Episode 7: The Way Back to Ourselves

The Way Back to Ourselves 

With Joshua Zamrin and Nate Berner-Tobin

What happens when men begin questioning the ideas they inherited about who they are supposed to be?

In this episode of the Men’s Healing Network Podcast, host Vincent Perez sits down with Nate Berner-Tobin and Joshua Zamrin for a conversation about sensitivity, suffering, embodiment, community, nature, and the long journey of coming home to ourselves.

Both Joshua and Nate describe growing up as sensitive young men in cultures that offered narrow definitions of masculinity. Joshua reflects on the “man program” — the conditioning that teaches boys which emotions, behaviors, and ways of being are acceptable — and his journey toward discovering who he is beneath those expectations. Nate shares how depression, shame, and making himself smaller gradually gave way to greater freedom, authenticity, and self-acceptance.

Their paths took different forms. For Joshua, a period of profound suffering eventually forced a choice: continue living as he had been, or begin trying something different. That first step opened a path through physical wellness, emotional healing, somatic work, spirituality, and ultimately a deeper understanding of his purpose.

For Nate, the natural world provided an early glimpse of another way to live. Wilderness experiences gave him opportunities to rediscover play, leadership, confidence, community, and belonging. Nature became both a teacher and an anchor — a place where he could reconnect with himself and experience what it meant to be fully part of something.

Together, Vincent, Joshua, and Nate explore what modern life has separated many men from: their bodies, their emotions, the natural world, meaningful community, and their own inner knowing. They consider how those connections might be restored — not by replacing one rigid definition of masculinity with another, but by creating spaces where men can discover for themselves who they are.

The conversation also turns toward fatherhood, purpose, rites of passage, supporting the next generation, and the importance of learning to remain present with discomfort rather than immediately reacting to it.

Joshua offers a simple practice at the heart of that work: feel first before acting.

Nate offers another: be gentle with yourself.

Together, they point toward a vision of men’s healing rooted not in becoming harder or stronger, but in developing the capacity to feel more deeply, live more authentically, and meet ourselves and others with greater compassion.

About Joshua Zamrin
Joshua is a soul initiator and somatic guide whose medicine lies in supporting people to descend into their bodies, meet their shadows, embrace the gifts of their sensitivity, and emerge resourced and ready to meet the full spectrum of life with greater capacity, courage, and compassion.

His work helps people reconnect with their ability to feel, reclaim lost parts of themselves, and step more fully into their power and self-leadership. Joshua weaves shamanic wisdom and mysticism with evidence-based modalities, drawing on more than a decade of initiation, training, certifications, and experience across wellness, healing arts, somatics, and soul-guided wholeness.

Website: https://www.soulbodywholeness.life/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soulbodywholeness/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@soulbodywholeness?si=8vO5qgY8NJmQyR1S
Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5JGUdaeUHypJxVBgOZ8PfW?si=9e1c3bee624e4396

About Nate Berner-Tobin
For more than 15 years, Nate Berner-Tobin has created spaces where people can reconnect with themselves, one another, and the world around them.

His work has included wilderness education, youth development, family coaching, rites of passage, community building, and embodied personal growth. After spending thousands of hours guiding young people through wilderness experiences, Nate came to understand the transformative power of creating the right conditions for growth: relationship, challenge, reflection, and belonging.

Today, through Deeply Connected, Nate supports individuals, families, and schools in cultivating deeper connection, purpose, and belonging. His approach weaves developmental wisdom, relational practices, nature-based learning, and embodied self-discovery.

Nate is also certified in Genius Frequency through Elemental Embodiment, a framework that helps people better understand their unique gifts, patterns, and authentic ways of moving through the world.

His past work includes collaborations with Seek Healing, Wild Grief, Journeymen, and Outward Bound.

Connect with the Men's Healing Network
www.MHN.life
If this conversation resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who could benefit from it.
Hosted by: Vincent Perez
Produced by: Tom Keppeler
Marketing: Dee Enriquez
Funding Support: Choice Regional Health Network

Transcript

0:04

Blessings, all. My name is Vincent Perez, and this is the Men's Healing Network podcast. This podcast is a space where men come together in honest conversation about healing, purpose, and what it means to grow into our fullest humanity. Each episode begins with an invitation. I invite one man into the circle, and he, in turn, invites another man whose life work has impacted him. Together, the three of us sit in conversation, sharing stories, reflections, and insights about the path of men's healing. Today, I'm joined by Nate Berner Tobin, who I invited into the circle, and Joshua Zamren, whom Nate invited to join us. Nate is a father, family coach, and rites of passage guide dedicated to creating cultures of connection and belonging. For more than 15 years, he has led teenagers, young adults, veterans, and families through transformational outdoor experiences that help people navigate the significant thresholds of life. His work brings families and communities together in spaces where people can truly feel seen and held. Joshua Zamren is a soul initiator and somatic guide whose work supports people in descending into their bodies, meeting their shadows, and reclaiming the gifts of their sensitivity. Drawing from somatic practice, healing arts, and shamanic wisdom, Joshua helps people reconnect with their embodied knowing and step more fully into their power and self-leadership. In this conversation, we explore what men's healing means to each of us, the role of suffering and initiation in shaping our lives, and the importance of community, nature, and learning to feel again as men. Let's enter the circle

Vincent Perez: 1:56

Thank you so much. I really appreciate what we're doing here. The invitation for you, Nate, , from me and then you make your invitation. I have found that that's so powerful. Men inviting one another into engage in, healing in all kinds of capacities. And that's where I really like to start out at the beginning. First, let's start with you Josh, with a broad kind of painted question of what is men's healing for you? What does that mean?

Joshua Zamrin: 2:23

Yeah, it's a big question. It's very complex and for me personally, I grew up very sensitive and very misunderstood, and was offered a very limited way of existing within, you know, family, within friend groups, within school, how to be successful, how to, be popular, how to fit in. There were just really limited windows of availability and I didn't realize that I was much bigger than those windows, or I just didn't fit in those windows. And one of those windows was. How to be a boy, how to be a teenage boy, what it means to be a man, and was so indoctrinated to so many distorted beliefs and conditionings around what it means to be a man. Y'know, From a very young age, I think so many of us were, and there's a term I've heard called the Man program. It's sort of the programming that we have been indoctrinated to in the West as what it means to be a man. And for me it feels like just a long journey of unwinding that and coming home to myself and asking myself. What does it mean to be not just a man but a human? What does it mean for me to be Josh? Who am I at my deepest level? And from that place, it feels like foundationally where I can start to understand how I want to show up in the world as a man, as my feminine, as my masculine. Like what are my actual energies that want to express? And I think there's the clear programming that we see that we could label as toxic, right? A lot of just standard, normal western upbringing. But then there's all of these levels and layers and all of the spiritual and personal development communities as well, where they're just giving you another template often of what it means to be a man. What it means to have your sacred masculine. The masculine shows up in this way. You know, a good man does X, Y, Z, and maybe on a surface level it looks better than the templates that were given before. But they're still templates coming from an outside perspective. And so for me, men's work exists in the same ethos as all the other work that I want to be in. And the other containers that I want to be a part of helping create is that I want reflections for people to understand and come into deep connection with themselves and be able to hear their own inner guidance and their own inner voice. And from that place, it can inform, you know, how to show up in the world as a man or a woman.

. Vincent Perez: 5:19

Thank you. Nate, same question to you. Like what is men's healing? What does that mean to you?

Nate Berner-Tobin: 5:23

I relate so much to, a lot of Josh's story, which is part of the kinship that I think that we share is, I grew up very sensitive and, in some ways a like very energetically porous to, the people around me. And in that energetic porousness, I also, I think took on a lot of the beliefs of other people. And, in my upbringing there was, some very narrow minded. Of being, of, that conditioning, of how it was to be a man in, in New Hampshire. And, I felt pretty like static in my body of like, oh, there's only so many emotions that I can really share and that feel safe to be in. It felt like some of the, the sadness, got buried out of me. The palpable grief, of showing that as a little boy at some point, got buried. Over time it felt like that conditioning really restricted my body and, and how I operated and, these parts of myself that no longer felt safe to be in play, to be in joy, to be in excitement. And I started to really make myself small, in that journey into teenage hood and carry a lot of shame in my body. A lot of like downward depressed energy. And so I think for me, a lot of what men's healing is, is liberating that energy and allowing for there to be, a greater sense of spaciousness and bigness and freedom to really be in my power and in my light. And I feel like there is like a tuning fork, that I'm, coming into of like, okay, what are the spaces in which that is, welcomed, where it's accepted, where it's maybe even celebrated. And also how can I create those spaces for myself because if I'm not creating it for myself, then I, it's gonna be really hard to walk into a space and feel in full permission to be in that radical authenticity with other people. And so there are such beautiful circles that I've been a part of, Men's Grief Lodge. Our men's group back in the day was such a seed for me to start to access those more authentic places within myself and reveal the truth and then have that reflected back to me, from someone who isn't my primary partner and can hold me from a level of like grounded love because they aren't being impacted by that energy. And I think that that is a tremendous gift that. Men's work that my relationship with Josh and our one-on-one sessions has given me is that really powerful reflection and that level of grounded safety that like all of my parts are welcome within this space and that I can soften into being held. And so in that softening, I feel like that is what, what so much of men's work is to me. And men's healing is, to me, is softening some of the edges that come up and that I've been indoctrinated into, into my being. And I think in a lot of people's being and reminding us Reminding myself that I'm a being of love and that we're all beings of love and, , that my gifts are welcome within this space and my sorrow, and my grief, and my anger and, all of it is, is welcome.

Vincent Perez: 9:25

Thank you. It, it Seems like there's a clear kind of barrier and we can call that, you know, you named it programming, socialization, indoctrination to knowing oneself. So if the end is know thyself and to, humanize ourselves. I'm curious, when in your lives did you even see that there was this membrane kind of to breakthrough that you were being kind of contained? And, Josh you mentioned kind of throughout your life, but is there a, a particular moment? Is there something that occurred that really opened you up?

Joshua Zamrin: 10:00

Yeah, I felt like I always had this rebellious energy in me and this confusion of seeing things that were very strange, and I was probably just feeling things that were very strange and distorted and not congruent, and not having a place to kind of, understand any of that. Just feeling really uncomfortable. But a more concrete moment in my life was through the deep path of suffering, through the deep, deep path of suffering, going so deep into my suffering that there was nowhere else to go but up. You know, I, I had a lot of suffering in my teen years especially. It sort of just started to increase and increase and increase. And I definitely relate with Nate's share about the depression and the collapse. And life was so, so, so, so, so heavy for me. And I was, chronically exhausted. You know, I was a really good athlete, but I was falling asleep in class all the time. And, just felt this heaviness in life and this exhaustion and nobody validated that. That was painful I kept getting into darker places, getting into drugs, hanging out with the total degenerates in school, and then going to college, just totally majoring in partying and, uh, dropping out after one semester and then getting super deep into a really trauma bond relationship and getting married and getting this job that was so out of alignment with my nervous system and my exhaustion where I was working overtime all the time, lots of labor, lots of stress, going out on call in the middle of the night and all of that just sort of accumulated into this perfect storm where I got married. I bought a house all by 21 and that suffering sort of highlighted what could no longer work anymore. I was like, you can't keep doing this. And I was often asked by my family like, why did you keep doing that? And other people in my life, like, why did you just keep going darker and darker? And I feel like it was actually my soul pushing me into some of the darkest places of my psyche. conspiring to create an external environment that would just. Keep me going darker and darker and darker until there was nowhere to go but up. And sort of had this moment, like two moments where I told my ex-wife at the time, I can't do this anymore. That was a huge threshold crossing, massive, massive amount of courage for me at the time, to do that. And then the second one was after we split, okay, now what? I can continue living my life in the same way, which was avoiding anything that I had any passing interest in because I was so scared of doing it wrong, looking foolish. A myriad of anxieties that we keep ourselves stuck in. That don't have a lot of bearing in reality, like no one cares. Right? But that was my life for many years of just not trying things. Not even going to the gym.'cause I was afraid I would, I was stuck in a lot of neurosis patterns and so I could either keep living like that, I could kill myself. I actually contemplated that. I was like very logistical, like, oh, that's an option. And then the third was I could start actually trying things. I could go to the gym. I could eat healthier, I could go on a hike. All these things actually terrified me. But I was like, I could try those things and maybe I'll fail and then I can go back to one of the other two options. So thank God I chose the third option. And there's these moments where a single choice can change the trajectory of our life forever. And through the power of momentum, there was so much momentum from that choice. It's like I had been. It just pulled back with so much tension, so deep down into the abyss that when I said, okay, I'm gonna take one step forward, it was like releasing a slingshot and it unlocked many of my passions around health and wellness and just sent me on this whole new trajectory. And that was my big awakening. Even though it was through the path of food and fitness, I was seeing how I could create and augment my reality through my choices and got stuck in that for many years of like, why can't I solve all my problems with diet and exercise until I finally started turning towards emotional health, which is like the last big mountain for me to climb. And of course, that's what I support people the most with now. I'm totally out of the diet and fitness worlds. Like I went very deep in those worlds and became a coach and a trainer. It's actually how I first started working with Nate was as his personal trainer. But yeah, that was, that was the big moment for me. I would say

Vincent Perez: 14:53

A real wholeness, right? The body, the mind, the psyche, the soul,

Joshua Zamrin: 14:58

My business is called soul Body Wholeness, so you nailed

Vincent Perez: 15:02

on. Uh, Nate, what's resonating with you here, about that share?

Nate Berner-Tobin: 15:07

I feel the kinship and like the deep suffering and those teenage years in which I felt really lost from who I was. I mean, I didn't even fully know who I was at that time. I was, I was certainly searching for some sense of meaning, and felt like I was in a relatively like meaningless, world. I, I think I saw a lot of suffering around me and I didn't really have any templates, of someone that felt like really vibrant and was living their fullest life. I think what I, what I ended up finding was a sense of passion that only lasted in these very contained timeframes. So I went through a whole school year in depression in minimizing my parts in feeling like I was, in some ways, a rat in a cage and I would need to sit down in class. And my body wasn't wanting to do that. I was wanting to move. I didn't feel very confident in school. I was, in a very preppy place and didn't fit in. I felt like an oddball in that space. And my parents were, Jewish and liberal, and I was born in Berkeley, California. And so it just felt like there was, an incongruence. And I think my family, like, we fed into that in a way. Like we, we all felt a little bit strange living in the town that we were in. And I would retreat to my room and I would play video games and I would go into porn and, a lot of those common things that I think that a lot of teenagers go into because they don't know what to do with this energy because we aren't taught, I didn't have any role models or mentors that were coming in and like, Hey, this is how you can use that energy. Here is what, safe sexuality looks like, or Here is your gifts and here is a passion. And when I talked about these short timeframes of passion , and purpose, that was when I went out into the woods and that was when I went, I had the privilege of going to summer camp and I would start going on these one to two to three week long backpacking or canoeing trips with other kids, other teenagers. And in those experiences, I found myself, I found my sense of silliness again, my play, my inner child could come out. I found that leader that was remaining dormant in me. I had a place, I had a role. I could be in the very real consequence of what it's like to, put up a tarp and then get rained on, and then we all feel the impact of that. And, in that little microcosm of life, I got to connect so deeply with what it is to be human and what it is to gather in community and to be on a team together and to share a meal with other people, and to have a role and be given a path into greater leadership, into greater confidence. And so year after year, I started going on bigger and bigger trips. By the time I was 18, I saw all my friends going off to college and I realized that that wasn't my path. I really needed to take some time to. Adventure to explore to find myself a little bit more. Thank goodness for my parents who like celebrated that and they saw that. And I went on a 90 day course, with this organization called Knowles. And that was one of those pivotal moments that changed the course of my life. And I spent three months in Baja Mexico. It was the deep dive into all those things that I just talked about and one of the grittiest hardest experiences of my life where I really walked away with a sense of swagger of like, oh shit, like I can do that. I can do so many other things in my life. And then I studied that. I studied adventure education and dedicated the next 10 years of my life to working with all sorts of different folks, teenagers, veterans, at risk youth in really intimate settings, in the wilderness. And that has always been an anchor for me. And the biggest anchor in that is my connection to nature, which has always had my back alongside these adventures. I mean, it's here, it's existing right now outside of my window. And it's my connection to spirituality. And as I continue to grow into that, it's like, nature has always been whispering to me to come outside, and to soften and to remember that like I'm home in, in the natural world.

Vincent Perez: 20:20

Is that part of the answer? The natural world, the body, our emotional inner landscape. You both speak about being depressed, young men and still performing, right? You're still in your sports, you graduated, you are, you're still doing the things you're supposed to be doing. So where do we reach boys? How do we reach young men who may not? Do you have any kind of inkling about like what would've helped?

Joshua Zamrin: 20:43

Yeah, I had a special situation. My father has been a family and marriage psychotherapist for like 40 years now, so he was very involved in my mental health and a little bit too much involved in my mental health from a very young age. And you know, it's nuanced. There's the beauty of him caring and being involved and loving and being in some form of support. But I fundamentally believe that our system of what we have available to us as support is so, so so limited. It is not holistic. I don't believe it is at all. And what was offered to me was some forms of going and seeing a therapist and medication and a little bit of, I guess you could call it behavioral exposure therapy. I was like, well, just do the thing. You just gotta try it. there is definitely some accuracy to that, but when we deny the underlying emotional components, like, well, what, where is this stemming from? Why is this somatic experience, why is this experience of terror and anxiety living in your body? Like, what's that about instead of getting really curious. it's just not what we do, I wasn't suffering in total silence to some degree, and I was, because it's like, nothing's helping me. There would be like temporary support with medication and then it would come with a whole slew of different problems. But we're fundamentally missing a lot. A lot as a culture. And if you look at my path, you could kind of start there of like, okay, yes, diet and exercise would definitely be supportive. And as Nate was talking about, nature being something we're so severed from as a culture, as a society, and even our awareness that we're bringing to it now, still has a lot of these sort of western allopathic treatment protocols. Do a forest bath, once a week, get out for 20 minutes. It's like, of course there are biochemical benefits to going out and being in nature for sure. If you can just like get to wherever you can go. And then there's many elements and dimensions that our culture doesn't know about. Just being in raw and wild nature and developing a connection with her that is facilitated through opening new and not really new, ancient and shut down faculties of perception, ways of communing with nature.

Nate Berner-Tobin: 23:20

Yeah. And that's the beauty of like what I got to experience out in the woods. And it was community with fractures and ruptures and, some disembodiment and disassociation and it was community of like we relied on each other, in order to be functioning together and what a gift that was to be in that practice. And I think that Josh, to what you're speaking to, like we're all disengaged from community to a degree and, forgot how to really be in our full selves in community. I think we've all here had tastes of what that's like to like be really held and be seen in our gifts and be celebrated and show our full authenticity. And that was the vehicle for us being able to soften and to really be with each other in more authentic ways. And nature is also there to like slap us in the face and remind us that like we're not in control and that we are are, so small in a giant thunderstorm and paddling 20 miles and needing to get to where we go because we don't have any other option. It's like, okay, yeah, that's when the shit really hits the fan and we, we gotta do what we gotta do. Those were also the moments of like profound strength and testing our capacity of what it means to be a human in this body. So to the question of like, is, nature a key? I think it is, and I think to Josh like your point, we don't even have the languaging for how to be in a relationship with nature. And I know that native cultures have so many different words for a pine cone or a stream, and each one has their own like distinct flavor that honors the uniqueness of that specific stream. And it's like, oh, we just call it a stream. That objectification and that like staticness that comes from how we language this ever moving, ever fluid nature that is, is around us, I think is, part of the problem that we, live in an animate world, and yet we don't have animate language.

Vincent Perez: 25:48

This field that's opened up the last 20 ish years is really pointing to old indigenous practice. Like there was a humanity that we held from thousands of ways of living and have just kind of focused, and now we have these screens in this modern world and AI and there's so much happening now. So knowing your stories a little bit about yourselves as young men, into your middle age here, like what are you tending now? So you kind of had this trajectory. What's on your heart? What's, what's in your visions, what's on your mission?

Joshua Zamrin: 26:19

It's my, my life's question. Some of that, it's like at the, been at the forefront of my life for quite a while. As I opened more spiritually, I found Asheville, North Carolina as a spiritual playground in some ways, and got to sample all of these different ways of being and I was able to get a lot of needs met. If you look at the maps of psychospiritual development that the more indigenous cultures, they weren't working with these maps, but we're able to map out some of this stuff of like at a very young age, the ego is developed and has a healthy sense of belonging and authenticity. And in our culture, you have to sacrifice one of those things. You don't get to have both. And so me going to Asheville, that didn't happen when I was 11, 12. I didn't get that developed ego. But in our culture, it happened to me pretty young. I feel like in my late twenties I did a lot of this middle world work. Working with relationships and communities, being able to find my voice and be authentic and be loved, be heard. There came a time where my inner elder said, okay, time to leave the community, time to individuate, time to go off into the world. And so I was there for six years developing that more healthy, mature, generative ego. And then my soul told me through a lot of destabilizing, uncomfortable outer experiences, which was bringing up all of my destabilized, shadowy, inner experiences of my psyche, I was guided to sell my things, leave the personal training business behind, and just go into the world. That journey has brought me so, so deep into myself, so deep into my life's work, my mission, my purpose, my vision, which is guiding other people into their soul's purpose. And that was the question that haunted me when I was in Asheville. What am I here to do? I got all these needs met and I'm like, I'm still sometimes really not happy, like still feeling this angst. A lot of chronic health issues, yet being this health coach and this personal trainer, there was just so much that wasn't matching up and through the journey of leaving and going and finding myself. And it's super cliche and it's cliche for a reason.'cause if you do it and you stick to it, it fucking works. You can find yourself, you can leave and go find yourself. It's a real thing. It's what happened to me and through that process. I found the Mytho poetic understanding of what I'm here to do it this very big vision imagery. It wasn't like, do this step now, do this step now do this step. That came later, and that's still revealing as we speak. But what started to happen is that the right trainings started to just appear the right teachers, the right mentors. I started to become more clairvoyant and my actual shamanic power started to get activated. I started connecting with my ancestors, and I had experiences where I realized that we actually can't fully sever ourselves from community, from God, from soul. So that's what I'm here to help people understand and activate. I create containers where people can connect to the wisdom of their soul release and integrate the trauma that lives in our bodies, and not just from this lifetime, but from our past lifetimes, from our parallel lifetimes, from our ancestry. This is the moment in history where more people are being born than ever before, that are here to be cycle breakers. We're here to liberate. All of this trauma that we're carrying, that sensitivity that Nate was carrying, that I was carrying, it all has a divine purpose.

Vincent Perez: 30:17

Thank you, Nate. Your reflections.

Nate Berner-Tobin: 30:19

Yeah. Beautiful. I feel lit up. I feel excited and hearing your share and, I just appreciate the frequency and what you're really carrying forth your mission and your vision for this world. And I've been personally touched by the gifts and the containers in which you create so beautifully. And, it helps alchemize a lot of the pain and the suffering and the trauma that I've carried in my body and then come into greater alignment of what is meant for me and what is my purpose? And I think that I've spent a lot of my life in this thinking brain of what is my purpose? And as I talked about, like my twenties were filled with these like amazing adventures in which I felt like that is what I was living at that time. And that was my path. I remember like really listening and being like, okay, this is the next step. This is the next step. And trusting my intuition and trusting my gut, which I feel like is my greatest ally. And, where I also like hold the most pain is in my gut. I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, when I was 11 years old because I, I think I am really energetically porous and I took on other people's tension and stress and in this recent path that's been like a cleansing of my gut and then coming back to this deep sense of like intuition of what is meant for me. And so I'm still in that inquiry. I went through a very similar process to what Josh went through. A really radical program to bring you into this deep sense of knowing of what some of your purpose is and doing that not through a cognitive base, but through a body, earth and imaginal base where we're connecting in these really imaginal practices to allow some of that mytho poetic messaging to come through. And I feel like I've gotten some seeds from that. And I still feel my brain like trying to make sense of how to put that into place. But what I know is that like I am here to be in community. I'm here to share my gifts. I'm here to be in my radical authenticity and be my full light and be received in that because that is also where I've carried so much of my pain, is having to minimize myself, minimize my self expression. And so much of my past, I would say five or six years, has been this deep loving of myself and loving myself enough to be in the embodiment of who I am and who I am sometimes is like strange in a moment and shakes and moves in odd ways. And to not constantly be in this like hyper vigilance of am I impacting the people around me? And to be in this like, it's okay if I'm impacting the people around me and that's theirs to move with. And perhaps it is a gift that I am impacting the people around me, in my bigness, in my light. And to continue to titrate and to continue to move into those spaces. I think that so much of my life has been a compassionate human that's just so ready to receive other people. So ready to receive other people and their suffering, to hold their story, to be with them in those dark and crunchy moments and to put out the welcome mat that like their parts are welcome there. They are welcome in my space. And I feel like that is still so much of my work and what I'm here to do. And now that gift has been given to my family, which is a very dynamic entity of , four other beautiful humans that take up a lot of my time and my energy and that I'm so willing to be giving. And the greatest blessing in my life is my 18 month old son. And so I've been in this really big cocoon for the past two and a half years of conceiving and then him coming into this world. And it feels so much of me as a man wants to be this like provider and to have this grand purpose. And that is still there. And I feel like I'm finally now like able to get my feet under me a little bit. Now that he's getting a little bit older, that I can start to really have a bigger vision and trust my gut of like, where do I want to place my energy? So much of my world is creating spaces for connection and belonging, which is my like somatic Yes to working with you, Vincent. And I'm really excited for our facilitator training and I think that is one thing that I'm really jazzed is to heal the healers, to work with the people they're boots on the ground.

Vincent Perez: 35:53

I'm hearing kind of cycle breakers. I'm hearing somatics and of the body being in the body. Our roles, our homes to our culture. Is there something when men are just seeking, boys are seeking, what, where do I go? What do I do? How do I get out of this stuckness, this kind of funk, sometimes, we're in, is there anything that you're, that has helped you?

Joshua Zamrin: 36:15

There's a deeper dimension to purpose that I work with where it's when you know yourself so deeply. First, you're just okay with yourself, love yourself. Then your beingness reveals what to do in the world, and then the two become one. Your beingness is your doingness. You just know how to act. My advice, if it's not life or death, if you have the means and the ability, get the support to go within, to feel, to keep increasing your ability to be. Sitting with discomfort may be one of the greatest skills that a man can cultivate, because the more you can sit with discomfort, the more you can sit with pleasure, the more you can sit with intensity without having to act. This isn't something new. This is ancient kung fu, master lineages abound. Being able to just feel and sit and wait, that discipline is foundational. It's been foundational for me where I used to be in so much resistance to even bodily pain and always trying to fix it and get rid of it.

Vincent Perez: 37:25

Thank you. Nate?

Nate Berner-Tobin: 37:26

Hmm. Yeah. What's coming to my heart is be gentle with yourself. Be kind and compassionate with yourself. I think for me, like I've been so hard on myself and create a lot of judgment. And so as Josh is speaking to, as you begin to like, feel that intensity, also, give yourself some affirmation for doing that. Like, I'm proud of you for going into that big experience. Thank you. Keep doing it and celebrate yourself in that.

Vincent Perez: 37:57

Thank you. I think I needed to hear both of those things: be still and disciplined and self-love. I'm so grateful for your time, for your wisdoms and sharing and connections. Thank you so much for making time. Thank you for being here with us today. I wanna thank my guests, Josh and Nate, for their honesty, presence, and their willingness to sit together in conversation. These circles only work when men are willing to show up and speak truthfully about our lives. The presence you both brought to the conversation really came through. For the listener, please take a moment to reflect on the men who have shaped you and the kind of men you're becoming. If something in today's conversation resonated with you, I encourage you to stay connected to the work of the Men's Healing Network. You can learn more about our programs, circles, and upcoming events at mhn.life. The Men's Healing Network podcast is made possible in part through the support of Choice Regional Health Network, whose commitment to community wellbeing helps make this work possible. Our podcast is produced by Tom Keppeler. Special thanks to Dee Enriquez for her logistical and marketing expertise. And if you know a man who might benefit from these conversations, please share this episode and invite him to listen. Until next time, thank you for joining us. Be well, and keep doing the work. My name is Vincent Perez. Blessings to you and yours.