The Weight Men Carry with Jake Ross, MSW, LISW-S

There’s a version of masculinity that looks strong on the outside but feels like silent overload on the inside. In this episode of Lumen, hosts Christopher Mooney, LCSW and Kenyon Phillips, LMSW are joined by Jake Ross, MSW, LISW-S, a therapist specializing in men’s mental health, to explore the invisible weight that many men carry. Drawing from Jake’s work with outwardly functioning but internally overwhelmed men, the conversation introduces what Jake calls the “Man Plate”: an expanding set of expectations placed on men today that ranges from provider and protector to emotionally available partner, engaged father, and steady presence under pressure. Christopher, Kenyon, and Jake examine how boys raised to value toughness and silence often become men who are expected to be emotionally fluent without ever being taught the language. They also explore Jake’s Appalachian lens, examining how regional values such as resilience, responsibility, loyalty, and community can serve as powerful protective factors against isolation, stoicism, shame, and unprocessed trauma. This episode offers a compassionate look at fatherhood, anxiety, emotional suppression, and the quiet cost of saying “I’m fine,” while offering practical ways for men to name what they’re carrying, reconnect with other men, and begin sharing a burden that was never meant to be carried alone.

To learn more about Jake Ross, MSW, LISW-S, visit the Ross Wellness Group website and connect with him on LinkedIn and Instagram. 

To book a free consultation with Christopher, Kenyon, or the other providers at Lumen Therapy Collective, visit lumentherapycollective.com. 

Follow Lumen on Instagram: @lumen_therapy_collective

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Lumen is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, diagnosis, or treatment. If you’re experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact local emergency services or a trusted mental health professional.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Mumen, a podcast that sheds light on mental health, relationships, and what it means to be human. I'm Christopher Mooney, LCSW, and I'm Kenyon Phillips, LMSW.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Each episode we unpack psychological patterns that affect our relationships. No jargon, no judgment.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Just thoughtful conversations to help you understand yourself and others a little more clearly.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

We are here with uh somebody uh we are so excited to be talking to today, a like-minded uh therapist, uh Jake Ross.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Jake, we're so happy you could join us today. We I think we met on on LinkedIn of all places, as as one is supposed to these days. And you know, I started reading your posts and realized that we I think we had so much overlap in what Kenyon and I talk about and a lot of the things you were bringing up. So, you know, we were like, hey, we got to reach out to this guy and and kind of see more of what you're about. So, you know, welcome, first of all. Tell us a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much for having me. So I'm Jake Ross. I'm in central Ohio. I'm an L-I-S-W here in Ohio. I'm also licensed in Virginia, Florida, and Indiana. And I'm really focused in my practice, the Ross Wellness Group, on men and men's mental health, really niched down to the millennial man, the new dad, the new husband, the high-pressure work environment, trying to balance all the roles and just really not feeling like themselves. And, you know, every day that I'm doing it, I'm falling more in love with this work. Also very active on LinkedIn. And I will say you two are some of the many amazing connections I've made there and couldn't agree more on the overlap and love getting in a room to talk about this stuff that I'm so passionate about with other folks who are passionate about it. So thank you for the invite. Amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Now I detect an accent. Jake, you want to talk about your accent?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Now that's a loaded question. So I am born and raised in central Ohio. I spent about 10 years down in West Virginia getting my degrees, and folks in West Virginia told me I had an accent because I talked like an Ohioan. I think that, you know, we all have little accents, but that mine is just completely the normal way to talk, which of course is the funniest thing in the world that A, there's a normal anything, right, other than sitting on the dryer. And B, that we all have these little idiosyncrasies that we do in our speech, no matter where we're from. And I think it could be such a cool way to get to know folks a little bit. But yeah, I think I carry a little bit of my central Ohio and a little bit of my Appalachian that's in my DNA and that's in my journey accent around.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

I love that. And we're going to come back to the Appalachian aspect of your journey and how it's motivated you and inspired you and been a huge part of your work. But there's a version of masculinity that you and Chris and I have been talking about that it looks strong from the outside, but it feels uh it can feel like a silent overwhelm or overload from the inside. We're talking about the condition of being a man where you're providing, you're protecting, you're showing up. But somewhere in all of that, you're also carrying a certain amount of anxiety that we don't necessarily talk about.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah, I think it's this idea that you have all these you you feel the pull for all these responsibilities, right? And Jake, you mentioned like that millennial, the millennial man kind of like some of those the responsibilities of hey, I need to contribute, I need to, you know, maintain and provide. And then how do we how do we actually deal with the anxiety that that brings up? How do we cope with it? And Kenyon, you and I have talked before about kind of what that looks like, some of the maladaptive ways that comes out with anger and some other maladaptive behaviors. But Jake, what when you start to think about the issues that men deal with with mental health, what are what are some of the things that come up for you? What are you seeing?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I think for me, I've been reflecting a lot lately. I was I was diagnosed with ADHD in December of uh last year, and it's kind of really opened up my perspective on my own experience. I've always been, you know, a little sensitive, a little emotionally connected, a little whatever you want to call it, but I felt a lot of big emotions throughout my life, and it felt like a defect. You know, I felt like I wasn't the man that I wanted to be. I wasn't showing up as what I thought I was supposed to show up in the world. And when I start to realize where that message came from, like, you know, that message came from the TV shows I was watching and the movies I was seeing and my friends' ideas of what it meant to be manly whatever else. And this year of my life has been such a turning point of, you know, actually being in connection with all those emotions, being able to talk about them, know how they feel, know what they do for me makes me like a superhuman. It's a superpower and it's not a weakness. It's a feature and it's not a bug. And I think 99.9% of the guys who walk into my office are thinking similar things, feeling similar things, and throwing that on the table and saying that, right? It's actually we're we're tougher if we talk about it. We're we're stronger if we ask for help. It really just kind of shifts that whole paradigm.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Oh, I love that. Yeah, absolutely. Jake, I'm wondering, is that were these things coming up for you before you found your way into this work, or was this something that you were doing this work in mental health, and then all of a sudden you were, you know, kind of reflecting on it and you're like, hey, this this is the thing that really matters. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Another great one. You know, I've been I've I got working with a new therapist about six months ago or so, and it's my first opportunity to explore internal family systems, and I've been so intrigued by IFS in general. And can you give us a quick breakdown?

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Because we're we're committed to like being jargon-free. Can you just give it a quick breakdown on what IFS is? Internal family.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yes, thank you so much for saying it. I am trying to be jargon-free as well. I appreciate that. Um, so internal family systems is an evidence-based therapeutic practice coined by Richard Schwartz, and it's a lot of this focus on we have these different parts inside of us, you know, these different parts that feel like they're not manly enough, that, you know, they're being judged, that they're not going to be accepted, whatever else. But these parts start to get into our psyche, they get into our self-talk, and then they drive our behavior. I am a cognitive behavioral therapist at the roots. And in cognitive behavioral therapy, everything is about you have a thought, it makes you have a feeling, and then you go and do the action, right? And that feeling is not bad. It's the action. When I go punch the wall because I'm angry, that's when I end up having negative consequences, but having the anger isn't. So I wheel all that together to say I brought up internal family systems because I think I was born to do this work. I don't remember a time that I was not overly empathetic to everything around me. I don't remember a time that I didn't want to help people. I told people I wanted to be a teacher when I was a kid because it was like the thing I knew that helped people. I was before I found this field. So I say all of that to say it's been a 36-year journey of me finding more and more out about myself and feeling more and more like I am in the exact right place at the exact right time until I take one more step tomorrow, and then I'm even more in that right place. But it's kind of a combination. I didn't really get into my own mental health journey until I was 27. So I would say for the first 27 years of my life, I was feeling all these things, witnessing all these things, and not understanding them. And for the last nine, I am actively trying to unwind and understand them all. And as I do that, I realize I'm not the anomaly. You know, I sent a text to my two best friends who had kids before I did when my daughter was born, and I was just like, what do we do, guys? Like, this is hard. And they're just like, oh yeah, dude, we we've had a side text chat going on without you since both of our kids were born, because this is really hard and exhausting, and we need one another. And I'm like, we're best friends, and I had no idea that you guys were struggling. And I'm actually a therapist. Like, I could talk to you about some skills that might work with this struggle. Like, let's all talk about this more. So I really like that it's as we normalize it more, it's just more of walking into the same rooms with the same people and realizing that they're having the same struggles as us. We just weren't saying it.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

That's incredible. Not saying it and not and and not feeling like they could reach out, right? Like people kind of like not feeling that there is that there are other people to kind of include in that circle.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Like it's a flaw, like it's a weakness, like, you know, I haven't talked to anyone who's got two kids under five and is trying to work full time. And it's like, actually, I wake up every morning and I'm like, this is cake. I'm not stressed about anything. You know, there's no burning fires, there's no thing that I'm not gonna be able to take care of. Like, this is hard if you have all the money in the world, if you have all the support in the world. No matter what you have, it's still hard. And what does not talking about it do for us? You know, I think for me, that's another bit of my full circle moment. My my second child is my son, and he's gonna be two in June, and he's likely gonna have some of these same things that I have, and I don't want him to feel like I did for the first 27 years of his life. So I'm gonna model that it's fine to say, man, I got broken up with by that girl I thought was the love of my life in fifth grade, and it's caused me a lot of negative emotions, and let's talk about those and what we do with them.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Totally. My heart got tranced in fifth grade too.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, that seems to be. I think mine was actually I'm gonna go mine was in first grade.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Destroyed.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Destroyed. Ooh. Girl ratted me out. I was I was I was joking with one of my friends writing writing bad words on a piece of paper. Ooh, and she brought the she brought the piece of paper to the teacher and uh I can't trust her anymore. Destroyed. Oh yeah, it was over from that life therapy. I had to become a therapist after that one.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

I love it too that you're modeling vulnerability, Jake, because I just want to I love seeing men model vulnerability and that you reframe it as courage. Like, hey, this is the brave, tough thing to do is to talk about the hard stuff and to ask for help. That is just to me, that's so brilliant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Well, thank you. And you know, it's funny. I think I'm just putting this connection together as we're talking, but y'all don't know because we've only met behind the computer. But I'm like six, five, and I used to be like 300 pounds. I've lost about 100 pounds in the last year, which has been another part of my journey. But I've always been this like really large guy with a really deep, loud voice. But you know, everyone always is like, oh yeah, he's just like the big teddy bear. Like I've never been the masculine, I'm gonna throw my weight around, I'm gonna be this really big tough guy. And it's all worked out for me. So why do we think that we have to be that way, right? And what do we get out of being that way?

SPEAKER_03 10:25

That's a wonderful point to make. You definitely give teddy bear vibes. And modeling again, modeling something other than the big tough guy is so important, especially for future generations of men.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, I think that's that's kind of the key. Uh, you know, as we I think about that all the time with my own kids, my daughter and my son. And my son actually turned 10 today. So I'm like, I this is this is really appropriate as I'm going through and kind of like reflecting back on uh his his process and and our relationship together and just kind of the messaging. We were we were camping this weekend for Cup Scouts are out in the rain and it's 40 degrees, it's super cold. And so at so many points I was thinking like, hey, is this is this where I I would have thought like hey, you gotta just toughen up and get through it or do I be a little more caring? Like there's it's it's at every level. It's like dealing with the hard stuff, but then it's also dealing with this, the the small things in life. And how do you how do you convey to your kid what is appropriate? And and sometimes you do want to say, Yeah, you gotta get up and brush yourself off and keep going, but other times you have to be a little more caring. So it's trying to find that balance too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Yeah. And I love that. Like, you know, I'm so huge on resilience. I know we're gonna talk a lot about Appalachia, but a lot about what I love about Appalachia is the resilience. And, you know, I I that's such a great example of we can say, like, okay, that was tough and and let's get to the other side, right? I my daughter's four years old. I'm pretty sure she's 14 with the way that she interacts emotionally. And I just always say, hey, we're having a big feeling. Let me know when you're ready to get to the other side, right? If you want to run around screaming, throwing stuff for a minute, go for it. And then let's sit down and let's talk about what we were feeling and what was going on, and let's show that we have that resilience to learn from it and to move forward. And I think that's the difference of rub some dirt on it, suck it up versus, oh, that really had to hurt. How are you doing? How can we get better? And it's probably gonna happen again. How are we gonna bounce back quicker next time, right? Get knocked down seven times, stand up eight, whatever that old analogy is. But yeah, I really love that resilience frame there.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

I do too. And one of the again, one of the focus points that you you've talked about is like, okay, there's going back to men, outwardly functioning men who are kind of like internally overwhelmed. Is that a fair way to put it?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Oh, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

And you have this idea, the man plate. This concept, which I love man plates. About what men are caring now. And and uh we're we're big into food metaphors, right? We talked about the negativity buffet in another episode. So yeah, I'd love to hear about the man plate.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah, it's it's a funny thing that just totally has taken on a life of its own and it fits so well. But you know, the example I give, I my dad is an awesome dad. I really could not ask for much better of a dad, except for the fact that we never really talked about like emotional regulations, and he told me this second half and push-throughs sometimes, and he was doing the best of what he had, right? I don't hold it against him, but he was also traveling 70% of the year because, you know, I don't know if you can tell. I never wanted for anything. I had a very privileged childhood, got to do everything I wanted, got to go to school where I wanted all those good things, right? So he was providing, he was protecting, he was being a husband to my mom, he was being a dad to me and my sister, and he did all those things well. And I think he was exhausted, right? I think it was still a really tiring experience. And what he didn't do was be that emotional grounding presence. He didn't have those conversations. When that girl broke my heart in fifth grade, I was talking to my mom about it, right? And I don't want to be that for my kids. I want my kids to know I'm always here, I'm the steady place. You can talk to me about anything. But that's like a really big piece of the plead, right? Like I talk about it like it's real easy. And hey, just come do therapy with me and we'll get there in no time. Like it's a continuous improvement project. I'm working on that every day, and I think it's like I threw a big old porter house on my stake that was already full with entrees and sides. And now what do I do, right? Do I do I move something off? Like I guess I could just quit working, right? We don't need money to make sure that they're emotionally regulated. We can be homeless and they have really good emotional regulation and we'll be okay. Like, I don't think that's gonna work out well. I can not show up as the the husband that cares about my relationship and and then see what happens there, right? But I don't think that's gonna turn out well. I could not care about protecting them. I can just say, yeah, anyone can be around you at any time and people can walk into our house, whatever. Like, no matter what, I'm gonna have the negative consequence. So my plate didn't get bigger. You know, I work remotely, where I hop from meeting to meeting on the hour, and I work way more than I should because I can always hop on my computer at any point in time, right? So all of those pieces also grew while we threw on this big old porterhouse steak and said, get through it, deal with it, and don't eat it too quick, because then you'll get sick, right? Like what's my perfect playbook here?

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Right. Right. Less cream spinach, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

I can't remember that.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

I love cream spinach, so I know.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

I was gonna say that's better than steak for me.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Right. Seriously. So we're basically our what I'm getting this is the sense that our responsibilities as men have expanded. Nothing's been removed. And how do you help men with this? Like, what do we what do we have to acknowledge to to kind of make this easier or make this livable?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is acknowledging that suck, right? Like we we have to say that this is hard and we have to talk about it, and we have to know that I don't know about y'all, seven days in the week, I wouldn't say that four of them. I am on the clean plate club. I did everything that I wanted to, and I'm proud of all of it, right? And and that's okay too, right? We're gonna show up as 120% of ourselves some days, and we're gonna show up as 60% of ourselves some days. And how do we make sure that the overall average is an area that we're happy with? I really enjoy doing the man plate audit. Let's look at your man plate, right? What is your mashed potatoes? What is your cream spinach? What is your porterhouse steak? And then look at your values, right? I mean, if you all can't tell, I love what I do. Like I legitimately think I was born to do this. The only thing that I love more than this is being a dad to my two wonderful children. So when I'm working through dinner because I'm so passionate about providing for them, is it really matching up with my values? Because now they're not seeing me at dinner. We're not doing our daily gratitude exchange at dinner. Like I'm I'm losing out there and I'm trying to spin it and say, well, it's important because I'm providing and I'm doing this thing that I love, but is it really what I value in the right priority? And I think when we go through that audit, we start to see, oh, well, I keep saying yes to this person who, you know, wants to randomly hang out with me when it works for their time. And maybe that's not a value of mine. Maybe I would rather take care of myself, take care of my kids, give myself a break, rest, right? Like we didn't even talk about what what part of that plate is our rest, what part of that plate is our self-care, our relationships outside of our family and our spouses, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Right, right, right. Jake, I'm wondering. So you're talking about like this audit and kind of finding the what the cream spinach is, what the potatoes are, you know, you go through and kind of identify what's on the plate now. What do you think has changed over the generations? Like are have have the responsibilities themselves actually changed? Are the things that we're responsible responsible for changed? Or is it just different portions of it? Or is it both?

SPEAKER_00 17:51

That's a great question. I do I do think that they've changed. You know, I I cut my teeth in social work and child welfare. So I've heard a lot about what happens to kids in this world. So I'm like the most paranoid dad in the world, right? My daughter asked me the other day, like, when can she go sleep over at so-and-so's house? And I'm like, oh, when you're 28, I don't know. We're not giving sleepovers, right? I worked with juvenile sex offenders for four years. I'm not letting you into anyone's house that I'm not eyes on supervision. So I think that part of it, on top of like the, you know, I do some work and some training around teenagers and kiddos, and I think about this like I was in high school 20 years ago, and I could go run around these streets of the neighborhood and nobody worried about anything that was happening. And like, we don't have that now. You know, I've got a fenced-in backyard that I don't really let my kids play in unless I am out there watching them. Like, there's so much paranoia about everything that's happening. And then I'll bring on or bring back the like, you know, I think COVID and the pandemic just changed our world of work. It was already drifting a little bit. I was fortunate to be in a remote role before COVID made everyone remote, but I haven't gone to an office in eight years. You know, I rent an office part-time. I haven't gone to an office for a 40-hour work week since 2018. And I love it. I love the freedom that it gives me. I love that it allows me to do, you know, laundry and dishes during the workday sometimes, things that like I don't think my dad had a chance to do when he was working, right? But it also makes it so easy to say, oh, the kids are down. And, you know, my daughter said to me the other night, like, why are you always working after we go to sleep? And I'm like, because my goal is that we're gonna have this amazing thing that none of us has to work if we don't want to. And if you guys want to come do this with me when you're adults, then you can. And I don't want to do it when you're awake because I love having that time with you. So I do it when you're asleep and when you're at school. And, you know, that hurts. That hurts to say, but back to my man plate, back to my priorities, back to my values. I don't want to miss one sporting event when they are teenagers. So I'm trying to build this business that will allow me to have that freedom of time.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Right. And it's like it's it's this constant process, I think, that we get quite in of trying to give our children something we we either didn't have or we wanted to be different. Right. And that's and that's where I think we get kind of I don't know, that's always uh a focus for me. I look at like, you know, what was my experience growing up? What, you know, what what did I have? What did I want still? What where do I feel if there was any kind of deficit or even just a discrepancy in that? And and and kind of how do I provide my kids with that too? And that's what I hear in what you're saying is like, hey, I still had what I needed for the most part, but there were a couple of these things that I just I want this to be different for my kids.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

That's so spot on, and I keep telling my parents in the nicest way possible that they've set me up for failure and that I want better for my kids than I had. And I just told you I had it pretty darn good. So how do I make it better, right? I mean, one thing is I'm gonna get them the emotional regulation piece, they're gonna know that we can talk about that. But that's really easy for me, right? I can do that in my sleep, making sure that I can pay for them to get two degrees in a state that's not Ohio, making sure that I can always be here to support them in any way that they need. Like, I I had this awesome childhood, and I still have lingering impacts from that, and I want better from my kids. And I also have this like pie in the sky idea that my kids aren't gonna be 36, talking about how I messed them up when they were kids, right? Like, that's gonna happen inevitably. My kids are gonna talk about how we talked about too many emotions, right? I was I was too emotionally connected for them. But back to the values and the being a dad is my most important job, and being a good dad is my number one priority. So, how do I do that? And how do I do that while still keeping all the other plates spinning?

SPEAKER_03 21:34

I can so relate to that. Yeah, I can so relate to that. And and uh I'm somebody who never thought I was gonna have children. And so to have them in my early 40s, I have two has been the great. I mean, it at the time I didn't think I could handle it because I was so caught up in I'm gonna scrum up. I don't, you know, I've got to do better, I gotta do better than I had. And the reality is it's like I'm learning as I go and thank Hopefully I can ask for help. And I just love how you're again, again and again here in this discussion modeling I aspire to be emotionally present for my children, emotionally regulated, offer them everything that you know that I want them to have, that I hope for. I've heard that our children become who they are because of and in spite of who we are as parents.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

I think that's I that sounds like the right equation, which is which means you have you have very little control or but you assume all of the responsibility. It must have been because of me. And then anything that anything good that happened will have to my wife. This idea of like, you know, our kids are not 50-50 split of us either. They are they are their own kind of being, they're their own entity, they have their own they have their own resilience. How else do kids come out of some really awful situations and do wonderful things or just different from what their families are? So we have to remember that too, I think, as parents, that we we can certainly impact and and you know kind of inform how our kids develop and grow and and the per the person they become. There is another factor in that. It's not a 50-50 split. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

And speaking of you know things that uh children go through, Jake, you referenced uh earlier, uh, you know, Appalachian uh your experience in social work and you know, seeing what what kids go through. And I'd love to hear more about that. And I'd also love to hear how those Appalachian values can also, you mentioned resilience can also be protective factors. And you know, it would just be great to hear a little bit more about that because I've read Demon Copperhead, but that's the extent of my which is an amazing book and I highly recommend it to anybody. One of the Pulitzer for a reason. But yeah, it would be great to just hear more from you in terms of your lived experience with it.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah, 100%. I'm gonna go on a bit of a winding road because it all ties back together. But also, please read Demon Copperhead if you haven't. Also, what you're getting wrong about Appalachia is a really interesting read after reading Demon Copperhead. So I, you know, again, born to do this, really privileged, lucky, every ball has bounced my way my entire life. I had an opportunity to go do an internship in a residential treatment facility when I was 17, 18 years old out in Camden, New Jersey, which, if you don't know Camden, New Jersey, look it up. Um very rough area. You know, at the time when I was there, I think it had one of the highest crime rates of the country. And I'm from central Ohio in this little suburb that's very privileged and safe and whatever else, right? So I walk into this facility and I see these teenagers that are living here being supervised 24-7, and I'm like, wait, they did they did that thing? Like, I was doing that thing with my friends last week, and nobody told us we had to go live somewhere that we were supervised 24-7. Oh, because we had parents that had resources and knowledge and time and ability to tell us what we were doing wrong to keep us from getting into more trouble, whatever else. And it was just this realization of we all are born and we have a set of cards in our hand, and they are not all equal. And I was born with close to a royal flush, and these kids were sitting with a two and a seven off suit and trying to figure it out. And I think that's what really got me into and passionate about the field of social work. So I got to go redo that experience for a couple summers, about three summers between high school and starting college. And then I go down to Marshall in Appalachia. It was my only backup school. Ohio State didn't accept me. I'm still a really big Bukar fan, but at that point in time I thought I was too good to go to Ohio State if they didn't want me at main campus. And I'll still tell you they missed out. I mean, look at all I'm doing, right? Resilience in action, folks. Exactly. And I wouldn't be doing any of this if it weren't for that experience. So I'm also thankful for Ohio State. So I went down to Marshall, and it's about three-hour drive from Columbus into Huntington, West Virginia. And I pull in and it's just like, I did a three-hour drive, but was I in a DeLorean? Did I hit a time machine? Something like something changed, right? It feels very different in Huntington than it does in Columbus and way more than 180 miles difference. And a part of that is Appalachia. And it was really weird at first trying to understand what was going on, why I was feeling that way. Also, like feeling more comfortable, feeling like everything was a little bit slower, a little bit more at ease. The people were really nice, right? I always make the uh juxtaposition of like walking through the streets of Huntington versus walking through the streets of New York City. Like in Huntington, people stop you and say, Hey, do you want to come over and have dinner with us? Because you seem like a nice person. And in New York City, I like think someone's going to fight me because I smiled at them. And it's just a really hard dynamic for my Appalachian roots to get used to. But while I was down there, I said, I'm gonna try to do some more social work. So I found this amazing nonprofit, Children's Home Society of West Virginia. They've been around since 1896. They do really great work. And I had the opportunity to work there about the entire time I was in school, which also helped with my bachelor's and my master's. They paid for a part of my degree since I was getting social work degrees. I was able to do all my internships within the system. So I got to learn about everything that we did. Emergency shelters for kiddos, you know, seven to 17 that needed a short-term to midterm stop between placements, foster care and adoption. I got to open up foster homes, open up adoptive homes. I finalized something like 30 adoptions while I was down there, which was still the coolest thing I've ever done in my career. And I miss it so much. And then I got to go work at like the advocacy advocacy legislative level in working for six nonprofits throughout West Virginia. So that was really when I fell in love with the Appalachian culture. I did a lot of work and research on, you know, coal companies that came in and took our valuable resources and didn't really invest in the community to make sure that it was going to be okay. And that's part of why Huntington felt so different being 180 miles away from Columbus. And then how that was happening with resident treatment facilities and with kiddos in care. They were going out of state. The state of West Virginia was paying for their care. Kiddo was coming back, and there was no investment in our community, so they ended up in the same situation that they were. And that's really where I started to see this has been happening to Appalachia forever. People from the outside look at it and say people are stupid, dumb, rednecks, they don't have any money, they don't understand how to pull themselves out of this, they're drug addicts, whatever else it might be. But in reality, like I will argue with anyone that it's the best, best region in our country for sure, maybe the best region in the world, and part of that is the people, and part of that is the nature, and that resilience that has shown up after outsiders come in, judge us, take from us, leave us with nothing. And we just say, cool, what's next? Right? You want to go fishing today? You want to go on a hike? You wanna go replant our field because we don't have anything growing, right? Like we don't let that slow us down. And if you can be resilient in the face of that, then what can't you be resilient in the face of, right? And that's why I'm so passionate about the culture and the resilience. There's also a lot of other Appalachian values that I'm big on, you know, love of place. I always joked that I would never come back to central Ohio after I graduated high school and I moved back here in 2016. So, you know, I love this place. And I also feel very conflicted that I am just two counties away from the Appalachian region, and all I do is talk about Appalachia. Like, I just want to move an hour over into one of those counties where I can say I'm actually living in Appalachia again, right? But I love place and I love being a friend that people say is a good friend and a family member that people say they're proud to be a part of their family. And those are all Appalachian values, right? Familiism, making people comfortable when they're in your home, all of those things that back to the human condition, right? We're we're all suffering from this condition. We're all social beings. I think Appalachia does such a great job of harnessing that. The only thing that they don't do a great job of is talking about when it's hard and, you know, really being open to discussing all the downsides of that and the difficulties of that, right? We have the highest suicide rate in the country. The diseases of despair are through the roof, all of which makes sense given the things that we just listed off for why that resilience is important. But I'm hopeful that I can get us talking about all those things more and really harness the power of the region.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Jake, you mentioned diseases of despair. What are those?

SPEAKER_00 30:35

The diseases of despair are suicide rate, cardiovascular issues, and substance addiction issues.

unknown 30:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Wow. That's just incredible. I'm thinking my head's kind of reeling from all the the protective factors, the strength that are regional, that are values, that that that people that Appalachia uh breeds. And then there's this there's also, I guess, uh from what you just said, an understanding that strength is stoicism, not talking about it, just quietly suffering, and unfortunately that results in the risk factors you just lifted off, including suicide. I guess my question now, and I kind of know the answer for what you've been saying, is how do these Appalachian values that you've had such incredible experiences with, how do you use them to help men, you know, your male clients who are struggling with the man plate, overload, not being able to talk, et cetera?

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Yeah, you know, it's so funny. You asked me the question of like, you know, how I got into this and I started talking about being born to do it and whatever else. And like from this peak of my life journey, mountain, looking back, it's like you were you were chopping down trees on your way up, right? Like it was such a clear path that I couldn't see then. But all of my work in general, I attribute to my papa, who I lost to suicide when I was seven. And that was such a traumatic event for me, partially because he was my best friend. I mean, he picked me up from school every day. You know, both my parents worked and my grandma worked, so he was kind of like my babysitter, and we spent so much time together. And my wonderful family didn't do well of talking about processing that with a seven-year-old. Again, empathize if I have to try to have that conversation with either of my kids at seven, I am not gonna have the tools. And I went to school for six years to have the tools, right? But it made such a gigantic mark on me, and that is really what I carried for 20 years until I finally started doing my own mental health work. So I say all that to say I do a little bit of training and speaking on the side, and I had this call of, hey, we're looking for a trainer to talk about resilience and trauma-exposed youth in Appalachia. From Miami University of Ohio, a big university here, and I was really excited about it. And I'm like, wait a second. I w I've worked with trauma my whole life. My master's is in rural Appalachian social work, and I love resilience. Like, I think I am the most well-suited person to do this training. So I start putting it together, and I'm like, I need to figure out all of my life history as I'm talking about some of these stories and everything else. And that leads me to realize my papa is uh was the Appalachian man, right? Born in Tennessee, lived there most of his life. They were living in Steubenville when I was born. Steubenville is in Ohio, in one of the Appalachian counties, very much an Appalachian region city here in Ohio. And then they moved to Columbus right after I was born because now there was, I think, five grandkids in the central Ohio area and they wanted to help out. And, you know, looking back, I start to realize I think taking my papa out of Appalachia definitely didn't help with what he was dealing with, right? And then he had to stop doing a business, stop being the provider, and let his wife go make the money and be like the stay-at-home grandpa in what, 1995, for a guy that grew up in, you know, the the 50s and 60s and 40s. Like that had to be a really difficult pill to swallow. And now that comes full circle for me of, oh man, what what was he thinking? And why wasn't he talking to anybody about it? And did he know that you don't have to act like the tough guy? You don't have to be the provider, you don't have to have everything put together. You could have gone and said, hey, I'm really struggling with this transition. What should I do? So I think there's a large part of me that wants to be the therapist that I could have gotten my papa to come talk to before all that happened. I think there's a large part of me that wants to be the therapist that I could have talked to for the first 26 years of my life before I got to do it. And I really want to be the therapist that all of the guys out there that are dealing with similar things can talk to. But I was in Marietta doing Marietta, Ohio is right on the Ohio River and is in Appalachia as well. And I was doing a presentation there, and I'm sitting in this like, you know, tiny hotel room, stuffy, I don't like it, whatever. But I'm just like, I feel more at peace right here than I do in my house that I have built around everything that I love. So I make sure I get my dopamine hits anytime I take a step. And what is it, right? And it's like that I am in Appalachia. And how we define the Appalachian culture, you know, the ARC, the Appalachian Regional Commission, has a outline of all the counties across the 13th state region that are considered Appalachian counties, but there's a lot of discourse on what's really Appalachia, what's not, right? But something about crossing into that culture, into that region, is freeing for me, is makes me lighter. And I feel it when I go to Hawking Hills for a weekend with friends, I feel it. When I go to West Virginia to go back to the people that I met while I was in school, I feel it. And when I'm in Columbus, where my entire amazing support system is, my whole business has been built, all of these things, I love it here. I love my life, but I don't feel that lightness, that calmness, that quietness. And I just think that there is something so powerful about that.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

The love of place that you highlight there. Yeah, I really feel that palpably. And thank you for telling the story of your pop-pa and the the dangers too, inherent in that tale of emotional suppression, writing, like pushing down our feelings instead of processing them, talking about them and the unbearable stress uh and disconnection that that can lead to. How much how big a role in terms of the again, I keep going back to men. But you know, in terms of the men you're working with how big a role does connection play? Because Chris and I love to talk about cultivating connection, right? Just as a general therapeutic practice, but particularly with men. And we did it, we did a whole episode, episode seven, uh of Boys Don't Cry about how men, how do we get men to talk? So I love that one. Part of it, thank you. And part yeah, that's how we started talking, probably. But connection was a big part of that.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

It was. And then also recognizing, you know, the the words I'm fine or the two settings we have, which is just silence or anger. Right. Right now, that's that emotional suppression.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

It's all just it it just comes out or it boils and boils and boils until it comes out as anger or something explosive.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

Yeah. How do you cultivate connection with your clients, Jake, and encourage them in that way?

SPEAKER_00 36:58

And I love that, you know, anger versus suppression, like the amount of guys that come in and say, I don't really feel any emotions. Like, really, what's the last time you got pissed off? Like, oh, on my way here, somebody cut me off. Like, okay, so you feel that one. We're really in tune to that one. Can we try to find one other one, right? But I'm so big on connection. I I have this thing called the Millennial Man's Playbook. It's like 10 skills traits that I think if we have life's a little bit easier. And the first one is the trusted tribe, right? And I am pretty big on I think your trusted tribe can be as large or as small as you want it. I like to keep like a medium-sized, cultivated one because I care about having that depth of relationship. But again, I'm so fortunate and lucky in every ball bouncing my way. I, my two best friends that I was talking about with the kiddos, like we met when I was 15, and they were they're a year older than me, so they went to Marshall the year before me. So that was why I went to Marshall. And here we are 21 years later, and we're still great friends, right? And I know that everyone doesn't have that. Like I laugh about the we're only friends because we were happened to be born in the same place and go to the same school, right? But now we have turned it into this amazing relationship. And I lean on them all of the time in my most difficult seasons of life. They are the people that I am talking to. And, you know, we joke, like sometimes it's the the brosetta stone language, right? The talking crap and making me take it and we're laughing. And there's a part of me that's like, damn, I wish my friends like could just, you know, care and have a real conversation with me. And there's another part that's like, they're they're doing the best that they can and they're trying to make me laugh because they know that I'm about to cry. And I appreciate that, right? But I love the idea of the trusted tribe. If people don't have it, I really try to get them to cultivate one. Even if it's one person that you felt like you were close to at one point in time, shoot them a text and don't say, Did you see that basketball game last night? Say, What's up? How are you doing? Hey, do you have a minute to chat? I'm dealing with some heavy stuff, right? I don't think anyone says, like, no. Nope, I don't want to talk to you. No, I'm not gonna be that person for you. But I'm also really big and I'm doing some work here in Central Ohio that I hope I have more to talk about soon on third spaces. There's no third space for guys my age. And when I say third space, I mean we are at home a lot, we're at work a lot. And what's the other place that we go, right? I can put on a great event that says, hey, you want to come make some male friends and talk about what's going on in your life, and I'll be there, right? And I'll make friends with myself and I enjoy hanging out with myself, so that'll work. But guys won't come to that. How do I say, let's do this thing that's gonna be fun? And also maybe you find someone that has a similar interest to you, right? I'd suggest for my guys a lot to go on that meetup site, right? Find a find a hiking group and go hiking and try to talk to one person. I just I think the more that we try to make those connections, the easier it becomes. But how do we put it in an easy spot in this super virtual world?

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Yeah. It and it's also normalizing it, right? It's it's normalizing this idea that we can go and we don't have to be, you know, we can go and just kind of hang out there. It it there's not some preconceived kind of. Yeah, where you have to go and talk, you have to go and open up, you have to go and like it's it's not like you know, there's gonna be a therapist there making everybody share, but it's this idea that, hey, we can just go hang out, we can go hike, we can go fish, we can go do whatever. We can we can go knit if that's what you're interested in, like anything. Right. Just making and making that all okay. And and it's kind of like, yeah, I like that idea, Jake. This kind of like creating this this environment that the it kind of restores that sense of community again.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Yeah. And you know, the part that I have to say is probably the coolest is I thoroughly believe this is infectious. You know, guys come into my office, I will always tout that I prior to prioritize the therapeutic relationship because it's the only data point that really shows that it gets us to the successful outcomes. I think they start to feel that connection here in the therapeutic relationship sense and they realize that it's valuable. And then they come in the next week and they say, you know, I actually talked to this buddy of mine and we're gonna go out with him and two other people, and we're all gonna sit down and have a have a beer, have a meal, and and talk about everything that's going on, right? And it's like, sweet. I didn't just get one person to be passionate about connection, I got them to go talk to others about it and really snowball it, which is a really fun experience. And I also think it's that I use this example often because it makes me laugh really hard. I think that I am successful in my business because guys want to come talk to guys when they finally want to get into therapy. But I've had five therapists in my life and one of them was a guy, and I saw him like twice and said, I don't want to see you anymore. And I don't want to admit to it. But I think there's a part of me that thinks, I can't go talk to another therapist who's also a man and tell him I'm struggling. What if he wants to take my family? What if he wants to take my business? What if like why is that in my head? Why do I think everybody wants to take anything? Yeah, exactly. 100%. So, you know, I think that's such a barrier for the guy who talks about it every day and how it shouldn't be a thing, it's a barrier. What does it feel like for the one that hasn't even been able to come to terms with why they're feeling that way?

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Right. That's a really interesting point. You know, I was just thinking like when I said, like, oh, what if he thinks you're weak? I'm thinking of that like how we just we have preconceived notions about who's nurturing and who's not. And this idea that it's uh it's almost like this idea that men can't be nurturing, right? That we we can't we can't have our emotional uh part exist. We can't be nurturing and still be strong. It has to be one or the other. And that's that's not true. Both can coexist. We can be strong, we can we can still have all the responsibilities that we that we have on our plate, but we can still be nurturing and in touch with our emotions and say, hey, this is hard. I'm gonna keep doing it, but it's really hard. And do you go through that, right? That's but I I I think we we probably walk around with a lot of these preconceived ideas and and feelings about that.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

Yeah. And that competitiveness. Thank you for highlighting that, Jake. I hadn't even occurred to it, but it it's there. It's Heinbrain stuff, maybe, from like early man or something. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Or just kind of ingrained generationally, you know, that's or both, probably. Or both, right, or both.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Like there's just as much of a likelihood that my female therapist is gonna think that I'm a weak baby for talking about it, or that she's gonna think maybe I should niche down to the millennial man because I'm not as stressed as this guy is. I can go take all his business, right? But that's how it doesn't cross my mind because she's a female, and in my rational mind, like that sounds a little ridiculous, but it is definitely what happens in my lizard brain.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

Totally. I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing. What I'm getting from you is just like all these tools, you know, that are that are so wonderful and so much permission, you know, modeling permission that, hey, it's okay to say I'm not fine all the time and help. And that these are actually tremendously courageous things we can do uh for ourselves and for our kids, you know, for our families, for our partners, for everybody who's in our community and in our family we care about. There's that idea that it it is really time for this idea to just be put to bed, I believe. You know, that like uh uh Strong man is you know unmoved and stoic. And I love stoic philosophy, don't get me wrong. But being able to model, hey, I need support, I need help. And I love too that you are the teddy bear six foot five guy who aspires to be emotionally available to his kids and to his everybody in his in its circle. I certainly I certainly share that aspiration.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Jake, I'm wondering what are some things that people should look for if they if they're like, hey, maybe this kind of makes sense for me. Maybe I've been bottling stuff up, maybe I've been feeling this this way.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

Aaron Powell Yeah. I mean, you know, I think it's about being honest with yourself, right? Do it on a the drive into work. Don't don't turn the radio on and sit with your thoughts and your feelings for five minutes and just see what's coming up, right? Like when I get in my worst spots, I it feels like I am just waking up and checking boxes until I get to go to sleep and check boxes again, right? And I thought that feeling was normal. I thought I was doing a good job to keep pushing through it, but I don't feel like that now. It's like I get to wake up and and draw what the box is going to be and then jump into it. So really being able to sit with those feelings, be honest with yourself and hold yourself accountable to what is going on. And I think give yourself the permission that it's okay to not even know if you need it or not, right? I the way that I set up my practice is I do a free 30-minute consult call before you get booked. So it's like, you know, absolutely no pressure. Call me and let's talk about what's going on. And I encourage any guy to do that, right? I I often talk about preventative mental wellness. And why do we go to a therapist when our life is falling apart? What if we went to a therapist because we weren't really sure where our life was going and we were worried it's gonna fall apart, and then we get the tools so that it doesn't fall apart? I promise, so much easier as a therapist to give you the tools to keep it from falling apart than it is to help you put it all back together, right? So if you are resonating with any of this, go sign up and meet one therapist, right? See what's up and talk. Don't you don't have to commit to I'm gonna do a 10-year mental health journey with 19 different modalities like Jake's doing because he's obsessed with all this stuff. You can just say, I'm gonna go talk and see what comes out, right? I love when someone walks into my room and says, I don't know where to start. And I say, that's a great place to start. Why don't you know where to start, right? Because I feel like I'm checking boxes and I'm exhausted every day. Well, what makes you exhausted? And bam, now we're talking about the things. But overall, I think it is get rid of this narrative that you're weak for noticing it, that you aren't a man because you're feeling it, and instead say, I'm the strongest man around, and I'm gonna say, This is what I'm feeling, this is what I'm noticing, and I'm gonna go talk about it. Even if you're only role modeling for other young men in the community, in society, it's gonna go a long way. And the only way that we get this whole mentality shifted is if we all slowly do our part and hope that it's as infectious as I think it is.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Yeah, that's great. That's great suggestions. And I think that is the the being able to just sit with and recognize these things as we feel them. That's it's kind of the hardest part, right? Is that to actually just take five minutes, you said, and and just kind of just do a check. Hey, what what's what am I feeling in my gut right now? Beyond anger, because there's always uh other stuff below it. So if that's the one, look look a little deeper than that, but really just reflect and just note it. I think just being aware is a great start. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

And I have to add to that, sorry, it's just too timely. With that anger thing, I I was recently at a conference, it was the Wendy's Wonderful Kids Conference. It was a really cool experience for me. I got to see some of the adoption workers that I had worked with in the past. And there was a presenter that was talking about anger and how anger is a secondary emotion, and it's almost always rooted in fear. And I was like, she's not right. And then I start thinking about all the times I've been angry, and I'm like, she's exactly right. And you know, that was a big turning point for me of like, when I got really, really angry in relationships, when I got really angry in a workplace, I was scared I was gonna lose someone. I was scared that I was showing up as an incompetent person. And now I realize, okay, it was fear. And when I call out the fear, when I see the fear, I don't do the angry thing. I don't get the anger. I say, what can I do to help acknowledge this fear and address it?

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Yeah. I will add, and and Kenyon knows this, I'm constantly on the anger is always secondary as well. It's pain and fear, right? It's it's both those. And ultimately we're afraid to feel pain, so we'll do anything to avoid it, right? But this idea that if we're feeling anger, and and I I love doing this exercise with clients anytime. It can be traffic, it can be somebody cutting you off. It is there is pain and fear, or pain and fear going on there. And and it's it's a fun exercise to just kind of really dig down and see how that how that contributes to anger.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Right. I totally agree. And then, you know, you take it a step further and tie it to all the times that you got angry, and then you let that anger produce a negative outcome. And now we're looking at wow, that pain or that fear ended up getting you this thing that was way more painful or certified that fear.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

Right, right. I will say the less I as I grow older, the less I act out in anger, the easier my life is to navigate.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

100%. The less I act out in any extreme emotion, right? The amount of my life that I spent regretting my actions based off of extreme emotions that I don't have to deal with now because I just feel it, sit with it, and then go decide what I'm gonna do instead of reacting to it. Like I have freed up so much time, enough so that I can be running this business and trying to turn it into a group while I try to launch a nonprofit as well. So yeah, well worth it.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

I love it. And so, Jake, if if listeners want to find out more about you, where should they go?

SPEAKER_00 49:37

You can find me at therosswellnessgroup.org. I'm also on all the socials. I post on LinkedIn five or six times a week. And my Instagram is getting way more active as well. I'm at the Ross Wellness Group there. Um on LinkedIn, I'm just Jake Ross. There's quite a few of us. I'm putting together a LinkedIn group of Jake Ross's, but I have a blue-collared shirt on and I'm smiling with glasses. So hopefully that'll help you find me.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

What an amazing community that Jake Ross is. I love that. I want that t-shirt. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Yeah, right. Thank you again for being with us today. Of course. Thank you for having me. This was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 50:10

Thanks for listening to Lumen. If today's conversation resonated with you, we encourage you to follow, review, and share Lumen with anyone you think would appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

We'll be back soon with another conversation designed to bring a little more light to the human condition. I'm Christopher Mooney, LCSW. And I'm Kenyon Phillips, LMSW. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. Lumen is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, diagnosis, or treatment. If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact local emergency services or a trusted mental health professional.