Joe and Stacy met when they were fairly young. They both came from good families and they instantly feel in love with each other. It seemed like a match made in heaven and they soon set out to start a family.
There were no signs of struggle, anger, or insecurity for either of them and they praised each other daily. They began to raise their first child and then another baby appeared, soon after. Everything was looking up for this bright, vibrant, young family. Then, one day, Stacy found herself walking around the house in a daze and she couldn’t figure out what was going on. The kids were asleep, her husband was away at work, and she began to wonder, “Is this it?” Not wanting to feel sad or negative, she immediately busied herself with some laundry and pushed the thought out of her mind. Not long after, Joe came home and he noticed that Stacy didn’t greet him in her usual manner. She was busy with the kids and so he slowly walked over to the couch, sat down, and turned on the television. When they sat down for dinner that night, it was obvious that something had shifted, yet they both followed through with their usual conversation about how work was going, what the kids were doing, and the holiday trip that was coming up. That night, they both got ready for bed, laid down and closed their eyes. Neither one was aware that they were both still awake, with their minds spinning. As they got ready in the morning, Stacy asked Joe how he slept. “Good.” he said. “How about you?” “Good.” Stacy responded. Months went by without another episode until the night that Stacy blurted out that she was feeling stressed. Joe didn’t want his wife to feel sad so he attempted to comfort her. “Honey, you are a great mother and wife and I don’t want you to feel sad.” She felt some comfort as Joe turned his attention towards her, but her underlying feeling didn’t change. “You’re right. I have no reason to be sad.” It was a few more months before anything else popped up. Even though every day felt much the same for both Joe and Stacy, the kids were growing up and everything was in order. However, Joe had noticed that their sex life had begun to atrophy. They still performed once or twice a week, but it just felt flat and Stacy never seemed that interested. So, one night as they lay in bed, Joe tells Stacy that he has been feeling stressed lately. “Honey, you’re a great father and husband. I don’t want you to feel sad.” Joe responded, “You’re right. After I finish this project at work, I’m sure I’ll feel better.” In that moment, the agreement was made. Stacy and Joe both agreed to hide their sadness and frustration from themselves and each other. If negative feelings came up, they would attach the feeling to stress from the outside world and then, they wouldn’t have to feel the uncomfortable feelings or take responsibility for their inner world. What can you relate with in this story? What advice would you give the Stuffer's? One of my current personal practices is noticing when I’m feeling disconnected from someone and then, if I’m feeling brave enough, voicing my experience to them. I’ve also asked people in my life to tell me when they are having trouble connecting with me. It’s kind of like an ongoing experiment to test my emotional availability and presence.
Throughout this experience, I’ve gained a wealth of evidence for how myself and others deflect from sharing our honest in-the-moment emotions and experience. Metaphorically, I would describe the calling out process as if someone finally turned on the lights in the room. Whereas, it felt safe to ramble on in the dark about other people, stories, politics, sports and the weather, it now feels abruptly vulnerable and bright. Most people are not used to this so there is usually a moment of surprise, confusion, or defense. I have felt more and more okay with it, because I generally know what to expect. And, although I’ve been going about this experiment quietly, I now think it is time that I share some of my findings. Here are the 4 Types of Emotional Deflectors: #1 The Story Teller 🗣 Story, story and more story. You know I was at the store the other day and the cashier was getting all upset because she couldn’t find someone to come bag the groceries. Finally, I decided to bag them myself as she was shouting over the intercom, but I just think this store needs to hire more personable people because…. ENOUGH ALREADY! Are you listening to yourself? Do you realize that there are words coming out of your mouth, right now? Hey, I know we all get caught in our day to day complaints about our partner, our boss, our work, our life, that guy, that girl, and so on, but let’s call it like it is. We are experiencing an underlying, ongoing, un-dealt with, emotional issue that we are not taking responsibility for and, instead of acknowledging it honestly, we are rambling on, blaming, or complaining. Your job is to stop talking for a moment and feel. You can’t do a very good job of feeling while you’re talking. #2 Mr./Mrs. Smarty Pants 🧠 We've all been in those disagreements about random stuff that seems to go off the rails. By the end, we are left wondering, "What are we even arguing about?" Is either of us really invested in *Facebook conspiracy theories? *literal disagreement between Jenny and I It can sometimes feel like we are the crazy person when we try to point out the deeper reality of our interactions. I am tempted to say that we may truly not understand that they are always having an emotional experience, but the fact that we are defending something makes me believe that we at least know that there is at least some feeling present on a subconscious level. This is a common way for the intellectual types to deflect and it usually serves up enough confusion that it muddies the waters and makes it almost impossible to continue on in any direction. Your job is to stop hiding and justifying and start accepting responsibility for your feelings. #3 Problem Solver 👨🔧 No, feelings don’t matter in this situation. All I said was that I wanted to finish this e-mail before I sat down for dinner and now, you’re upset. What do you want me to do? Yep! Except, you got it all backwards. The truth is that now it actually doesn’t matter what you said. What matters is how YOU are feeling. Now, your resistance to admitting your own feelings has become the elephant in the room. Your job is to own your feelings, feel your feelings, and create a safe space for your partner where their feelings are okay. #4 The Zombie 🤖 For some people, a natural strategy that they developed from childhood, was to go inside when things felt unsafe and scary. We also call this the freeze response. It’s common for some people to totally shut down when they feel overwhelmed, vulnerable, or blamed. Again, there’s nothing wrong with this and it can be really helpful to identify your style. This person may be the type to go quiet, nod their head, and go watch hours and hours of television. They probably aren’t consciously trying to avoid feeling but, it has the same impact on their partners, nonetheless. If this is you, your job is to start opening up and using your words. Even saying, “I don’t know what’s going on with me, right now” will go a long way. According to Psychology Today, almost 50% of marriages end in divorce or permanent separation, about 15% of marriages experience infidelity, 15-20% of marriages are sexless, and roughly 60% of people are not happy with their marriage. 🤷♂️
Whoa, what’s that all about?! What about promising to love and to cherish, until death do you part? There seems to be some misunderstanding here, and I believe it all starts with the set up. These traditional vows sound great, but they don’t actually line up with the experience that most people have in their marriages and relationships. For one, as sensitive and imperfect humans, we are incapable of maintaining a fairy-tale view of our partner at all times. Don’t get me wrong. I would take a bullet for Jenny, any minute of any day, but I don’t always cherish and love everything that she does in our personal life. My job is not to stop judging or change Jenny, because that’s impossible. My job is to take responsibility for my judgments and turn them around to better understand myself and grow as a person. Second, placing the promise of togetherness over self-love, can set many people up for a whole load of pain. What is someone supposed to do if their partner becomes emotionally abusive, strung out on pain-killers, or mentally ill? At some point, we have to realize that we are an individual, within a partnership, and that doing what’s best for ourselves is what’s best for everyone. This includes seeking individual help, setting boundaries, and possibly ending the relationship. And finally, where is the magic? If there was ever a moment to throw the script out the window and show your heart, this is it! This is the time to share your love with your tribe and step into the fear of being seen in your vulnerability. You may never get to do it like this again! There’s no right or wrong way to do this dance, but it’s worth thinking about if you’re considering getting hitched. You also don’t have to wait to get married or go back in time to come up with some solid agreements that feel good for both of you. If you don’t continually make new agreements to fit each new phase of life, you’re going to fight each other, feel irritable, or hide yourself…A LOT! In our experience, lack of communication tools, low self-awareness, and unclear agreements are some of the most common relationship killers. ***Get the popcorn because, in the spirit of being a true man’s man, I’m not going to open up about my thoughts and feelings very often. In fact, I even cringed in just coming up with the title. It’s almost like the two subjects are not meant to be together. Why is that? To me, Confessions sounds like the beginning of a book that I would see on my mom’s nightstand or lining the shelves of a Barnes and Noble aisle that I accidentally walked down. And, Man’s Man has the flavor of beards, football, beer, chainsaws, and wrestling. I have much experience in each of those categories so it seems only fitting.
***What would there be to confess and why? Am I seeking attention? Have I been swept up in the feminist movement? Or, have I just gone soft? No. Even though I could make a case for why there’s nothing wrong with any of those things, that’s not what I’m seeking. It seems to me, after working with mostly men in the field of mental health for the last 9 years and being a devoted Man’s Man, that we’re bumping up against a new problem. By stepping out and voicing what I’m experiencing, my hope is that more men might face parts of themselves that they didn’t know existed and that women might better understand what their fathers, brothers, partners and friends may be going through. That being said, this is only my experience and I am aware that there are not clearly defined boxes that everyone fits into. First Confession: I have emotional needs. ***For years, I thought that all I needed to be happy were my bros, some toys, a few hobbies, an awesome wife, a fulfilling job, and some good ol’ food. That should get me by. Being simple and low-maintenance is a good thing so, basically, I’m going to shoot for about 7 things and if I do pretty good with most of them, then I’m going to be one carefree dude. So why, even when I’m doing well in most of these areas, am I still an irritable, blaming, pessimistic man-child sometimes? It’s because I have unrecognized emotional needs! ***And, because I don’t know what they are, I blame YOU for irrelevant stuff, I view other people as stupid, I spin in my head, I aggressively try to fix the situation, and/ or I shut the whole thing down and go distract myself. Meanwhile, my needs still go unexplored and I go about my business until they arise again and I find something or someone else to complain about. If it sounds lonely and depressing, it’s because it is. It hurts to live this way and it’s tiring. So, I confess. Sometimes, I want someone to tell me that they see all the hard work that I’m doing or that they’ll still love me if I fail. Maybe it seems like a given, but sometimes I still need to hear it. And, the most interesting part of it all, is that I believe a story that I’m weak, unmanly, or weird for having emotional needs so I develop strategies to stuff them down and pretend that everything is okay. Second Confession: I’ve blamed women for my relationship problems. ***I can honestly say that I’ve gotten myself into a whole heap of trouble because I’ve made many assumptions about women in my life that were probably wrong. I might have been right or kind of right a few times, but my confidence in what I thought I knew about women has been shattered. For starters, I used to believe that women were a whole other species that were impossible to understand, hell to live with, and out-of-this-world crazy. Yep, I may not have said this on Facebook or out in public, but I certainly thought this way and engaged in some not-so-enlightening dialogue around the poker table. ***What’s sad is that these beliefs held me back from having a meaningful relationship with someone for quite a while. The reality is that my outward perception of women was really a reflection of how I related to myself and thus, I attracted women into my life who were also hurt, lost, and scared. This made it easy to blame them when things went south and then I moved on. When I realized that I could also be just as crazy, hell to live with, and impossible to understand, I opened myself up to real change. Because, as it turns out, we can all be pretty crazy, high-maintenance, and confused at times, and that’s okay. It’s my job to use my complaints to see into my own core issues. Confession Three: I’m afraid to lose my Manliness. ***When I first started learning about this "explore my feelings business," I was intrigued yet, skeptical. I saw the masculine and the feminine as very separate and very different. The last thing I wanted to be was become a long-haired, wheatgrass-drinking, sensitive, tie-dye wearing hippy who bases his decisions off of the movement of the planets. NO! I will not! I did end up with long hair, though. ***There’s nothing wrong with any of the aforementioned, but the world needs manly men and I’m one of them! I can build things, hold my own in an argument, think logically, and I have the ability to protect myself and my family. Where is all that going to go if I start exploring my feminine side? I’ll lose respect. I’ll be easily offended. I’ll be soft. However, those are just stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. Maybe, they were helpful way back when, but they’re not helpful to me anymore. In many ways, I can see how I’ve gained respect by being transparent and by being more respectful of myself and others. My ego has been given a good gut punch and I’m probably less offended than I have ever been. And being soft? ***Yeah, I intend to use that newly discovered side of me to raise a child, be a supportive husband, and listen to people. So, I guess some of my fears did come true, but I’m not complaining. Couples tend to think that there are 1,001 things to fight about. After all, it’s possible to fight about something new every day. However, in our work, we find that there are only 7 categories of arguments that really cause people to lose their minds. These are disagreements that, left unresolved, force people to split up, scream, retreat, or self-medicate. Simply put, these are The 7 Things You Argue About.
CLEANLINESS We’ve all had a dirty roommate or two. It doesn’t matter how nice we ask, they just can’t seem to meet this easiest of expectations on a regular basis. It could be that they don’t clean up after themselves, that they’re totally disorganized, or maybe they do gross stuff that causes us to shake our heads in disbelief. Even though it can be relatively easy to quarantine ourselves from our friends, our partners are another story. It’s likely that we can soon start to feel disgusted if we are not on the same page with agreements and expectations. Our home is sacred to us and it greatly impacts our emotional experience. No wonder we get so livid about the dishes not being done! AFFECTION When we’re not getting the touch, sex, or attentiveness to our physical desires that we want, we can get pretty ornery and act out in weird ways. This is often where the foundation of fidelity begins to crack. There’s a misconception that men just want sex and women want attention, but the reality is that both parties actually enjoy both. We come wired with a core human need to attach to someone in a physical way and this is the first thing we learn how to do. However, if one or both of you was smothered, hurt, or neglected as a child or in later relationships, it can be tricky to know where to meet in the middle. The point is that, if you don’t figure this one out, you’re either going to break up or turn into bickering roommates. SPACE Have you ever found yourself on a vacation, out to eat, or burned out after returning home from work and notice, “I just need some time to decompress?” And, if in that moment, your partner starts asking you what you want to do, what you want to eat, or what’s wrong with you, then there can be a sudden, knee-jerk, reaction to snap on them. Now imagine that this essentially happens every day because you both don’t know how to voice your needs, set boundaries, and take care of yourselves? Well, you may fight a lot about other little things, but it’s primarily going to be about space. SPENDING Money. For most of us, we’ve been taught that this is the most valuable form of currency. It stands for freedom, success, hard-work, power, and fun. Usually, couples do not make the same amount of money, nor value all the same things equally, so an issue immediately arises. With everything that needs to be paid for and with everything that could possibly be purchased, how do we decide how to share, spend, and save? When disagreements come up here, it can mean disaster because all the stories about what happens when you don’t have money come rushing in. You begin to see your partner as the one person who has the control to make you feel trapped, unsuccessful, powerless, and unhappy. This is a perfect cocktail of fear that will rise to the surface again and again if it is not dealt with. FREEDOM It seems like partnership and marriage are often correlated with having more responsibility or being “tied down”. Of course, part of that is true because you are agreeing to take the other into account, but the emotional feeling of being trapped, stuck, or uninspired is not necessary. When individuals are insecure about where they are at in their life, they will project this on to their partner and often, vice versa. So, if you find yourself complaining about your partners life situation, there’s a good chance that either you or both of you are not feeling like you have a choice in where your life is going. You’ll fight about this all the time if you don’t understand how to own your decisions, voice your desires, and support each other in manifesting a shared vision. ATTENTION Quality time and attention is a never-ending game of balance because it will change with the flow of life. Despite raising a family, showing up for work, and taking care of the house, both parties are going to feel some lacking in this area at some point. There will come times when, no matter how independent we are, we just want to be noticed, listened to, and acknowledged. If these moments go overlooked too often, then resentment will build and this will turn into petty fights. You will push your partner away because you aren’t trusting that they really care. This can go around and around in circular arguments until both of you set aside enough time to really figure each other out and design a system for both of your attention needs to be met. SAFETY This is the giant elephant in the room that is weaved into all of the other types of disagreements that you will have. The truth is, if you don’t feel emotionally safe with your partner, then you’re not going to figure any of this out. If you get deep into one of these arguments and you still can’t find the source, odds are that it is the emotional safety that is lacking in that moment. Whether you or your partner is dealing with some deep wounding from past trauma or you’re just using a tone that conveys agitation, annoyance, or condescension, you’re going to need to learn ways to calm your nervous system, drop into your heart, and show your partner that you care in ways that they can understand in order to get through any argument successfully. There’s nothing inherently “wrong” with being in a relationship where you both live fairly separate lives and don’t talk about your deepest desires, feelings, and fears.
Perhaps you reserve that space for close friends…assuming that your partner won’t really understand. Or maybe you haven’t had much experience with deep personal work, and so there isn’t a reference point for what consciousness in relationship would look or feel like. Or, it could be possible, that while you think you are living a fully examined life, your relationship is filled with stress and/or distance. What we’ve found is that those who create powerful growth and change in their relationship life have two things going for them: 1) You must be willing to acknowledge that your relationship life is not perfect, and yet you are willing to take 100% responsibility for what you create. 2) You take real action to improve your awareness, knowledge, and connection. This assessment is designed to give you a clear picture of where you are in your relationship life and to challenge you to look at areas that you may be neglecting. The only way this works is if you are honest with yourself. * If you’re in a relationship, it’s helpful to invite your partner to take the assessment as well and to compare scores. For each question, score yourself from 1-4 1 = “I have no idea how to do this” 2 = “I sometimes do this” 3 = “I do this pretty well” 4 = “I’m an expert at this” 1. I am able to access how I am feeling in the moment and tell my partner without being sarcastic, condescending, or hiding. 2. I am involved in deep personal work where I am held accountable and challenged by a person or group. 3. I am able to have conversations with my partner about my desires for work, money, family, community, and health. 4. I understand how my childhood has impacted me and how I show up in relationships. 5. I have a practice in which I am able to slow down, connect to my body, and/or gain insight. 6. I am able to clearly see how I have struggled with relationships in the past and I can be upfront about this with my partner. 7. When my partner is upset, I have healthy strategies and tools with which I am able to support them. 8. When I’m upset, I have a healthy process to soothe myself without falling into addictive patterns or distractions. 9. I am definitely on the path to creating a life that honors who we are and what we want to do. 10. I have a solid understanding about how relationships work (psychological, relational, body, sex, etc.) SELF-SCORE 😁 36 - 40 – You are a Relationship Master, and may find joy in helping others. 😃 31 - 35 – You were modeled conscious relationships at a young age, and/or you and your partner have probably done a ton of work together. Way to go! 🙂 26 - 30 – You are someone is who is newer to this work, or there are still a few things that aren’t clicking. But…you probably feel really good about where your relationship is right now. 🤨 21 - 25 – You may be a couple who is lucky enough to be compatible and you’re noticing that there is a whole new level to your relationship then you had originally thought. 🙁 16 - 20 – Hey, you’re able to do some of this stuff, some of the time. If you scored yourself here, you probably want to look at getting some support to jump start your relationship. 😔 11 - 15 – Ouch. If you scored yourself here then you are probably very stressed in your personal and relationship life. It’s time to do something about it. 😢10 – You are either at the end of your rope with your partnership or you have managed to avoid learning anything about relationships. Either way, you 100% need some help. **#1 You Want to Be Single
That’s right. You may not even know that you want to be single, but you do. Think about it. When you’re single, all you have to worry about is you. It’s awesome! There’s no one to consult when you go out to eat, you can do all kinds of weird stuff at home that nobody knows about, and you don’t have to give anyone else a minute of your time. The benefits are all there to be realized and taken advantage of. The problem is you go to your friend’s birthday party and you end up sitting at the end because you’re the only single person or you happen to scroll over that annoying couples Christmas profile picture that reads “Thankful for Us” and you begin to wonder, “How come I’m not an Us?” To answer your question, you’re single because today, the benefits outweigh the cost of being in a relationship. **#2 You’re Not Ready This is where people often get stuck and this isn’t black and white. There is a whole spectrum of Readiness, so it’s probably better to say that you’re not ready (enough). Not being ready doesn’t mean that your dumb, unlovable, weird, or oblivious. It just means that you either A. aren’t crystal clear on what you want or B. you aren’t emotionally ready to allow a partner into your life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. It can take years of trial and error to truly find out what you value in a person and what you want in a relationship or you may be really involved in personal work and there isn’t space for anyone else right now. There are plenty of good reasons why you may not be ready to be in a relationship and there is nothing wrong with you because you are single. You may have your life together way more than other people that just jumped into something because they didn’t want to be alone. **#3 You Don’t Know your Blind Spots If you’re having trouble identifying if you have any blind spots, that’s okay. That’s why they’re called blind spots. Once you find them, well…you get the point. There’s no need to feel ashamed because everyone has blind spots. Our brain is always trying to convince us that we are right or justified in everything we do and it does a really good job of protecting our identity by glossing over lies that we tell ourselves or unhealthy behaviors that we participate in. Maybe, you are way more opinionated than you realize and you’re generally repelling all your potential partners away from you. Or, maybe your insecurity about being alone comes rushing in the minute you become exclusive and it’s only a matter of time before your partner loses it and breaks it off with you because they think you’re too needy. There is a myriad of reasons why you may have these areas of struggle, but the point remains the same. You need to find a way to figure some of these out because they may be the biggest barrier to getting the love you want. Therapy, coaching, and learning are the 3 fastest ways to get a grip on how you operate and discover what you can do to draw in that special person. **#4 You Aren’t Trying The "Right" Way This isn’t suggesting that you don’t spend enough time trying to find someone. You may have tried every dating app out there and you may be spectacular at getting people to go out with you. Trying the “right way” means that you go all in on pushing your real edge...yourself. If you are single and you aren’t involved in deep personal work AND relationship learning then it won’t matter how hard you try. You may find a partner, but you still don’t know what you don’t know. It’s just a fact. Relationships and our development within relationships is an extremely complex matter and there is new and better information coming out each day. If you’re not learning about yourself and relationships then you’re going to keep struggling. I sauntered into my first AA meeting in Asheville, North Carolina when I was 18-years old. The drug treatment center that I was attending would bring their clients to outside AA/NA meetings once per week, after they had completed the first phase of the program. The word on the street was that there would be coffee and cookies at this gathering and that there may even be a chance to mooch a cigarette from an unsuspecting bystander. This may sound ridiculous to some but, to us, this was a big deal. All of us had been ripped from the teat of our addictions only 45-days prior and we had spent the majority of that time living outdoors on a diet of trail mix, sausage, cheese, granola, powdered milk, apples, and river water. This wasn’t a boot camp, it was a wilderness therapy program.
Of course, we were safe, we had food, and we had all the therapy that we could handle. The problem was that our brains were still wired for addiction and we knew that the combination of sugar, caffeine, and nicotine could produce a relatively strong “high” effect after we had been deprived from substances for so long. It didn’t matter that we could be kicked out of the program for bad behavior or that we might have to sit in a group for hours, “processing” our choices, if we were caught. We were fully immersed in the fantasy of trying to feel different. Hell, even the intensive planning, lying, and comradery of our heist was enough to get my heart pumping. By the time we got back in the van, we had demolished the cookies, chugged as much coffee as we could manage, pulled at least 6 cigarette butts from the ash tray, and contributed nothing to the meeting. That night, we rolled the tobacco we gleaned from the leftover cigarettes into our own cigarette made from notebook paper. My bunkmate, who had spent some time in prison, used pencil lead stuck into the outlet near our bed to spark some toilet paper on fire so that we could light the makeshift cigarette. To this day, I’m still amazed that this is possible and that he was able to that without electrocuting himself. All four of us took turns smoking the cigarette until the fire alarm went off in our room. When the night shift security guy barged in, we all buried our faces in our pillows and refused to say a word as he angrily interrogated the backs of our heads. What we did was big news around the program that week. We were put in Group D, which I assume stood for Degenerates. We didn’t get to attend any outside activities with the rest of the clients and we all stayed in that group until we left the program. I didn’t think much about that meeting for the rest of my stay and I had no plans of going to another one. To me, it was just another formality of being in rehab. Most guys were going on to aftercare programs but, I believe a combination of my youth, my parent’s optimism, and my resistance to attend another program, left my current program with little choice in their recommendation. Instead, they gave me stern talks and set up an at-home program of rules and consequences for my parents to enforce. One of the stipulations was that I go to 90 AA meetings in 90 days. I remember thinking, “Well, I don’t think they even have AA meetings in my town so we will see how that goes.” Surprisingly, when I returned home, I had every intention of following all the rules. I was grateful to be out of treatment and I never wanted to go back. Being sober didn’t sound all that bad for now so I got online to see if they had any of these AA meeting things. Sure enough, they had about 20 meetings per week within a 20-minute drive from me so I surrendered to the recommendation. Showing up to my first voluntary AA meeting, by myself, was terrifying. It didn’t help that it was held in a big church because I had been raised in a completely secular household. I was greeted by two elderly men at the door and welcomed inside. The demographic landscape was not much different inside the big meeting hall where the event was taking place. Probably 50% of the members were at least 65 and the other 50% were 40 plus. I knew that I stuck out like a sore thumb. We had done pseudo AA meetings in treatment so I kind of understood how it all worked. I knew that I could pick up a “chip” for my 60-days of sobriety and I understood the general format. When it came time for the chip presenting, I nervously raised my hand and approached the front of the room to claim my prize. A tall, old, bearded man, gave me a big warm hug and bellowed, “How’d you do it, son!? in a deep southern voice so that the whole crowd could hear. I froze in front of everyone with no idea of how to answer that question. “WTF? How did I do it?” I thought. I stammered, “Well, I just went to rehab and I couldn’t do anything there and now I’m trying to stay sober so…. yeah.” The group erupted in applause and I was completed bewildered. After the meeting, there seemed to be an unintentional line to talk to me. Everyone wanted to know what my plan was, if I had considered a sponsor, and if I would be coming back. They handed out their phone numbers until I finally saw a chance to escape as they were folding up the final table. The experience kind of freaked me out but, I also felt a warmth and calm when I climbed in my car to go home. It seemed like these people really cared about my well-being. The meetings were spread out across town so I went to a different location every night. I had the same experience with most of the same people at every meeting and the energy slowly shifted from nervous to slightly confident. I was like a celebrity at some of these meetings. I was always the youngest person and I almost always got called on to share. After about 2 weeks, I picked the youngest guy I could find to sponsor me and we started working the steps. He was a really relaxed guy and I could relate to his story, even though he was in his 30’s. He was like an older brother and he wasn’t too wrapped up into doing things by the book. For some reason, I kept going back to those meetings. I think it was mainly because I had no other social life in my small town and it gave me some credibility with my parents but, there was also something about being cared about that made me feel really good about myself. Within months, I was speaking the AA language, working the steps, sharing in meetings, putting away chairs, picking up service commitments, and praying. I didn’t really ever understand what I was praying to but, it felt good. I went to over 250 meetings in the 2 ½ years that I lived in Arkansas. After that, I somehow got a job working at a treatment center in Utah and I immediately started going to meetings there. We would have meetings in the program I was working at and I would go to meetings in my off-time to meet people. There were a ton of young people in recovery in Salt Lake City so I began to thrive. I started going to AA campouts, conventions, and I started sponsoring other guys when I was only 21. For the next 5 years, I went to 750 more meetings and I stayed sober the whole time. I diligently went through the steps twice and I sponsored at least 30 guys. Most of them were short-term but, I did go all the way through the steps with a few. I went to the International Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous in San Francisco where there were over 5000 people in attendance. I went to the International Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous in Atlanta where there were over 60,000 people in attendance. As I traveled the world, I attended meetings in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Thailand, and Switzerland. Everyone was speaking the AA language, using the same book, and working the same steps. I felt completely welcome, wherever I went. Without AA, I don’t know if I would have stayed sober. Without staying sober, I know I wouldn’t have the life I have today. So, why did I not only leave AA, but also find it necessary to write an article about it? Here’s why. It can easily be seen and understood that AA survives and thrives based on the love it gives, the service it provides, and the agreements it upholds. Most of this can be found in the 12 Traditions that run alongside the 12 Steps. Agreements, such as Tradition 3, remind members that the only requirement for membership is the desire to quit drinking. Something as simple and pure as this, is foundational for an open-minded and inclusive program, such as AA. Tradition 6 reminds members that AA ought never endorse, finance, or the lend the AA name to any facility or outside enterprise. This keeps the program free from outside influence and corruption. And, this trend of humility, thoughtfulness, and compassion continues in the steps. Step 1, which some say is the most important step in the recovery process, asks that we admit that we are powerless over alcohol, that are lives have become unmanageable. For many, this truth is glaring. Alcoholics Anonymous does not stray away from real world action either as Step 9 requests that we make amends to all those we had harmed, except when to do so would injure them or others. How big, impactful and profound the steps can be. Although you could easily harvest a barrel full of good cherries from the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, here are where things get tricky to explain. I will do my best to sum up my reasons into 3 categories so that they can be easily understood. My humble goal is writing this article is not to fix but, to put words to something that others may be feeling and to open up enough dialogue so that AA can evolve and meet the needs of all people who are struggling with substance abuse. Everything needs to evolve in order to grow and prosper and AA is no exception. I don’t have all the answers, but I do believe speaking my honest experience is the first step in creating real change in the world. Not many people have spent as much times in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous as I have and I feel a duty to do my best to improve the world in the areas that I inhabit. The God Thing If you’re a person who is secular or agnostic, you need only read to Steps 2 and 3 before you’re left scratching your head. Even though the book offers the steps as suggestions, this is far from the truth when it comes to how it presented culturally and how it reads in plain text. Step 3 says “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God – as we Understood Him.” I’ve listened to countless people try to explain this to others in their own words only to end with, “Well, it’s just your however you understand it.” Yeah, but what about the whole “give your life to God” part? The most fitting translation for me was that it would be helpful to stop trying to control everything but, why must I have to go through the confusing process of dancing around the elephant in the room and why is sobriety being tied in with divine servitude? Or Step 6, “We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.” This is implying that an outside force does the job of removing your character flaws and that they can be fully removed in the first place. This may have made more sense in the 1930’s but, it doesn’t make sense now based on all we know about the brain and psychology. It’s not possible to completely remove one, let alone all, of one’s negative character traits and it’s only by years of brain healing and therapeutic practices that we are able to inhibit our impulses enough to avoid most of our destructive, negative behavior. Believing that something is going to remove all of these from us, forever, will be frustrating, at best. The Big Book gets into the weeds again when it explicitly tries to explain further to non-believers in the chapter, We Agnostics. It goes as far to say that “a spiritual experience is the only thing that will cure your alcoholism” and that “this will seem impossible for an agnostic”. On this point, it is obvious that the authors have tied their definition of spirituality to the God they believe in and unnecessarily narrowed the prerequisites for a healthy, happy, sober life. It is 100% possible to have a spiritual experience as an agnostic toward God and although powerful or “spiritual experiences” seem to be a theme in self-discovery work, they are not, by any means, a requirement to quit drinking alcohol. We Agnostics takes many wild swings at this topic only to end with “He has come to all who has honestly sought Him!” If you’ve made your way through the rambling, incoherent, heap of assumptions, sugar-coated condescension, and anecdotal evidence without blinking an eye, then you may not understand what I’m trying to say. But, if you’re eye brow raised, your jaw dropped, and you chuckled to yourself as you read along, what are we to make of this? It is clearly not a fact-based explanation and there are way too many fires to put out in one go around so I will leave it at this: this chapter will continue to be a dead weight in AA’s mission to carry its mission to everyone struggling with alcohol. If it seems like I’m being unfair to the author’s then let me drive home this final point. I think they did a pretty good job with what they knew and it’s not the book that needs to go. No, it belongs in the Alcoholics Anonymous Archives in New York City just as much as all the other information, pamphlets, and history records that hold in place the roots of this resilient program. Where it doesn’t belong is on the table of every AA meeting in the country. Today, we can write a way better book, we can write more informed steps, and we can finally let go of the old ways that are driving many people away. They have worked for so many, including me, for a long time but, the program needs to evolve in order to include everyone. Members who want to keep their God or their Higher Power can still do so without needing a book to point to. Bottom line: As an agnostic, I can no longer ignore or talk around the real words that are on the page. It’s time to finally acknowledge that the Big Book is just a book and it needs some 21st century revising. Ideology So much of the power of AA lies in it’s emphasis on community, service, and recovery. In fact, the simpler you make AA, the more altruistic, connected, and healthy it becomes. It’s when people start to think they know the “right way” that things start to go awry. Just like the God thing, ideas only have as much influence as a group gives them. There are many things that the authors of the Big Book never thought to cover because they weren’t an issue when the census was in the 100’s, the majority of members were white males, studies on addiction were lacking, and the drug problem wasn’t what it is today. In the handful of meetings I’ve gone to in the last few years, I’ve been amazed at how unhealthy habits are such a huge part of the culture. There will often be cookies, cakes, endless coffee, and group smoking after the meeting, even if it’s 9 at night! It’s rare that someone talks about general health in a meeting because the whole focus is on not drinking or not using drugs. Sayings like, “take care of things in the order that they’ll kill you” get tossed around but, as a group, the work tends to stop at alcohol. Another unexpected outcome of having a group of people together who struggle relationally is that unhealthy relationships and promiscuity tend to gain traction. Terms like “13th stepping” refer to someone preying on a newly sober member for companionship when they know the newcomer is emotionally vulnerable. Rehab romances become all the rage in the young people’s community and I can honestly report that Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous Conferences are tainted with a fair amount of unhealthy behavior behind the scenes. Trauma and relationships become another issue that is either not talked about or not talked about well because most members are uneducated, unaware, or turning a blind eye to it. You don’t have to sit for very long in an AA meeting before you start to hear people talking about “we alcoholics”. People who aren’t alcoholics are referred to as “normies” and the discussion tends to take on self-reliant tone. Although many people go to therapy programs to get sober initially, it’s assumed that getting a sponsor, working the steps, and hitting meetings should carry you the rest of the way. However, sponsors are often untrained, the steps are very basic, and meetings are only one piece of the larger puzzle. That doesn’t mean that someone isn’t going to thrive in AA with the aforementioned trifecta of recovery but, if someone is really struggling, most AA members will just double down on their prescription of AA. There is enough value placed on getting outside help for trauma, relationships, and health when AA falls short. The final piece of culture that I’ve had a difficult time grasping in recent years is the dogma around identity and meeting attendance. Early on in my journey, I loved that I had a special name. Every share would start with, “My name is Bryce. I’m an alcoholic.” Yet today, that ID doesn’t resonate anymore and I’m left confused as to what to identify as if I’m in a meeting. It’s not crazy to think I would be mocked if I were to say that I “used to be an alcoholic” and even “recovered alcoholic” comes with the connotation of arrogance for many. This idea of transcendence from addiction doesn’t seem to be a topic that most members are open to. Nor does the idea that you can live a perfectly happy life, completely divorced from the program of AA. I’ve heard many “old-timers” speak heavy handedly about the necessity to keep attending meetings or risk going back to the drink. For many young people, hearing this can conjure a feeling of skepticism and/ or dismay. “Does this mean I have to keep going to meetings for my entire life in order to stay sober?” I remember wondering. This thought clearly struck fear in me as a newcomer to AA and I this was a definite concern when I moved overseas about 4 years ago. However, I found that close relationships, personal work, and honesty were the cornerstones of a happy life and I was able to dispel some of these myths I believed in for so long. Bottom line: Although AA may help many people get sober, it’s not the final solution for everyone and it’s important to move beyond just “staying sober from alcohol” and into a full understanding of complete well-being. Finding support outside of AA can be very worthwhile when it comes to dealing with core shame, relationships, and health. Alcoholism is not a special sickness, it is just one representation of the human struggle. And finally, it is possible to transcend the disease of alcoholism and to live a fulfilling life with or without Alcoholics Anonymous. Better Ways for Me Like I said, I grew up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I became a man, I found my best friends and I learned how to be a leader in Alcoholics Anonymous. This program was the springboard for me to find my passions and my tribe. The paradox is that it also brought me to the point where I felt I needed to create something new and personal to what I was wanting. This came in the form of a life coach, a Heart Circle, and a therapist. After I spent about 18 months overseas, I came back to Utah with a blank slate. I had followed my dream to travel around the world but, I had lost touch with the recovery community, I was very single, and I didn’t have any professional guidance. I started going to AA again but, the feeling was different. The crowd had changed faces and I wasn’t in the loop with many old friends. They started talking about God in the meetings and I realized I hadn’t thought in those ways for quite a while. It didn’t make sense to me anymore, as much as I tried for it to. My mental and physical health was at an all-time high but, I was having a hard time connecting with people who were making their health their #1 priority. Without much to lose, I contacted a man that I had used as a life coach sparingly throughout my adult years. He was instrumental in helping me follow my dream to move to Utah and then travel abroad. I started meeting with him some and he brought up the idea of a Heart Circle. I gathered a few of my best friends from all over the country and we began to meet on the phone, once per week, with guidance from him. A couple of friends came and went until we ended up with 5, core members. One of our agreements is that we strive for clear minds through abstinence from mind-altering substances. I met my current wife Jenny about 3 years ago and we started seeing a marriage therapist about a year into our relationship. Jenny is also a marriage therapist so I started to become more interested in learning about real, evidence-based, personal work. As my internal life began to transform, so did my external life. As a couple, we were meeting with a therapist 1-2 times per month, I was meeting with my coach, 1-2 times per month, I was meeting with my men’s group once per week, and I was no following my passion of becoming a professional life coach. I began attending trainings, workshops, and taking online courses. I realized that I was learning new tools that AA had never taught me and I was on a learning curve that far surpassed what I had been accomplishing when I was going to AA on a daily basis. My support system challenged me to look at my whole life and to make big changes in every aspect. This required significant financial investments and I began to charge money as a certified life coach. This went against the cultural of complete altruism that suggests I can only keep what I have by giving it away. All of this created some aversion to the rooms of AA. It wasn’t that I was actively avoiding Alcoholics Anonymous. I just wasn’t feeling as included or interested anymore. When I would show up to a meeting, the message seemed circular and sometimes redundant. Organically, I kind of just stopped going. As I looked around at other people I knew who had been sober a long time, I realized that many of them weren’t really attending meetings either. They had families, hobbies, and careers that took up most of their time. There were also long time AA members I knew that still went to a lot of meetings and who were living great lives but, it just clicked that there was more than one way. It’s not that I feel I outgrew AA or that AA would banish me for my atheistic lifestyle, it’s simply that I had reached a place in life where I wanted something different. And, it’s my belief that there are countless others out there who are looking for something different and who don’t know that there are other ways. Bottom line: It’s really important that everyone understand that they are in charge of their own lives and that they can strive for what they need and want. For some, AA provides all of that. For others, it may be a part or nothing at all. You are capable of creating the life you desire. Conclusion This article is simply my experience and is not meant to diminish the power that AA has on positively affect people’s lives. I am still 100% sober and I consider the program an instrument in saving me from a life of addiction. I still recommend that anyone struggling with addiction attend AA meetings on a regular basis in order for them to see what a path to recovery can look like and to connect with a supportive community. Although, I’m not an active member of AA, I’m still open to attending when I feel inspired to. My goal is writing this was to shine a light on the issues that are not being addressed well in AA. I hope my words give a voice to other’s feelings and that it moves us closer and closer to a world where we are winning the battle with addiction and where everyone feels included in that fight. Did anyone ever tell you it’s not okay to Dream? It’s probable that no one ever told you this explicitly but, what about implicitly. It may have sounded like this:
“You do what you have to do to put food on the table.” “You can’t just run around and do what you want all the time.” “You need to focus on your education first.” “Listen, the world is unsafe, unfair, and unforgiving.” Many people are caught in habitual patterns of work, distraction, intermittent fun/excitement, and then more distraction. This may look like the typical 9-5 with dinner and Netflix rounding out the evening and an emphasis on relaxing, social media, news, and more TV watching over the weekends. There may be fun things involved along the way but, nothing too far out of the ordinary. You may be asking yourself, “Well, what’s wrong with that?” Nothing. Nothing is wrong with doing this. You’re employed. You’re paying the bills. You’re trying to relax whenever you can. You’re not rocking the boat. You’re trying to set yourself up for a comfortable retirement…. Did that last paragraph fall flat with you? If it did, then that means you’re a natural Dreamer. You’re a rare breed of human who isn’t okay with the status quo. This may be old news because you’ve probably known this your whole life. You’re different. You look around at the way the world is and you can’t help but think that you can make it better. You may not always share it out loud but, you feel this desire in your heart. You know that there is more to life and you intrinsically seek deeper connection with the people in your life. Comfortable becomes uncomfortable after a while. You want to be challenged, you want to run wild, and you want to be scared sometimes. Whether you’ve woken up to this reality or not is okay. Life coaching, in whatever form it takes (counseling, therapy, group talk, retreats, mentoring) is basically dreaming out loud. This is done so that you can not only see what you want but, feel it. After some time, you begin to feel it so much that you begin to believe in it. Once you believe in it enough, you begin to trust your own intuition. And, once you trust in your own intuition, you become unstoppable. There are no barriers, only lessons. There are no haters, only projections. There is no hopelessness, only periods of disconnection from ourselves. We aren’t that good at doing this on our own. This wisdom has been passed down in many forms, for many generations. And, although it seems as basic as the term life coaching itself, it is a complex practice that has to evolve with our ever-changing world and mind. Therefore, the work is never done. The work is never done but, there’s also no guarantee that it ever starts. So, the big question is, “Have you started the work?” Our brains tend to process our reality based on a combination of what is happening now and the scattered memory of our life. We rarely think back to what it may have been like for our parents as children or much beyond that. It’s difficult to see any link because we have a difficult time contemplating anything beyond our own existence. However, our DNA and our psychology go back millennia. We are the culmination of all of our ancestor’s biology and experience. Therefore, it’s important to explore not only what is happening now, in this life, but what has shaped us throughout time. Let’s go back to the beginning.
According to the earliest fossil records, most scientists believe that we (Homo Sapiens) have been on Earth for about 200,000 years, but we didn’t fully transition out of the Stone Age until about 5,000 years ago. Prior to this, we mostly lived in very small communities using a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. To put this in perspective, if we were to say that the average age for reproduction of our ancestors was 25 years, we are looking at only 200 generations of man between now and the Stone Age. Isn’t that crazy?! If you were to line up your ancestor’s shoulder to shoulder, you could potentially be talking to a Caveman in no more than 200 conversations. So, why does this matter? It matters because we haven’t had much time to figure out how to adapt to the complexity of modern life. We now live in a world where we don’t have to struggle to survive, where our partners are looking for more than just “food on the table”, and where we are told to prepare for things like retirement, owning a home, and “our child’s education”. WTF just happened? This is why the old saying, “All a man needs is sex and a sandwich” makes so much sense. For thousands of years, our job was to go get food and reproduce. That’s it. But fellas, I believe that in this day and age, not only are we capable of more, but that we truly do want more than our antiquated, uneducated, barbarian predecessors. Here are the four struggles of the Modern Man and how to “grow” past them. Comparing to Others In our earlier years of existence, we lived in small tribes where the hierarchy was simple. The bigger, stronger men caught more of the food, mated with more of the women, and beat down anyone who challenged them. If you wanted to move up, you basically had to kill or severely injure your opponent while risking your own life in the process. As we became more sophisticated, the struggle for power became larger and battles were fought, not by one man, but by armies. Still, the results were the same. You had to fight for your place or you risked losing all your freedom and possessions. Today, there are still parts of the world that work like this, but not in the modern-day society that we live in. However, we still tend to think and behave as though everything we value is attached to our social status. Having the big house, nice car, and “trophy wife” are stereotypical desires that underscore much of how we function as men. Let’s be honest, we are constantly comparing ourselves to the other men around us. We are “comparers” by nature. Romantic Relationships Way back when, emotions were not of much use to men. Our job was to feed and protect and that was it. If we fed our family, fought for our women, and taught our sons a few things about being a man, we were successful. Women were in charge of raising the children and tending to their emotional needs. As many of the women tended to group together to raise their offspring, they inevitable began to learn tools to support each other emotionally. This dance has been going on for thousands of years. According to an article published in Psychology Today (Who is More Likely to Leave a Bad Relationship by Elizabeth McClintock Ph.D.), women end marriages in about two-thirds of divorces. Deeper research suggests that men are more emotionally dependent on women because women give more emotional support than they receive versus men who receive more than they give. Women tend to have other people in their life who support them emotionally while men often rely solely on their partner. It’s not that men are just selfish, emotional leeches. We often aren’t parented in a way that supports emotional growth and our culture certainly doesn’t support emotional sensitivity in men. Even our cartoon superheroes tend to “go at it alone”, pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and portray immense physical and emotional durability. Many men’s emotional growth is stunted at childhood and we are left feeling mad, good, stressed, and sometimes, sad (if it’s bad enough). We tend to deal with things on our own and through distraction. Porn, sex, alcohol, nicotine, eating, and raging at the gym can usually get men through most situations without needing to delve into the emotional aspect. Finding a Purpose In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the pyramid is built from bottom to top as follows: Physical, Security, Social, Ego, and Self-Actualization. In our earlier years of development as a species, physical and security needs took up the majority of our time. Our purpose was essentially to stay alive and the reason could have been as simple as us wanting to avoid the pain of starvation and hypothermia. As our society grew, it became more complex and we started to have more time to explore social, egoic, and self-actualization needs. We already have several purposes in life. That’s what gets us up in the morning and drives most of our daily activity. However, why do we fall into anxious and depressive cycles if all of our external needs are being met? It’s because our need for creativity and self-development is not known or being honored. Whether we are “successful” or not by society’s standards makes no difference if we are not feeling fulfilled and purposeful. This can start to affect us at any stage of our life, and it usually shows up most in our career, relationships, and health. If we discover what we truly want in each of these areas, we will begin to live a life full of purpose. Asking for Help Surviving the plains of ancient Africa with only rocks and sticks was no small feat. There was no 911, Google, or assault rifles. We were left all alone to protect our tribe and ourselves. It was a kill or be killed kind of world and it came from all angles. Between our neighbors, apex predators, illness, and the weather, just about anything could take us out. Only the strong survived, and there wasn’t anyone around to ask for help. Leaders emerged and they were worshipped for their ability to solve problems and take care of themselves. This is still much the attitude of the modern man. If you are hurt, if you don’t know something, or if someone else needs help, you are supposed to figure it out. If you don’t, you are weak, stupid, or selfish. You are not a man. Ironically, feminine insults are often implicated as a way to demean and belittle ourselves and our associates. If you ask for help, then that means you have given up and that any newfound success cannot be owned. It is somehow honorable to carry our burdens with us through life as if we are a martyr for this false identity of manhood. How to “Grow” Past the Struggle Since the dawn of Man, we have battled to figure out how this world works and to create lives that we enjoy. There have been wars waged, lives lost, and emotional pain inflicted on countless numbers of our fellow men. And, for the first time in our history, it is possible to have it all. We can have the safety, the relationship, the career we love, and the life purpose. So, what do I do? How do I “grow” past the struggle? The first step is to “wake up” from the Dream. Turn off all the distractions and tune-in to what it’s like to be you, right now in this moment. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? And finally, what do you really want? Shine your light on your life situation. The second step is to create space and compassion around where you truly are. Don’t BS yourself or shame yourself. You are where you are and that’s okay. It’s been a long time coming and you have survived and overcome mangy obstacles in life to get to where you are today. Your future will not be decided by your resources, but by your resourcefulness. Each moment is impermanent and each moment is an opportunity to do things differently. The third step is to explore. You only have one life, so have fun with it! Go into the dark caverns of your psyche and look around. Float into the clouds and see what life could like look from above. Spend intentional time putting the pieces together and begin to build the type of tribe that will support you in becoming the man you want to be. The fourth step is to take action. When you are feeling truly heart-directed, it’s important to put your Dreams to work. You have to be willing to look like a fool and fail in order to reach your Dreams. You have to be willing to put it all on the line for what you want. What do you have to lose if you go for it? And what do you have to lose if you let your desires collect dust on the shelf? |
Bryce BauerRelationship Coach Archives
July 2021
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