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The Well-Worshipped Man
The Well-Worshipped Man Podcast is a call to men everywhere: rise into the blueprint of mature masculinity.
Hosted by spiritual mentors and partners in love, Isaac Wathen and Jessica Kate, this show confronts a core truth — most men have never witnessed mature masculinity lived out loud. At a time when men’s mental health is in crisis, the absence of real models for leadership, service, and love leaves too many feeling lost and unanchored.
Here, you’ll hear the voices of men who live with integrity, couples who embody sovereign union, and conversations that bring both practical tools and deep anchoring into Spirit and Mother Earth. Each episode is designed to help men return to themselves, strengthen their leadership, and embody devotion in every area of life.
When men embody this path, they no longer abandon themselves. They live in service, lead with presence, and anchor their partnerships in truth. That is the mission. That is the movement. Creating men worthy of worship.
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The Well-Worshipped Man
#33: The One Skill People Are Missing: Self-Restraint Changes Everything
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On today's episode, we reveal the one skill that men are missing: self-restraint. We bust the myth that freedom is “doing whatever you want” and share what freedom really is, rooted in the philosophy of the Stoics. On the path to the mature masculine, self-restraint is required. Without it, we are slaves to our desires, so we share the real process you can implement to improve your self-restraint and break free of the habits, behaviors, and addictions that bind you. You might think that abstaining completely is mastery over temptation, but it’s not. There’s another level and in this episode, we show you how to tap into it. Finally, we share the hard truth about what’s necessary to live the life that’s authentically yours, and the resources you need to get there.
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This is the one skill that too many men are missing.
SPEAKER_01It feels like a never-ending hell. I'm choosing to never engage with this again starting tomorrow. You are a slave to your impulses. It's like a lose-lose situation when you don't have self-restraint.
SPEAKER_03We're not actually free. We're a slave to desires that we can't seem to create conscious choice around. There's just impulse. Self-restraint is actually what creates freedom. If you have the awareness, you'll do better.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the Well-Worship Man podcast, where men come to build unshakable presence, become the rock in their relationships, and build a legacy that lasts beyond their years.
SPEAKER_00Here we explore the path to mature masculinity through humble power, daily devotion, and unwavering integrity.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, baby. Before we dive in, if you're on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other streaming platform, leave us a review. And before we dive in today, we've got something really special for you. It's something that's new, it's something that will allow you to master and channel your life force. We've created a free guide for you along with a guided meditation that you can use repetitively to evaluate and improve your focus. So that link is in the description. Make sure to grab that. What are we talking about today, baby?
SPEAKER_00Today we are talking about self-restraint.
SPEAKER_03Ah, this is the one skill that too many men are missing. The ability to choose what's right repetitively over what's fast, fun, easy, convenient, or familiar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it really, I mean, it's counterculture. It's like I tell women that rest is a protest, you know? And this feels similar, especially for men in ways that we're going to talk about it. It's like you being in charge of your own restraint, your self-control, your focus, whatever you want to call it, like that is an act of focus in a world that is constantly trying to steal your attention or give you something intense or throw you off course.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And the trick of immaturity is that it tricks you into believing that things like responsibility and commitment and self-restraint are things that you should avoid. They're things that are going to hinder your ability to move freely. But that's actually the paradox because what we're going to share today is that self-restraint is actually what creates freedom.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, it would seem that most people understand freedom in what we would say is incorrectly, you know. I don't know that that's necessarily the right word, but the collective, I think, definition of freedom would be like being able to do whatever you want whenever you want. And we talk a lot to each other and also to our clients about the fact that actually freedom isn't necessarily being able to do whatever you want whenever you want, because when I was in phases of doing whatever I want whenever I wanted, I was eating things that was poisoning me. I was engaging with people that were, you know, in some ways poisoning me. I was participating in different behaviors and different environments that certainly were not nourishing my health. And so are we really free if we're like slowly killing ourselves with every decision?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I love the Aristotle quote that freedom is the ability to control ourselves. Like you're saying, it's like times when I was younger and less mature. I thought I was so free, you know, having these one night stands and smoking weed and doing drugs. And I would show up to work on Monday mornings feeling like shit because of these decisions and these loops that I just couldn't choose out of. So it's important to note that while we may tell the story that we're doing whatever we want, that these more base desires actually have a hold on us. We're not actually free. We're a slave to desires that we can't seem to create conscious choice around. There's just impulse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think, you know, different cultures have different ways of expressing this. But for example, in college, you know, I didn't really had I become friends with other people, maybe it would have been different. But the people that I happened to be friends with were smoking all the time and drinking all the time and doing cocaine all the time. And I honestly just didn't know that there was another way to engage in community or engage in college. And you're the first person I've ever dated that went to a college similar to mine. And so before that, it was really hard to explain to people what my college experience was like. And I actually had a partner one time who like broke up with me because of how he imagined that I was when I was in college once he found out when I was went to school, you know, because there's just like such a shift in like party school culture compared to whatever smaller schools. And I feel like that is the case in many different culture, microcultures, you know, uh in the West. Another example of this is I work with a lot of gay male clients, and because homosexuality has been so suppressed, there is a lot of I don't really know the right word, but there's like a pendulum swing in the other direction. Same with women. There's women's sexuality has been very suppressed. So now collectively, there's like this idea that healed looks like sexually doing whatever you want.
SPEAKER_03Flamboyance, you might call it.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. Yeah. And so in gay culture, there's like a lot of drugs and a lot of drinking and a lot of sex that kind of blurs the lines between friendship and partnership. And for women, it's similar. It's like, oh, I was sexually suppressed. Now freedom, quote unquote, looks like having sex with whoever I want. And so there's actually this misunderstanding of what freedom is in microcultures. And I would say for the men listening, it's this like similar, like I can have sex with whoever I want and do whatever I want and be non-committal and still have business success and companionship and whatever. But actually, exactly like you said, you know, if you if you don't know there's another way, then there's not really a choice that you're making. You're not actually free. Or if you don't have access to this alternative route, if it seems like a non-choice, because choosing something that's seemingly counter-culture in whatever environment you find yourself in would remove you from the community or would remove you from a job or a partnership or whatever, then the conscious choice isn't actually there. So there is no freedom being accessed.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You mentioned the pendulum swing, and it's not a required part of the process, but it's a really common part of the process. And I think with men, women, whoever, a really normal example is you grow up in a home where there's helicopter parents or some degree of that. You don't feel like you have very much freedom. And then you leave home, go to college, whatever, and you can do whatever you want. So you're being crazy, right? You're blacking out, you're staying up all night, you're skipping class, like whatever it is. And that ability to be able to experience what doing whatever you want is, uh, I think is is really normal and natural. And there is some learning that can occur in that, but that still is an immature expression, right? You got out of your parents' house and you don't know how to parent yourself. Uh, you don't know how to take responsibility. You know, I share a part of my story is when my dad dropped me off at college, he said, take care of yourself. And I thought he meant don't die, right? And so I didn't, but I also lacked out hundreds of times and got 12 stitches in my head from a physical assault and uh was arrested multiple times, right? I wasn't responsible for myself, I wasn't parenting myself, I wasn't exercising the self-restraint that would have kept me out of some of those situations and started me off in my post-home life on a better foot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I think that that story probably sounds familiar to people listening. And so if we're saying that freedom isn't just this idea of being able to do whatever we want whenever we want, and to have, you know, these experiences like you're talking about that are just pendulum swinging to the other side, then what is freedom actually? And then we can go into, you know, why do we need self-restraint to access it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I'll repeat that freedom is the ability to control oneself. When you are not truly free, when you're telling yourself the story that I'm just doing whatever I want, you are a slave to your impulses. There's actually no conscious choice. I would also say that freedom is the ability to make conscious choices at every fork in the road, right? It's like before you have that conscious choice, there actually is no fork in the road. Like for me, there was no question in college. It's like it's Friday night, I'm drinking. If there's not a 30 rack in here by 7 p.m., I'm getting antsy. You know, there wasn't a pause. There was only an impulse. There was only an attachment and a default yes to my pattern, right? And so freedom would have been get there on Friday night, sit down, take a breath, and say, okay, I could drink tonight. And I could also not. And having those decisions weighed evenly in front of me instead of just defaulting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. As you're talking, I am recalling numerous articles, posts on the internet, conversations with friends over time, where something that's interesting when people are functioning from this state of doing whatever they want whenever they want, but maybe it's not actually what they want, is uh cannabis was used a lot in this example. Like cannabis isn't addictive. First of all, it is actually, it does have changes on your brain chemistry in pretty serious ways. But the rationale is people are always saying about these different behaviors, well, I could not drink on Friday if I wanted to, but I want to. But the reality is when it comes down to making a sovereign choice, the somatic experience is often this like really intense level of anxiety or like getting antsy, like you're talking about, or feeling just a knot in their stomach of, okay, well, I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not doing that. So I guess I'll just do it. And when it comes down to that level of, well, I could not do it, but I don't know what I'm gonna do if I don't do it, that is on the addiction spectrum.
SPEAKER_02Totally.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, maybe you don't want to call it that, but what we often call it is energy leaks, which we're gonna definitely share more about in another podcast if it hasn't been released already. Um, but this idea of like, I can't sit with myself, I can't restrain myself from these engagements because if I try to, I feel so uncomfortable that I don't know what to do with myself. That is a self-restraint issue. Like, you don't have the capacity to withhold from making the decision. So you just make the decision to get rid of the discomfort instead of being able to hold the like insatiability.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You mentioned the story of I'm doing whatever I want, but it's like not actually what you want. My after I graduated from college, I didn't really want to be out drinking anymore. But there were a lot of young people in my job that that's what we did. We're in Old Town Scottsdale. And so it's like without that, I really didn't know how to engage socially. I didn't know how I was gonna get any play from the ladies. I didn't know what we were gonna talk about at work. So there's also this social pressure that I wasn't that I didn't have freedom from.
SPEAKER_01For sure. When I was in college and I was seeing a therapist for my eating disorder, he told me that I needed to stop smoking weed because it was a huge trigger. And that was obviously the case. But at the time I was unwilling to accept it. I literally said to him, Well, all of my friends I'm friends with because we smoke weed. So it's quite literally not an option because then if I don't have friends, what am I gonna now? I'm just gonna be at home eating more. Like, no. You know? So the idea that you have a choice, but you don't really have a choice really needs to be sat with when you're working with this idea of self-restraint. Do you actually feel like you have a choice? Or if given, if forced to make the other decision, would you be socially, mentally, emotionally, physically unwell?
SPEAKER_03And we've been giving a lot of examples from our much earlier lives, but there's really layers to this. And I think as this conversation unfolds, we can share how self-restraint has matured. The reason that we're talking about this now is we've found greater degrees of self-restraint very recently within ourselves. And I just want to ground into why self-restraint is important. It's like some of the most common complaints of men that come to work with us are, you know, something just feels off. I don't feel like myself. I feel separated from the life that's meant for me. And those are all consequences of making decisions that are not authentic to you, of making decisions that are misaligned with your values and misaligned for the things that you say you want for yourself. And the reason that men are unable to make the decisions that would lead them to a more authentic life is because they lack self-restraint. They're making all of their decisions based on a past identity. That that identity has actually expired, but they're carrying it around with them and it's rotting and molding inside of them. And so they have this feeling of like, oh, like, is this all there is? And so that's really why self-restraint is required to live the full life that you're destined to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you for laying that out. And it's this process, too, of you know, so many people say they want to be a different person, but they don't make different decisions. So many people say they want different relationships, but they don't make different decisions. They say they want a different job or to help more people or have a greater impact, but they show up to work the same way or aren't willing to have the courage to quit the job, leave the relationship, move out of the city that they're from, whatever. And once an identity has expired, you must make decisions from the new identity. Otherwise, you won't feel like yourself. You will feel like a shell of yourself because you actually are. You've outgrown the beingness of who you once were into who you are, who your soul is like calling you forward into. And with this process of self-restraint, it's really at every new phase there is a greater level of self-restraint being asked. You know, we've said this before on the podcast, but as you walk the path, the path narrows, as you, you know, go down your process of evolution, you will be asked to carry more for your capacity to expand, for you to be able to hold more discomfort, for you to be able to hold more joy and abundance and also really beautiful things, but only by way of strengthening your muscle to hold weight do you get to hold the weight of anything, no matter what it is. And so when you have this new identity forming and you're using a level of self-restraint that was only required of you when you were seven years old, it's just not gonna do it for you at 37 years old. There's much more being asked.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's gonna be very uncomfortable, just like getting under a very heavy barbell, and it's going to offend you in some way, right? Oh, I'm like, I'm really gonna say no to that. I can stop smoking weed anytime I want. I can have that cookie. Like you should like offend yourself a little bit of like, no, dude, like that cookie's actually not okay. And that immature part of you says, What the fuck do you mean? Like, what do you know? And it's it's like this inner conflict initially to restrain yourself from what was what you always deemed okay or or what was familiar.
SPEAKER_01Because we perceive it as an insult to who we are. You know, there is a part of us that it was okay for. We we talked about this on our podcast with Alexander, and we were mentioning something about like at earlier phases of life, it actually was aligned for me to eat XYZ or to hook up with XYZ or to work in this way. And when I grow, then the path narrows and I'm asked to hold more. And so, for example, for me with my eating disorder, it's like when I was younger, there was no restraint, like absolutely zero. I could not have any because it was the only survival strategy that I had besides self-harm. And then when I started to heal my eating disorder, I stopped purging. And it's like, okay, that was all I could do for self-restraint, but I still couldn't adjust what I was eating or how much. And then over time, I was able to grow my self-restraint to eat, you know, as much as I wanted, but of healthier things, or less of what I wanted, but of, you know, still unhealthy things, and kind of like modulate this quality-quantity thing until now, like the quality of food that I put in my body is impeccable. And the even like the less healthy things I eat are so healthy, you know, and I actually don't carry an identity where I would ever buy like certain things from the grocery store. Yeah, you know, and but that doesn't mean that when I was younger and decided to like eat less of the cookies or the pizza, that that was wrong. It's just that at that phase, that was all I could hold. And so when we start functioning from this new level of um self-restraint, it's like that part of me that was making decisions that did feel good before feels this offense because they have to process this like, oh, I wasn't doing good enough. Like I'm not enough. And it's like every level is an I'm not enough. And it's like, well, it was enough and now it's not.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was enough and now it's not anymore. You have to walk the next stair.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That self-offense it implies a deficit of the kind of responsibility that's required now. And I think what you shared is really important to ground into how someone develops the skill of self-restraint. And so there's kind of two paths. There's like a gradual one, which you mentioned, which is I'm just eating a little bit less, right? Or I'm removing this one thing. And then on the other end, this can work too, is self-restriction. We share a lot about no contact after a breakup. It's like, I'm just not gonna talk to this person at all. I'm gonna remove them from my life entirely. Or for me, it was like, I'm actually not going out drinking at all. Right. And so the pendulum swings, right? And you you cut yourself off from it for a time. And another really important example is a season of solitude, especially among men. They begin pruning out the social circles that are no longer serving them and they find themselves alone for the first time in a long time. I'm just not gonna engage with those people. And so those are kind of the two routes into beginning to build this skill of self-restraint.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I will say that, you know, I personally have tended to pick the challenging way more frequently. It was just like, let me do the more intense thing, it'll get me there faster. And I have some clients that function that way too. And the reality of that route is it is harder. And so something that's true when we suggest something like no contact. Is there's containment around it. Like I'm going to be in a celibacy container for six months. I'm going to do no contact with this person for 60 days. And then we'll have a touch base. And if we need to have a conversation, we can, or if not, we won't. And so it's easier to do the more intense route when there is containment. When there's no containment on it, the gradual route tends to last better because when there's an endpoint on anything, it's easier to hold. You can be like, okay, I have 45 days left. Okay, 44, 43. And every time you sleep, it's a little bit less of something that you're holding. But when there isn't that containment, life life. And eventually you will hit a place of, you know, if you say, I'm never gonna do X, Y, Z again, the number of times I've said, I'm never gonna eat a certain food ever again, like I can't even tell you. And eventually I would have a bad experience with someone I was dating. I would feel like I couldn't talk to friends. I would hate the job that I was working, or maybe all at once. And I would be at my apartment with like six bags of chips and some cookie dough and whatever candy that I wanted. And, you know, so without that containment, it can be challenging. But something that works really well for self-restriction is okay, I'm just going to set an intention before every time I smoke cannabis. I'm still gonna, this is an example I use a lot because it works so well. But if all you do is set the intention or become conscious before you do the drug or eat the food or have the sex, it's like, okay, I'm doing this for validation. Oh, I'm doing this to numb myself. And if you can just start saying that out loud over time, like humans are intelligent. There's a lot of psychology work that and religious work that really minimizes the intelligence of humans. But humans are innately intelligent, which means that if all I do is start pointing out to myself the reason why I'm doing something, I will stop doing it for bad reasons shortly. And so if I can notice when I'm engaging with cannabis because I actually like need a breath and I'm feeling so overwhelmed that without it, I don't, I don't know what else I'll do versus I'm engaging with cannabis because this is what I do every night, you know, different decisions will be made quite quickly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. What you mentioned about the most intense way to practice self-restraint is total self-restriction. I'm just not gonna do the thing anymore. And it can work, it's worked for me. For sure. But it takes a lot of strength and there is a higher chance of a more intense relapse or rebound back into the behavior. And that utter self-restriction is also not mastery. I talked earlier about self-restraint being creating conscious choice. Well, total self-restriction is removing choice on the opposite end. And it might be a good practice to spend time on that end, but what you're saying about introducing pauses is the more skillful way, right? And I'll I'll prescribe this to clients a lot of the time too. It's like before you do the behavior or the impulse, just breathe for five minutes or do five minutes of breath work. And then after that, I'm not saying you can't do the thing, but decide. You know, I could watch porn or maybe I don't feel like doing it anymore, or maybe I don't want to, or maybe I'm taking a st maybe I want to, but I'm gonna take a stand for the man that doesn't. And so that way of introducing a pause actually brings in the moment of conscious choice and you can begin choosing instead of defaulting because, like you said, uh I'm just a person that smokes weed every night.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and if you can't pause for whatever reason, you can't remember, things are too much in the default realm. That was the case for me for a while with like disordered eating and for some of the other stuff that I talk about on this podcast, of just like it's hard to describe, but when someone really has an addictive tendency, like there's a somatic sensation that happens in the body where once that sensation starts to snowball, no matter how much of my mind is online, the decision is already made. So even if I try to pause or have these conversations, it's like as soon as the thought comes, I'm I might as well have already done the action. And that starts to shift when you start to incorporate this work, but it is hard to shift that initial phase. And so the place to start for self-restraint at that point is just notice how you feel. We have a mentor who has taught before that, like once once an activity or behavior is associated with guilt or shame, it will never not be associated with guilt or shame. Like you just kind of have to swallow the bullet there and know that, yeah, some people can eat Oreos and have a party. And maybe you can't. And like Oreos are just a trigger for your guilt. And like that's just the way that it is. There is literally no sense in having sex with that person that always makes you feel like shit afterwards because you're gonna feel like shit afterwards. And however many times you need to recognize that in the aftermath of ex behavior, you don't feel good, you really need to show yourself that after ex behavior you don't feel good because that reflection is going to almost like light the fire to start practicing self-restraint.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we say it all the time that negative emotion is the primary motivation for positive change, being able to face that, right? And you can play with some parallel experiences, like maybe it's not Oreos, maybe it's some siete cookies, right? And like build it over time. And you know, I would push back a little bit and say you could probably change your relationship to Oreos and get to be able to enjoy them again at some point.
SPEAKER_01I agree.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And, you know, there are people, I'm gonna preface this by saying that, you know, addicts a lot of the time need to make the decision that I'm just never gonna drink again. I'm gonna take that choice off of the table. But for people who haven't dealt with the disease of addiction that say, oh no, I'm never gonna have another drink again, or I'm never gonna smoke a cigarette in Paris, or I'm never gonna eat gluten. You can do that, but it actually shows more self-control and more self-restraint to say, actually, like a cigarette in Paris is on the table. And if I go to Paris and the mood strikes, I would let myself have a cigarette. You know, instead of saying, nope, nope, I know who I am, I wouldn't be able to control myself. I can't do that. That would be a that would be a snowball for me, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, to your point of like removing it completely, taking the decision off the table. In some senses, that's the easier route. Yeah. It's like when I was doing, it's so interesting how much we're talking about my eating disorder on this podcast, but it's like when I was going through the initial phases of healing that, I was like, honestly, like I have never been addicted to a hard drug. At the time, this is what I was saying. Now I feel like I definitely had a substance abuse problem when I was in college. But, you know, like in some senses, that's easier. Just like don't drink anymore. But I have to eat. Um, and so like food has forced me to understand the modulation of things. And there's little micro ways to do that where it's like, okay, I just am a person who I mean, I might buy Cheetos at some point in my life. I'm not like assigned to never buying them, but the likelihood of me doing that is so small.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But there is a sense of empowerment. It's almost like uh when when things are taken off the table, it is from this place of fear, which we talk about, like healing from a place of shame and guilt is often the first motivator. But really, over time, like love has to be why you make choices. And if you're only ever making certain choices because you're terrified that if there's an Oreo in the room or a like bottle of liquor in the room, that, you know, if people don't know for sure that you don't eat those, then there's a risk. Then there isn't actually that much strength that's been created. You've kind of gotten to like step one, which is huge, not to take anything away from people who have like shifted those huge behaviors. But there is a lot more sovereignty accessed when I can be present in every moment and make my choice based off what's right right now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's like with healthy people, and I was one of these people too. I just don't have any sweet treats in the house because if I did, I would eat the whole bag. And it comes down to a lack of trust in one's ability to restrain oneself. And we can talk a little bit about like the journeys that we've been on, and and I've always been in pretty good shape over the course of my life. But I entered this uh six-pack side quest, essentially a keto journey or eat less than 20 grams of carbs every day. And today is day 57, and I've learned so much about my relationship to food. And if I look back at day one, I see that guy that was like, I just don't have any cookies in the house because if I did, I would overeat them. And I look back at day one, the picture, and I would never have described myself as this back then, but I was a bit puffy, you know. The lack of self-restraint showed in the way that my body was manifesting. And today I was just having this thought a couple minutes ago during this conversation, is like, yeah, I could have a bag of cookies in the house, and today I could eat one and put the bag away. And I don't think that I I couldn't confidently say that 57 days ago.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's been really beautiful to see how our processes are mirroring each other. I think they have a little bit since we've met, but definitely more so recently, where you know, we're in separate places having the same downloads of just like eating food slowly and being so much more aware and present. And this process of self-restraint. I mean, we did that whole episode on the fast. And it's like to come from the place that I was in of breaking my word to myself multiple, probably 20 times a day about food, you know, uh to be able to do a 40-day fast is this huge sign of the trust that I built in myself. And I think that is really an important factor of like what a lot of traditional terminology about addiction recovery talks about versus this skill of self-restraint. And it does feel like self-restraint coincides with self-trust because self-restraint indicates that I can have some, but I'll be able to determine when I'm complete. Or I don't have to take sex off the table, but I know when it's aligned or not. Or I can spend money and do things that are enjoyable. And I also know that I'll have the conversations necessary to say, like, I am not spending money on things right now. Like I've kind of reached my limit. And that is much, much different from abstinence only education and behavior because that stuff doesn't really build self-trust. It builds uh, I mean, I guess it builds self-trust in some ways, but only with one decision. Like I'm never doing this. That's the decision versus like this moment of yes or no right now, yes or no right now. And of course, some things are not a yes or no right now thing, you know, like really hard, dangerous drugs, obviously. And like self-harm is not a yes or no question right now. Like there are some things that fall on people's coping strategies that must be dealt with as a no for, you know, adequate health and care. But most things in life are is this right for me right now? And to be able to trust yourself with that decision to act from the present moment instead of a rule that you made yesterday or a week ago, or God forbid you made this real rule two years ago, and now you're having an identity shift, and you're having really an identity crisis because you're not following on a rule that you made two years ago, yeah, can really have actually negative consequences.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. An example is somebody's in a strict celibacy container and they meet somebody that feels like their person and loves trying to knock on the door, and they're like, No, I can't. I made this celibacy commitment to myself. Okay. And the opportunity goes by. And as we're talking, what I'm seeing is this relation to scarcity on both ends, on the lack of self-restraint and the taking the thing off the table entirely. It's like when there's a lack of self-restraint, it's like I've got to shovel all this food into my mouth now because it might not be there, or this experience of pleasure I might never get again, or I have to have sex with this person right now because I don't know if there's gonna be connection down the road. It's like I have to have it now because I don't trust that there's more coming for me.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is the promise that people with anywhere on the addiction spectrum will make to themselves over and over and over again, which is why their self-trust deteriorates, because they'll say, not only might this thing not exist, but I'm choosing to never engage with this again starting tomorrow. So today I'm gonna eat everything that I could ever have. Same thing that happens with cannabis. It's like, I have all this cannabis in my house. I'm just gonna smoke it until it's done because then I'm never gonna have it again. Instead of being able to keep it in the house and put it in a cupboard that you don't use and just like let it be there while you just start right now. Or same thing with sex. Like, okay, I'm going to watch all the porn, or I'm just gonna like let myself sleep with whoever, because starting on this date, like I'm doing something different. And it's this like drastic purge of the old behavior that really actually, unless you're in a very specific mental state, like gives the old behavior life. And I've had experiences where I have said like goodbye to cannabis or said goodbye to food, and it has actually worked, but there was a lot of broken promises to get to that point, and then a lot, a lot of promises that I had to keep to myself to be able to get to a point where I like actually could have a goodbye ceremony instead of a a forced, shameful rule creating lie, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and that rule on the other side of I I can't do that ever again, that's also scarcity. It's it's reducing the supply to zero.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03It's like when you can't have something, how much more do you want it? And so it's this loop. And so what self-restraint asks of us is to introduce conscious choice, is to introduce moderation, is to introduce having one and just putting it away. Like that is such a powerful exercise when you're working with it. Like the other day, like I never don't finish a meal, but I've been recovering from this stomach bug, and I sat down with two chicken legs the other day, and I ate one of them, and I ate half of the other one really slowly, and then you know, my body was telling me no more. And I put the last drumstick in the fridge. And then the other day we were at this retreat center, and they gave me this massive cup of coffee. I hadn't had coffee in four days, and I had maybe an eighth of the cup, and I was like, I'm gonna bring it back. And as I was walking over, it was like I could have another sip on this walk back, but it was like that was a threshold. And it was like, no, I know that I'm done, and I'm not even gonna have this farewell sip. And that really rooted into my cells, my ability to be done when I am done, and not when this immature part of me just wants another sip, another hit, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, the way that any of these sips or hits or lovers land in our bodies is like just a dopamine hit. You know, it's like, I am getting too uncomfortable because it's been too long since I had this thing that dumped pleasure chemicals into my brain. So now I'll have more. And the trick of the discomfort or the dis-ease of this thought pattern is that no amount of one more ness is ever going to create satiation. Like it's not one more conversation with your ex, it's not one more bite of this treat, it's not one more sip of coffee or one more drink of alcohol. You have to learn to be able to sit with not feeling satiated. Like that's the key for self-restraint is getting comfortable with the sensation of wanting more.
SPEAKER_03And the more that you populate your life with cheap dopamine of convenient pleasure, the less precious that it becomes, right? It's like the more you eat of something sweet by the end of it, you might even be sick of it. Right. But if you're like, I'm gonna have one bite and this is gonna be the best bite ever, and I'm gonna be fully present with this, you not only are creating more discipline in your life, but you're creating more pleasure and more beauty and a greater capacity to hold higher degrees of both.
SPEAKER_01You know, this isn't a place that I was necessarily thinking that we would go, but as we're talking, the polarities of the universe are surfacing into my awareness of, you know, sun and moon, masculine, feminine, alpha, omega, whatever you want to call them. But the always wanting more ness is the feminine or the moon.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the not being able to say no is a weakness of the masculine. And so it's like there is so much disconnect from the feminine in our culture that we think that the wanting moorness or the constantly wanting more pleasure is a problem to be solved. But actually, that's just her nature. And it is part of the work of the sun and the masculine to say, the day's over. It's complete. Like we're done here, or like the night's over. Like, I know you could go on forever, Miss Moon, and stay up there, but like, I'm here, I'm rising. Like, here's the boundary. And that is as we translate this, you know, we were talking about in order to have the relationship that you desire, you must have self-restraint. But it's like, if you don't have self-restraint, you're never gonna be able to set a boundary with a woman who's naked in your bed that just wants to cuddle you for the next four hours instead of you doing work that you need to do or going to the gym. It's like you must be able to sit with your own insatiability because you're gonna want to stay in bed with her too. Whether you love her or you just want to fuck her, like you're gonna wanna stay in bed. Or if it's a guy in your bed and that's what you're into, like it's whatever. But the feminine essence is always going to like allure you into more. That is the energy of the temptress. And if you can't say no to yourself and your own desires, you will not be able to say no to her.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And giving in to that feminine temptress all of the time removes a man's edge. Like, as a man, you don't want to be topped off all the time. You know, you don't want your balls to be empty all of the time. You don't want your stomach to be over full all the time. You want a little bit of deficit between being full. Like you want to maintain that hunger and that drive and that desire for your woman, that desire for your mission, right? You want to be a little bit empty most of the time. Yeah, there's times when you can indulge and top yourself off. And melt, right? And like be in that plush king energy. But if you want polarity in your relationship, if you want to feel pulled forward by your mission, it is a requirement to restrain yourself.
SPEAKER_01It's so interesting because the number of women that I have heard talk about, like, oh, well, the sexual attention is the best part. It's like once it's always, I feel like men probably feel this way too, but it's like once something is a guaranteed yes, there's a lost allure a little bit. And so it's like when you're talking about maintaining the sexual polarity, what I'm really hearing is maintaining the sexual attention. It's like sometimes you want to say no so that like both of you are daydreaming about having sex all day until you finally get to. And like sometimes you say no to that Snickers bar that's in San Marcos so that at the end of the month on your birthday, you can have that Snickers bar with a latte, and it's gonna be the best experience you ever could have had with a sweet treat because you have built up this tension between you and the Snickers bar, you know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I've built the ability to take my time on that Snickers bar. Yeah. Or a man builds his ability to take his time with a woman, you know, there's no rush to the finish line. And, you know, we're we're talking about sex, and part of my sexual progression, you know, it used to be years ago that um I'm finishing every time, and that's just like the way that sex is supposed to be, right? And so now it might not be like saying no to sex, maybe that, but it's retaining my seed. Like we've done this, and I'm gonna keep what's mine. I'm not gonna give it to you. Um, and so yeah, semen retention is an awesome practice of self-restraint for men. I think it's one of the most challenging because you are literally in sexual union with that feminine temptress who wants nothing more than to pull it out of you. And you say no.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You say, This has been great and it's over.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And, you know, even though the feminine essence or like that moon energy is always wanting more. This example of laying in bed in the morning, it's like, I actually want to get out of bed and get my day started too, but I forget when there's like a really good cuddle, you know, or something like that. And there is a way that men feel when they retain their seed that is on another level, especially if they're like in a good practice of it. But lest you forget, like it feels also really good to finish. And so being able to hold that tension and like in the midst when everything in your body wants to finish, saying, actually, no, because I want to feel good for a longer period of time. There just is something that hits differently about that. And pondering too, you know, how much of self-restraint is in words, like how much actually gets to also be food and sex are really great examples because everyone understands the pleasure of them. And, you know, people can easily relate those same teachings to substances, but conversationally, it's really common for people to not be able to control their tongue and just to say whatever comes to mind. And now not only are we cleaning up the rupture that initially happened, but we have to clean up the rupture of the words that we spoke while there was a rupture. Yeah. And self-restraint really is saying, oof, baby, I need a minute because I feel like all of this energy coming up. And if I don't take a minute, like I'm not gonna be my best self in this conversation. And I want that for us, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, just to highlight what we were talking about a few moments ago with the sexual practice is essentially edging without release, and you can do that independently. That's an easier practice practice than doing it with a woman or another human that you're really attracted to.
SPEAKER_01Um Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_03And yeah, restraint in voice is really important that comes through a lot of different ways. Uh, what we teach in our annual course excavation when we get to the throat chakra is that you know, most people think that the throat chakra is blocked or not moving when you can't speak truth. But the real dysfunction is when you are overspeaking, you can't stop talking, right? You have outbursts, you raise your voice at your woman, you make commitments that you can't keep. Uh, you you people please, and you tell people things that they want to hear and not what's true for you. And so the ability to bite your tongue, to ask for a moment of space, to say, actually, no, I can't do that, or I can't do that right now. That's a practice of self-restraint too.
SPEAKER_01For sure. And the gifts of self-restraint as you continue to practice it are you don't have to clean up so many messes. Like that is that's the basic function. Like, if I can practice self-restraint, I don't have to feel the hangover the next day. I don't have to feel the drug come down the next day. I don't have to feel the shame for breaking all these promises to myself the next day. I don't have to have bloating and then not want to be social or be in pictures because I ate so much food during that binge or you know, all these things. I don't have to double down on the repair process because I spoke words I didn't mean. Yeah. And how stressful is it to carry empty promises because not only do you did you not want to make the promise in the first place, but now you're in this like huge energy leak of like, do I follow through and stress myself out and continue to abandon myself, or do I not? And then I fail. It's like a lose-lose situation when you don't have self-restraint with your mouth.
SPEAKER_03It shows up everywhere. I wasn't able to not have that fourth cup of coffee this morning, and now I'm crashing in the afternoon, or I wasn't able to not have a second helping at lunch, and I was so in my workflow in the morning, and now I feel like I need to take a nap. You know, it it is so hindering in in all areas of life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I don't know if there's really like much medicine and circling back to this, but it's coming up, and I am shocked that it didn't before. But when we were talking about like full restraint versus or full abstinence versus self-restraint, you know, something that's come through in this refeeding process for my 40-day fast is like people are like, whoa, a 40-day fast. Like I didn't even know people could go that long without food. And honestly, I might have said this in the fasting podcast, but the 40-day fast was easy compared to the refeeding process. It's like the process of really wanting to care for my body well and having a deeper understanding of the way my body communicates with me now than ever, of what she actually wants to eat versus just not having to make the decision at all. I mean, every single bite is a decision. You know, it's like, am I gonna eat this meal? Yes or no? What am I gonna eat? How much am I gonna eat? Okay, I'm gonna, it's really how much am I gonna make? Okay, okay, now that it's made, am I gonna eat this bite? Okay, in what order? Okay, now am I still hungry or am I full? And you really have to move slowly. Like we're probably taking triple the time at meals in the past just couple of days than we normally have in the past. And we're not neither of us has failed to like put food away when we needed to, you know, and that's like a huge deal. I also used to like finish everything on my plate. There's been some meals that neither of us or one of us has chosen not to eat, even when the other one is eating simply because of how we felt. And, you know, not that people should not be eating, but like our bodies are going through a lot of changes right now. So we happen to be questioning those things and listening. And it's so much harder to grow this capacity to make those moment-to-moment decisions because it really is a moment-to-moment decision. And what I used to share when I had more like rampant addiction tendencies is the only thing that gets rid of the decision to not engage with this coping strategy that's bad for me is doing it. Well, like, like the choice to not do it just presents the exact same choice two seconds later and presents the exact same. So for someone who's pretty deep in this process of like not having any self-restraint, it's kind of a nightmare because like the only thing that gets you through it is maybe if you sit with it long enough, you'll eventually get a breath, or you go to sleep and you wake up feeling better. And then over time, those cycles cycle through a bit faster. But I really want to honor like the process of when people really struggle with this and really are just beginning. Like it really is, it feels like a never-ending hell for but lack of a better word, where it's like I am stuck in this perseveration on if I'm gonna do this thing or not. And at some point, like I just feel like I have to give in because I reach a level of exhaustion. And if that exhaustion doesn't bring me to sleep, then it will bring me to this activity. And so something else that can help with the process of self-restraint, which we were talking about with also ending our meals, is like getting another ritual. You know, it's not just about removing the thing or stopping the behavior in the moment when it's enough. But can you give your body a cue also that the behavior is complete? So the example that was given, slash we talked about with okay, we're done with our meal and we're not totally feeling satiated, but our bodies are done digesting is drinking some tea. Or we go to our altar every night and like start a stretch and a meditation practice. And that kind of cues to our body that like the option to eat is complete.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. Drink some tea, have a sparkling water, brush your teeth, like signal to your body that you've actually reached that point of conscious choice and you've made a choice. And once you've chosen, stop choosing. That's something that we say in regards to relationship, but also in this process of breaking free of impulses. And you're sharing about your refeeding, and I think that illustrates perfectly that it takes more mastery to be able to choose consciously than it does to remove a choice entirely. I'm gonna totally butcher and simplify this Socrates' quote, but he said any fool can fast, but it takes a real man to refeed intelligently. And you've been experiencing that. And it's much more challenging to have the choices reintroduced. And that's really where this skill is built, right? The ability to dance between options instead of keeping yourself pigeonholed into just one.
SPEAKER_01So if someone wanted a way to signal that the option to choose is complete because they are practicing this self-restraint practice, we have some examples for food. But like if someone is thinking about engaging sexually with someone, I'm trying to brainstorm like what the sign would be.
SPEAKER_03Once you've chosen that you're not gonna wash the porn or engage sexually with this person or send a nude to your ex, like call your grandma or spend or spend some time with your niece or nephew. Yeah. Right. Or get in these places that are innocent and definitely not sexual.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's good. Like call someone who completely cuts the sexual energy. That's a that's a great suggestion, actually. And then for something like substances, whether it's like alcohol or cannabis or something else, you know, there's there's a lot of those things that feel most alluring when we're feeling ungrounded. So I actually feel like the cue for breath work and intention is the best for accessing the choice. But then also once the choice is made, there must be something that kind of like engages the 3D version of you. So whether it's breath work or movement or a really good meal, like not just like fast food, but like I'm cooking, I'm gonna cook myself a meal to like really get into the pleasure of my body, I think are really helpful things for substances. And you might not want to do all that, but no one wants to be in self-restraint. Like the story that, oh, well, it's just easier for me to like take a substance than it is for me to cook myself quality food or do movement, or you know, I don't feel like talking to my grandma right now. So it wasn't an accessible choice. Like, no one wants to make the choice to have self-restraint. You never feel like it. That is the point. Yeah. And that is, I was saying to you earlier, I use this example all the time, but no one gets stronger in the gym lifting a weight they can already lift. So you're not going to develop self-restraint by making the choice for self-restraint that's easy. Like when you want to make the decision, your self-restraint is not getting stronger. It's only in those moments when you don't feel like it that it's actually strengthening.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And that version of you is gonna kick and scream inside of you. You might feel this like weird impulse to like cry, like, I don't want to. Your recommendation to use or not use a substance to move the body is like so great. You like and something kind of intense, like a 10-minute emom, you know, do like 10 burpees every minute on the minute, or you do max push-ups like three or four times, like something that kind of like takes it out of you, like kind of kicks the wind out of that sail that wants to smoke or use or drink. It's like, oh, I just made like a healthy decision. You know, and the healthier that you are, the less that you want to do unhealthy things. The more you trust yourself, the less you want to do things that erode your self-trust.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this goes back to what we were talking about where it's like humans are intelligent. If you start to get as many repetitions with healthy strategies as you have with unhealthy strategies, you will change. Like it's not fake that people are telling you that you feel better when you eat well or you exercise well or you do breath work. Like it's not fake. You just don't have enough reps doing it to believe it. So the more repetitions your body gets with these healthy things, you will naturally start to choose them. It's like having water and whiskey on the table at the same time. It's like if you've only ever drank whiskey, then you're gonna be like, I like the taste of whiskey so much better. But like once it's 90 degrees outside and you're sweating and you don't feel good and you're kind of sick, and those two things are next to each other, you compare how you feel when you drink whiskey to how you feel when you drink water, and your body will start to be like, oh, wait. Yeah, water's actually kind of nice. Maybe I should drink more of that. And the more water you drink, the better you will feel. And every time you choose water, your body will feel that. And eventually you just won't be drinking whiskey anymore. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And you're only drinking the whiskey because you need something strong, you need intensity to feel. And you can feel, oh my gosh, I I've had some water that's like so good and delicious and crisp in my life. And as you start to pull back from these things that have their hold on you, you can experience richness and things that don't require as much of a tax on you. And I think a good place to start to tie this together is you know, I teach three-part process of transformation. The first part is awareness. I'm aware that I'm doing this thing, I'm aware that I don't like how I feel. And awareness is not enough. And the second part that I'm gonna speak most about is the integration phase, which we've been talking a lot about today. And the integration phase requires you taking opposite action. It requires you getting uncomfortable again and again. The visual for this is a hammer and a really stubborn nail. And you have to do it repetitively again and again when you don't want to. When you want to smoke, you do the pull-ups. When you want to jack off, you call grandma. And again and again, then again, then again. And eventually that nail drives deeper, it becomes more secure and stable. And you do that long enough and you get the reward, which is the third phase of the process, which is embodiment, which is I actually don't have to battle with that part of myself anymore that wants to watch porn. I just don't watch porn. That's just not something that I do. We talked about it earlier in the podcast, like, oh, there's a guy that just like smokes weed at night because he smokes weed at night. That's just what he does. And then there's the guy that spends an hour at a night studying in his desired area of expertise because that's just what he does. And both of those require the same amount of energy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this choice of there's this imagery that someone gave me once of, you know, there's two two wolves inside of you, and which one are you feeding? And it's really like all parts of you just want to feel connected. That's that's the crux of it. But they have different strategies to get there. And so one strategy of you doesn't want to watch porn, and the other one does want to watch porn, and the not watching porn helps you feel more connected to the version of you you want to be, and the watching porn helps you feel more connected to the girl on the screen, you know, but it is kind of like creating a false experience of connection in that way. And so every time you choose self-restraint, you are literally investing in this version of yourself that you want, you know, this imagery that you gave at the beginning, I love of like this rotting identity on the inside that's like meant to be buried five steps back, but you're still carrying it with you. And because it's inside of you, you can't step into the new identity before you. And the way that the integration phase really works is if you see the neural pathways in your brain as paths, like literally paths that you walk. The one that sends the message from one area of the brain to the other to engage in the activity that you're trying to quit or that you're trying to have self-restraint within, whether it's fully quitting or just modulating the behavior, is essentially paved in gold. You've walked it so many times. You've let that part of you win over and over and over that you're gonna finish all the food on the plate, even though your stomach hurts, or that you're going to have sex with someone today and someone else tomorrow, and you might even pay one of them because that has been the pattern. And that's what's giving you the dopamine hit. But the pathway to the version of you that you are trying to get to is barely formed. It's like literally walking through the jungle with a machete, and you cannot get through it without a guide. Like, it's funny. I'm like, oh yeah, and also get a coach. That's not really like wasn't really the point of what I was gonna say. It was just like it's so dense and so unwalked and uncharted that to actually get the message down that pathway, it's like, you're right, it's almost impossible. You are fighting an uphill battle. And the only way to get that pathway paved in gold is to walk it. And so even if it's not perfect, like even if you do eat past your limit sometimes, or you do drugs for Pride Weekend, or you go to a party and you engage with people in a way you don't want, or speak to your partner in a way you don't want, it's like it actually isn't about perfection. It is about noticing when it happens, this awareness key and having the reflection to shift the behavior and next time doing it a little better. And every time you make that choice, you like knock a vine down. And then the next time you walk that path, it's a little bit easier. And the next time you walk that path, it's a little bit easier. And slowly the path that was paved in gold gets walked so less frequently that it's now the one that needs to be walked with. Machete because it can barely, you know, get a signal through. And this other one that you've worked so hard to choose over and over and over and over again. And truly, it must be over and over and over and over again. Now that one is finally walkable. And eventually in this embodiment phase, it's paved in gold. It's like the signal gets sent and that's the direction it goes by default.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01But to actually get to that place, it's like, okay, I've been sharing all about my eating disorder. It's like I was actively in recovery for two decades. And only just, I've said this at many different phases of life, but only just now am I like, oh, like this is what healing it feels like. Like my integrity, my trust, my reverence for my body is like so locked in. Like I don't miss a day of care or movement or nourishment for my body is like next level. And that's the default, you know? And but to get there, it literally took two decades. It doesn't mean it's going to take you two decades to get through your thing, but it's just to prove the point that it is constant and continuous effort. And if you don't see effort or like change in two weeks of trying something, it doesn't mean you're barking up the wrong tree. It just means that that those roads need to be paved. And that really is like how the pathways work in your brain. It's not just imagery, it's like the signal has to be able to be sent that way. And the more you practice it, the easier it can be sent.
SPEAKER_03You went off on that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. It's good.
SPEAKER_03It's great. Absolutely. And you know, it's taken you two decades, but there's been a lot of different levels along the way. But somebody can make with intention and repetition and dedicated guidance and support, somebody can make a ton of progress in 60 to 90 days.
SPEAKER_01For sure. I mean, I did not have the level, the level of support that we offer and that some other people offer is really like I always say like a level of excellence.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I really didn't have that support. Right. You know, and so it's kind of like a sell for the work that we do, whether people work with us or other people. It's like this, we say it all the time, but like having support will always get you where you're going faster because the person that you work with should have been where you've been. And I didn't have that. And that to me was part of my initiation and training ground into this work so I could really understand all the layers. But like, there's no reason it should be taking anyone else two decades to get through this if they have consistent support.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. And um yeah, thank you for sharing that. We've got some homework.
SPEAKER_00Great.
SPEAKER_03Everybody has a to-do list. Too few people have a not to-do list. So write yourself a not to-do list. Things that you are not gonna engage in or things that you're gonna introduce a conscious pause in front of before engaging. And then the other thing that I'll offer is there's this saying that if you knew better, you would do better. And I think that's bullshit.
SPEAKER_01I also think that's bullshit.
SPEAKER_03That's like if you have the awareness, you'll do better. Right? It's like you know that you want to say no to the thing. You know that you want to stop doing the thing, but for whatever reason, you can't. And that's because there is some not so mysterious stuff underneath the hood that is preventing you from saying no, from acting in the way that you want to act. And so we have a freebie for you. It's in the description notes. Um, it's marked as reclamation. That is a free video and a meditation that will really pull the curtain back on what this mysterious resistance is and how you can break through it to shake off the exhaustion, to shake off that feeling that you're living out of integrity, and actually reclaim your life force and start channeling it exactly in the direction that you want to go. So grab it at the link in the description. We love you.
SPEAKER_00We love you. We'll see you next time.