Man (Un)Caved
Welcome to Man (Un)caved podcast where we explore the complex landscape of masculinity in men. Hosted by facilitator /life coach Shane Coyle, this podcast delves deep into the multifaceted nature of what it means to be a man in today's world.
Join us as we embark on a thought-provoking journey, navigating through topics such as societal expectations, emotional intelligence, mental health, relationships, and personal growth. Each episode features insightful discussions, personal anecdotes, and expert interviews, providing listeners with valuable insights and tools to navigate their own journey towards authentic manhood.
Whether you're a man seeking to understand and redefine your masculinity, or someone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the male experience, this podcast offers a safe and inclusive space for meaningful conversations.
Join the conversation as we challenge stereotypes, celebrate diversity, and embrace the richness of masculinity in all its forms. Tune in to Man (Un)caved and discover a new perspective on what it truly means to be a man.
"Not until we are willing to come out of hiding, will we truly experience our greatest potential"
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Man (Un)Caved
(Un)scripted: A Heartfelt Odyssey into Personal Healing and Growth
Have you ever found yourself lost in the abyss of your own mind, grappling with the shadows and yearning for a glimpse of light? I'm Shane, and this episode is a raw strip-down of my personal 'dark night of the soul,' revealing the grueling battle with control, codependency, and my quest for self-love. Join me as we venture through the transformative ideas of David Hawkins and consider whether our deepest suffering might just be self-inflicted. It's a heart-to-heart on recognizing our inner patterns, understanding the roots of our actions, and ultimately, the empowering realization that we are the origin of our value and love—not external accolades or acceptance.
As we step off the autopilot route and seize the steering wheel of our lives, this conversation takes a deep-seated look at the meanings we anchor to our experiences and how these interpretations sculpt our pain. Like a scene straight out of 'The Matrix,' we confront the internal tug-of-war between our fearful inner child and the dawning of our higher self. We'll also examine control mechanisms like eating disorders and OCD as responses to anxiety, and how Buddhist teachings on detachment can offer solace. As we navigate the ebbs and flows of healing, I share a piece of my ongoing journey, inviting you to reflect on your own path and join me in this candid exploration of personal growth.
Everything is neutral. It doesn't have a meaning. What has the meaning is the meaning you are putting on to that. Alright, hello, welcome back everybody to man Uncaved. Again, my name is Shane.
Speaker 1:I did miss last week. I think some of you guys were asking what happened last week. So I'm going to tell you, and this is going to be a unscripted type show. Last week I was in such a dark night of the soul. It was another one of my descents internally and I'm going to tell you about this because of the awareness that came from it and that's why I think it's important that we do this type work, such awareness around it. So let's start to unravel this a little bit and put it into a nice little context for everybody to understand. You know.
Speaker 1:First let me put the backdrop here, if anybody is familiar with David Hawkins, so he does consciousness and how to raise our consciousness, and the book called I think it is called Levels of Consciousness. He describes, if you can imagine, a upside down triangle, so the tip being at the bottom and the base being at the top, and he describes these levels of consciousness. On the lower quadrants of this triangle you have shame, guilt, you have fear, you have all these lower frequencies. He describes them as a very frequency type of experiences. As you get to the top, you get inner work, you get courage, you get self-love, you get love, you get oneness. And that's how we're moving up the scale of consciousness and the level of consciousness. Now, why am I using that to set the stage? Well, here we go.
Speaker 1:I've come to recognize, as I was doing this deep descend internally. Over this last, I'd say, week and a half, I was really colliding with this dark night of the soul, really being challenged in a lot of different areas of my life, from relationship patterns to conditionings within the family system. Everything apparently wanted to come in all at once. So, as the work goes, I could either fight it and again, if the fighting happens, you start to resist the energy, we start to resist the flows, the universal laws, and that creates more suffering. And that's really what we're going to be talking about is how we block our own energetic flow and we resist against the universal laws and how we create our own suffering.
Speaker 1:And the root of what I'm finding more and I'll explain it from my own self and hopefully that kind of fits into your life is this need to control. And this need to control and that need to control for me allows me or gives the illusion that I'm safe. It gives the illusion that I'm in control of something, and this talks about the locus of control. It actually leads into what's called codependency, because the need to control is I'm trying to control some type of outcome Within the outcome that is outside of me. The outcome is not within my control, but however I'm using and I'm using the illusions to believe, or I'm making the meaning. I'll put it into that way I'm making the meaning within my own self that I am in control and that if I have that person, place, thing, if I have that thing outside of myself, then I'm important, then I'm loved, then I'm validated, then I'm accepted, whatever meaning I'm making it of at that time. And at that going back to David Hawkins' work is at a lower frequency, because what I'm actually saying beneath that meaning is that thing outside of me is going to give me the value. That thing outside of me is going to let me know that I'm loved. That thing outside of me is going to show me how worthy I am.
Speaker 1:Well, what I'm actually coming from is a place of scarcity, and what that scarcity is, is a place of fear. I don't have it, so I need it. You see, and this is where the codependency starts to lie in, as Pia Medley talks about, it's this out esteem. So I'm using my outside of me to give me something inside, and this is kind of this actually relates to a big what I mentioned before. If you want to look at the OCD patterns, that OCD pattern, so this anxiety that lives with me, this fear response I have inside, I can't be with this. So if I do this behavior outside of myself, whether that's, you know, there's all such a spectrum on OCD but just say you know, if my clothes are hung up a certain way, if my environment, if my shoes, if this is there, if that, whatever you're putting outside of you, the illusion is, if my outside world is okay, then my inside world is okay. And so we continue to keep using the externals to validate our internals, to deal with our internal turbulence, whatever's happening at that moment.
Speaker 1:And that's what I was colliding with, this need to control certain outcomes, this thing that I needed outside of myself to make me feel whole, to make me feel important, to make me feel loved. And so where does that all start to root. From course, this is my whole dynamic with my mom. So as I start to go down, you can see where this is going. As I start to go down one layer, then I go to the next layer and the next layer everybody always talks about. It's like you know, the layers of the onion and I like that. I heard one time it's almost more like an artichoke, because what's at the root of the artichoke right is the heart. So we get to our own heart and that's where we start to move up in a different frequency, because what I'm actually doing at the needing to control outcomes is I'm sending out an energy into the universe that again that I am lacking in this. So now I'm resisting the what is and what I'm resisting is the reality of the moment. Because again, I want to control the outcome, says the child within me. I want things to be how I want them to be, says the child in me. Be, says the child in me.
Speaker 1:And then you know all the childhood experiences based on that feeling unsafe, feeling unloved, feeling out of control, and so that illusion is I put those needs outside of me, and one of my earlier episodes I talked about that. This would be more of coming from what is called the autopilot. We are living on a very lower frequency of consciousness. We're operating from these lower primal areas of our brain, these self-seeking needs validation, love, belonging. And we are creating this Groundhog's Day because we're on this autopilot, grasping people, places, things to make us feel whole and complete. And so, simultaneously, I'm energetically actually pushing the laws of the universe away from me, I'm pushing the abundance, I'm pushing the love, I'm pushing the validation, I'm pushing everything away from me when really what's happening is I already have it, but the illusion is it's out there, you see, and so I'm missing the moments. And this is again going back into that same episode.
Speaker 1:When we move from what's called autopilot, the self-seeking of those needs, to active participant, we make the choice, we make the deeper understanding, we make the choice, we make the deeper understanding. I already have that. I already have the love, I am the love, I am important, I am valued. Or you know the meanings that we're putting on everything. Relatively, everything that we come, encounter, person, place, thing, situation is neutral. There is no meaning that is placed onto those things outside of us. What is happening, what we create in our own suffering is that we create our own suffering and the resistance and our own pain and our own sadness because we're applying the meaning onto those people, places and things, anything outside of ourselves. So again, we are coming from what's called out to steam and once we start to recognize that we get to release, make a conscious choice, to be a conscious choice. We're raising our conscious level. Now we're coming from the upper quadrants of the neocortex in our own mind and now we're active participants in our own life. So we're vibrating at a higher frequency, we're vibrating at a higher consciousness and this could be a very scary process. The analogy, you know the analogy that I talk about.
Speaker 1:I sometimes will show or I discuss in some of my in-person groups, the movie the Matrix. Now we don't watch the movie the Matrix, but there's a certain part I always forget to. Sometimes you know that movie the Matrix. Now we don't watch the movie the Matrix, but there's a certain part I always forget too. Sometimes you know that movie the Matrix was done in 1999. Is that crazy? For those that were there in 1999, I feel like that wasn't that long ago. But I also forget some of the people that I'm dealing with weren't even born in 99, or they're like one.
Speaker 1:Anyway, in that movie, the Matrix, you know you have Agent Smith and you have Neo Keanu Reeves, and they're in the subway and they're fighting. And that representation of Agent Smith and Neo fighting in the subway is Agent Smith, is the child that wants to hold on, that wants to hold on the fear of letting go. I can't let go. These things have saved me. This has been my survival. And here's Neo, neo, neo, Neo, cortex.
Speaker 1:Our new consciousness, which I talk about is the higher levels of consciousness. The last part of the brain to develop is fighting the child. They're fighting each other. We have to change. Nilo says we have to evolve, but anytime somebody wants to change, big and or small in their life, the scared child is fighting and holding on, and you'll see that reenactment in the movie. Or if you just want to fast forward that part, that's fine too, because the fear response if I let go, especially again, looking at it from the childhood lens if it was unsafe, you know the child learns very early on control.
Speaker 1:This is one of the first things a child does, especially when his or her environment is unsafe and untrustworthy. And just working with a lot of people over these, you know, almost two decades. That's exactly what I see is, you know, usually what tends to be primary is food for children. So he or she deals with food. There could be some eating disorder stuff there, from restricting to binging, to how they're controlling the intake. That's something they can control very early because food is always ready and available. Another thing that we can see is also another thing that I see is also this again, these OCD patterns are very early because it's anxiety driven for the child to be in these environmental factors that are unsafe. So if I can control this, if I can control that again, the illusion is that my inner world is safe.
Speaker 1:So when we're talking about and this is what I really came to through this whole journey is is letting go of these attachments. I think Sakyong Rinpoche, tibetan monk, says you know, we've come to believe that letting go we will end up with nothing, but life shows us just the opposite. Letting go is our true path to freedom and just to kind of mirror, that is this whole idea of Buddhism and letting go of attachment and desires. And what are these desires? Desires of the flesh, desires of our being. We desire and attach to these things with so much meaning. And of course, the meaning isn't something external. The meaning is always resorted back to ourself the meaning about myself, me, I, my. So when we start to recognize what that is for me, it will make me more important, I will be lovable.
Speaker 1:We're recognizing it's coming from a very limited space. What I would recognize is the ego within us, so the ego is the child within us. So it comes from a very limited understanding. It's not expansive, it's very limited in what it knows and what it can understand. And so that desire and that need to control and how that plays out and where we cause the suffering, is because we're trying to control outcomes. We're trying to control the outcomes in our life. If I only have this person, if I only have this thing, if this person calls me or you know whatever and again, it doesn't have to be in romantic type settings, it's just whatever we put some on an importance we were really putting on a pedestal and that pedestal is above us, which ultimately means we are below it. We're not equal. And this is also where I see relationship patterns interplay as well Because, again, to feel less than if there is some types of wounding in childhood wounds, and especially in attachment, then the unconscious and the subconscious activates from that place and that's the reactivity in the relationships is that I'm already coming from a place of less than.
Speaker 1:And again going back to David Hawkins' understanding of consciousness, the lower quadrant, the most the tip of the upside down triangle, was shame, was shame, and that shame runs deep. I believe, if I was to take a guess, in a lot of us, those parts that we are ashamed of and we weren't born that way, shamed of and we weren't born that way, we were just given these understandings, the messagings, and so reduce the shame. We can use our externals just like a child uses their externals. My great breakdown of the ego is everything good outside. So that understanding of using things outside of us to recognize that we're good or to recognize that I'm okay or to recognize that I'm worthy, and it just lets us vibrate on such a low frequency, not until we release and attach those things that we're putting meaning into those relationships we're putting meaning to, we are blocking our own frequency from really showing who we are because we're not recognizing, we're not embodying that you are the vision of love. We're not embodying your own worth, just the worth that you're even here and what you can do. That you're here adds value to the planet, adds value to the relationships, adds value.
Speaker 1:We circulate in these distorted thought constructs we attach to our own thinking and this is what causes us to suffer the most. And so this is really what I was diving in from this last week and a half, and again it was brutal. Every level of going into those parts of self, it's a grieving, it is a shedding, it is a transmuting, it is a loving, it's a reassigning parts. It was so challenging because every part of that is a grief, right, even if you are taking this child part and transmuting it or reassigning it to a different position. Thank you for surviving. I'm going to move you over here and how it could be more beneficial for me as opposed to working against me. That is a grieving process. That part doesn't want to move into it because it understands that it's the same, that that's how we've been existing and that's also how it continues to.
Speaker 1:You know, our nervous system gets accustomed to that. Our nervous system gets accustomed to the familiarity Ooh, that was a rough one Familiarity of our experience. So it recreates or it grasps for the familiar. It grasps for that, because within that there's predictability, you see, and when there's predictability I can navigate my life. It's scary when there's no predictability. It's scary when I don't know how to navigate my life. So, in relationships or things, we start to pull in very familiar people into our life, whether that's romantic or friendships or whatever that might be, because our nervous system feels quote unquote safe there. But they can be the most toxic as well.
Speaker 1:Like again, I come from the addiction world so, again, addiction doesn't just lie in substances and drugs. We exhibit in love, we exhibit in sex, we exhibit in codependency. Codependency is addiction to relationships. You know, money, whatever we're putting into those values above us, then that has the power over us, that has the control over us to dictate our own life. But whatever we put into value, that's where we're going to suffer to make us mean something. Again, everything is just neutral. Everything is neutral. It doesn't have a meaning. What has the meaning is the meaning you are putting onto that and we collide. And that's what I really had to see this last week and a half of how much I was attaching to meaning. It's not anything outside of us. That's how we relinquish the self. And once we make that conscious choice to release and let go of the meaning. I swear there was just moments of peace that were available, moments of happiness, moments of serenity where I can finally breathe again, because I made that conscious choice that to release. It's okay, it's the is-ness. I'm going, I'm fine, I am love and really not just leaving it in our intellect, but really embodying that experience, feeling the love that I am, feeling, the importance that I am.
Speaker 1:This one was a really unscripted episode. I wanted to share this with you because again, here I am. I've been doing the work almost two decades and I am still. This is not a healing. This is not a linear journey. Healing is not linear. It's an ebbs and flows. I've seen these parts before. It's the willingness, it's the process of willingness to do this work is where you see the greatest benefits. It's where you again raise your sense of consciousness. Please let me know what you think of this episode. Please leave reviews Like it. It really helps with other people getting informed of this, because maybe it will help them as well. My name is Shane. We need to come out of hiding.