Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
Charles and Dan are just two guys talking about relationships, masculinity, and authenticity. Join them as they discuss books and media, as well as their (sometimes messy) personal stories, to encourage men to join the fight for their mental, physical, and emotional health--because a world of healthy, resilient men is a thriving and more secure world for everyone.
Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
The Let Them Theory: Alpha Energy or Amygdala Emergency?
In this episode of Mindfully Masculine, Charles and Dan dive into Chapters 3 and 4 of The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins—where things get uncomfortably real about stress, overreaction, and the fantasy of control. From checkout-line rage to masculine stoicism, this conversation blends psychology, philosophy, and a fair bit of sarcasm.
We cover:
- Why your brain reacts to traffic like it’s a war zone
- The myth of “taking control” vs. the power of staying calm
- Stoicism: misunderstood, misused, and still incredibly useful
- What masculinity looks like under pressure (hint: it’s not loud)
- The ABC Loop: how meaning hijacks your response
- Why reacting with less intensity is still a heroic choice
Charles admits he's (occasionally) open to being wrong. Dan shares his personal stress hacks. And both wrestle with what it really means to pause, respond, and lead with clarity—especially when your nervous system has other plans.
That's a way I like to look at this, where the masculine option is not to be in control. The masculine option is to be calm. And you can only be calm when you're confident and you're competent and you know that you've got the tools to make everything okay, even when you hit bumps in the road. Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles.
Charles:Okay, if you listened to our last episode, you know I came in hot with some skepticism about Mel Robbins and the Let them Theory, but credit where it's due. Chapters three and four actually had me nodding along more than rolling my eyes. In this episode, Dan and I dig into what the book gets right about stress, emotional overreactions and the illusion of control. We talk stoicism without the macho cosplay, how masculinity shows up under pressure and why being calm might be the most underrated power move a man can make. Takes a big man to admit he's wrong, and if I ever am wrong or big, you'll hear it here. First, enjoy the episode. We listened to or read chapters three and four and in this one we start to discuss stress and the stress response and what we can do about it. So she goes into the inherent presence of stress in all of our lives and how we just all have to deal with it and how most people are overstressed and not doing much about it.
Dan:And I think part of that too is she recognizes that a lot of it's little things. It's not like a big overwhelming thing on a day-to-day basis, it's like little things that are kind of adding up that kind of contribute to our own annoyance which builds up our stress.
Charles:Yeah, do you find that you deal with the little things bothering you that much? I mean, it was a little tough for me to identify with her being so affected by little stuff.
Dan:Not at this age, when I was younger. Yeah, agreed.
Dan:I absolutely could identify with waiting too long in the checkout line or when I first moved to Florida, and the public's employees having conversations with people instead of it seems. I don't know. I think maybe they're better now because they are able to multitask and check them out while they're having the conversation, but I just remember they like at the end, like waiting for payment, people were having like minute or two discussions. This was 10 years ago, yeah, and I was like what's going on right now? Yeah, yeah, it's really bothered me, yeah, so I can understand. When she talked about going to Home Depot and the lady at the checkout line was taking her sweet time scanning everything, then pausing, having a conversation with that person and then continuing to check them out, if you remember in the book she was talking about how a lot of times she has the tendency to turn to the person in line next door and roll her eyes and just go oh, can you believe what's going on?
Dan:But she paused and she realized she's going to let them and she immediately brought down her stress level. So when I was younger that stuff would bother me a lot more. As I've gotten older I just it's. I don't know if I've just got used to it, expected it, and so then when it doesn't happen, I'm pleasantly surprised. Yeah, it still happens to me in traffic, though, even though I try to tell myself, okay, this person, if I get cut off in traffic or if they're going really slow, you know, maybe maybe they heard something horrible happen to one of their loved ones.
Charles:You know, whatever it is, there's a 0.0001 chance it has anything to do with you, right?
Dan:it is. There's yeah, there's a 0.0001 chance it has anything to do with you. Right, and and that's the thing, and also, realizing I can't make a difference.
Charles:Right? I mean, stuff does bother me sometimes. I can't imagine it bothering me to the point where it ruins my day. Or I get where I'm going and I'm still obsessed over what happened at the store, what happened in traffic yeah, it really doesn't, really. Yeah, it doesn't ruin my whole in a moment it can be is annoying. She talks about like there's no magic wand you can wave to say I'm not. I'm never going to be exposed to those annoying circumstances again, that's just.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:The idea of we need to soften up the world so I don't have to deal with difficult situations is never going to work.
Dan:You don't have control over that, like that's. The fundamental piece of this is that you control the controllables, and that's you and your reaction. She even quotes Epictetus about. It's not what happens in the world, it's how you react to it.
Charles:Yeah.
Dan:So I thought you'd like some of the Stoicism stuff that he threw out there.
Charles:Yeah the thing I found interesting about her ref. I mean, really, this whole book is about Sto stoicism. It's just she's found a way to package it and sell it to new people who are new to stoicism. That feels valuable and resonates with them. But yeah, when I, when she talks about people getting let them tattooed on their body, it's like, okay, so that barncore, that's a really cool let them tattoo. Yeah, thanks for explaining to me. You never heard of stoicism until Mel Robbins told you about it. Right, you know what I mean.
Dan:A lot of people. I mean, that's the thing too, is you know, it's what you know, the world that you live in. You may not have heard of it, or the concept. I think Mel also does provide it in an actionable way. So it's good to like. A lot of those stoicism quotes are great, but it's just like well, how do I live in a way where I'm controlling what's controllable Like give me an action plan, and I think that's one of the benefits of her is that she gives you those steps on how to do that.
Charles:Yeah, I one of the things when I was preparing for this and and trying to look at this through the lens of okay, how does stoicism in general, or the let them theory, relate to sort of masculine expectations and things like that? I find that when it comes to anything that references the application of masculinity or toxic masculinity, very often people will try to connect stoicism to that where, oh where it's like and I think this probably happens with men where men have this attitude of I need to be stoic and they they implement that in the way of I need to suppress all emotions and any expression of emotion and I'm going to think that's what stoicism is. Reading books on stoicism whether that's going back to marcus aurelius and reading meditations, or ryan holiday and some of the books he's done, or mel robbins it's like stoicism is not I'm going to shut down all my emotions and I'm going to address every situation as if I'm a robot right I.
Charles:I think when people talk about stoicism that way again, that's another way to show me a big flashing neon sign that says I don't really know about stoicism. I've not really read any serious works on stoicism. I just heard about stoicism from somebody else who heard about stoicism yeah, it's not. And the people around you? It's like I'm not going to pretend like what's happening right now isn't affecting me. I'm just not going to knee-jerk, react in a way that's going to make my life worse. That's what stoicism is about. It's like I'm not going to be so affected in the moment that I'm going to act out in ways that make every day from this day forward harder than it has to be Right.
Dan:I look at it as mental toughness. That's what it is. It's managing, it's not ignoring, it's not resisting, it's not feeling those feelings, knowing how to handle them and then reacting in the way that you want to react and not based on your amygdala that she talks about Exactly. Or fight or flight response.
Charles:Even just committing to, I'm not going to react in the worst way possible. I mean that's an implementation of stoicism to say, listen, when this happens in the moment and I have this immediate impulse to do this terrible thing, that's going to be bad on me, bad on the people around me. I'm going to just make the situation worse. I'm going to dial that extremely negative response just back a couple of notches. I mean that that's still a successful implementation of stosis.
Dan:Even if it's not the most optimal, it's still something so do you have a method, a go-to to pause and create that space, so that you aren't just letting your feelings yeah, I've got a couple things I do out all, all over the place.
Charles:I got any kind of checks and from other books we've talked about. I think it was the man's guide to women by the gotmans or yeah, is that the one?
Dan:yeah, I think that was one of the things where, where they talk about just how.
Charles:Listen, if you're in the middle of any kind of a conflict to the point where your pulse is over 100 beats per minute, you're going to react in a way that is suboptimal. I mean, that's not the best way to react, it's just you can't help it. I mean, if your physiology is that activated where your heart is beating at more than 100 beats per minute, your amygdala is in the driver's seat and you're just not going to have the best reaction. That's one of the things I thought about when she was going through chapters three and four.
Charles:We just have all this hardware that is not optimized for the level of real adversity that we deal with in modern society. Meaning I thought about it like, say, you're playing blackjack at a table where it is a thousand dollars a hand and you don't have enough money to be sitting at a table where it's a thousand dollars a hand. You're going to be in a real state of distress because of what's at risk every time the dealer puts your cards out. But then you get moved from that $1,000 a hand table to a $5 a hand table and you're still reacting as if there's $1,000 at hand at risk. That's what it's like to live in modern society.
Dan:Yeah when.
Charles:That's criminology, yeah, for most of us. We're not in a position where, if the hunt doesn't go well, we're not going to eat tonight. We're not in a position where, at any second, some roving band of outlaws is going to come into our subdivision and start stealing everything and killing everybody and taking women and children away. That's not going to happen for most of us in modern Western society. And so, as a result, because we never have to deal with stuff like that, it's hey, we got an email from our boss that says they want to talk before the end of the work day and our body doesn't know. That is not the same thing as the Raiders coming in from the next village.
Charles:And so we still, our body still, reacts to that email as if the Raiders are about to come into our subdivision from the next village over.
Dan:Yeah, same thing when she said she was checking out at Home Depot with that slow cashier. She was late for something and it was probably work-related. And our brain is going oh, we're not going to be able to make the hunt, we're not going to be able to bring in the money, we can't survive. At least the amygdala goes to that place. I think that's a key step that a lot of us can take is find a way to step outside and relax a little bit and reassess what reality is. When you're in it, like you said, and you're stressed, it's very difficult to open up and really take a look at what all the real possibilities are when you're in it, because our fight or flight is basically in protective mode and that's the last thing we're going to do is open up in any capacity and make ourselves vulnerable and even brain-wise. To think creatively and to think what all these other possibilities are is a difficult thing to do, and that's why coaches and mentors and therapists are all extremely valuable.
Charles:Yeah, and in the case of Mel being stuck in line at Home Depot or whatever, I mean, mel Robbins has been Mel Robbins for quite a few years now, and so her ability to just shoot a text that says, hey, I got held up at the store, I'm going to be a few minutes late. Everybody's going to wait for Mel Robbins to be a few minutes late from for whatever meeting she's got. Nobody's going to be like, oh well, we're not going to publish your next book now, mel, and make all of us millionaires because you were a little late getting to the meeting.
Dan:Yeah, Well, I mean, but it goes to show that when we set our expectations and she probably set her expectation that it wasn't going to take her 15 minutes to check out in line and then the expectations are not met. That's when we a lot of times get those feelings of stress and strain and anxiety, right, because we well, we bring into it this isn't happening.
Charles:I was expecting this to make to take five minutes, and now it's not taking five minutes, and the only thing at stake here is my expectation was wrong, Like it's not affecting anything else other than but I thought it was going to take this long and now it's taking this long instead. It's a change. It's crazy.
Dan:It's that little thing. I know it's so nuts the way we work yeah.
Charles:Really? Yeah, because, again, all this hardware is like looking for patterns, looking for danger, looking for emergencies, and so, since we're not finding emergencies, we have to create them. Yeah, because that's just part of what it means to be a social primate.
Dan:And for me, the response that I've come up with is basically just take a belly breath, one breath, and that calms my physiology down.
Dan:If not, if that's not enough and a lot of times it's not I try to do something physical, like go for a walk, stand up, walk around the house, do something physical to get rid of the side effect of our amygdala going crazy, which is releasing all that cortisol and adrenaline and that starts to make your body feel uncomfortable and uneasy and it's a lot more difficult than to think clearly when that's all kind of built up.
Dan:So doing anything physical a little bit even I mean I'm not doing jumping jacks or anything but just moving a little bit helps me change my state and clears me out and helps me take a step back and then, all right, what's the appropriate response here? But if I can't move, a lot of times the belly breath, because it activates your vagus nerve, which is your calming part of your nervous system, right, the parasympathetic that Immediately it's almost like a wave, just kind of washes over me and helps me just relax for just a second, and that's sometimes enough time and thing for me to do right now is to try to take control and micromanage the situation when, yeah, so many of those cases, the level of control that would make us feel comfortable is not actually available to us Like that's the key right Like you think, oh, if I could just take control of the situation.
Charles:But that it's. There's no, there's nothing you can do, there's nothing you can say that's going to give you the level of control that it would actually take for you to feel like you're comfortable.
Dan:And just like we were talking about your expectation when you're waiting online, same thing is your expectation now by taking control is I'm going to be able to control something and you're trying to control what you can't control. You're almost setting yourself up for disaster, a self-perpetuating loop here of negative feelings because you're going to try to control something you can't and then you're going to be disappointed because you can't control it, and now you feel even worse and a lot of times that kind of just keeps spiraling and you try to control. So, yeah, I think we need to kind of think of what other options besides trying to lock down and take control in that situation are available to us.
Charles:Yeah, she does a good job. I really liked what she talked about with the, the ABC loop. Okay, I think that was this chapter where she talks about an event happens, we assign meaning to that event and then the reaction we have to the event is not really based on what the event objectively is. It's all based on the meaning that we've assigned to the event. Yeah, and that's an interesting I've never heard it explained that way before where, yeah, you're not reacting to the thing that happened to you, you're reacting to the value and the meaning that you've assigned to the thing that happened to you. Yep, and so if we can figure out a way to break that loop where we can see what we're doing in the moment and, instead of reacting to the meaning we've ascribed to something, we can react to the thing that actually happened, then the odds that our reaction will be appropriate and effective skyrocket.
Dan:Yeah, I just being open to the possibility. That's not the only option is what we're thinking about, the situation that is, what's helpful for me is realizing, even if I can't figure out or even believe something else, of something else specific about that situation. Just the fact that I know that, objectively, there has to be other ways of thinking about what happened, that already puts me at ease a little bit. Going okay, maybe you don't have all the information Right, maybe you're not objectively correct, maybe this isn't a hundred percent, what reality is? That automatically goes okay, that drops me down a little bit.
Charles:Yeah, and that's where just sort of the pop culture version of stoicism can be a little bit of a tool that you can use in a situation like this, where you're, if you stop and think, okay, if I, if I knew everything there was to know about the situation and I could react to it with the emotion and passion of a Spock or a data on Star Trek, okay, what would I do differently from what I feel like I need to do right now? So, if I had all the info and I was able to act on that information, just process it devoid of emotion, yeah, what would that look like? And that's not necessarily what you should shoot for, that's not necessarily what the goal should be, but just doing the exercise of okay, well, if I was able to do that and I was able to take all the information that I might not have access to and apply a dispassionate solution to it, what would that look like? And how different does that look? Like a friend or a family member, or you're confronted with some sort of a social injustice. There are times when reacting with anger or even rage is the appropriate response for you to take to something. I'm not saying that's never the right thing to do, but being able to just say, okay, if I had more information and if I took on the assignment of reacting dispassionately, what would that reaction look like? Compare that to what I feel like I have to do. Right of reacting dispassionately, what would that reaction look like? Compare that to what I feel like I have to do right now.
Charles:And then ask yourself is there something in the middle that would be the most effective way to respond to this? And the answer is almost always yes.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, and yeah, that's.
Charles:That's one way that you can kind of role play as okay. What would that ultimate version of stoicism look like If it was in the driver's seat, for coming up with my reaction instead of my amygdala. What would that look like?
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:And would that be a better outcome or would that be a worse outcome? Would that? Would the happy medium between these two maybe make for the best outcome? And just being able to take a pause back and sort of look at it like you're up above yourself looking down, can be very helpful yeah and I've never had an experience where I've done that and I thought, man, I should have just had the knee-jerk reaction.
Dan:I would have been so much happier if I just reacted instantly, in the moment, based on my, my emotional, passionate response another way that I try to remember to do this and I'm disappointed, I don't remember enough is what would you say to somebody else who came to you with this issue? Right, it's so much. It's crazy how quickly you can come up with an answer when you think of it and you put yourself in that position, versus when you're in it yourself and just feeling the feelings of being frustrated and hitting obstacle and letting it get in your way. And when I, when I'm lucky enough to remember, hey, what would I tell somebody else to do, it's like it comes to me immediately.
Charles:Yeah.
Dan:It's ridiculous.
Charles:Yeah, and what it almost all of those scenarios I would tell the other person to do is you need to dial in and figure out what, in this situation, is in your inside, your ability control and what is not, and when. When things are chaotic and when things are difficult, the worst thing you can do is spend your time banging your head against the wall trying to control things that you can't control, because then you're the opportunity cost is just too high, you're wasting your time trying to. The opportunity cost is just too high. You're wasting your time trying to affect change that you cannot possibly affect.
Charles:And so, yeah, step one has to almost always be okay. Here I'm in this situation, what can I control versus what can't I control, and ask yourself how am I wasting my time right now, in this very moment, trying to control things that I have no chance of controlling, and that's going to be other people, that's going to be external factors like traffic, like weather. I mean you just you're not going to be able, no matter how much effort you put into it, you're not going to be able to control the traffic, you're not going to be able to control the weather, you're not going to be able to control the nine people in line in front of you.
Dan:Right, yeah, and that's I mean, and that's why I liked the fact that this isn't just a let them theory, it's a let me, so it really kind of helps you understand you need to. In order to do the let me, you have to control what you can control, because if you're trying to use let me and control other things that are out of your control, it's futile. So you just just the other day you were telling me what how you handled a work situation is. You're hoping for the best, but you're planning for the worst, right, and so you're doing the things that you're let you know. You let me work on things that would help you prepare for the worst case scenario, right, and also recognizing that's something you need in order to feel better about the situation, because you've got that safety mechanism in place at this point.
Charles:Right, yeah, there's the. You know what's the best case scenario, what's the worst case scenario, what's the most likely scenario.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:And the most likely scenario in most relationships, whether that's personal, professional, whatever the most likely scenario for a given situation is it's homeostasis. It's like things probably aren't going to change that much. People for the most part, the people you deal with on a daily basis are not looking to upset the apple cart. They're looking to tweak things. They're looking to change things for the better a little bit, but they're not looking to completely just wipe the Monopoly board off the table and say let's start from scratch. And that's one of the things I need to remember.
Charles:Going into a situation with some unknowns is like okay. Once I make it through to the other side of the situation, the most likely thing is things will have changed a little, but not completely changed to the point of the recognizable, where the worst case scenario is always oh, something super disruptive is about to happen and it's going to completely change my life and tomorrow's not going to look anything like today. And that almost never. It never works out that way, Almost never works out that way. I mean, yeah, short of somebody dying or being severely physically incapacitated or you being your job or your work situation completely changing to the point not where you just even lose a job, that's like boom, something happens where I can't even work in this industry anymore. That's so rare that something that big happens to us, but that's immediately where our brain goes.
Charles:Whenever the chance of change is even on the horizon, it's always like, okay, this is going to be, this is going to be so big, so disruptive, so whatever. And it almost never never is Right.
Dan:What's interesting to me is whenever I've taken the time to actually plan for the worst, thinking through it, when I actually start trying to plan to accommodate the worst, I automatically start to think of what's more realistic instead of going. I got to leave the industry forever. Is that really? I know that's the way you feel right now, but all right. So all right, if I'm going to start planning for that, what am I going to get it? No, and then I start to kind of just, and it starts to kind of balance my way back up to, as I'm planning for those worst case scenarios, realizing, okay, the worst case scenario isn't as bad as these random thoughts that are like coming into my mind based on some really strong feelings right now.
Charles:Right, exactly. And on the personal side, it's like you know, when your spouse or your partner is like, hey, I'd like to talk to you about something after work today, it's usually not, I'm taking the kids and moving to another state, it's usually not something that big, but she just wouldn't tell us you should just be gone. Exactly, that's the move. But yeah, I think one of the things I wrote in my notes is um, when it comes to the application of masculinity to the let them theory is, I mean, I know I struggle with the idea of the masculine thing to do, or what's expected of me in a particular situation, because I'm a man, is to take control of the situation where we were just talking about with a in a professional negotiation, the person who takes the most control doesn't win the negotiation. It's the person who remains the calmest that wins the negotiation. When you're trying to come to a solution that works for all parties concerned, the person that's the most effective at that is usually who goes into it the calmest. And what does that mean? Well, usually that means the person who's most okay with their number two choice is the one who's able to remain the columnist.
Charles:So, like, if you go into a negotiation and you're like okay, number one for me is I get this new job or this new project and it and things work out great.
Charles:Number two is, through the negotiation process, I find out this job or this project really isn't for me, it doesn't really speak to my skills, and so finding that out in the initial meeting and being able to avoid this project, that's the number two scenario.
Charles:If you walk into a negotiation with those being your one and two, you're going to come out the winner, no matter what happens, because either you find a project that speaks to your strengths and you can excel in it, or you find a project that doesn't speak to your strengths and isn't a good match for you and isn't the way you should be spending the next six months or a year of your life, so you back off and you exit the negotiation by not taking it on. So either way, you're in a great position because you didn't say well, the number one thing is I get this project. The number two thing is I don't get this project, so I'm homeless and I lose everything that I value in life. If that's your one and two, you're screwed because you're walking into that where the stakes are so artificially high that you're not going to be able to remain objective, rational, reasonable, confident.
Dan:All those things go out the window, and so you just take what the world's willing to give you.
Charles:Yeah, good luck, yeah, so yeah, that's a way I like to look at this, where the masculine option is not to be in control. The masculine option is to be calm, and you can only be calm when you're confident and you're competent.
Dan:And you know that you've got the tools to make everything okay, even when you hit bumps in the road. And I think one of the biggest factors in staying calm and confident is confidence.
Dan:not trying to fool yourself into a situation that isn't based in reality is either either coming from your own freaking out amygdala, whatever that might look like, or from rose-colored glasses of you you getting hyped up from people outside of you I was gonna say that, yeah, people around and trying to go, it's not that bad and oh, like, if neither of those feel like it's a reality for you, that's going to play with your emotional state, your feelings, and then you're not going to feel calm and confident, correct, so that you have a real sense of what reality is and prove and do things to prove that out, to support your theory on what reality is.
Dan:If you need to do a little research or whatever that is, so that you go, okay, I think this is what it is, but I'm not sure about it. Yeah, do that research, do a little homework so that you get really solid in your belief and then you can come to any type of situation, knowing what reality is, and you'll have that, that calmness and confidence, or you'll be a lot more likely to have it, at least I think.
Charles:Yeah, I think that we can fall into that trap where, you know, if we're in a situation where other people are freaked out and that can be contagious, where, me sure, and people who are freaking out, they want other people to freak out too, so they feel like we all want to reinforce this idea of, okay, I, I understand the depth of what's going on around me and I've got this right, and so I'm freaked out about this. You're freaked out about this too, right, dan? And we kind of we're social animals. We try to make it happen that way.
Charles:That's the way we work, yeah, people into our freak out so that it verifies to us that we're right to be freaking out about something, yeah. Or if, yeah, it's interesting In the opposite way, can you like, hey, this isn't a big deal, right, we can. We can just adjust to this and sometimes you know it is a big deal.
Dan:We need to treat it like it's a big deal. But there bandwagon, where we try to, everybody tries to get everybody else around them to see things the same way that they do. Yeah, and that's dangerous, because you don't know how much reality or homework or evidence that other person has to believe that right now. Maybe they're an expert in that field or whatever. Then, yeah, maybe you can take their freaking out or their information a little bit with a little bit more weight than somebody just you met on the street and have no idea what their experience is in the situation. Right, that's a big difference there. But try to get that input and that information from multiple sources and not just from people who also could be getting their influence from a freak out exactly from their own amygdala freaking out, yeah, and that's right, that's what?
Charles:yeah, we've. I'm sure we've both seen good leaders do that. Where getting their influence from a freak out, from their own amygdala, freaking out, yeah, and that's right, that's what we've. I'm sure we've both seen good leaders do that. Where it's like, okay, look, I understand your stress. You think this is an emergency and you know this pretty well. So I I do appreciate your judgment and your experience, but if I start freaking out with you, that's not going to make things any better. Oh no, so I can acknowledge that this is a serious situation and that you're taking it seriously, but I'll be the one that takes a step back and remains calm so that you can have your freak out and I can use the fact that you're freaking out to help me get to the right decision. But I'm not going to freak out with you.
Dan:Yeah, and I think that's a good way of looking at masculinity in this context. Agreed.
Charles:Yes, yeah, that's kind of what I would say. Our job is in those situations is to say hey look, I can appreciate and acknowledge that you're freaking out right now, and I can also say the fact that you're freaking out probably means that there's something really serious happening that needs to be addressed. I'm not going to freak out with you, I'm going to try to remain as calm as I can. So that gives you space to freak out and it gives me space to solve the problem.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, and again, it's not the stereotypical version of stoicism where you don't care and you're putting up a wall, so you're not, so you're not even taking into consideration what those you know, what those feelings are. It's understanding them, taking them in and then doing something productive with that Exactly.
Charles:Yeah, that's the goal, that's the kind of person I want to be, the kind of leader I want to be, the kind of partner I want to be. That's yeah, I want to be able to say okay, I see how this is affecting you and that's valuable information to me and I'm going to treat it as such. But we're not both going to freak out, because if we're both freaking out, then what are we doing out? Then what are we doing? Looking for some third person to not freak?
Dan:out, right, yeah, and then you're not providing any value to the situation, right, and I think it's another piece of it too. I think that is kind of overlooked. A lot is in terms of being masculine is what kind of value are you bringing to any situation?
Charles:Yeah, yeah, and in most cases, I think what the world is looking for from men is calm and competence and certainty, when certainty is possible. But it's just the rough thing is when, when you try to bring the fake version of any of those things to a situation and you just can make it worse. Yeah, and that we see that in in relationships and friend groups and politics all the time. When somebody tries to bring a fake version of competence or confidence or certainty to a situation when they don't really have it, it just the whole thing spirals out of control.
Dan:Even if we can't identify it with words, our gut instincts will be like there's just something not right. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something not right about that person Because you can see that they're not being authentic. And again, it's a it's. The further you drift from what authenticity and to me that means being having a foundation reality, yep the the more you're like ugh, this is this, this isn't right, this is yeah, this, what else? And then your mind goes well, what else isn't right? Exactly Like this one situation might be a minor thing, but now you've kind of lost confidence and trust when it's going to come to other things which could be more important, and now that's not a good relationship foundation, right?
Charles:Yeah, I think of people that I've seen and dealt with where, just given the, whatever the situation was, they were trying too hard to look like they were the go-to person and it's like you're the go-to person in this scenario. He's the calm one, he's not the one trying to convince everybody that he's the go-to person and can be counterintuitive sometimes, but it's like, yeah, the one who is behaving as if this isn't a big deal because he's been there before, he's dealt with it before, that's the one that's going to calm me down and make me feel like, okay, the situation is in hand, not the person who's grabbing by the shoulders and shaking me and telling me how in control the situation is. You know what I mean. All right, I think we can stop there for now. Let's see what's the next topic in our agenda here.
Dan:I think it's living for other people's opinions.
Charles:And yeah, that's again. The applications and the implications to modern masculinity are huge, because that is so. Many guys are out there living their lives based on what they want other people to think about them, and they're not focusing on on what they really are, but just their image. And, as a result, I mean that that can work perfectly when things are really smooth and easy, but then, when something rough happens, it's like, oh no, now he's revealed himself as what he really is and I don't like it anymore.
Dan:And that's when you need the most right.
Charles:Exactly, all right. Thanks, dan. We'll talk to you next time, okay. Okay, that's it for this episode of mindfully masculine. If you found yourself breathing easier or questioning your entire approach to stress and control, good, that's the point. Follow the show so you don't miss whatever uncomfortable truth we stumble into. Next, we'll be back soon with more clarity, more sarcasm and fewer amygdala hijackings, probably.
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