The Truth About Male Conditioning: Why Men Struggle With Emotions and Identity

In this powerful and thought-provoking episode of Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, James sits down with Merlin Matthews to explore the deep-rooted conditioning men receive from childhood—and how it continues to shape their emotional lives, relationships, and sense of identity. Together, they unpack the outdated scripts of masculinity: don’t cry, don’t be weak, be the lone wolf. With raw honesty and humour, they challenge the societal expectations that have left many men emotionally isolated, struggling with connection, and unsure of their place in a rapidly changing world.

Merlin shares valuable insights into how we can begin to break these cycles—through emotional literacy, self-regulation, co-regulation, and building genuine brotherhood. They discuss practical tools like breathwork, body awareness, vulnerability practices, and how men's groups can create much-needed spaces for truth and transformation. From ancestral wisdom to modern neuroscience, this episode bridges old wounds and new ways of being.

Whether you’re navigating relationships, grief, or just looking for more meaning in your life, this episode will leave you feeling seen—and more importantly, equipped. It’s time to redefine what it means to be a man, not through perfection, but through courageous progress.

About Merlin:

I set up www.Man.Academy, a World Transforming Men’s Movement, men help men help men…, personal & group empowerment and evolution.

Helping men understand and empower themselves and each other.

Open source and co-created with decent men.

Coaching Men since 2020 and running Men’s Circles since ’21

Deep Into Personal and Collective Development since 1990s

I believe that I (we) have been conditioned (since before I/we can walk) to play small and to "be a man" in a limited/crap manner, which is Way out of date.

This is not the full Man I/we could be.

There is a better way

I've been slowed down from achieving success by conditioning from my parents (including abuse), school and society which led to self worth / self love / self belief issues (and stopped me acting on red flags with a narcissistic lady, with whom I now share a (lovely) child).

Noteworthy fact... I founded the UK's biggest bicycle shipping charity (2nd in Europe), Re-Cycle, sending bikes, parts and tools to Africa. I handed it on after running it for a couple of decades. It is going strong, and Just About to ship bike number 150,000 (each bike is used by an average of 6 people).

https://www.Man.Academy

Transcript

0:01

In today's episode, I talk with Merlin Matthews about male conditioning from childhood. Boys are taught outdated scripts. Don't cry. Don't show weakness. Be the breadwinner, be the lone wolf. And now society labels these traits, toxic and confusing. We talk about the changing gender roles and how you can self-regulate and co-regulate using several practical tools which can help you to manage your emotions and reconnect. Welcome to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose, and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear Embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes. Get practical advice and powerful insights. Struggling with career, relationships or personal growth? We've got you covered. Join us on Man Quest to Find Meaning. Now, let's dive in.

James: 1:10

I believe men are being conditioned, programmed in a bad way from childhood by their family, school and society as to what men should and should not be. Now we're being told that being this way is toxic and wrong, and furthermore, men are not being taught or shown better ways. Hello, Merlin can you tell me more, please?

Merlin: 1:39

Yeah, conditioning is happens to us humans up until the age of six. We're in the theater brainwave state, and we. Suck in and learn all the things about how to walk and talk and ride a bike and whatever. And we're amazing with sponges and amazing at learning. And we can learn loads of different languages if we're in that situation. However, the one issue is that we don't have any discernment and we just believe whatever we're told. And then when we develop discernment, the problem or a problem is that we are like the fish in water and we've only known the sort of our situation. And then we filter out things that don't tally with our existing beliefs. Then we start self-policing. We start policing each other. And at school I was taught various things. And from my family, I was taught various things. And some of those were not good lessons and some lessons were pretty omitted. And I wasn't taught how to fight fairly, I wasn't taught very good communication and listening skills and relating skills. And the examples I was given by my family were questionable at best. And my understanding is that there are skills that we can learn and that it's worth putting the effort into that. Money's another one that school didn't teach me. Sort of what money is, how it works how to deal with it, how to relate to it, and whether that is a, a conspiracy theory or whether it's just how it unfolds. Who knows? The issue as I see it, is that men are confused about what it is to be a man these days. And there's a lot of conditioning of if I'm a real man, I should be strong, I should be brave, I should be the breadwinner. I should be the lone nasty one. I should be the lone wolf. I should do it myself. I'm a real man. And that comes from societal stuff like James Bond, Clint Eastwood, Jason B. They're the, they do it themselves and they're tough and they're brave and they don't show emotions and all the don'ts. So don't show emotions, don't show ve fear, don't show weakness, whatever the hell you do. And there's some validity in this because if I would've shown weak, if I'd have shown weakness and vulnerability and stuff at school, it might have gone badly for me. Don't be feminine, don't be gay. So the whole load of shoulds, the whole load of shouldn't, should not, and the really nasty, not proof, but the nasty result of this is that three quarters of suicides are men. And often, our, your or my mutual friend Joe kills himself and we're like, shit, I had no idea because Joe had never said, Hey guys I'm struggling here because of the lone wolf conditioning. Gotta do it myself. Or if I'm a real man. And because don't show weakness. Don't show vulnerability. Don't sort. And yeah, I've got truth bumps. I, a friend, a family friend, their boy killed himself age 16, life and soul of the party. And even his bloody parents didn't know that he was struggling because of this sort of, all this masking and all this conditioning and it's it is nuts. And yeah, let alone our imaginary mutual friend Joe the mom and the dad didn't know, and his siblings and his teachers and blah, blah, blah, didn't know. And it's just, yeah it is, as I see it, it is due to conditioning and due to men not opening up and not having networks and support and tribes. And if we, if, one of my things I revert to a lot is our time in ancient pre-history in tribes and stuff. And my take is that now I think I'm all sophisticated and clever'cause I've got computer and I've got an education and blah, blah. I think I'm, I think I'm a whiz kids, smart chap. However, it's only a thin veneer on millennia of evolution. And so the desire to fit in is very strong. And back in the days we would've sat around the fire and we would've had a small tribe and we would've shared what was going on, our struggles, our challenges, and we would've known what other people's situations are going on. And we would've known it intimately. And now I'm living in my little box on my own. And I think of people in London who are living in their little boxes and then. They're traveling in on the tube maybe, or now working from bloody home. Don't even go in on the tube to work. And yeah, just a lot of isolation. And with men in particular, isolation is a major thing, even before all the COVID Mayhem kerfuffle. And yeah. Sorry, that's a bit of a ramble.

James: 6:51

There's so much to unpack there. I was jotting down notes oh my words what's going on? But first things first, I do believe the school system is definitely outdated. There needs to be, yeah.'cause when I left school, I was never taught how to use money. And there's this idea with money, there's, it's so important to know how to use money properly. But then also there's this idea that our, I suppose our parents. Are always trying to do the best that they know. That's what they were taught, that's what their parents were taught, and so on and so on. And I think, I feel like there's a huge change coming on the fact that we're talking about this conversation and there's so many podcasts and different people talking about this, and we can see things that are happening so clearly is a indication that things are changing. And I do feel like, I feel like it's gonna get worse before it gets better. It's almost like we need to go through that dip, but how do we come out? How do we come out better? How do we come out on top so that we are able to change how we think, especially along the lines of how men should be, how men shouldn't be. I feel like over the last probably fifty to a hundred years. Women have stepped more into their power. There's been so many centuries of women being suppressed and now that are stepping into their power. We don't, as men don't know how to take that because we were told that, as you said, we are the breadwinners. We have to be brave. We're the ones that protect now. Our roles are slightly changing and so we don't know how to be this new version. And it's very confusing. It is very confusing. And it, and from my own perspective, it requires that we start to do, as I call it, the work. We start to work on ourselves, we start to look at our emotions. We start to delve deeper into ourselves. We start to look at where our limiting beliefs are holding us back, and we start to really step into our own power.'cause even though we have been told that we should be brave, we should be the lone wolf, we should be this, we should be powerful. We should be strong. Strong. Are we really actually in our full power? And obviously now we've just opened even more for gates.

Merlin: 9:35

Oh man I've been jotting to notes. So school, there's a chap called John Taylor Gatto, G-A-T-T-O, and he was Teacher of the Year, a few years. I compressed this and basically he was teacher of the year in the state teacher of the year in the city. And he was pretty cute with teaching and that has award ceremonies. He was lambasting the compulsory schooling system in America. And he, after he retired, wrote a fat book, which is, as you can see it, read it online for free, called The Secret History of American Education, something like that. And he was saying that the education system is designed to dumb us down. And he said, even if I am a good teacher with a good heart in a good school, the structure is such that sort of there's not much I can do. And he was saying it's based on the evolution of it was at the time of the industrial revolution. And that it was from the Hindu caste system and from the Prussians and the Hindu caste system, you've got 10% of the population controlling 90%. And basically it's making cultures of the machine for the industrial revolution. Anyway, that's a rabbit hole that, yeah. G-A-T-T-O. There's a lot on there. I can share you or you can find out changing. Yes. There is a monumental change that has been happening and my take is that Wow. So women have been suppressed. I am very much in favor of women. I have mothers and daughters and lovers and women are good. Two, two thumbs up. If I had more than two thumbs, they'd all be up. And women. Ha have not had the vote in the past when we have been treated as possessions and chattel and like the thing of walking the woman down the aisle as the father, and then you give them to the to the new husband and then out the possession of the new husband. And there's a whole load of Yeah. Mess in that. And now women are running companies, women are running countries, women are capable. They there's nothing that says they're unable to do that. And as I see it, the issue, which you alluded to is that in my father's time and in my grandfather's time, it was real clear what the male role was off to work. Put bread on the table and the woman would run the table and would run, look after the kids, and blah, blah, blah. And I'm not saying that was a good situation. I'm not saying that I the party was happy or winning in that situation. However, I as a man, I knew where I stood. I knew what my role was. And now that women are working and there's a thing about two, two income households and what have you. But then if I'm not the breadwinner, where what is my role? And then fitting into that is that back in the day the men are generally physically stronger. And so men were digging up roads. We still are and dangerous jobs and what have you, but men were used for their muscles. And now we've got, and even since the time Industrial Revolution, we've got machines doing the grunt work. And now, like right now, the softer skills are a lot more needed and useful separate to the AI ification. And so women have their conditioning and they're I'm not an expert on, on, on that side of it, but yeah, be a nice girl and looking after other people, not looking after herself. There's a whole sort of rabbit hole. And women are more conditioned around the soft skills, more developed about the soft skills. And I, I don't believe that women are inherently better at soft skills. It's just they are conditioned and trained and taught and practiced at it. And something that is clear in the statistics in the eighties with education, not with education, with work. In the eighties, 4% of lawyers in America were women. And it was very hard. And I'm not good that it was, but it was bloody hard women to get into work and get into the upper echelons as well. But only 4% were women. And now, or a couple of years ago, it was 40%. Of lawyers and women. And my take is that's a pendulum that's swinging and I don't think that it's 40% and we are there now and it's gonna stop and that's how it's gonna stay. My take is that the pendulum is properly still moving, maybe accelerating? I dunno, with the acceleration, what I do know is that of the graduates, university graduates now, or a couple of years ago from the statistics, 70% of graduates are women, meaning only 30% of graduates are men. And there's a lot of guys who are checking out, who are staying in, in, in the basement and playing computer games. And just sacking off and sacking off relationships. There's a whole, the whole thing about statistics of the number of people not in relationship, not having partners, not having sex, just checking out. So that's a little bit about women. Do we, do you wanna bounce on that before we go to the doing the work and stepping into power?

James: 15:08

Let's step into the power. I think just quickly, just going back to you, you're mentioning about men a lot more men are basically sitting on computers or not really knowing where they are. And I think one of the key things that all human beings need is connection. But in order to have connection with the outdoor world, we need to start to build connection with ourselves. And I think. I idea that men should, men have to be strong. Men have to be can't show emotions. But in, in order to connect with ourselves, we have to, I feel we have to go through a phase of allowing ourselves to connect with our own emotional self. And I've learned this the hard way. I've learned this the hard way. Getting to our own emotional selves, connecting to our parts of ourselves that feel scared, parts of ourselves didn't feel seen, parts of ourselves that really struggle in these situations. And I think as we start to embrace all these different parts of ourselves, quite a lot of them have been pushed down over the years, especially from childhood. We start to become, we start to realize and we start to embrace these parts, especially like the inner child. And when we start to embrace these parts, I feel like we start to become we are already whole, but we start to feel whole because these parts of ourselves actually start to be seen, start to be heard, start to be acknowledged. When we start to do that's where the power is.

Merlin: 16:53

I hear you and yes. I resonate with that, sir. I do. The connection part, my take there's two again. There's sort of ancestral thing. There's two, two bits. One is human babies are literally born, half baked. Because of the size of the pelvis and the size of their brain and stuff, we have to be born before we are cooked already. And the we, we take another nine months when we're out of in, in the world, so to speak, of developing and growing and the brain's developing, the body's developing and what have you. If you compare that to other mammals like a deer or a monkey. When they're, and then they're born, they're off, they're with the tribe. If they're an antelope within minutes, they're walking with the tribe or you get munched. Or if you're a monkey, you're hanging onto the parents and you're a lot more com menist. And so humans are hardwired from evolution to seek connection and to get connection. And then the grownups are hardwired to give attention.'cause otherwise the kid's gonna die. And so we as adults, you and me, adults, we find things with big heads and big eyes, cute and attractive. And there is a, to look after it. And there's a study with, I'm geek on the science and the study. There's a study with, I forget which ape it was, which family of apes, but the caring, nurturing thing is that if you have a crying baby ape, then the female ape is not necessarily the mum, the female ape crying back, oh, pick it up, give her a hug or, and it's alright mate. And a male ape will sit there for a while and will will not pick it up. Not twig for a while, but after a period of, I, i dunno the time, but after not that long. Oh shit. A little. Pick it up, give it a pat. There you go. Give it a hug. And the other con connection aspect from the evolutionary thing. In when we were living in tribes, which is for, if I had got kicked out of the tribe, it was likely a death sentence. Because the reason humans are so successful is the collaboration and community and connection. Humans is way weaker than a chimp could just, a smaller chimp could just rip us limb from limb. Tiger's got the pointy teeth and we are not that wonderful in a physical thing. But it's the collaboration and so the desire to stay in the tribe and to conform and there's loads of science and experiments on on, on conformity. And so we do need community and I believe that. The isolation and the living in boxes and getting distracted by our little phone boxes. And I believe that is bad for us. I believe we do need connection. And then coming to your question about connection to self, ah, there's a few different bits. Wha So starting off with the conditioning for men has been, and it still is to some degree. Boys don't cry. That's the bloody famous one. Stiff up a lip, walk it off. Just, or, just don't mu don't mustn't grumble, just mate, just fucking get on with it. Crack on mate. As opposed to feeling the emotions. And I said I basically the, all the dos and the don'ts and don't feel emotions and don't express emotions, anger's about the only emotion that is socially acceptable for a man to feel and express, albeit that is not not these days, is not well looked on, but that we can dig into that as a whole separate rabbit hole. And so women are more conditioned to, to be okay to express emotions. There. There's a separate thing about women being mercurial in nature and up and down and that's their normal state. So it's, it is challenging. Sorry, post. So yeah it is not good to to express scaredness or to express. I'm struggling and as I mentioned earlier if a school, ah, it's all so interesting with up until sort of kids are, I forget the numbers, 7, 8, 9 type of thing. Then boys and girls are really fricking similar and they all play. They all hug. They all cry. They're all just kids. Normal same kids. When boys get to a certain age and secondary in school and stuff, then there is a distinct divergence and the boys. Wanting to be tough or seen as tough or seen as strong or seen as brave and seen as not sensitive, not emotional and stuff. And it's just squashing it down inside. And my take is that, sure, I can squash the emotions down inside. It's a classic male thing, just fucking squash inside. But if it's still in there and I'm gonna suffer and pay in the long run. It doesn't just evaporate or compost. It's all inside. And so I believe it's better to, to deal with the emotions. And so now as a grown men, there's a whole thing about I, oh, Lordy. So I remember clearly a sort of, I think 18, 19. I remember very clearly being smug. Being level emotion compared specifically to women being the up and downy. And I was like, yeah, I'm smug. I'm not super happy, I'm not super sad. I'm stable, smug SmugMug. And now I can see clearly that was just me suppressing my emotions. And now is a whole project of digging in and exploring what are the emotions and feeling the emotions. And sitting with the emotions. And I talk about a kind of like a pallet of emotions. And you there's nice there's wheels of emotions and there's primary emotions and then it breaks down into more subtle emotions. And so it, I describe it paint my numbers when I was a kid, paint my numbers. And if I've got three colors, I know I can blend them, but there's three colors. You can do blotchy pictures, but if I've got like 10 colors, I can do more nuanced thing. And so I believe one of the useful skills as a man is to develop my. Emotions and my feeling so that I can get more subtle and more distinct, both with my understanding and then with communicating with other people.

James: 23:16

Yeah. So let's just quickly clarify. When I when you say up and down, you, I assume you mean the menstrual cycle?

Merlin: 23:24

No that's that's a separate thing. But women are with this mercurial nature that it is more happy, sad and up, and it's not the sort of the 12 the 28 day cycle. And separately, they've also got the life cycle of the maiden the woman the crone, the middle, the mother. It's, yeah it is just in a day or in an hour. Women are a lot more. Up and down that in the moment. And mercurial is the sort of technical term for it in the literature. That's the literature. Yeah. The menstrual cycle is a, yeah, a separate thing. Now there's a, an in and Oh, okay. I'm not a woman and I'm not claiming to have the answers. Please don't bite me. There's something about the premenstrual syndrome, and if a woman has been suppressing her needs, desires, wishes and stuff, then it comes out more sort of bity expressive at the premenstrual window. And this can tie I, okay. And I'm this may tie into the perimenopause when there's a drop in estrogen, and estrogen is the molecule of giving a fuck. And it is I'm so if someone is per perimenopausal or menopausal, then it, there's a fucking nuance, then they don't give a fuck. And all their fucks have been given and they're a lot more, what about me? And as opposed to looking after children, looking after the family, looking after all the other people looking after when they're menopause. But it's a lot more what about me? Does that answer your question?

James: 24:59

So what I'm gonna do, it's the listeners out there, I'm gonna get probably two or three get women on the show to talk about the menstrual cycle and different cycles because it's so important for us to know so that we can support our our partners so we can support our sisters, our mothers, in the best way possible. So just to clarify that,

Merlin: 25:21

There's a I've done a course with a friend called Han Aspires, and she does menstrual training for partners, for male partners to understand it.

James: 25:31

I might get your details, I might get your details, see if I can get her on. Going back a little bit to when you are talking about how the male chimpanzee would leave the young, I think there's a level of, especially as parents now, I'm not a parent, but we, I see it all the time that kids might start crying. The parents walk across their child and they say, stop crying. What's wrong? But that's their crying is their way of releasing emotion. So what are we actually telling our kids when we are saying that out loud? And I feel like it's uncomfortable. I've been my niece and nephew before in a on, on a table, and they started getting rowdy and crying, and it's very uncomfortable. So is it because we're not used to comfort? We're used to comfort and we're not used to discomfort. So there's a le there's a level of almost as well, there's so many different avenues here dis of actually allowing ourselves to feel into discomfort. Because within discomfort we're able to overcome kids crying in the middle of a supermarket. We're able to overcome obstacles. We're over, over overcome all kinds of different things. And you also mentioned, we've earlier, earlier, we've lost the ability to be in tribes. We have hands down, we have lost ability to be in tribes. You still see'em all over the, you see'em over the world, but like modern society east like UK and the US and Europe. There's this loss of tribe, but again, men's groups are popping up, different groups are popping up, but it's that I place that we haven't got anywhere to talk about our emotions and how we feel and how we can release this bottle, this fizzy bottle that's building up.

Merlin: 27:28

So there's a few different questions in there. So the stopping, crying thing, I am a parent. I've, my youngest is 18, my oldest is 27. I've served my time. I've had the snip no more. I want some merling time. The stopping crying is a famous thing. And the issue with that is it trains the kid. It's not okay to cry. It's not okay to feel, and this, it comes back to my thing about stuff it down inside. As opposed to, yeah, tell, okay, something's going on. And if I'm the grownup. And I have a little bit more understanding skills perspective. And I, yeah, I have not I've meshed up on a bunch in numerous and various ways with my kids. They're happy to tell you this. And yeah, if I was doing it again I would definitely have some different things and I would make mistakes still. So speaking to the kid, okay, what's up And working out what the problem is. Tired and hungry, hang, angry, grown up, same thing. But then kids don't have or cold, but they don't have the nuance or the skills to know that. And so the idea, as I understand it is to teach them the skills. And in an ideal world as the grownup, it's co-regulating instead of hugging and bre and breathing and stuff. It's okay. And yeah, I can see and also acknowledging, I can see that you are feeling upset, pissed off, hard, whatever it is, and helping them to recognize the difference between those emotions and feelings and and this age appropriate things. Okay, what are you feeling? What can we do about it? But initially, co helping and co-regulating it. I'm not cuddling and calming, and then giving them the skills and tools to self-regulate because there's gonna be a time when I'm not there or there at school or in the playground or the wood or whatever on their own. And then they're feeling angry, upset, tired, hungry. And then the aim, and or at some point they're grown up and they're doing their own thing. But then the idea is for them to be able to self-regulate. And this is, again, it's one of these skills that we don't tend to get taught. Some people do, but I, in my experience and understanding, a lot of people don't.

James: 29:46

Yeah, skills so important. So I've been through my own challenge, which I'm not gonna mention on here, but one thing my friend has said, who I had obvious, obviously had a chat with a few people. And the one thing that you said was that it, so for self-regulation, it all comes down to the basics. And that is, if you look at the root chakra, are we getting enough sleep? Are we eating what we need to eat? Are we keeping our ourselves physically fit and healthy? Are we where in our life do we struggle with security? So that, that could be through money, it could be through relationships, it could be through love, it could be family, and how internally, what's going on internally. Inside ourselves to help us start to turn that around and change this. The feeling of security. Do we have a roof over our head? And in all these simple things, help me realize that if we just start, if we just go back to the basics, we can start to ground ourselves and we can start to feel better. And when we, but I feel like when we are, when we start to self-regulate, we can, we, our body starts to relax and that's when other stuff comes in. That's when they have the space to allow creativity. That's when we have the space to allow intuition to come through, when we allow ourselves to feel into our emotions, but feel like it's almost we need to. Calm and relax first. So much of society is all about stress and the hard, hard do attitudes that, you have to work hard, you have to go and do this. You have to go and work and get a job, you have to have a family, you have to get married, you have to go and yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's this idea that it's as simple as just, I find, I think this conversation with my friend just gave me that realization that it's as simple as just going back to the basics. And so question here is now what skills can people start to include in their daily lives to start to co-regulate, to start to self-regulate?

Merlin: 32:11

Last question. Basically yeah, you're talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs which totally makes sense and breath. So a thing if. One of my main, or my main teacher says that when emotions are up, intelligence goes down. And scientists can measure this with blood scanning on on, wherever the blood scanning tools is. And yeah if someone is under stress, the blood goes more to the hind brain and less in the prefrontal thinking brain. An example of this is the reason is for survival and the hard wiring need to survive. And back in the day, tiger's coming to get you fight or flight run. And an example is that if we are having an argument and then I go next door and or it finishes, oh shit, I could have said this. I should have said that. And all the good answers and the good points come up, but when it's oh, ah, they're like, I don't think that the good things. There's, so breath is an interesting one because it is both autonomic being on automatic and when you fall asleep or if you're knocked out, then you still keep breathing. And it's also under control, so it's both. And so that's a good way into controlling. And then there's a thing about the mind body and emotions are connected and if you influence one, it has an influence in the other. And the body is the easiest one to influence because like I could do some star jumps to wake up or to change my state. And yeah, and so taking some deep breaths or the parasympathetic side, which is a big breath of extra breath. Then a long exhale. And the long exhale or slightly longer exhaling triggers the parasympathetic, which is the rest and digestive relaxing bit. And yeah, box breathing there's loads and loads and loads of breathing aspects, but that is one of the quickest ways to calm down. Touch is another one. My anchor partners come up with a thing which she calls belly, we call belly, which is really easy. And if we are stressed, if, tension, he tension tensions and agro and what have you. One of us says belly and this, and then we just pull up our tops, or we say, this is my belly. Which is like dogs and wolves and stuff. If we are having a, if we're dogs and we're having a fight, wolf's having a fight. Oh, okay. I surrender, I lie on my back and I show my boy Jesus. I show my belly. And it means, okay, yeah, you got me. And in, in that situation in, in a wolf thing, the wolf doesn't go and kill them because it's, it is a pack. It is a te teamwork and that and it's, so when I show my, my, my bellies to my partner, I say, this is my belly. I'm being vulnerable. I'm being weak, not weak. I'm being vulnerable and I'm being, and then we hug and we put our bellies together and we have another, no talking, we're just hugging and connecting. And that's co-regulation. And then and some breathing. When we calm down and then we carry on with whatever the discussion or stuff is going on. Another nice tool is to take two minutes, eight, five minutes. And again, I'm talking about if I'm also, then my, my, my thinking brain is not there. So saying, look, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take five minutes. I'm not abandoning you, because that can trigger sort of rejection and fear. And I have, and I still have a running away habit or tendency or pattern. And so it's saying, look, I need five minutes. I'm a bit strung out. I'm not at my best. I'm gonna come back. I'm just gonna have a little walk around the block, may do breathing, whatever nature a tree, call a friend possibly, but then just come back, okay let's let and she can do the same and just, okay, and now what is the situation? What's the data? What are the emotions? What are the feelings? And let's talk about this in a more calm and rational way. Does that answer your question?

James: 36:11

Yeah. So I'm gonna add a view in there as well. So with the self-regulation, I think. One thing that we don't like to do, especially men, is to feel our emotions. So just about, and I, now, and again, I find it difficult. I do really find it difficult just to sit down and if we're feeling overwhelmed or we're feeling angry, frustrated, maybe we're scared or we're sad or we're grieving. So allow ourselves to sit down and just to tune in with our body, to can drop our mind into our body. And then ask ourselves, where in our bo in our body do I feel a sensation? And then what is the sensation? And then if it's sadness or grief, you can do a couple of things. I think you can either put your focus and attention and just sit with that feeling, or you can ask that feeling, what does it need? In this moment, what does that feeling mean? And I noticed I think it's me to mentioned quickly, you mentioned the word weak earlier on. I think we need to, we don't need to move away from the word weak, but I need to, I feel like we need to start to embrace,'cause I feel like we have both the strongness and the weakness in ourselves. So we, if we allow ourselves to embrace the weak part of ourselves and to inter integrate it and to really have a conversation of what do you need? That might be a, our own self hug or wrapping our arms around it. It might mean that we just say that to that part of ourselves that I love you as simple as that. I love you'cause and that I think allows that part of ourselves to really be seen. So I'll give you an example. Recently I've started to acknowledge parts of me that I seem to have. Pushed away or have been ignoring. And one part was the crying part of me. And so I've allowed myself to really move to the part of my body where I feel that crying part of me. And to really sit with it and to ask it, what does it need? And quite often all it needs is a hug. And once it had that hug it's just, it quietens down, it's there. It feels acknowledged. It feels accepted, and it's becomes part of me again. And then co-regulating one of the best things you can do if you have the people around you is hug. Not a typical English hug where you're just like, ah, you're doing, yeah. And that's it. But a proper, it's aesthetic dance festival I've been going to and retreats. They teach you how to properly hug. You need to step in close heart to heart connection, wrap your hands around and literally allow your breath to sync with their breath and just be there for 20, 30 seconds. Even I even with men, do it with men. It might be uncomfortable start off with, but do it in. Then at the I'm a retained firefighter and at my station I've just started to implement a little bit of hugging regards to the guys. It's not still not, it's still probably level one, level two but it's more, it feels like they're starting to embrace it a little bit. And I think that's what we need more of. We need more embracing our vulnerable side, our emotions, our. Our things that we used to indicate as gay, so like hugging, it was seen hugging, another man was seen as gay. Whereas, it's one of the best things that you can do is hugging another man because you are showing your vulnerability and you are able to connect more deeper with that person.

Merlin: 39:54

There's a lot in there. I'm, yeah, I'm famously huggy. The difficult male hug is a really a frame, keep the genitals away and it's that sort of slap on the back and it could be a shaking with one hand and slap on the back with the other hand. So keep your arms in between. And I remember at school like gay, oh, that, that's gay. You are also gay. It was like the biggest insult and I didn't know what gay was. And it's, yeah it's a bloody it's a thing. And. Ah, it is also with men and I might meet you in a work situation or a social situation or a men's circle or whatever. And I might think, ah, James, he seems like a, he seems like a solid guy. He seems like he's on my wavelength. I'd like to get to know James. I'd like to hang out. I'd like to get to know him and stuff. But then due to my fear of rejection and due to my not wanting to seem gay, I don't I'm uncomfortable sort of asking. And then it might be that you on the other side are thinking, oh, Marlin seems like a solid fellow. I he is, got his head screwed on. I'd like to spend some time with, get to know him, blah, blah blah, hang out and walk, walking, cycling whatever. But the pair of us are both want it, but we don't wanna be rejected and don't wanna be seen as gay. And we've talked about this in, in, in more than several men's circles. It is a thing. The, yeah, hugs. Hugs is definitely good. You mentioned earlier about the body and feeling the body. You had some juicy, good tools there. Kudos. My understanding is that at the moment in our society, there is a major overemphasis on heads. And I touched earlier on about I'm sophisticated, I'm clever, I'm what have you as a human in this day and age, and I've got my computer and my television and my car, and I'm all, all so sophisticated. And I think part of it is with science and technology and the brain. And we, no, we can do all these things. We're freaking amazing. We're, we are fantastic. And this and cutting off from our bodies and not looking after. Our bodies are not failing into our bodies. And one of the men's work things is dropping outta the head into the body and feeling the feelings and feeling the emotions. And yeah, it is definitely, it is a journey. And there's some practice and some and it's good. And something else you were talking about is weakness and my framing or reframing of that would be softness and vulnerability. And there's a lady Brene Brown who's done a load of work on the power of shame and the power of vulnerability. Her tattoo, she's like world expert and she says and makes a compelling scientific case for. Having power in vulnerability and the male macho sort of rah, fucking, I'm rah strong. Strong is a lot of Yeah. There's some brashness and overcompensating and Yeah. It's, it is not the healthy and it's not sensible is my take.

James: 43:09

Yeah. There's some big stuff, but it's the idea that as men especially, and women we have to change our ways at this moment in time. We've hit a point now where things are changing so rapidly that we have to change with the time, and it's more along the lines of doing things like. Our own emotional wellbeing are looking at our mental wellbeing. The thing I'm doing really at the moment is the power of now, which I've read about three or four times now, and he talks about allowing ourselves to be the observer of the mind the minds can be, especially for people with a DHD can be the thing where it's just continual. It's just continual. And, but we, I think we, we have to learn, and I might be stepping outta line here, I might be, but we have to learn how to start to observe. So rather than being the person in the head, we need to observe what the thoughts, what thoughts. And it's hard initially because you don't know whether you are actually stepping out or whether you're still in there. But with practice, you start to be able to observe your thoughts. And then what I've noticed, because I've done it for, I've tried it quite a few times, is that the more that I notice and watch, the more. Gaps I have between different voices in my head. And obviously then once we start to be able to have them gaps, that's where the peace starts to come in. That's where I feel like we start to have that sense of yeah, as they, as he calls it, nothingness, that sense of oneness as they call it. That's even, it might be like two seconds that build and it's stronger, but also I think there's the, yesterday I had a chat with one of my friends and I tried to jump into the conversation straight away, but she made a great point about before we actually get into the conversation, perhaps we could have a one two minute check-in to, be able to voice what's going on inside us. Obviously, I know that you do that in men's groups and it's that idea of just, just take a few nice deep breaths and then just. To say what's going on for you in the body, what you say in this moment? I feel a little bit of fear in my chest here. I feel some sadness, I feel some grief, I feel joyful. And once you're able to start to voice them and you hit that kind of like completion, you're like, oh, you're relaxed and you're more present because you've been into the body.

Merlin: 46:01

I absolutely concur. And yeah, with the C Men, various men's circle, they run we have a check-in and it includes exactly that. And then what's up from what's going on, what's big in, in, and what's big in the outer. And big, good, big bad. There's a chap called Vi Frankl who wrote a famous book, man's Search for Meaning, and he was in one of the Nazi concentration camps and survived. And he set up, I think it's called Logo therapy, and it was Freud Young and then Victor Frankl. And then Rogers, and one of the things he said is that between stimulus and a response is that is a gap. And it can be a fricking small gap. But he says in that gap is your freedom. And my, oh man. So with okay if you and I are having an argument, or me and my partner are more likely, I having an argument, heat discussion and what have you and I fuck up and I make a mistake and I'm just out of order or, make a mistake and I'm fallible, I'm human, I have it. And then what might happen is that two days later I go, oh man I come back and I say, look, sorry, love I messed up. That was out of order. Rude, short, whatever. I apologize. I'll endeavor that it doesn't happen again. And I'm pick the learning and then my my. Hope and vision is that through unpicking it and through the practice and through doing the work and the lessons and what have you, then it's one day later I go back to, I say I'm sorry I, one day after whatever the incident, I come back and say, I'm sorry I messed up and then keep doing the work. And then two hours after the thing I come back and I say, sorry, I messed up to one hour. And then to straight after. And then I, an ideal work, work in progress, just as I'm about to make the mistake, say the inappropriate wrong, I'm unpleasant, whatever thing I go, ah, okay. And again, it's a journey and there's a thing about learning the skills, doing the practice and not beating myself up about it. And it's because, yeah, I make mistakes every day. Because I'm human, there's no perfect people, and I'm not gonna be the first one. I'm not the Dai Merlin Zen master. I'm, yeah I'm damn good at a bunch of things. And I'm I find a lot of things tricky and relationships is a big one. And my sort of what I've, where I've got to with relationships at the moment is that I am a human and I've had childhood issues and trauma, and I've had issues and trauma and bullshit with past relationships. And I've been hurt and the conditioning and what have you. And I want connection and intimacy and contact. And at the same time, I don't wanna be hurt and rejected. And I'm so there's a sort of I want it, I don't want it to push me, pull you, and then. Heaven. Yeah. Heaven for a fact. And the laws of physics say that the human on the other side, they've also had their flavor of conditioning. They've had their abuses, they've had their past relationships, and they've been hurt. And they don't, they, and they want connection. They don't want rejection and they want all their stuff. And then trying to get the two of us to come in. It's, it is a prod. The laws of physics say it is gonna be a project and at the same time, there are skills and practice and holding space and getting a third party and there's loads of juicy tools. And that's what the manca, that's part of what the Man Academy is about. Teaching the skills, sharing the skills, and learning the skills together and implementing them together and implementing is really important because it's speaking from a very personal experience. It's really easy for me to get high on the workshop and it's, oh, it's great. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good. Or I can a good podcast and Oh yeah. Fantastic. Nice. But unless. I put the staff into action. It's just mental masturbation and it's yeah, I feel good. It is a dopamine, it's a feel good. Yeah. Great. Yeah. But less action. It is pointless. Not necessarily pointless, but it's not pointful.

James: 50:06

Yeah. It's a nice spinal point for today's podcast. Is it? It's not about perfection, it's about continual progress. It's, it's very easy to get into the mindset of, oh, I have to be perfect. I have to do this. Especially in a morning routine, and I've been there and I've done it, and you're, and then eventually you might miss something and you're kicking yourself. But it's about, oh I find for me now, I've shifted into that place of what do I actually need? And I will pick, I'll have a list of things, and then I'll pick the things that I need. Can you tell us what is it that you do and how can people get in contact?

Merlin: 50:42

Sure. Just a couple of, have I got time for two little briefings?

James: 50:46

Yeah.

Merlin: 50:47

Wicked. So one thing that, that comes from some of your earlier stuff is that my child a as a child I developed, came up with, picked up tools and things to cope to make meaning of it. And the problem is that was and they must have worked to some degree because that's what I did and used coping mechanisms, skill strategies, whatever. And the problem is that if I'm still using those now as a grownup and they're not appropriate. They may have worked now, but they're not appropriate for me as a grownup, but again, because of a lack of learning skills. And there's an expression, the war there's a whole story I won't go into, but the war's over, you can stop fighting now. And then the next level, which one of my teachers Kenny De Cruz talks about with parts work is if my, say my, my, my inner protector, who's been on the case and basically that is trying to protect me. And so rather than saying take a hike inner protector, I don't need you, you are useless. You are, you're slowing me down. You are, you're stopping me, whatever. It's giving that inner protector a useful task and to and thanking it for its service and giving it a useful task. You asked about doing the work and stepping into power a my. Very honest truth is that I have been living with a hand break on, I for sure am not living in my full power. I know that there are levels and levels of more of all of my mental and physical and emotional skills and capacity that are still to be unlocked and and again, doing it in community learning the skills from the experts around the world and putting it into action, which is with the Man academy and other people too. And I believe strongly that a really big underpinning sort of foundational issue and problem for myself and for, I, I believe pretty much everyone is around self-worth and self-love and self-concept, which is overlapping areas. And if I, from childhood. Conditioning and beliefs and traumas and stuff. If I believe that I am not worthy of success and relationships and goodness and what have you, and then it might be that I land an amazing job or I goddess lands in my lap or I win the lottery and so I got loads of money. But the laws of physics and there's studies of this with the lottery thing, and you come back to them, I think five years later or three years later, and they're back where they started because their. So the thermostat or their belief system is set at a certain level. And I really and, yeah, that one of my teachers says that you can't exceed the level of your self-concept. And so working on that, which is a whole, and again, it is a journey. It is a project. It's not, I don't have a magic wand per toif. There you go. And again, learning it together. So the Man Academy, my website is man academy instead of.com. It's man academy and it is about learning skills together in community and implementing them. And as I said, there's a lot of isolation and there's a lot of skills that we don't get taught, and yet they do exist. And so it is learning them and. The idea is for it to be open source where like Firefox and Thunderbird or the Ubuntu operating system and Linux operating systems that they, different people chip in and it improves to version 1.2 and then different people chip in and improves the version 1.3 until Improves, improves and co-created. Because I'm, as I said I've not got all the answers and I know that you, who I, I haven't, we haven't actually met, I know that you have got a whole load of skills that are much better than me. And I'm I put my bottom dollar, I've got a bunch of skills that are better than you. And that's just because that's what we've done over, the years and the decades and stuff. No judgment, no shame. It's just how it is. And so harnessing the different people's skills and pulling those together and Yeah. And sharing and learning. And one of this and this sort of opening up. And one of the nice things with men's circles is and this is not just me, this is numerous people have said that sort of, I might think that I'm a total freak and I might think I'm the only person who's experienced this or who, who's thinking that? Who's afraid of whatever, who's desiring the other. And then when we go, sometimes we've got the same topic. We go around and it is ah, you too. And you bloody hell. I thought it was just me because of the lone warrior bullshit and because of the don't show weakness and don't express emotions and don't don't open up and don't show what's going on. And it's, yeah. So learning Together, man Academy we do men's circles and coaching occasional events, and I'm in just about to launch a membership, which is gonna be very good.

James: 56:02

Yeah. Thank you very much, Melin. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you.

Merlin: 56:07

Appreciate it James. Nice one. And thank you everybody for listening and take, put it into action, accountability, brotherhood and coaching. Don't need to get it through me, but accountability is a secret weapon.'cause 90% of the time I know what I need to do and it's just a question of doing it and accountability helps. The brotherhood is really important for someone who's got my back and also someone to gimme a general kick in the ass if I'm not doing what I say I want to do or I say I'm going to do. And the coaching, there's two aspects. One is the coaching of the questions and so why are you doing that and what might happen And helping to dig, helping you to dig into yourself. And the other bit of coaching is teaching the lessons that sort of different people have distilled experts around the world. Thank you all. Appreciate it.

James: 56:53

Perfect. Thank you.

56:56

Thanks for tuning in to Man a Quest. Find meaning if today's conversation sparked something in you, take a moment to reflect, then take a step. Remember, real growth comes from action, not just insight. If you found value in this episode, share it with a friend. Leave her a review, or reach out and let me know what resonated. Your feedback helps shape the journey we are on together. For more conversations like this, make sure to subscribe and stay connected. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn for updates, tools, and upcoming guests. Remember. It's not about having the answers. It's about daring to look.