Self-Responsibility, Men's Work & Hard Conversations - with Jeddy Azuma

It's about looking myself honestly in the mirror and seeing the truth and owning the truth of who I've been and who I am presently determining who I want to be moving forward and taking charge of that in my own way, taking responsibility for my trajectory, moving forward.

Hello friend, and welcome to the Sex Upgraded Podcast, a podcast for men all about sex, where we'll combine real, authentic, down to earth conversations about sex life and relationships with some pretty wild personal stories and practical how to episodes as well to help you have the most amazing sex life you can possibly have. My name is Taylor and I'll be your host on this journey and it's my goal with each episode to give you practical actionable tools and insights. You can start using today to improve your sex life and to improve your entire life, because the quality of your entire life is directly linked to your sex life. Let's begin today's episode by taking a deep breath in together through the nose, into the belly and exhaling with an audible sigh. And let's get into today's episode. After recording this episode, I realized I wanted to come on here and give a quick 62nd intro to the podcast to give of context for what we're talking about, because the flavor of this episode is different from some of the other episodes so far.

Yeah, man, what an honor. I always love being in this position, doing so many interviews on the other side of the mic. I enjoy showing up here. Honored to be here, man, and looking forward to Jamming.

Yeah, you get to just flow with my questions this time.

That's it. That makes it easy.

Yeah, you've got like it's like 500 episodes now, I think, or something on your podcast.

Yeah, we just hit the 500 episode mark maybe a month ago.

Wow. Yeah. The Rising Man podcast for anyone who's curious. Go check it out. It's awesome. I listen to it. Love it. It's good stuff. Today's episode, there's a bunch of different stuff. I'd like to go in with you just to run down a couple of bullet points. If you're listening, you have some idea of what we might get into. I want to talk about the lone wolf mindset that a lot of us guys get into, how that can kind of be a problem. Why we as men might need to work with other men in community type settings or in person to actually grow. Why we need the connection of brotherhood to actually grow masculine versus feminine stuff fasting going out into the wilderness and how that all relates to sex and relationship and just thriving in life in general. Jetty, I know in your podcast you start off by asking all your guests a question, and I'd actually like to ask you that same question in this podcast right now, which is, Jetty, what is the difference between a boy and a man?

Well, I love when I get to answer this question. It's not very often that I do. The simple distinction that I've reduced it down to is that as a boy, in my experience, I was very self centric. I was very focused on my needs, my wants, my desires. Even if I was experiencing generosity and kindness and care that I externalized in my life. As a boy, there was still something that was about that was in it for me. The moment that I feel like my life really changed and I felt like I was fully embodying, manhood was when I turned 180 degrees, it felt like my body cellularly turned 180 degrees and started facing outward. Instead of being preoccupied with my internal experience so much, I was more interested in how can I impact and affect the world around me, starting with my loved ones and then going beyond into my community and to the planet and all life.

Yeah, I like that. And it makes me curious. You did speak to this but there's this piece of that's potentially tricky, where I know at least I at certain periods of my life when I did kind of make a transition to focusing more on the world. There was a period of time where I really kind of sacrificed myself in a way or sacrificed my desires, and through the process of that, actually sacrificed my ability to really show up in the world in the best way that I could because I wasn't fully honoring these desires. There's a dance there I'm thinking about now as we're talking about it.

Yeah, well, there's a model that some people might be familiar with. Are you familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of Needs?

Yeah, basically.

I've studied that model quite a bit, and I think it's very reflective of my life experience and what I see in a lot of the men around me that we're trying to go from our baseline needs being met to the ultimate pinnacle of self actualization, which to me, I just interpret as living my purpose. Right? Especially for men, all humans, but we all want to identify with a purpose that we have and feel like we're living it and leaving an impact around us. To me, that's just the beginning of the game. I actually have started to look at Maslow's Hierarchy as the journey that a child goes through on the way to becoming an adult. It's not that we reach the tip of that pyramid and life is over. The game is over. It's actually just beginning. There's a whole nother game to get into after that.

I like that. That seems like a really important missing piece to a lot of the perspective that is very pervasive. It's the mainstream western perspective. We have a very individualist idea, very individualist culture. Like, how can I get my needs met? How can I do my thing? How can I get my retirement? How can I, et cetera, set myself up for success without as much of a focus on the community and the interdependence that is the actual reality. Yes, we all, or many of us, want to be really independent, but we're all interdependent. I like the focus on, okay, once I reach this state, how then can I make the world a better place?

You know me, man. I'm a nature guy. I know we'll talk more about that stuff later, but if I look at my body, this body that has gone through hundreds of thousands of years of engineering to become what it is now, I am so poorly equipped to be in the world by myself. I'm talking about the natural world. If you threw me in the middle of the Amazon rainforest with what I have equipped on my body just naked in the middle of the jungle, I'm not going to do very well. I'm not really equipped. I don't have butcher's knives sticking out of my fingers like big predatory cats. I don't have large fangs. I'm not the fastest animal in the jungle or the most stealthy. We're big and clumsy and we make a lot of noise. To me, all the evidence is in the DNA that we're not supposed to just pursue my own self preservation because the only reason I'm able to do that is because of modern innovation.

Totally. Have you ever watched that show Naked and Afraid?

No, but I hear a lot about it, especially my line of work. That's the first question. People are like, so you're going to take guys out in the middle of nowhere? Is it like naked and afraid? Nah.

A buddy of mine has been on that show a couple of times. It's super fascinating to hear some of the behind the scenes stuff. What I do want to say right now is the episodes that have been the most intense that I've seen are in the Amazon. People get f***** up in there, man. It's intense. Like mosquitoes and bugs and all kinds of just gnarly torturous experiences when they just go in there naked. Yeah, I mean, that's another thing too.

We're so insulated. I mean, most people who have the privilege of being able to listen to a podcast and listen to the discussion that you and I are having are so far removed from understanding what it's like to have that experience as a human.

Totally.

To be naked and to not have belongings or possessions that we carry with us and exposed to insects and poisonous venomous snakes and all that stuff. That's why it's so entertaining, because it seems like a fantasy world. It's not long ago that were all having to survive under those conditions. Our ancestors, every single one of ours, survived conditions like that just so we can be here having this conversation today. Yeah, but we forget.

We forget. I have not experienced that either. I've definitely have the privilege to be sitting here with a microphone with you talking right now in the comfort of my home with a computer staring me in the face to talk about these concepts. One thing that's really hitting me as you're saying this right now, is the recognition that with all of us listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos, reading our books, sipping our tea, like this thing. We are very insulated from the natural world, and in many ways, it feels like we are insulated also from this part of ourself that is nature, that is this wild part of ourself that has needs, that has desires, that actually can serve a purpose, too. Most of us kind of never well, a lot of us just never even experience that or acknowledge or are even aware that exists.

I love when I get this question. I've realized over the years a big part of my purpose is to educate and to try and help folks make that connection. I mean, listen, I'm a kid. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City, and lower middle class, very suburban upbringing. I played all the sports. I went to school. I did all of those very typical things. I was a Boy Scout for . Actually, not even a Boy Scout. I was a Cub Scout. I didn't even last that long. I had a very limited exposure to the wilderness and to nature until I was in college. So I want to be clear. This is not the way that I was brought into the world. This is not a framework or a reference that I had until halfway through my life. When I explain to people why we go out into the wilderness and we spend time fasting, it's hard for them to connect to because it's so different than probably what they received growing up.

Wow. Yeah, that's a lot. I imagine there's a lot of good listening. What do you guys come away from that experience with usually, or is there a usual at all?

That's another really common question that I get from guys who are interested. Yeah, because most men, they come looking for one of three things I found. The first is they want to create the conditions for clarity. My whole spiel that I just gave you about the Master volume, that's really what I think of as creating the conditions for clarity because it's a very unique combination of variables. Being outdoors by yourself, four days, no food, et cetera. A lot of clarity can come through when the distractions are minimized. Also, it's not just four days. It's a whole process that we take men through leading up to it two months ahead of time, of really doing a deep inventory and review of their lives. What is the life that I've lived up till now? What no longer serves me? Who do I want to be on the other side of this experience and then incorporating that experience afterwards for another couple of months?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for that. It occurs to me to tie this in with the realm of sex and relationship that anybody who goes through a process like this and achieves greater clarity around their life and their purpose and how they want to be living. If they are in a relationship and they go back to that relationship, I imagine the charge or the fire or the connection will be just that much more amazing with the partner. Or I imagine possibly some guys go through that experience and realize, hey, I might actually be with the wrong partner. Maybe I need to switch things up to be in more authentic alignment with my vision, with my desires. That sort of a thing.

Absolutely. One of the things we encourage guys after coming back from an experience like this is to not make any major decisions for at least a couple of months, to let what they just experienced really land and settle into their bones. Because sometimes the excitement of that new energy in whatever direction it's going can be a symptom of the moment of peak experience. We're really cautious to encourage men to really just take your time with those first few footsteps into this new identity. But I've seen both. I've seen men who double down on the relationship that they're in, thinking that they were going to exit the relationship before they went out and fasted and come back and almost do a 180 entirely. I've seen it go the other way, where men come back really clear that they've been in a relationship that no longer serves them.

Totally, I imagine. What part of the country or world do you want to live in? What do you want to be doing for work? What do you want to be doing for your fun time and your leisure time? Are your friendships actually supporting your life? Like, all those kind of questions, I imagine, can be refined throughout that process.

Yeah, one more thing I'll say, because you asked about what men come away with, a lot of times what men expect to come away with is different on the other side. Every single time and I've taken out over 80 guys now, that every single time, they always come back and say that I got what I needed. It's not always what they expected, but it always ends up being, I got exactly what I needed.

Nice, beautiful. I can relate to that with some intensive processes that I've done, too. Like, oh, I think I'm going to get clarity on this thing. No, life is just like, Bob, here's this other thing that you actually should have been paying attention to this whole time.

Sure, it's like plumbing. I don't know if anyone's ever done plumbing, but you're like, okay, I just got to go and replace this part, and you replace that part, and you realize the problem was actually somewhere up the chain, and you're like, crap, now I got to go do that. Not always quite what you expected.

Get the pipes in line.

There you go.

I'd love to talk with you about the importance of men's work and men connecting with other men. I'm curious, why do you think it's important that men do men's work or for men who are wanting to grow, what is the value of doing some program or experience that is specifically with a group of men?

Well, it's a great question, and first, I want to define men's work for the way I see it, because I think it's so wonderful that menswork is not quite a household term, but a term that a lot more people are familiar with now than when I got involved with it 15 years ago. To see people even saying men's work, I was featured in a GQ article where somebody, even though they kind of satirized men's work at first, they're talking about it. It's pretty amazing to see that's out there for me. When we talk about men's work, when I use the word men's work, I can't speak for anyone else, but when I think of a man's work, it's very personal. It's about personal inventory. It's about taking a look at myself that for much of my life might have been too painful for me to look at, too scary things that I didn't want to expose really the truth.

Yeah, I like the being held in a group and being witnessed in your own process and your own desires piece. I think, yeah, I've personally benefited greatly from that in my life. When you spoke to what happens if you don't do that kind of work, I mean, I think we're seeing a lot of what happens when that work isn't done. I know at least in the indie sexuality field recently, in the past year, there's been a lot of stuff that has come up from men who are acting out some more, I guess you could call it boyish or not, as integrated places and actually causing a lot of harm while they're quote unquote teaching. There are certain processes and councils and mediations that have been going on recently to kind of help ameliorate that. I think, yeah, gathering in council and community is a super necessary and important thing.

Can we slow down to talk about that? I think that's really important and I know it's uncomfortable to speak about, but I'd like to. First, would you get more specific about exactly what you're referencing when it comes to these boyish behaviors that have been expressed in more of the sexual capacity recently?

Yeah. Okay, so do I name the organization? Yeah, I think I will, just because I think it's a very interesting process. I've participated in some of their retreats ISTA the International School of Temple Arts. I'm not going to go into all the specifics or whatnot the organization continues. It's gone through some leadership changes and I feel excited about the direction it's going. I think they've got some great people doing work at the head of Things now. There's been some shifting up that has happened. I don't know all the specifics of things that have happened there exactly, but I do know that there was a whole Facebook group that came up last year that was specifically dedicated to people who had negative experiences with facilitators in this organization. 95% of these were with the male facilitators, maybe 98%, something like that. Things like potential boundary violations to abuses of power to this stuff, that kind of a thing.

So we're talking about sexual misconduct and.

Taking advantage of participants, basic sexual misconduct, taking advantage of participants, but potentially unknowingly, taking advantage of not potentially even being aware of power dynamics at play and just existing in a way that was harmful for these people, primarily women who are having these experiences.

Well, having known nothing about this situation, I'm sure that people this conversation in general can be very triggering for folks. I think it's always important when entering into a really uncomfortable type of conversation to first take a look at oneself and to check in with myself and where does something like that land with me? Because a lot of times we just read headlines, right? I could have easily just read a headline that said ISTA under investigation for sexual misconduct, male facilitator, blah blah. That might produce a belief in me right off the bat just from a headline. When I actually think about how little I know of that situation before I start to make a determination about what's occurred, I might be all the way on. I might actually be p***** just from reading those first few lines. That might not be a reflection specifically of that example, but it might be a reminder for me of something that's happened to me personally.

Totally.

That I hold the charge around that as neutrally as I can say. Not condoning any behaviors that are deemed to be out of line and inappropriate, but also recognizing how quickly we make decisions. I think that's one first thing that's really important. My father gave me a lot of good advice over the years. One thing he always said is that there's always three sides to a story yours, theirs, and then what actually happened. Just the value of really being curious, bringing curiosity everywhere that we go, and even in the event of true bona fide sexual misconduct, taking advantage of somebody else's vulnerability, I think that also needs to be met. Again, not with overlooking or bypassing, but curiosity. A willingness to try and attempt to meet that person where they were at. Because I don't believe that basic sexual misconduct or sexually deviant behaviors are innate within any individual being.

Totally. Yeah, for sure. It's interesting, I notice even in bringing it up in this podcast I'm like, wow, I did not intend to mention that. And there's some hesitation there. It's interesting to notice, when this happened, there were some major articles that came out in different parts of the world because it's a worldwide organization and there were people that had no prior experience with ISTA at all that came in and started saying all these negative things and projecting all their stuff onto the organization as well. And it became this shitstorm. Not everybody knew about it, but shitstorm in certain pockets of individuals and communities and just a fascinating process to watch. And I'm not affiliated with ISTA. I've done a number of their programs as a participant. I still recommend their programs to my friends because it has changed my life and I don't think it's something I want to keep going down in this conversation, but I do want to say it's interesting and it came up for me hearing this and I don't think that anyone's evil.

In fact, again, just putting evidence out on the table. If we look at sexual education, right, just like the average of sexual education, a lot of us did the whole condom on a banana thing in 6th grade health class with a gym teacher. I mean, the conversation of sexuality and how we can illuminate that for our children, it's so vast, man. That's why I have a lot of respect for you and all of the folks who are getting into leading this sexual revolution. Everything's a revolution, right? Whatever this era is of sexual awakening, to do it in a very conscious and community centric way, I think it's important for people to be more unfettered and expressed and free in how they want to express themselves. That's also had consequences too, because now we've got teenagers on TikTok showing all of themselves and creating these other consequences.

Yeah, man, that's a whole other thing. I think there's a piece that I want to speak to that is around the hesitation to even talk about these things. Like, for example, in my own personal community right now in Asheville, there's a scenario that I'm not going to names or anything like that's going on where there are accountability circles and mediation that's starting to happen in the realms of consent violation, this thing. And I noticed that. I feel nervous to talk about it. I feel nervous to say that I'm even potentially having a voice in this process because I see what happens sometimes when people start talking about sexual challenges in the public spectrum. They get exposed to a lot of people's projections and people start attacking them even if they're trying to help in the best way they know is possible. It's an interesting time and at the same time, these things need to be talked about and these processes need to happen.

Well, see, that's the problem is the reason that so much of this polarity is coming up with this us against them and defending myself against the masses is because of the forms of communication we've determined to be acceptable. Now, somebody can leave a comment on a post that I put on Instagram that's literally just words on a screen and eviscerate me and start a whole angry mob without actually understanding what I meant when we know that 80% of communication is nonverbal, right? That there's energetic missing links. Obviously that's a whole nother rabbit hole that we can go down. I think we need to also take into consideration the way that we're trying to communicate and articulate our truth and our wisdom. This ties right in with rites of passage, right? It's important and imperative, I believe, for every human being to tap into that original center of truth and to refine that and to learn to trust it and to risk that truth out in the world and see how the world receives it.

Yeah, there's benefits and challenges to that. I think when I think about this in the sexual realm, when sexual challenges come up or there's a need for an accountability or a calling in of somebody in these sorts of conversations, the situation is messy, right? The situation is inherently messy. Evidenced by the fact that there's a need for the conversation, right. Most people have not spent a great deal of their time learning how to communicate about sex or even learning about sex in general. Therefore, most people's inner world around sex and dynamics with other people is messy. A problem comes up was when people start trying to talk about this messy thing, when they're messy internally, what you're saying, it can be terrifying. 90% of the time somebody's going to mess up when they say something and not say it perfectly. Now there's like this I think people are feeling the weight and this fear of like, oh, there's a f****** hammer that's going to come down and crush you if you mess up.

And I don't know either. I think it's okay to admit that we don't know how to navigate this perfectly and that we never will. I'll share a story that reflects exactly what you were sharing. Because not too long ago, I think it's probably three months ago now, I was recording a bundle of podcast episodes like I do my little five to seven minute solo, SOS and in the process of my flow and direction trying to speak about. I was actually describing the experience of what being supported for the first time in a men's circle can feel like. That men who've never had that experience could understand it. In that natural flow of it, I was describing it, and I said, it's almost like our version of me, too. I was specifically talking about the solidarity that we can have as men when we start to admit things like our own experiences of being sexually abused, our own experiences of fill in the blank.

What?

Genuinely felt like a misstep. I went back and I reviewed, and I talked to people who know me best. And here's the interesting thing. All of the people who were coming after me and really upset, I had no idea who they were. Never heard from them before in my life, in my DMs. People calling me up on the phone were the people who knew me. Everybody was like, Listen, man, hey, don't let that get to you. I know who you are. I know who you are. A couple of people who know me really well say, I know who you are. I can understand why people might have misunderstood what you meant. I know what you meant because I know who you are. To me, it just reinforced this idea that we must start to decentralize our lives from these large bubbles. The fact that we're connected to millions and billions of people at all times is really problematic, and the people who know us best are the ones who are the most important.

Let me ask you then, after going through that process, you said it was a highly educational experience for you. Did it alter your perspective on how you would talk about the me too thing or that subject? Again, would you use that same phrase? Would you phrase it differently? Did it impact your thoughts about that in some way?

Yeah, well, it was great because I went through a really uncomfortable process. I was like, well, not I must I wanted to respond because I didn't want to ignore it. It obviously was provocative for some people. I also stood by what I said. What I did is I went back and I really looked at how I said what I said. The way that what I said was depicted in the graphic that we put on social media. The process that we had from me sending that to my team and my team doing their thing and then sending that out onto the Instagram. I got really clear on where I felt I could have been better. And I just took responsibility for that. I stopped in my car one morning. Once I gotten clear, I stopped in my car, recorded a video, and I said, this is what I apologize for.

Totally. That sounds like a really big learning experience for you.

Oh, huge.

Yeah, huge. I imagine there was fear and anxiety and all that stuff wrapped up in there too. I'm not actually familiar with the situation. I haven't seen the post you're talking about or the follow up post. I'm enjoying the way you described, the way that you responded. I think when people immediately jump in and start defending themselves, that's kind of a problem too, because there's something there. There's something to be looked at, there's something to listen to. There's something to learn from the scenario. And the intention didn't match the impact. There's something to be harvested from the experience to be able to better support the world later and to not totally cave into the experience either and sacrifice yourself completely and bow down is useful.

Going back to this theme of boy and man, my boy and my man were both online in that moment, and I could easily see the ungrounded boy that was afraid. How is this going to affect my livelihood? Most importantly, how is this going to affect people's ability to actually hear the good things that I have to say? Right? My man like the father in me coming online to father that boy and say, hey, we know who we are. Remember who you are. Don't forget who you are, but take responsibility. To sharpen my listening, it was a really wonderful process, honestly. I was super uncomfortable and I didn't know how to navigate. I reached out and got a lot of support, which is another reason why we need our men's circles and our men's teams to have those places to lean on. If anything, it also made me feel more confident and more willing to extend.

Yeah, I want to share a brief personal story and then go into this piece around conflict, because, like, how we show up in conflict seems like a very important thing to talk about as well. And I think that would be useful. Just to share, this may be two years ago, there was, again, some woman that I had never met, I still have no idea who this person is. Twisted some words up that I said in a post and then every day for many days, potentially a couple of weeks, I don't remember exactly, started accusing me publicly of rape and raping people and saying, oh, Taylor's a rapist. Messaging people. Taylor's a rapist. Don't follow this guy commenting on my posts. Like, Taylor's a rapist. How does it feel to be raping people? I'm like, Jesus f****** how did you even come to this conclusion? I have no idea who you are.

Well, I think it's important to acknowledge that we are all deeply violent in our nature, our basic nature. We're all the products of violence. Here's evidence, right? I think about these things before I say them. I know it's shocking, but at some point, there's a guarantee that my ancestors beat and overcame and conquered some other peoples and that people came to an end. The only reason I'm here saying what I'm saying right now is because of violence. Now, maybe that's not the defining part of our entire history, but even modern, normal existence, animals walking around on this planet are violent every day. Just follow some of those. Like nature is metal. Accounts on instagram. Life is violent. Because we have created a civilized I put that in quotes a civilized reality for ourselves, it doesn't undo all of those millennia of violence that we've experienced again, I don't pretend to understand human psychology.

Totally.

That's been the reality for many humans on this planet before, but most of us don't experience that. These other things become much more shocking and difficult for us to hold because we're so isolated and protected in our experience. I am certainly not advocating for bringing and introducing more violence into our society. I don't want to see that by any means. I think that there is a basic component of life that we don't acknowledge, that we watch behind a screen, but that is a very real part of our nature as well, that we're constantly contending with.

Yeah. In order to come together more as a civilization and society, I believe that we need to be talking about this more and develop ways and methodologies to actually talk about this difficult stuff that actually heals and builds connection. I understand through talking with that woman briefly that I just referenced, I understand where she was coming from too, like that tiger mama, oh, I got to save people from this man who's in a position of power, who's abusing women. Like, that totally f****** makes sense. I'm able to empathize with that as well. Just through the actual human connection and discourse, were able to come to an understanding and like, oh, wow. Okay, cool. I hear you. You hear me? Great. Boom. Done. The death and the violence piece, that's true. We're very removed from that. There was something that came up for me when you said that, but I was just thinking, the only time I've seen two people take their last breaths.

Yeah. Again, I think it's probably worthy of a whole book, and I think people have probably written that book, too. I don't think these are just new thoughts that I'm having right now, but there is something about our relationship with death. There's a man named Stephen Jenkinson who I've had on the podcast a couple of times. Have you heard of him before?

I've heard the name.

Okay. He's got a very unique perspective on death and dying and the reason we are as a people because we've been so disconnected from it. That informs a lot of our culture and the way that we are. Ultimately, for me, it comes back to having such a low capacity and a low tolerance for difficult and uncomfortable things, which, going back to the fundamental purpose behind Rites of Passage, is to prepare us for difficult challenges in life. We've been doing this for the entire course of human existence, taking young out into the wilderness to give them a challenging experience and letting them know that this is what you will require to survive and navigate a difficult life.

Yeah. You have an episode of your podcast, I think it's called Comfort the Silent Killer. Yeah, man, for sure. In context of work, friendships, relationships, et cetera. I would like to talk about conflict to close things up. Also just to say, I recognize that you and I both just shared stories about our own personal challenges within the realms of we'll call it sexual realms, for lack of a better term, right now. It's not my intention, nor is it your intention that I'm hearing you, to compare that to the weight and the wealth of experiences women, challenging experiences women have had with men in this realm. It's just like us sharing our own experiences. I noticed there's this piece of me that wants to put that in there too, just to be really clear that I'm not victimizing myself here or saying that, oh, woe is me, woe is us, comparatively speaking, just trying to share the authentic experience of being a man in this position.

Well, I both love and appreciate you for giving that disclaimer and protecting us both. I think it's a demonstration of just where we are as a society that we need to do that it's required, we do that. Maybe it is a requirement for us to broadcast a message to thousands and tens of thousands of people because it's easy for people to take things out of context if I don't know who you are. And honestly, I know you. We've had a few connection points, but I don't know you as well as I know the closest people in my life. I trust you. I think it's also just recognizing how much meaning we place on words that people are sharing that we don't know yeah, it's just important to put that into perspective. But I appreciate you doing that. I think it is because it's certainly not what I'm intending to do.

Yeah. There are a lot of people who have had really challenging experiences in life who are primed to interpret things in specific ways like that. I recognize that's also the context of the reality that we're living in. There's a lot of hurt people out there, and there's a lot of s***** behaviors out there. That's why we're both doing the work that we're doing to try to rectify that and create some new healthier behaviors. Absolutely. You were just mentioning when people we don't know are doing this stuff, saying these things to us, what about when it's your romantic partner? Like, how do you react when your romantic partner comes to you with conflict?

Oh, man, are we teasing part two, or are we going to go all the way in?

Let's just do a couple of minutes. I think it would be useful to just close it up because it relates. How do we show up in moments of conflict, generally speaking?

Well, I think very simply put, part of the word authority is something that I really love. The root word of authority is author. I think a lot of us, our hardships and our suffering comes from not realizing that we've given authority and essentially the pen, right? Author. I've given somebody else permission to tell me how I am to write the story of my life. For me, as kids, that's what we do. We give authority to our parents. We don't even give it to them. That's just the way that it is. Our parents, our guardians, they have the authority to tell us the way things are to help us grow. A lot of us, we don't ever take that authority back from our parents or our guardians. Unknowingly, we also give it away to other people. Part of keeping my own ego in check is giving authority to people that I trust to be able to receive their feedback, having that close inner circle that I can really listen, if my wife looks me in the eyes and says, hey, that was too much, that's going to stop me on my tracks.

Yeah, I really like the authority piece. Like, oh, I have these people in my life, and I give them the authority to reflect the hard stuff for me in the sense that I will actually really listen to them and give their opinion more weight than Joe or Kathleen at the pizza shop or whatever.

Yeah, exactly.

I think that we can close with this just to say that it is my belief that developing the skill to be on the receiving end of challenging feedback or difficult experiences and actually listen to that without caving and without getting defensive is a really f****** important skill that we all should be cultivating. Like you said, if my partner comes to me and she's really upset, it's like, oof, wow, that's really hard to hear. But, man, thank you for telling me this. I'm just going to breathe with it and feel it and let it work inside me so I can then work with it.

Truly narcissistic behavior and I say that very intentionally, truly narcissistic behavior are people who have adapted themselves not to be able to receive any of that feedback, that they only can exist in a world that is self generated because of how unsafe they feel to let that other information in. We also got to be careful about who we're calling narcissists, because sometimes it's just that because the weight of that feedback could be so heavy, and if I don't have the safety or the body that can receive and contain that, it could destroy me faster than a moving train slamming into my body. Right. Words can be so destructive. That's something we all got to be on the lookout for, that maybe it's just that somebody doesn't have the body to receive that feedback, or they know that it's true, but they can't admit it because of how painful it is.

Totally. If you want to increase your capacity for such things, then increasing the network you have behind you is helpful, too. Like, I think of my men's group, if I get some really challenging feedback and it's, like, too much for me to handle, I will go to my men's group. Even if it's not too much for me to handle, I'll go to my men's group and share it with them, and then I feel like, oh, I can rest in that. And they're not going to coddle me. They're going to hold me accountable in a loving way to help me actually receive the feedback and do something useful with it, too. The connection with brotherhood in that way can be really potent.

Yeah. Also going through experiences, giving your body real experiences of feeling that assault coming in. We do a lot of these embodied practices in a program we have called Dojo, where, as men, we get together, we create the container so we know that none of this is personal, it's all just practice. Once we agree, we go all in and we start pulling arrows and plucking away at each other, because to some degree, we have to strengthen our skin to be in a world of you never know when somebody's going to shoot an arrow in your direction.

Totally.

That's another piece of it, man, is putting yourself in spaces and conditions that are safe enough to build that resolve and that tolerance.

Yeah. Which will then improve your sex life and your relationship life and your friendships and your family and the world. That's part of the reason this is a sex podcast, but also it's about everything, because everything relates to that, and everything comes I hate to say it, but it's all connected. It really is. Sure. Interconnected. Thank you, Jetty, for very fascinating and unexpected twists and turns in the conversation. I really enjoyed this and thought yeah. Grateful for everything that came up. Thank you.

Yeah, likewise, man. I never know where we're going to go, and I appreciate your willingness to give it some leash and let us go where we needed to because I trusted it was exactly what we needed to talk about.

Yeah, definitely. Are there any last little words you want to put in, or should you just tell people where they could find you?

No, people want to hear more. They can find me on Instagram at jettyazuma. If they want to find out more about Rising Man, they can either go to the website risingman.org or follow us on Instagram at Risingman Movement, you can go find out everything you need to hear and need to know and want to hear there.

Yeah, and I'll put all the links in the show notes as well. Check out the Rising Man podcast. Thank you, Judy, so much for this conversation. Thank you. Everybody listening. If you like this episode, if you have any thoughts or questions or feedback, shoot me an email or a message on Instagram. I'd love to hear from you and I hope you all have a beautiful rest of your day. Peace. Before you go, I have a request. If you got a lot out of this episode, then it would mean a lot to me if you would take a moment right now and go over to Spotify or Apple and leave a review of this podcast. That'll help more people know that this podcast is actually worth listening to and it'll help me know that you like it as well. If you have any requests for the future, for future topics or future guests, please shoot me a message.