Kristen

Welcome to the Close the Chapter podcast. I am Kristen Boice a licenced Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice pathways to healing counselling. Through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories. We will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore. And open that door to possibilities and the real you. You won't want to miss an episode, so be sure to subscribe. Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast. I know you have so many options and podcasts now and the fact that you're here with me. I couldn't be more grateful for you and listening and sharing this with friends, families, partners, neighbours, people you work with. Thank you so much. I also want to let you know, be sure to grab your free healing journal. It's available at kristendboice.com/freeresources. And then you get the newsletter every week, I try to put helpful content, deeper dives into topics, links to social media, if you want to follow along there. So feel free to jump on the mailing list. You definitely want to get on there. i Don't bombard you I just send you the newsletter once a week with such helpful information. Hopefully it's helpful at least. And we dive into the topics that are impacting you right now self worth self esteem, shame, confidence, anxiety, depression, trauma. And my guest this week is very important. We're talking about men's work. He recently wrote a book called men's work. We talked about pornography, early access to it, how does it shape the body? What's the function of it in some ways, treating it like an addiction? We'll talk about vulnerability and men needing to feel capable and competent. And how do men begin to dive deeper into their work? This is not just applicable for Ben. This is also applicable no matter what gender identity you have women to understand the differences to explore your own shadow sides. We talked a lot about the shadow side. So I encourage you even though it says men you can apply it to whatever gender you identify with. So let me introduce you to our guest who I'm so excited we were able to get on the podcast caught are beaten is the founder of man talks. An international organisation focused on men's wellness success and fulfilment is a coach facilitator teacher, podcast host speaker helping men from all over the world find purpose Healthy Love, a joy filled life and fulfilling sexual connections. Connor has a No BS approach coupled with compassionate understanding of our own human limitations. He has coached 1000s of men through private coaching group work workshops, retreats, masterminds, and a shared the stage with world class speakers like Gary Vaynerchuk, Lewis Howes, Danielle Laporte, and many more. He recently has written a book called men's work, highly recommend it, it has lots of exercises which we dive into on the podcast, share this with somebody or maybe in a relationship with perhaps you want to have a deeper conversation about really things that impact people, sexuality, pornography, anxiety, depression, vulnerability, shame, our inner critic. So without further ado, let's dive into my conversation with Connor Beaton. I hope you found it helpful. Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast. I am so glad you are joining me for this important conversation. The reason I'm having my guest on today is I heard him on another podcast. He's got a new book out called men's work. And when I heard Connor, I was like he has got to come on the show. This is a much needed conversation to be had. And he has so much wisdom to share that I had my assistant reach out and see if he was available. And he said he'd be on the show. So I am thrilled you are here, Connor, thank you for joining me today. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Yes. Congratulations on the new book men's work. So if you haven't grabbed it or don't know about it, I highly recommend it. I've already referred it to several clients who are diving in and doing the exercises. I'm like, Yay, because I'm a deep diver. I like to know what was your relationship with your mother? What was relationship with your father? How about their marriage, and you really take a dive into that. So I really appreciate the depth in the book.

Connor

Yeah, thank you. I think one of the things I've been working with men now for a decade, and sometimes couples my wife is also a licenced Marriage and Family Therapist. I'm very familiar with the LMFT moniker but my work with men over the law last decade has really made it clear that sometimes within the therapeutic space there's we miss something, which is that men want to do stuff. We want to take action we want to dig in we, it's almost like the guys that come into therapy or coaching or whatever it is, they want tangibles. Sometimes that means we want to write letters or answer questions or dive into exercises that are tactical and practical. And so I made sure in the book to not just make it sort of theory or commentary, but to actually have it sort of chock full in, here's what you need to do. And here's what I give all of my clients. Here's the pathway. And I think that that's been really, really helpful. And a lot of men have emailed me DM me, sort of reinforcing like, thank you so much for all the work that's in the book. I think it's overwhelming for some people, where it's like, oh, boy, do I have to do all of the exercises and answer all of the questions, go at your own pace. But yeah, I appreciate that.

Kristen

Yes, I had several clients who I've been working with for quite some time. And these were questions that we had covered, but different ways you asked it. And so it got them thinking about it in a different way. In one case, in particular, it's interesting, because there wasn't a lot of memory. And so that can be a little bit of a challenge when answering questions without a lot of per se memory. Exactly. How do you help people kind of tap into connecting to their upbringing, when they might not have a whole lot of memory?

Connor

There's a few different scenarios for this. But I think the biggest thing is connect if you're still in contact with people from your upbringing, talk about some of those times what was happening pre divorce, what was happening post divorce, what do you remember, and sometimes being able to connect with siblings or parents or other family members and relatives, even friends who spent a lot of time at our house, that can be really beneficial to get their perspective and jog our memory, and also just gain some externalised perspective on what was going on within our household. That's one main one. And then second is Go grab photos, one of the things that all sort of recommend to a lot of clients who have that happen, where it's like, well, I'd actually don't remember a lot. And I had this happen to myself, I was like, actually, I don't remember much before, like eight to have one or two memories, but that's sort of it. And one of the things that was super helpful for me was going and finding photos that my parents had kept, and kind of putting it together in chronological order of, okay, this was me when I was three, and four, and five, and six, and seven. And it painted a bit of a picture of what was going on in my life. And so I've found that to be very helpful for other people as well, where they can kind of get a visual representation for what was happening, who they're spending time with the clothes that they're wearing. And all of that can just start to percolate our unconscious mind, right, because it's not that those memories have completely disappeared. Some cases, they're held down by trauma or abuse and can be sort of sensitivity, kind of, maybe you want to walk through that process with practitioner, but oftentimes, they're just buried in our unconscious mind. And so if we can utilise visual auditory stimulus, they can allow some of that memory to just sort of reemerge. And you might notice that you don't have very specific memories show up. But you might suddenly start to have dreams about that time in your life, you might start to have dreams about you as a boy or you as a small girl. And that can be incredibly beneficial. Because a lot of the work that we do sometimes moves into the space of the unconscious, which can be sometimes challenging and vague for people to work with. So that's what I'd say those two pathways can be very powerful for recalling some of the memories that have been lost to us.

Kristen

That's helpful. Can you walk us through your own work? Because I can imagine writing this book you do share some personal examples in the book of your own work, and how important that has led you to writing the book and being a therapist, coach, etc. Can you walk us through your own work and how that's impacted what you're doing? Now,

Connor

the biggest part of it was to try and condense it down because there's many different aspects like to talk about. But I think the biggest part of it for me was I kind of bought into this notion that to be a man to be successful as a man I needed to create this air of success externally. I did that in my 20s I was travelling the world I had an interesting career. I had a wonderful relationship. And I had the motorcycle and the five litre Mustang and all this stuff that I'm from Northern Alberta in Canada, and so the five litre Mustang is sort of a giveaway. It's not what everybody dreams of when they're like 19 years old, but I had acquired all those things. And on paper, it looked like things were going really well. And behind the scenes, it was sort of a mess. I wasn't happy Be I was abusing substances I struggling with pornography and infidelity. And so there was a lot of stuff that was happening behind the scenes that nobody really knew about. And I did what I think most of us as men, maybe not most of us, but many men fall into the trap of which was I bought into this notion that things weren't going to change until I hit rock bottom. And that was my only way out. That's my only pathway. And I see a lot of men now in the work that I do, and in the last decade, doing the same thing, where there's things that they know, they need to change personally, there's things that they want to change in their relationship, or in their sex life or in their career. But there's sort of this perception of incompetence, or I can't change anything, or I'm helpless to change anything or whatever the narrative is internally. But the outcome is nothing's going to change until I hit bottom. And that's what happened for me, the infidelity came to light, I decided to change my career and sort of overnight I lost everything. In the book I talked about I quote unquote, moved into the back of my car, didn't tell people what was going on, because I just had a little bit too much pride. And I also had a tremendous amount of shame about my actions. And what that led to, thankfully, in some ways, was me connecting with a mentor of mine who had been in my life for a few years, he was quite a bit older, I think he was 7273 at the time, and he was well versed in Union psychology and cognitive behavioural therapy and Buddhism and Zen and Taoism. And unbeknownst to me, this rock bottom led me into this sort of apprenticeship where I spent the next two and a half years, not only working on myself, but learning union modalities, and learning about Buddhism and learning about CBT, and Gestalt therapy, and all these wonderful tools that I over time became equipped with, and my mentor was kind enough to teach me and impart some of his wisdom and working with people. And in return, I paid him for his time when I could, and when I couldn't, I would do the real apprenticeship thing, which was chop wood around his farm, take care of things that he couldn't necessarily do, because he was he was getting older, help him with his asparagus farm and his Rottweilers and those types of things, right. And so it really was a saving grace in a lot of ways. But to answer your question more directly, my work, and I think the starting ground of every man's work was about shadow work. So in union, there's a concept called the shadow. And the shadow is simply the part of us that we don't like we don't want to admit to we don't want to acknowledge we don't want other people to know about or see, because it's the sort of sum total of our insecurities. And our inferiority is in our inner critic and the way that we speak to ourselves. And it's this amalgamation, I call it The Hurt Locker, that usually seems to resonate with a lot of guys. It's like this is The Hurt Locker, it's where you put that you don't want to talk about or you don't want to feel and you don't want other people to know about you your bad decisions and the times that you have been out of integrity and all of that, that's the shadow and in union, while Carl Jung who sort of created the concept of the shadow, he said that a couple of things. Number one, he said that the shadow will create an unconscious snag that will thwart your most well meaning intentions. So what does that mean? It means that the shadow is responsible for your sabotage, right, plain and simple. It means that when you're trying to set a goal, to lose weight, or to reconnect with your partner, whatever it is that your aim is in life, right now, the shadow is going to come and mess it all up. And the second piece that he said, and this is sort of a quote from a lecture that he gave in 1937, at Yale, he said, the new man must bear the burden of the shadow consciously for such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself. whatever's wrong in the world is in himself. And if he only learns to deal with his own shadow, he's done something real for the world, he has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day. So for me in the work that I had to do, it was reconciling with all of the aspects, parts of myself choices, decisions that I would have been carrying, that I didn't want other people to know about, that I didn't want them to see. And I think that's the case for a lot of men, that whether it's the anger that we've disconnected from, because we grew up in a household where we saw our fathers or stepfathers be abusive, whether it's because we've disconnected from our own assertiveness, or we've abandoned our own pain and hurt or our insecurities into the shadow, those are the pieces that we have to face and address. And in doing so, we do a couple of things. We develop competency capability, but we also sort of learned that we can face our fears and so that was a big part for me right was turning towards my past, my pain, the abuse that I had experienced the hurt that I had gone through as a child reconciling with my parents divorce, I was quite young, and it was really painful for me to not get to be around my father. And I think this is something that's very common for a lot of men that we we under estimate the real weight and pain that can happen when we don't get to spend the time that we want with our fathers, whether they die or whether they're taken away from us because of divorce or where that was the main part of it was this shadow work. And we can go deeper into that. But that was the sort of the big piece of work that I had to do for a number of years, honestly. But I think in many ways that not only saved my life, but gave me purpose. And I think for many men, this is the case in the book, I talked about turning your pain into purpose, that by going into the sort of cavern and facing the dragon, that there's gold in that, and that you can alchemize that into meaning and purpose in life, which I think so many of us are lacking in the modern world.

Kristen

Agreed that was a very helpful overview. And I wanted to explore pornography use tied into the shadow side, because there's a lot of hiding that goes on a lot of shame attached to it. And I'm seeing it more and more over the years get more progressive. So talk to me about your history with pornography, how early were you exposed, if it did get tied up into the shadow side, and where you are with it now?

Connor

Oh, there's many different threads in there, I think the main piece at all maybe sort of put out I mean, I've found it when I was like 1314 years old, it was dial up wasn't like what we have today with dial up internet. And so things would load line by line. And it was quite tedious and sort of you had to have a lot of patience, but funded at a very young age. And I think what I've come to learn, again, having worked with 1000s of men now, and many of which have struggled with pornography in some capacity is that we use porn in a way to help us feel better to regulate our nervous system. And porn is this very, very simple, low risk, high reward dopamine dumping mechanism, right where at any given time, if you feel a way that you don't want us maybe I was personalised this, anytime that I felt a way that I didn't like angry, lonely, overwhelmed, stressed out anxious, frustrated in my relationship, or whatever it was that I was feeling. And I didn't want to feel that way. Porn was a very simple way for me to not feel that way anymore. Because after watching porn, you get this dopamine release in your body, that just feels wonderful. And so it's a good way to kind of hit the quote, unquote, reset button in your system, and feel better for a period of time. But the reality is, is that after that there's a dip, right? So after the high, there's a very real Valley. And so the challenge is that you need more and more and more and more and more. And so there's a small cohort of men that I think is growing, that are using porn quite a bit. And I think it's something like the high porn users are classified as people that are watching it more than twice a week. So for me, I was definitely watching him more than twice a week, that was like three, four or five times a week, sometimes more oftentimes, it was long sessions, it wasn't sort of like, Oh, I'm gonna go watch porn for five minutes. It was like I'm sitting there for an hour or two, sometimes longer than that. And so it really became what sort of clinically be classified as an addiction. And in many ways, I struggled with it because I had relationships, right. I was in long term relationships, I was quite sexually active. But there was this thing behind the scenes that I was using constantly to just try and feel better. So that's when I found that that's really why I was using it. I think what we underestimate now within our culture is the sheer volume of stimulus that porn brings in is just, I think, monstrous in a way any 15 year old boy can go online now and within 45 minutes or an hour, see more naked people, and more sexual content than any single human being will have seen in their entire lifetime. Like it's just so easy to over stimulate an oversized oversaturate the mind, where it alters our expectations about sex that alters our expectations of ourself. expectations that I had of myself, and how I needed to perform sexually suddenly became like, I need to last for two hours in the bedroom, I need to perform in this sort of champion style way. Otherwise, there's something wrong with me, and I'm not going to be loved. And I mean, the stories were just piled on from there. So I think that in many marriages, and in many relationships, porn has become a mistress, and it's become a mistress that no one's talking about. It's this third party were one of the people right because more women are watching porn than ever before, but it's still predominantly men. They're watching porn. One of the people is watching porn, and they're watching it regularly. And they're watching it oftentimes when they want something to transpire sexually within the relationship, but they feel shame or embarrassment, or a little bit of insecurity about bringing it forward, right. It's much easier to open up a web browser and go and type in the fantasy that you want than it is to go and sit down your partner and say, hey, I want to explore this roleplay, or this power dynamic, that's a very different experience, there's high risk in that you could be rejected, that your partner might never want to do that guys think that they're going to look at you differently. So I think we have this sort of challenge that's emerging culturally. And you can see this in dating. And you can see this in sex, right? It's like men between the ages of 18 and 29, are having less sex than ever before, right? I think it's 27, or 28% of men between the ages of 18 and 29, have not been sexually active in the last 12 months, if ever, and that's up from 13, or 14%. But when you look at young women, it's quite different, right? It's like 13, or 14% of young women between that same age range, are not being sexually active. And so we have this massive gap where young men are not engaging sexually. And so it's creating this sort of checkout where it's just easier for them to pay for and only fans, or just go online and watch porn, and not sort of have to even engage in dating and building relationships. And so I think it's sort of this unintentional experiment that has been played out on the human species that we're just starting to talk about. And I don't want to get lost, because I've had this conversation enough to know that oftentimes, when this conversation comes up, it becomes a moral debate about whether porn is good or bad. I'm not actually interested in that conversation. I think what's more interesting is, why are you watching it? And how are you using it? And is it actually beneficial for your relationship, for some people that can bring it in, it can be exciting, and all those things for other people, it very clearly is the thing that they are turning to instead of bringing their full sexual expression into the relationship. So maybe I'll just pause there, because I just said a whole bunch of stuff.

Kristen

I love it. This is a deep dive because I see it in a developmental context. So for example, if someone's exposed at seven, and a, you're exposed as a teen, how much of their idea of their fantasies is impacted through watching it? And is there arrested development that happens as a result of using just like it would be alcohol or drugs or any other addiction? How does that affect their emotional development? And that's what I see with couples, there's been a stunting of some sort of emotional development that happens as a result of pornography. So it's almost like the seven year old brain wants to do those fantasies. Is it their authentic self? Is it what they say watched it from such an early age, there's a lot unpack and then they're stunted emotionally, and the ability to connect and connect to emotions process those because obviously, a lot of us didn't learn that as children. And what are your thoughts on that perspective?

Connor

I think they can definitely play a part in it. Right? I think there's some research that's sort of hitting this around this. But there's some research that's showing that the average young boy today is going to find porn between the ages of eight and 11. Right, so much earlier than the average person 1020 years ago, and that a lot of people are being shown pornography by older people, right. So a lot of young boys, a lot of young women come into pornographic content, because their friend's older brother, who's 16 shows them porn on the internet, or they have an older friend or whomever, right. And so that can really skew and alter an individual's entrance into sexuality, and the emotional discourse, the emotional component that often goes along with because sex a very emotional experience, right? It's a place where there's extreme vulnerability. It's also meant to be a place relationally, where we can express and explore ourselves in depth. And so if your main diet of sexual content is pornography, which is meant to be entertainment, right, I've interviewed a number of former porn stars and people that are within the industry, and they all say the same thing. Porn is entertainment. It's not real life lovemaking in sex, it's entertainment. And so if your main sexual diet is coming from entertainment, then that's how you engage in sex. You don't engage in sex from an emotional connective intimacy based place, you come at it from this as entertainment, and it's got to look a certain way, it's got to feel a certain way. And somebody's watching us right now that it has to be perceived a certain way. And so it begins to take on this emotionless sort of aspect to it. So there can definitely be that component that you're talking about. I think the

Kristen

other piece that I see play out with couples in particular is it can escalate so if that started off as watching pornography, and it didn't satisfy them anymore, they're bored with it. So they escalate it to escorts. Now they're making more risky choices in their relationships to get the satisfaction or the release that they're looking for. It's no longer providing the release that they wanted at one point. And now they've escalated it to other more, I would say risky behaviours.

Connor

I think in many ways that is a byproduct of the majority of porn removes intimacy from the equation. Right intimacy is not a part of that there is some one that's being created today, where it's real life, couples having real life sex, and it's much different. And it's meant to be like porn with intimacy involved, right. But when you have real life couples, this can be the challenge where one person is really craving gaps within the sexual expression, which is really what sexual intimacy within a relationship is meant to be about. Again, it's about us being able to explore the depths of who we are, and express those things through different mediums sexually. And that can be incredibly powerful, incredibly freeing, but the sort of addictive pattern comes when we just want it to look a certain way, or like you're talking about, we need more of that stimulus, right, which is oftentimes what porn does. In the book, I talk about the neuroscience behind porn and Your Brain on Porn, and one of the things I talk about is that porn is what's called a super normal experience. So all that means is that it's an above normal experience. So it I'll just make a quick analogy. And then we can continue on, imagine having a really big Thanksgiving or holiday meal, you're probably going to consume more calories than you normally would. And that's a super normal experience, you're going to consume more than you normally would, you're going to eat more, you're going to take in more, there's more stimulus around you the whole thing in a silo, that's okay, if you do that once in a while, it's not a problem, right, your body can adjust to supernormal experiences. But if that is your main way of eating, it's going to cause substantial problems within your body, your body won't be able to keep up if every single meal that you're eating is a super normal meal, it's going to have extreme duress on your system. So the same thing happens with porn, it's a super normal experience. And so if you watch porn once in a while, and you have this super normal experience, it's not a problem, per se. But it's when this becomes something that you're using on a regular basis, in order to get your sense of sexual stimulation and your sexual diet. If that's your main source, then it's sort of like consuming a tremendous amount of food that's emptying in calories. And so your body doesn't feel satiated for very long. The consequence of that is that you oftentimes need more and more riskier, and sort of violent porn again, that's not everybody that goes down that pathway. But more often than not, people are led down pathways that afterwards. I mean, it's very common on Reddit, you'll see memes on the internet of people after they have watched porn. And it's sort of like highlights the shame that we can often feel afterwards because you've gotten into something that you wouldn't normally want or want to pursue. So there's all of these sort of side effects that I think get in the way of us then having clarity about what it is that we actually desire in our relationship. And I think that's the big thing that a lot of men are especially looking for, how do I figure out what I want to express, explore and experience sexually in my relationship? And how do I bring that to fruition? But well, if you're consumed by watching porn so much, and this is one of the things that I had to deal with was after when I decided to stop watching porn, I went on like a digital detox on a dopamine detox, and really had to work to not watch porn for a substantial amount of time to then start to defrag, my sexual hard drive, what is it that I actually want? What do I actually want to explore and experience with a partner, and doing so opened up the doors to really figure out this is the type of dynamic that I want to experience. This is the type of our dynamic the type of role plays that I want to experience free from the confines or the influence of pornography.

Kristen

That's something that we're able to kind of detox from it. Was that challenging for you?

Connor

100% Online, again, there's all of these movements, right? There's like, no, fap. And that means like, no masturbation, and there's no not November, that sort of movement online of no orgasm in November to go and coincide with Men's Health Month. So there's all these sort of movements where guys are sort of realising that pornography maybe doesn't have their best interest in mind. And there's all these men that are trying to let go of pornography and realising that it's very challenging because it's sort of become embedded into their lives. And then there's some men who have just never had a problem with it, right. It's just never been there before I but for the guys that are trying to let go, it does. Especially if you're a heavy user. It's like quitting smoking. It really takes for most guys, it takes a number of attempts. And so one of the things that I outlined in the book is very specific strategic ways that you can stop watching porn and bring your sexual desire into your relationship, because we tend to hedge our bets. I heard this great quote from this sex therapist who gave a TED talk when I was giving it to Two years ago, and she said, men cheat to stay, and women cheat to leave. And it's not always the case. And it's not for certain, I just want to make it clear that that's it's a general statement. But often what I see men doing is hedging their bets, they'll have some kind of an affair, like using pornography, if that's classified as an affair for them, if not, no worries, or having a real affair sexually with somebody else in order to maintain the relationship. So they've identified there's something missing in the relationship, intimacy, sexual closeness, right, being able to express my sexual needs and desires, and what will happen over time, if that man doesn't bring that into the relationship, it'll move into his shadow, and then he'll go and search for it somewhere else and get that need met somewhere else escorts only fans, Cam girls online, pornography, some other version of it. And so what we want to do is we want to slowly start to let go of some of those things and see, can I bring the fullness of my sexual expression of what I desire and want into my relationship with the person that I'm with. And that may be what the relationship has been lacking. And missing is the fullness of what you're desiring that might be confronting, and challenging, but it will demand that you and your partner work on communication, work on boundaries, work on having hard conversations, work on vulnerability, work on all of these things that maybe you've been avoiding within the context of the relationship. So sex can be very transformative and powerful when we lead it, and

Kristen

transparency, and coming out of hiding, which is that shadow work that you're talking about into true transparency and integrity with saying how you really feel, I think, requires a connection of emotion. And if we're numbing that, so to speak, with pornography or any substances of any kind, we're going to miss a step, a critical step, to be able to get to that point where transparency in the shadow side can be healed, you're more free to say how you really feel what you really want. But if we skip that step, I think it's detrimental to someone really being able to do the shadow work.

Connor

I agree to a degree, I think the other part that is often overlooked is just I'm going to speak specifically like about men, I guess, which is that we as men often really want to feel a sense of competency. And so oftentimes, yes, we do want to be able to have those more emotional conversations about here's what I've been desiring, here's the type of closeness that I want. Here's the type of intimacy that I want. But what we're also wanting, I haven't met a man yet who disagrees with this is we want to feel sexually capable period, full stop. And so part of the conversation, I think that needs to happen is for a man to be able to, and I do this, my wife and I work with couples all the time, and I work with guys all the time around this is what does that look like for you? How do you want to feel sexually in your relationship? Where do you not feel competent or confident or capable in your relationship? There are certain experiences that you want to have that you don't feel prepared to do? Are there certain things that you want to explore, that you feel insecure about. And so oftentimes, it's a matter of being able to say, and Jung said that the first step in any therapeutic process is confession. I love that. I think it's just true across the board, right? It's like confession, okay, you got to admit that you feel insecure, you got to admit that there's something missing, you got to admit that you're craving a deeper level of connection with your partner. And that that admission, I'll just tell a quick story, then I'll pause and head back over to you. I was working with a couple. And they hadn't been sexually active in a long time, they had been disconnected for a number of years, and sex just had sort of faded into the background as a marriage. And we talked about what had happened that caused sex to sort of fade in the background. And the long and the short of it was that the man had started to feel insecure with his performance in the relationship. And so he just stopped engaging, almost entirely. It's not that he didn't find his wife attractive. It's not that he didn't want her or crave her or desire her. It's simply that he didn't feel competent, because he was ejaculating too quickly, on his own perspective. He felt like he wasn't satisfying her. And so he just slowly started to pull away and the insecurity took over. And that just became this huge wall that he had never talked about with his wife, who just had never sat her down and said, Listen, I'm not performing the way that I really want to. I want to feel competent and confident when we're having sex. And I don't feel that way. Can we work towards that? And I think that sometimes that's the conversation that needs to be had between partners in some way, shape or form. So just wanted to add that in that makes perfect

Kristen

sense. So how did you help him become feel more competent and confident?

Connor

Well, the first step was having a conversation, bringing his partner and having that conversation prompting him to sort of admit and say, Listen, this is what has transpired. So that was step number one. Step number two was having him identify what that actually looked like sounded like and felt like within the context of the relationship, so how did he want to feel what was One of the things that he wanted to be good at, right, so oral or different positions or different role plays that he wanted to enact. And so getting him to very clearly articulate here are the things that I want to feel competent in when we enter into the bedroom. And then lastly was giving him some very tactical breathwork and embodiment practices. So one of the things that we didn't talk about in the foreign conversation is the nervous system. So for a lot of men, we are using something like pornography to just reset our nervous system really quickly, right. So again, if we're feeling anxious or overwhelmed, you watch porn releases dopamine and oxytocin and it sort of resets your nervous system and pushes you into what's called the parasympathetic part of your autonomic nervous system, which is for relaxing, calm. So instead of meditating, or working out or doing something to help you go into that calm, relaxed state, you just watch porn, and that sort of hits the button that pushes you into that relaxed state versus being in the stressed out state of the sympathetic nervous system that many of us are constantly consumed by in our consumer culture. So one of the things one of the last steps that I gave this man was practices that he could use before sex during sex after sex to ground to actually regulate his nervous system. Because a man's arousal or man's sexual arousal in order for a man to get erect, he has to be in a more parasympathetic dominant nervous system state. So he actually has to be more relaxed and calm. This is why performance anxiety is simply a stressed state that a man gets into where it removes blood flow to the genitals, and it actually causes him to overthink, it causes his breath rate to go up, that causes his heart rate to go up. And when you're in that type of stressed out state, as a man, there's only two possibilities, one, you're not going to get a hard on, or two, you're going to orgasm very, very quickly. Right. So that was the other part was giving him very real practices that he could do to regulate his nervous system so that he could get and maintain an erection and actually be present for his partner of President for his wife. And that was sort of like the final piece of it. But the first piece was being able to talk about it, being able to get clear on what he wanted to look like sound like and feel like, and then giving him real tools that he could actually implement sexually with his partner.

Kristen

And I've done EMDR eye movement, desensitisation reprocessing quite a bit on performance anxiety. The other piece that I explored, I'd be curious as your opinion is, how often are they masturbating, because if they're masturbating, to get that release into the sympathetic nervous system, chances are, if that how often they're doing it is going to impact whether they can get an erection and their performance.

Connor

Yeah, 100% if you're never masturbating, which is what happens sometimes in relationships where sex and intimacy just takes a backseat, then it can be very challenging to even self stimulate. Or if you're masturbating all the time, as a means of again, regulating the nervous system, then sex and ejaculation is just an outcome, right? It's like, I just need to feel better, I just need to feel calm and relaxed. Okay, get off. So those two things can be very, very tied together, depending on what that looks like. But I think one of the other things, it just to sort of talk about porn really quickly, again, one of the things that can be very helpful is for men to practice self pleasure without pornography. So a lot of men that I've worked with, just ask a very simple question, which was, when was the last time you watch? When was the last time you got off? When was the last time that you masturbated without pornography. And for many men, it's like, Well, I haven't done that in years, I just haven't, the only time I mastered it is with pornography, y'all usually recommend to go and just try that and feel into that without pornography as a good first step, so that you can sort of re acclimatised with your body.

Kristen

There's so much to talk about, because I wanted to dive even deeper into the shadow work, because I think that is such an important part of men's work. And you cover that extensively in the book, and the importance of family of origin work in trauma as it relates to the shadow work, and that we didn't get into diving into all those pieces and parts. Is there anything else when we think of the shadow work that you would say is important for people that want to do this work? Where do they start? How do they begin? what are maybe some three practical tools that you'd offer?

Connor

I think a good place to begin. Number one is looking at your inner critic. That's just the way that you talk to yourself, the way you speak to yourself, I do a very simple exercise at live men's weekend that I run, I'll have all of the men write out what their inner dialogue sounds like, and how they speak to themselves when they get something wrong. Or when they screw up. And then I'll have them sit across from another man in the group, somebody that they've gotten to know and I'll say, Okay, now read that dialogue off to that man and talk to him like your inner critic talks to you. And every single guy is like, I don't want to do that. I like this guy. I don't want to talk to him like that. That sounds terrible. But I've come to realise that so many men's inner dialogue is just vicious. I mean, it is for some and it's violent, it's abusive, they're just beating the living out of themselves constantly. So step number one is do some inner critic work. So that's gonna be the tactical thing. I mean, I'll just give you something that I wrote in the book, which is write out a little bit of a list of some of the things that your inner critic says, and then ask yourself one very simple question, who does that remind me of? Who does that inner critic sound like, because for the vast majority of people, that inner critic has an origin story outside of them, right? So your inner critic originated with somebody, a coach, a family member, a friend, a bully at school, saying those things to you, and you carry on the legacy of that verbal abuse in some capacity by taking it on within yourself, that's one piece. The second piece is just asking yourself some very simple questions, to start to get acclimatised with what might be in your shadow. So you might ask yourself something like, what do I not want other people to know about me? Or what emotions? Do I not want to show my intimate partner? What do I not want my intimate partner to know about me? What do I not want to admit to them? So those types of questions can start to reveal some of the insecurities, some of the fears, some of the content that's in the shadow, I won't get necessarily into integration, cuz I don't think that that's as tactical as maybe this part. And it's a little bit harder. And I think a little bit more orientation is necessary. But then the last piece is, what have I abandoned, neglected or rejected about myself in order to belong, so for the majority of us, at some point in life, whether it was at school, whether it was within our friend group, whether it was in our family system, we had to abandon, reject or neglect some authentic, true part of ourselves, in order to belong with the system, our family system, our friends, a girlfriend in high school, whatever it is, and that is the stuff that we have to reclaim that we have to work to reclaim whether it's personally I rejected and neglected my own sense of anger. Because as a boy, I saw it as abusive. There was a man in my life who was very volatile, and very angry. And that anger was verbally, emotionally and sometimes physically abusive towards me. And so I adopted the narrative of I'll never be like him, which is what a lot of us do as men, right? I want to protect the people around me, I'll never be like him. And so what did I do I disconnected from my anger, I tried to avoid it. And it came out sideways, getting into bar fights in my late teens and early 20s. Not allowing it anywhere near my relationships, right. So just being the classic nice guy in relationships, not standing up for myself, and that had all kinds of adverse consequences. So what did you need to neglect, reject or deny in order to belong growing up, and you can look at family system, friends, school partners, and just start to come into contact with what some of those pieces are, because those are likely the things that you're going to need to reclaim within your life today.

Kristen

So good, that's for no matter how you identify gender wise, those were top three super important and powerful questions to explore. So helpful, is there anything we did not cover, because I could do like part three, four or five of our conversation today that you thought would be helpful to tie things together?

Connor

I think we touched on it before, which is specifically for men. In the book, there's a chapter called The Myth of male vulnerability. And I think specifically, in our culture, today, there's this huge push, that's telling men, the cure to all of your solutions is just be more vulnerable. And I do think that there's a tremendous amount of merit in being more open to being vulnerable and being transparent, and all of those things, and it's often missing a vital ingredient and component that a lot of men are looking for, which is that they want to feel capable. And so sometimes I would just really recommend for everybody that's out there, especially the men that are listening to this is to really start to question, do I really feel competent and capable in the problems and the challenges that I'm facing? And if I don't, then can I commit myself and make that my mission for right now make that part of my purpose, because part of the challenge that a lot of men face, especially in relationships is like they don't feel competent to communicate in a really effective way. And so they check out or they shut down or they just blow up or whatever it is, right. And I've done that as well. And but the truth was, it's not that I wasn't vulnerable enough or open enough. It's that I didn't feel capable in my communication with my partner, and what I was really looking for, and I realised this because I got a bunch of relationships wrong where I was just constantly trying to be vulnerable. and it just wasn't working. And when I started to realise it is actually my lack of feeling competent in my communication skills that was leading to the dysfunction. And when I started to work on elevating my capacity to communicate, suddenly my relationship started to change, because I realised, Oh, I feel more confident in being able to listen and assess what my partner's saying, and I feel more capable in being grounded, when she's upset, even if it's not me, right, she can be past, she can be sad, she can be angry, and I can be more grounded and understand what's going on for her without needing to become reactive. And so as I became more competent, and as I felt more capable in all of these different areas in my life, and in my relationship, everything started to change. We need to do that oftentimes with vulnerability. But I think what is missing in the modern conversation for a lot of men is this capability in this competence piece, because I think the the sort of cure all solution that's thrown at men is like, just be more vulnerable, and you'll feel better, and guys are like, Okay, I'm being vulnerable. And it's kind of fixing some of the problems, but I still kind of feel worthless, I still don't feel like I'm getting right. And I still don't feel. So I think I would just add that part in that there's merit, there's a lot of research has shown that one of the main things, and off with this, there's some great work by a guy named Dr. John Berry, I think he's in the UK or Scotland, I can't remember. And he did a bunch of research to figure out what is the driving force for men, what actually makes men feel confident, and fulfilled and happy. And what he found time and time again, is that self development, actually working on ourselves as men to be more capable to feel more competent is the number one thing that leaves us feeling fulfilled. And so my sort of mission in life is to help men figure out where they want to develop themselves, and to feel more grounded and to feel more competent and capable. And then to give them the tools to go and do that.

Kristen

I just want to do like a mic drop, because you just nailed it on what I see with male clients, in particular, the ones that do this work. And now they're like, I feel so confident to communicate, and they have grief over I wish I had this capability. I see it now before I didn't have the capability. I didn't feel competent. I didn't know how to do this. And so there's grief in that. And then when they do feel it, it changes their life. And it's hard because they realise in the past where there was a deficit, there are in a sense, they didn't get the tools, they didn't get the information,

Connor

we have to grieve that if we didn't get the sort of training or guidance from male models and role models in our life, then, of course, it's going to be grief present around that note, if your father didn't model what it looked like to set healthy boundaries in the family, and he used aggression and anger and violence in order to try and keep the peace and sort of parent, then when you start to learn the tools of how to effectively communicate, there's naturally going to be grief about what you didn't experience. That's a normal part of the process that I think that comes along with this.

Kristen

I think I want to highlight one other piece I know we keep going on and on is parenting the clients that I have do this work, they say I am a better father, I can now emotionally connect and communicate with my children, it makes me get teary eyed. It changes the trajectory of that generational patterns, because they like I know how to do it. Now. I didn't know how to do it before. And now their relationship with their children changes and it's never too late. Really, I believe that when you do this work, it'll pay dividends, even though it's sometimes super hard and moments, and you're like, can I go back to being unconscious? And in the long run, it's transformational in so many ways. I think you just really nailed it with a competence piece. I am so glad you shared that. And if people got well, where do I start being more competent, get the book get men's work. So if you're not sure where to start, grab the book, do the exercises in the book, like we talked about by have to take action and start applying some of these things to get more self insight to get more self awareness to get feel more competent within yourself. And this is the steps to do it. How can people find you? Where can they buy the book? Tell us a little bit more about that.

Connor

Probably the best place is man talks.com. That's my website you can go at Instagram is at man talks. And I own podcast called The Man talk show. What's been interesting, and I'll just sort of put this out there as I've had a number of couples actually go through the book together, which has been wildly fascinating. They've had a number of different men sending the book to their fathers and doing it with their brothers. And that been I didn't expect that at all. But I've had a number of couples that have gone through the book together. And I think it's been very helpful because I think a lot of partners have gained different insight into what men sort of struggle with and it can be very helpful for a man to have that type of knowing and understanding. So yeah, but go to man talks.com If you're looking for the book, it's man talks.com forward slash book, but it's read on the website and You can buy it sort of anywhere, right? Barnes and Noble Amazon, all the places.

Kristen

And I also want to highlight it sounds like you do a conference for men that intrigued me because a lot of the men I work with what other men that are doing this work, unless there's a 12 step sexual dextrins Anonymous or things like that, but this is specialised work. How often do you do a conference for men,

Connor

we have a online membership, where we've got about 500 men from around the world where we have weekly calls, and they get their own team. And we have a book club. We're actually going through the book right now chapter by chapter. And then I host live men's weekends where we do deep work and the weekends are structured, they're about four or five days long, and they're structured like an initiation. So you go through this work together and a mentor of mine been doing Gestalt therapy for about 40 years, co facilitates them with me. And then I run small online in depth three month programmes for eight guys. So there's a number of different options whether men are looking for virtual to go through this work alongside of the men or if they're wanting to do a more in depth sort of deep dive with me, they can join the three month programmes called the men self leadership programme. Then there's the the deep end of the pool, which is the live in person weekends. And we usually host those out in nature. So I have one coming up that's in Olympic National Park in Washington. And it's basically all outdoors, the men get to arrive and we build a kitchen outside and we do all the work outside or on this massive tent that we build. And then there's all the guys stay in tents that are part of the campground. So it's a very immersive experience and bring them back out into nature and get to do some of this work. It's phenomenal. I seem to attract a lot of guys that are like me this sort of like high functioning a type guys that are successful, and they're doing well in their career, and they've just became a dad or they just went through a divorce. Lots of men that are going through transition. So yeah, so check it out, man sock sock calm. And if you have any questions, just DM me on Instagram, I'd be happy to answer anything that you have.

Kristen

Right. Thank you so much Connor, go get the book men's work. Appreciate your heart and your time and the work you're doing in the world. And we appreciate you being here today.

Connor

Thanks for having me.

Kristen

Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoyed this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week and share with a friend or family member. For more information about how to get connected visit Kristen k r i s t e n d Boice b o ice.com. Thanks and have a great day.

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