.
22:47Not that the, you know, the, our amygdala is what I'm talking about, not that the, the, the diva isn't going to want to sing, but when it wants to sing, we need to know, is this the right moment instead of, oh, it wants to sing time to let it out.
22:59Right. And I like that idea that the mind is a great slave and a terrible master in the sense of, you know, you, we've got to train our mind so that our thoughts work for us rather than against us.
23:13And our thoughts aren't in charge of us.
23:14I, at this point in my career, after practicing mindfulness for some years, I don't see myself as my mind anymore.
23:20I used to think that I, John, am my mind, the thoughts in my head.
23:23And I think many men make that mistake of over-focusing on the thinker.
23:28Descartes really screwed us by saying, I think, therefore, I am totally cut us off from mind and body separated the two screwed us up.
23:34Anyway, now I think of myself as the entity, whatever that is kind of floating above my head, looking down at my thought stream saying, oh, there's that thought again.
23:45If I'm a, I'm a fricking idiot or I'm a loser or nobody likes me.
23:49And, you know, with practice, with mindfulness, I really liked the idea that you can't stop the thoughts from coming.
23:56But you can change how you relate to the thoughts.
23:59So one of my classic automatic negative thoughts was, I'm a dumbass.
24:04You know, I'd make a mistake and then I would just start beating myself up in the past.
24:07And then if I had that thought of, I'm a dumbass, I could look for information to support that.
24:13And guess what?
24:14I can find it.
24:15Yeah.
24:16It's like, I've made mistakes.
24:17I've said hurtful things.
24:18I've done stupid stuff in the past.
24:20But it ruins the emotional quality of the moment and maybe for an hour or a day.
24:24It's like when you're driving and you've got, you've developed a thing for BMWs and all of a sudden all you see are BMWs.
24:31Once you're focused on dumbass, everything is dumbass.
24:34Once you're focused on the communication system.
24:36Yeah.
24:36And, and so, you know, the way around that is to practice something like mindfulness where you can begin to observe your thoughts.
24:43Kind of like you're sitting on the bank of a Creek and it's water going past you and there's a tree upstream dropping leaves in it.
24:50And each leaf is like a thought.
24:52And so, you know, in the past I would pick up the leaf that said, I'm a dumbass and I would examine it and I would spend time with it and I would feel shitty afterwards.
24:59Now I see the leaf with, I'm a dumbass on it.
25:02And I'm like, oh, there's that thought of, I'm a dumbass.
25:05I've seen that before.
25:06I know it's not true.
25:07I'm just going to let it go.
25:09Yeah.
25:10And so I don't get hooked by these negative thoughts nearly as much.
25:15And that's a huge change.
25:17Similarly, you have, when you, once, when you start developing a practice of that kind, I'm just going to call it because there's a, the range of practices out there is surreal, but it's like whatever fits you.
25:30The beauty of that is that if you can let go of, I'm a dumbass, you can, you know, when you start feeling angry, you could just notice it instead of, I like to say, are you having the feeling noticing it?
25:46Or is the feeling having you, you're riding a wave, you know, and that riding that wave feels so good.
25:52But when you get to the end and look behind, you've destroyed your children, you've destroyed your wife, you've lost.
25:57Especially with anger.
25:58And it's funny.
25:59I was doing an interview with Ethan Cross, who wrote the book chatter, who's one of the world's leading experts on internal chatter, that voice in our head.
26:06And one of the differences between being immersed or fused with those thoughts and emotions and being able to observe them and step back and create psychological distance is what person are you talking to yourself in?
26:20In other words, when I'm losing my mind, when I've lost emotional composure, I'm speaking to myself generally in first person, singular.
26:28I can't take this anymore.
26:30I'm an idiot.
26:30I can't do this anymore.
26:32And when I can step back, the easiest way to step back and create that distance is to switch from first person to second person or third person.
26:40So it sounds something like, John, relax, take a deep breath, you're going to be fine.
26:47And it helps you to step back and observe what's going on.
26:51And the other thing you mentioned was there's a host of different tools you can use to foster these type of skills.
26:57And, you know, there's deep breathing, there's progressive muscle relaxation, there's mindfulness, there's different forms of meditation, there's loving kindness meditation, which is one of my favorites.
27:07And there's great research behind mindfulness and loving kindness at this point.
27:13I'm going to just share the danger of this, right?
27:16So every tool can be a weapon.
27:19And every weapon can be a tool.
27:21And the danger of the personal experience, my personal experience with this was I was, believe it or not, a really angry man at one time.
27:30My current wife wouldn't date me in college because I was too scary.
27:34And now she will.
27:36So something changed.
27:37But I went to meditation boot camp, basically, at the most Navy SEAL Zen Buddhist monastery, I think maybe in the world, from what people tell me now.
27:48I didn't know it at the time, but I was like, yeah, I'm in, right?
27:50Because I wanted to go to the butch meditation monastery, you know?
27:56For those of you who don't know, butch in the same-sex marriage world is a term that women use for a masculine woman.
28:06So I wanted to be the most masculine whatever, you know?
28:10And what I found was I started avoiding my feelings.
28:13And so, you know, you can take these practices and just go, oh, I'm really upset.
28:18Oh, I'm just going to let go of the thought.
28:20I'm just going to let go of the thought and never actually deal with it.
28:24And it took me a while before I was like, you know what?
28:26This is great.
28:27I'm not flying off the handle anymore, but I still have some stuff going on.
28:31I'm going to have to look at that stuff, you know?
28:33Yeah.
28:33Can I tell you a story to that?
28:34Please.
28:35Because I think, you know, when I graduated with a PhD from UC Berkeley in psychology in 2000,
28:42and I realized at that point, like a year or two later, I was like, oh my God, I'm an emotional
28:47idiot still.
28:48And one of the reasons I got into psychology was to figure out my own emotions because the
28:53dumbest, most shameful stuff I had done in my life was when my emotional mind was in charge
28:56of me almost inevitably.
28:57And so I really started putting some time and energy into this and I've come so far.
29:04And, and I think we, we have these things called primary or signature emotions.
29:08And this was actually reflected in inside out the movie by whoever, whatever you were a
29:13major consultant on.
29:14I didn't get to say about major, but a consultant.
29:16Yes.
29:17So whatever, whatever emotion in the movie is at the center of the control panel is the
29:22signature emotion for that person.
29:24So the dad, it's anger, mom, it's sadness.
29:26It's Riley, it changes.
29:28It was joy.
29:28And then it kind of goes all over the place due to puberty, but that's backed up by neuroscience
29:33that we have a signature emotion.
29:35That is the one we go to most easily, most quickly, most often.
29:39And I really think that one of the developmental goals in this lifetime is to get through each
29:45of the major negative or uncomfortable emotions so that we kind of make peace with it.
29:49Yeah.
29:49So in my experience, I think I've gone from being a kid to then sadness slash depression to
29:56dealing with anxiety slash fear to dealing with anger slash irritability in almost a
30:01decade of each.
30:02And I've, I've had to learn to work with each of those.
30:07And I think there's.
30:08And have them.
30:08Yeah.
30:09Yeah.
30:09And, but so the, then culminating in about 18 months ago, my son died of a fentanyl overdose.
30:16He was 23 and my daughter was 17 at the time in the middle of her senior year in high school
30:22in the middle of college applications.
30:24And this just threatened to destroy everything.
30:27Yeah.
30:28And I remember I, I, I resolved that I was not going to deal with this like a normal man.
30:36The average man, I was going to go straight after these emotions.
30:39I was going to feel them.
30:41I wasn't going to numb them.
30:42I was not going to run from them.
30:43I was not going to hide from them.
30:45I was going to ask for help.
30:46I was going to talk to people about what happened because I know shame lives in the shadows and
30:51thrives in shadow.
30:52So the more I could talk about it, the less shame I would feel.
30:56And then I was going to work to radically accept that this was the new reality.
31:00And I talked about this with my daughter.
31:02I also modeled for her crying, sobbing, gave her permission to feel her sadness and grief
31:07and anguish.
31:08And something really amazing happened.
31:11I think it was six to eight weeks after the death, she was asked or had the opportunity
31:15to speak to her entire school about drug addiction and about the loss of her brother.
31:21And we talked about it.
31:22And I said, I, I think it's a great opportunity.
31:26It, it, it helps you to find meaning in this tragedy and it's going to be tough as hell.
31:31Yeah.
31:32And, and she went ahead and did it and cried in front of the school.
31:36And I think blew everyone away, which interestingly led to her getting all these amazing awards at
31:43the end of the year, student of the year for the state of California.
31:45For speech and debate.
31:47And one of the ways we, we drew meaning from it is Brett.
31:51My son seemed to actually be doing better work from the other side of the veil than he
31:56was when he was alive.
31:58Talk about making good out of bad.
32:00And, and so, you know, that's just the example I give of how far I've come in terms of actually
32:05feeling my emotions, giving myself permission to feel them and, and not running from them,
32:10not, you know, drinking to numb them or smoking weed to numb them or hiding in compulsive
32:17shopping or sex or anything like that.
32:19Thank you for sharing that with all of us.
32:21And with such strength and certainty, um, let's see if you're a power of example, you
32:26are a power of example.
32:27All right.
32:28We need to wrap this up.
32:28We're actually way over our usual time, but I could talk to you for about shit, six hours
32:32on.
32:32Honestly, that's all right.
32:34It's all value.
32:35So, um, here's where I want to go with this.
32:38I feel like we've kind of identified the box and we've identified what steps you can take
32:45to, to begin to step out of it.
32:47And actually I want to add one piece to this.
32:50Um, one of the things that I think as men, but I think human beings do this in general,
32:57not just men that there's some confusion about is once I understand it, poof, it just dissolves.
33:05But I think this is a lot, you know, we're talking about it is it's life to emotionally,
33:10it doesn't work like that.
33:12Um, there's a lot of emotion attached to the man box.
33:15Uh, I will also say that our beliefs and our emotions and our react, our reactions to
33:23situations are situational reactions are all are to some extent, neurologically ingrained,
33:29meaning that our brain has been wired to react a certain way over and over and over and over
33:33and over.
33:34And so understanding it doesn't necessarily mean we're just going to exercise this demon,
33:39you know, like that.
33:40Um, it's, and so I w I really want to encourage listeners who hear this and are identifying
33:46with it.
33:47Wow.
33:47Awesome.
33:47If you're getting some light bulb moments out of this, and I want you to, I w I want you
33:51to understand that in the same way that John needed to work through those feelings about
33:57the loss of his son to move from something really tragic to having it, uh, having it be
34:03good out of bed, having it be a win for his daughter, having it be a win for his son, even
34:07into some extent, you know, that the world is made better as a result of this.
34:12It's going to take time.
34:14It's going to take effort.
34:15You know, you, you don't go, you don't, you don't do a mindfulness practice or a prayer
34:19or a meditation once, and suddenly your free frontal cortex grows and your amygdala shrinks.
34:24It takes consistent, consistent repetition and consistent habits.
34:30And, uh, uh, the, similarly, uh, your neurological pathways, that emotional ski slope, you've been
34:37going, we all like to, we have, we all have a slope that we love best, but if you want
34:41to change that, it's going to take time and repetition.
34:44Yeah, I agree.
34:46And I think the other thing it takes is realizing that we're over-focusing with the thinker,
34:51the thoughts in our head and getting our attention out of our head all the time and dropping into
34:57the body, into the heart, into what's going on in our body.
35:00What are the physiological symptoms that are coming up for me?
35:03How do I increase that sense of interoception, the workings of the internal, my awareness of
35:08the workings of my internal organs?
35:10Because that's the way that we can figure out what am I feeling in the moment more quickly.
35:15And, and all this is a process and it takes time, but to me, there's nothing more important
35:21than we can do in this lifetime because as Philippe Golden at Stanford says, emotional
35:25management is a key skill in a happier life.
35:29That makes absolute sense.
35:31And so John, I am sure that people are going to want to find you.
35:35How can they do that?
35:36Uh, the podcast is called the evolved caveman.
35:40It's at the evolved caveman.com.
35:41I'm revising that site because it looks like crap right now, but that's a whole nother story.
35:45Um, my coaching site is a guide to self.com.
35:49And then I'm doing couples work with my partner.
35:53Who's a marriage and family therapist.
35:55And that is that love isn't enough.net.
35:58And love is a podcast by the same name.
36:00We'll make sure that these are in the podcast notes.
36:04So if you didn't get all that, don't sweat it, just go to the podcast notes.
36:07It'll be in there.
36:08Any final words before we say go actually here, here's a question I love to ask.
36:13I've taught, I haven't done this in so long.
36:15Here's the question I want to ask you.
36:17What is the legacy you want to leave behind?
36:19I want to be known as someone who is highly values driven, who left the world a better
36:25place than when he came into it.
36:26And by that, I mean, helping men evolve to be the best version of themselves because,
36:31um, you know, like with my online anger management class, over 20,000 people have been through
36:35that in the last 10 years.
36:37Plus that's something I take a lot of pride in because I think every person that becomes
36:41less angry has a ripple effect on other people around them.
36:44Be the change you want to see.
36:46I love it.
36:47I love it.
36:48Thank you so much for coming on the show.
36:50You're most welcome.
36:51John's coming back, folks.
36:52Don't worry.
36:53We're going to have him again.
36:54We're going to have him again.
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