Episode 23 - You Don’t Have to Be Soft to Stop Being Numb

Somewhere along the way, a lot of men got handed two bad choices.

Be the stone wall.

Or become something that feels fake as hell.

And if those are the only options, I understand why a lot of men choose silence.

But I don’t think those are the only options.

This episode is about the space in between — the place where a man can be honest without falling apart, strong without shutting down, and real without turning his life into a performance.

It starts with a friendship that probably doesn’t make sense from the outside.

But maybe that’s the point.

Take what’s useful. Leave what’s not. Choose — and keep moving.

If this hit, share it with someone who needs to hear it. 

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Presented by Madison’s Path
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

I've got a friend at work. I'm not going to use his real name. I didn't ask permission to tell this story. So I'm just going to call him Mr. F. Now, Mr. F and I, we met, oh, I guess about 15 years ago, give or take. And if you looked at the two of us standing side by side, you would not immediately think we were friends. You you'd honestly look at us like these two, really?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Different backgrounds, different lives, different ways of moving through the world. But that's not the point.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

At that point in our lives when we met, we were both carrying some things in life and at home that men don't always get to talk about. Not because we don't feel it, not because it doesn't matter, but because somewhere along the way, a lot of us learned to just lock it down or become something you don't want to be. And yet somehow, Mr. F and I found a middle ground. We could talk. And I mean, I mean really talk. Not in some performative, dramatic, look at me being vulnerable kind of way, and not in the old school heart of stone bullshit alpha male, I'm fine, everything's fine, shut up, rub some dirt on it, and keep moving. Kind of way, either.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Just honest, respectful, man to man.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

And over time, that became family. We we call each other fam. When we see each other, we stop what we're doing, we'll cross a huge busy room and hug it out. And I know some people probably look at us and don't quite get it. And honestly, I think that's the point. Because our bond wasn't built on looking the same. It wasn't built on the same backgrounds. It wasn't built on talking the same or coming from the same lifestyle. It's built in a space that most men aren't taught how to live in. And it's this space in between shutting everything down and turning every feeling into a performance. And that's what I want to talk about today because I don't think true masculinity requires emotional shutdown. But I also don't think that emotional honesty requires a man to become helpless or fragile or fake. There's a middle ground. Some of the strongest men I know have learned how to live there. Welcome to the Man in Motion Podcast, episode number 23. You don't have to be soft to stop being numb. I'm Bob. This is a show about what it means to be a man in today's world, navigating real life with strength, purpose, and clarity. No hype, no hacks, no fixing yourself. Just awareness, responsibility, and choosing a direction while you're already in motion. Ever forward.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Let's get to it. You know, it seems like when you're getting your instruction manual on being a man, right? Um there's two separate plays you can you can follow.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

There's the performative alpha male bullshit, heart of stone, lock it down, don't feel it, rub some dirt on it.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

School of thought. Where your job is to just contain everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

And then there's the melodramatic, overperformative, uh, every feeling needs to have a soliloquy soliloquy, I can never say that word, right? Soliloquy attached to it, and you express everything. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying one is better than the other. I'm not saying one's right and one's wrong. I'm saying they're extremes. And they're both useful tools, they both have their place. But the problem comes in when one or the other becomes the whole man. Or man or woman, really. Because this is true for you too, ladies. You know, that that heart of stone contain everything, stuff it into a box, it looks like strength. And there are times where it's gonna help you stay functional.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

But it can become dangerous. And then on the other side of the spectrum, you got the Express Everything camp.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

It'll help a man name what's real. Don't get me wrong. Don't get that twisted. I'm not saying this doesn't have its uses. And it can help you keep from rotting on the inside with this stuff that we stuff down that we never let go. But where it gets dangerous is again where it becomes performance or excuse for behavior.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

You know, a lot of men inherited one tool and are now being handed a different tool.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

What do we do with that? What what's what you're taught one way and then society's expecting another, and neither one works.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Let's look at each one a little closer. So there's the first one, which I I call the box method, right? The box method essentially is this idea that when you have a feeling that's that's too big, it's too big for the moment.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

You can't deal with it right now for whatever reason. You don't have the time, you don't have the space, you're not in a in a place that you feel safe doing that with. Whatever, whatever the reason. You take it, you stuff it down into a box, and you close the lid, you put the box on a shelf. And it's a very useful tool. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying not to do that because there are times where it's going to get you through the moment, it's going to get you through what's going on. It's going to get you to where you have time and space and safety to really explore the thing that you stuffed into that box. The problem comes in when you stuff it in the box, you put it on the shelf and you leave it on that fucking shelf and you never touch it again. Problem is in never opening it again because it just festers. Whatever you put in the box, it stays in the box until you let it out of the box. The ideal with this is that you get to that place of safety, of comfort, of having time, uh, being surrounded by people that you trust to help you deal with it. Then you open the box and you pull it out and you process whatever bits of it you can. And it might be that it's too big to process at that moment. So you you you can pull some of it out, deal with some of it, put the rest of it back, and then you put the leftovers back up on the shelf until you have more time. That's what the box is useful for.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

And the problem comes in when we don't do that, when we never take it off the shelf. The box, it's a very useful tool.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

It's a very useful tool. It's one I learned in the United States Marine Corps, quite honestly. Um but the box was never meant to become a home, and that's that's where it goes wrong. So now let's look at the opposite end. Where expression. Expression exists. Expression is uh used properly, it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

And honestly, it's it's where you get to open the box. Because expression allows you to look at uncomfortable truths.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

The problem is not expressing the feelings. Whatever those feelings are, whatever those thoughts are, whatever those things that you put into that box, whatever they are, so now we're going to look at the opposite end of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

We've talked about stuffing it in the box and putting it on the shelf. The opposite of it is where everything's expressed immediately, and everything's dialed up to ten. Where your feelings become less about processing information and more about performance, more about being seen, more about being heard.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

I don't think that's quite the right word because it being heard is a good thing. Problem's not expression. The problem is not being heard. The problem is when all of that becomes about performance. And look at me and notice me. That's not healthy. That's not that's not what those feelings are there for. Healthy expression is about honestly saying what you're feeling.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

It's having a real conversation, it's being heard by your person, you know, by by naming what's real.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

And by by allowing yourself to feel that. You know, with feelings, I tell people this all the time, and I I say it in the unstuck class constantly, that that when it comes to your feelings, the only way out is through. You know, it's it's an adage that we learned in assaulter school, where when you're being ambushed, the only way out of an ambush is to assault into the ambush. And this is true with your feelings. Your feelings can ambush you out of nowhere. Problem with that is the only way out is through. You have to feel those feelings.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

You have to allow yourself to process them. Problem becomes when expression stops being a tool and it starts becoming a stage. So, what is this middle ground? What is in the middle?

SPEAKER_01 11:21

That's a great question. I can already tell you that there's going to be emails sent asking me what the middle ground is. What's the middle ground? Well, to start with, the middle ground is the answer is not always boxing it up and putting it on the shelf.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

The answer is not always expressing everything to the tenth degree. The answer lies somewhere between them. And it's about knowing which tool is appropriate for that moment. It's knowing what you're comfortable with in that moment. Because my answer won't be your answer. It's it's gonna be different for each person, but it's gonna be somewhere in that middle. It's you know, it's it's about having emotional discipline. It means feeling what's real and and talking about it honestly to others or to yourself. So that's that's important. Talking about it honestly with yourself and others, choosing how you move with it, choosing how you deal with it, actively choosing, and then staying responsible. And that's where the extremes fall apart.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Because if you're just sticking it on the shelf and never dealing with it, that's not responsibility, that's avoidance. And if you're turning it into a performance where everyone else has to deal with it, well, that's not responsible either.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Because it's your feelings, your feelings, you have to deal with them. You know, and in either case, if you're on either extreme, you're allowing those feelings to control you.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Because if it's sitting on the shelf and you keep shoving it onto the shelf, excuse me, it's always going to keep trying to fall off the shelf. Michael Singer has a great example of this. Um, he talks about picture whatever feelings you're trying to stick on that shelf, or as he says, he'd push it down, shove it down as a helium balloon, right? You've got this helium balloon, and it represents all the feelings you're trying to suppress. And you're trying to shove it down. You're trying to shove it down on the floor so you don't have to deal with it. What happens to a helium balloon? It wants to rise. So you have to keep pushing it down, pushing it down, pushing it down, holding it down.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

And you have to keep putting all this effort into doing so. What happens if you just let it go?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

What happens if you just stop putting that effort into holding it down and let the balloon rise and go as it will? Yeah, there's gonna be a little of a little bit of anxiety. There's gonna be a a moment of indecision, there's going to be a hard few moments as you're dealing with the fact that this balloon is rising, but eventually, poof, the balloon's gone.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

You're not putting all that effort into holding it down, and you're just watching it drift off.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Put all this effort into suppressing or performing these emotions, where if we just responsibly deal with them, maybe not immediately. Maybe we we do need some space, maybe we do need some time to prepare ourselves to be ready to do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

But once we do it, we're no longer putting all that effort into holding that balloon down. The other thing that strikes me about this, and this is something that we miss, so we miss the fact that feelings are information, but we mistake them to be instructions.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Your feelings matter. Your feelings are telling you that there's something happening that you have a certain response to.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

It could be good, could be bad. But the the problem is when we mistake those those signals for commands. You know, for example, anger it might point to a boundary. But we mistake it to mean it's time to lash out. Sadness might point to a loss. Anxiety, clearest sign of uncertainty I've ever seen. One a lot of us deal with is numbness. And that's gonna point to overload. Feelings can be big. But when we remember that they're not in charge and that they're just information and not instructions, it changes your perspective on them. My relationship with Mr.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

F lives in that middle, that middle ground. And it's particular to us. Don't get it twisted. I'm not saying everyone needs to have a relationship like that. That ours is the model. It's not, but it's perfect for us. For him and I, this is how we interact, this is where we connect in the world, and that's where our brotherhood lives. And I think if more of the world could get to that point where it's about respect and trust and honesty and enough discipline to tell the truth without losing yourself to the control of the feelings, I think the world would be a much, much better place.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

I think we're gonna continue this one next week. Because there's a whole nother topic attached to this. And this story with Mr. F. But I think that's gonna be next week's episode. So for this week, here's what I want you to take with you.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

You don't have to be soft to stop being numb. You don't have to become fragile to be honest. Strength does not come from not having anything inside you, it's knowing what's there and choosing how you move with it.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

I think that's it for today. Take what's useful, leave what's not, choose, and keep moving.