The MOOD Podcast
In The MOOD Podcast, Matt Jacob, renowned cultural portrait photographer, dives deep into the world of photography and the visual arts, with guests from all around the creative industry, across all parts of the globe, sharing inspiring stories and experiences that will leave you wanting more. With years of experience and a passion for storytelling, Matt has become a master of capturing lesser-told human stories through his photography, and teams up with other special artists from around the world to showcase insights, experiences and opinions within the diverse and sometimes controversial photography world.
You can watch these podcasts on his Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mattyj_ay.
You can also follow Matt's work on his Instagram @mattyj_ay and his website: https://mattjacobphotography.com.
The MOOD Podcast
If You Feel Blocked Creatively, This Might Be Why: Ryan Moresby-White, EO92
"If you're not waking up excited about your path, it might be time to ask different questions."
Ryan Moresby-White explores how unresolved childhood wounds shape our creative expression and why healing our nervous system unlocks artistic freedom. His powerful insights reveal why many creatives unconsciously create from a place of protection rather than truth. Whether you’re an artist, a photographer, or someone stuck between your potential and your pain — this episode will speak to the parts of you that long for change.
What we discussed:
- The hidden childhood wounds blocking creative expression
- Why nervous system regulation is essential for doing meaningful work
- The cost of avoiding vulnerability — and how to face it
- Reframing masculinity, purpose, and emotional strength for artists today
Find Ryan's work on his platforms:
Instagram: @ryanmoresbywhite
LinkedIn: au.linkedin.com/in/ryan-moresby-white
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Welcome to the Mood Podcast. I'm covering the art of conversation through the lens of photography and creativity, one frame at a time. I'm your host, matt Jacob. Thanks again for joining me. My guest today is Ryan Moresby-White, a mental health coach, trauma educator and founder of the Inspired man Project. His work focuses on helping people heal unresolved childhood wounds, regulate their nervous system and reconnect with purpose, vulnerability and strength. Some of you may be wondering what on earth, matt, does this have to do with photography? But, as many of you might already know that, I like to infuse these types of episodes into the more mainstream ones, because I truly believe it's incredibly important for us, as creatives, to work on our mindset as much as things like our practical technique, and this type of inner work goes hand in hand with being a better artist and craftsman. There is no doubt about this. So in this episode, we really unpack the hidden emotional blocks that prevent creatives from expressing their full voice. We explore the deep link between nervous system safety and artistic freedom, how childhood wounds often shape our creative output, and why many artists unconsciously create from a place of protection rather than truth. Ryan also opens up about his own journey how trauma shaped his message, how resistance still shows up for him and what it means to create from a healed whole place. We also tackle some uncomfortable truths the performance of purpose, toxic masculinity and whether creatives are actually addicted to visibility. If you've ever felt unclear on what path to take with your creative passions, or if you feel blocked, unseen or unsure whether your work is coming from ego or expression, this conversation will challenge and ground you in equal measure. So now here is Ryan Moresby-White.
Speaker 1:Ryan Moresby-White, welcome to the Moot Podcast man. Thank you for having me. I'm excited, great to have you, really great to have you, and thanks for agreeing to do this. I know your time is short so we'll get straight into it. Tell me what purpose means to you and what is your purpose. Purpose for me is being a vessel to something that's greater than me and what it's taken for me to, and I'll uncover what that means on a deeper level. But what it's taken for me to truly create a life of purpose which is where I wake up every single day and I'm on mission with something that's far greater than me, of service or impact or contribution to the earth, to the planet, to people in some way, and what it's taken for me to uncover, that is, for me to get out of the, or to be with and accept and heal a lot of the wounded ego, the wounded parts of the ego that were fragmented from childhood, that then led me down a path that was inauthentic to who I am. And what purpose means to me is healing those aspects of us that lead us down the path of being inauthentic to ourself and coming back home. Coming back home to self is our greatest purpose. That is, the purpose is coming back home to ourself. How we then bring that to the world is, then, our mission, and I believe that's the deepest connection to purpose that we can experience, and that's what the journey has been for me. The more I've healed, the more I've uncovered, the more I've come back home to myself, and then the more I've gotten out of my own way and allowed myself to just be a vessel to what it is that I was placed on this earth to be. That's what I believe purpose is.
Speaker 1:Two questions to follow up from that. Why is finding, why is living in alignment with one's purpose important? But before that, how does anyone go about finding and becoming aware of what they feel their purpose is? Yeah, I was once in construction. I was working seven days a week on a dirty job site every day. I was 21 years old. I actually worked my way up to the position of managing was 21 years old. I actually worked my way up to the position of managing. So I was managing these multimillion dollar builds and telling 50 year olds how to do their job when I'm 21. With that was this emptiness, this void of I was just so unhappy and so unfulfilled, even though from the outside, looking in, it looked like I was doing well, but there was this deep void that I was then seeking to fill through things outside of me. So relationships, women, money creating success. It was just this empty void and unfortunately well, not unfortunately it took for me to get to a point. It was just part of my journey. It was my karmic journey to go on.
Speaker 1:It took for me to hit that point of questioning what's the purpose? Like, why, like? Why am I here? And that came in the form of me almost taking my own life. There was a period of time where I had suicidal thoughts every day. What's the point of all of this? I had suicidal thoughts every day. What's the point of all of this?
Speaker 1:But in that was a greater question of me asking the greater question of what is the purpose of this, and the more I started to, as I shared before, heal and come back to myself after that experience of realizing that I need to put my happiness first. And what that looked like was me going on the journey of coming back home, to my heart, to myself, and in that healing journey was the invitations and the recognizing the path of what truly lights me up and I call that like the spiritual carrots it's placing the carrot in front of you to go towards that thing. And for the longest time I wanted to coach, I wanted to help people. I was, you know, I loved asking questions, I love being curious about other people, about human behavior, why people do what they do, and I was from the get-go like I love that. And it took for me to come back home to myself, to my heart, through healing the wounded ego that felt that he needed to go down this path. It took me to come back home to follow what it is that inspires me right, and that's what I call the spiritual carrots. And what it was that inspires me was learning human behavior, helping people, asking questions, being curious about people, and it was following that that led me down the path of what I now do, which is where I get to wake up every day living on purpose. Ah, so good, so much to talk about with that.
Speaker 1:So let's dive in a little bit, because some people may be watching, listening to this going. What the hell does this have to do with me, with photography, with creativity, with filmmaking, whatever craft that they're into? Why should people listen to this, this conversation, this podcast? Why should people listen to what you have to say when it comes to what they do in everyday life and, specifically, the creative aspects of their expression? Nobody should listen to me, you shouldn't. You do whatever you want to do, uh, but I'll share.
Speaker 1:You know the journey and the path that I've been down, and it was. I've been down that road before and it was very empty and I know where that led. Right, it's like in the scene of the matrix right, where he's got the opportunity to either, uh, go down the rabbit hole right, and he's in the scene of the matrix right, where he's got the opportunity to either go down the rabbit hole right and he's in the car and Trinity opens the door and she says you know where that road leads, you've been down there before. She said choose, do you want to see how far the rabbit hole goes or do you want to go down the road you've always known? And in that moment he makes that decision. He goes I want to go down the rabbit hole and that's what it was for me. It's like I'd been down that road.
Speaker 1:I know where that led, and there was a lot of emptiness.
Speaker 1:It was a lot of filling of the void and it was unfulfilling.
Speaker 1:It was meaningless, no-transcript, and it painted me with the same brush as everyone else, where I thought that just because I couldn't learn a certain thing, that I wasn't smart enough to actually go after what it is that I truly wanted to do and be in the world and I didn't know any other way, right, so it's being open and curious to the thing is, if you're not living a life where you wake up every day and you're excited about the path that you're heading down, it's time to start asking yourself some different questions, because that's the same road that you've always been going down, and it's time to ask different questions if you want to get different results, and that's what it was for me.
Speaker 1:So if someone's listening to this and there's a part of them that knows that there's more depth to be had, there's greater experience, there's more impact that they want to create in the world they're not truly living what it is that they want to be expressing in the world then, yeah, listen to this podcast or maybe, yeah, start asking yourself some different questions. But yeah, I'm sure, if that answers your question. It does.
Speaker 1:I think what I want to try and impart I guess what I want to try and piece apart is how people recognize that in themselves, because there's so many stories we tell ourselves when we're in our own head and if someone's not necessarily aware of the situation they're in, you know everyone can walk through life saying I want this and I want to do better at this. And you know there's. There's a desire after desire after desire, with the status quo type of person, type type of human. We're all fallible in that respect. Kind of referring to your own story, which we're going to dive a little bit deeper into in a minute, but your awareness and correct me if I'm wrong but your awareness of understanding that something had to change was when you got to suicidal thoughts. So how can we tell people, how can we instruct people in terms of awareness before it gets to that stage? Because there's a lot of people out there that, before they know it, they'll wake up one day and go I don't want to live anymore. And they haven't been able to pass all of the things that have been going on up until that point because they haven't maybe had the skills or practice to drive that awareness and understanding and then implementing potential, the small one percent changes along the route, right? So what I'm trying to get to is how can we be more aware of the, the need or the desire to to do something a little bit different? Yeah, uh, I always say, you know, I like to say that we can either change from a place of pain and suffering and desperation or inspiration, so we can wait until we hit the rock bottom, or we can lean into the subtle invitations that might come in the form of triggers or might come in the form of inspiration. For example, if you see someone on a podcast and it's deeply inspiring to you, listen to that, be curious as to what was that part of you that was inspired by that? Right? Is that something that you aspire to do? Impact Do you want to help people? Does it resonate with the message? It's listening to these subtle invitations? People Do you resonate with the message? It's listening to these subtle invitations?
Speaker 1:And I believe that we also at some point need to hit our own rock bottom as well, because in that rock bottom I believe based on my own experience and my journey is in the rock bottom that's where I've received some of my deepest gifts and lessons that I now get to bring to the world. And if I didn't go through those initiations and hit that rock bottom and start asking these different questions, I wouldn't be creating the impact that I am today with the thousands of men that I work with globally. So it took for me to actually go on that. So who's to say that it was good or bad for me to, to get into that place where I was, you know, considering? And that wasn't the last rock bottom I hit, and it might not be, you know, there might be more to come.
Speaker 1:And I'm excited by that because I know that in the hero's journey, when we lean into us hitting that rock bottom and facing or just like come against the wall, like hitting the wall of just stuckness, and like I get excited when I'm confused and stuck and hitting a wall in business, because I know that on the other side of this is an embodiment that I'm yet to step into that's going to get me over the wall, or this wall's here for a reason, because I'm going the wrong way.
Speaker 1:So when you understand the hero's journey and understand like rock bottoms are great because it's like God pointing you in the direction that you're supposed to go and that's been one of my biggest teachers. I'll try something and figure it out. If it works, awesome, if it doesn't, cool. I just wasn't supposed to go down that path and that's just how I've approached everything. And yeah, I think it's great for people to hit that rock bottom at some point, for them to. But there's two kinds of people. There's the ones who will lean in and there's the ones who will lean out in that moment of hitting their rock bottom or hitting that wall, facing that challenge, and the ones that lean out and don't accept the invitation to go in and deepen. At some point they'll be faced with that rock bottom again at some point, because that's the hero's journey.
Speaker 1:If you don't gain the lesson that you're supposed to gain in the pit when you hit the rock bottom, you'll find you'll. You'll slowly make your way all the way back up to the familiar world that you've always known, the same road that you've always walked down right, and then, at some point, you're going to come across it again until you receive the gift or the initiation that's going to, uh, complete the hero's journey. Because we are always going through cycles and seasons, and the reason why we go through cycles and seasons is for the growth and the evolution and expansion of our soul. And those cycles and seasons that our soul goes through are the hero's journey. And when you, you truly understand that you allow yourself to go through those cycles and seasons and gain the strengths that the winter is seeking to bring through, yeah, I think that's really important and I'm going to get back to your own hero story in a minute but really, really important for people to understand that life is about seasons. But what you do in the good seasons is really preparation for, like you said, the winters of, because they're going to come. You know, that's just the human story. You're going to have grief. At some point. You're going to have low moods at some point. Things are going to go well for you at some point. Things are going to go well for you sometimes. Things aren't going to go so well for you other times, and if you have some kind of toolkit or some kind of innate practice that you've been working on over an elongated period of time, you should hopefully be better equipped to to deal with those the low times, but also bounce back a little bit quicker, be a bit more resilient.
Speaker 1:When it comes back to the creatives out there and the people who don't quite know where to express oneself or how to, or whether they can take that leap of faith, whether they can jump from that nine to five into something of of um self-passion and expression, I think it's important to understand and be prepared for those seasons.
Speaker 1:Even more right is you know that is a season in itself when you you take those leaps and you take those risks essentially. So there's so much work that we can do on ourselves as well as with others and around others, that will help that whole creative journey. You know, wherever you might be on that path, whatever you might be, might be doing. So I think that's really important for people to understand. I've been through it myself, still go through it right, still have those really difficult periods and, um, you know, if you can have some kind of toolkit, some kind of awareness and practice, then it doesn't make it easier, but it it means that you lean into it more right you understand what's going on and why it's why it's happening yeah yeah, what comes up for me?
Speaker 1:you can't reap the fruits on the same day that you plant the seed, and so many people ask me, like, what's the one thing that?
Speaker 1:you did that changed everything. I was like it was the seven years of planting seeds every year, every month, every day, right Of just showing up, doing the the thing, taking the actions towards. You know the life that I want to create for myself, and I look back in five years time and I have all of these trees that are growing, all of these fruits that I now get to, you know receive from, and it's the whole.
Speaker 1:You know the analogy of the, the, I think it, the Chinese bamboo tree it's five years of building roots in a network underneath the surface and then, after five years, within six weeks, a forest of bamboo explodes out of nowhere and it's yeah, it's the same thing. So it's honoring the seasons that you're going through. It could be monthly seasons. It could be a season for a few years, be monthly seasons. It could be a season for a few years when I went from being in construction to impacting thousands of men all over the world. There was a season of at least five years of me being in contraction, and on the other side of contraction there's always expansion, but when we don't allow ourselves to be in that contraction, we're not allowing ourselves to also be in expansion. For those people that just want to be in expansion all the time, they're disregarding the other side of contraction, they're doing everything to avoid it, and what that looked like was I was in contraction for five years. I left, and this is for maybe some of those creators out there that are maybe in a career or in a position right now and it's like they want to be right now. They're at A and they want to be at B. Years for me of I stepped out of construction. I made the decision I stepped out of construction straight away. I took on a job at a bottle shop. I was working at a bottle shop, then I would take on. I started working with clients personally as a personal trainer on the gym floor, right, and it was while I was working in the bottle shop. It was like cool getting my first five clients and then it was getting to the point where I could shop. It was like cool getting my first five clients and then it was getting to the point where I could just be full-time coaching and then from there it was alongside all of that, on the weekends I'm at personal development events, I'm showing up and doing the work. I'm coming back home to myself. I'm learning, studying, growing. I knew it was a five-year journey. It's like I gave five years as an apprentice to learn construction. It's like at first I gave construction that much time to learn and when I got to that rock bottom I was like I'm going to give myself this time. Now I'm going to work on myself, like I did on my apprenticeship for at least the next five years. That's what it looked like. I was in contraction for five years of just working, hustling, taking on clients, learning, growing, showing up to events, doing everything I could to better myself. That was the contraction. And then, five years, just boom, everything just clicked and took off and I knew all of those little things were stepping stones from the bottle shop to my first on the floor client in the gym right, 40 an hour, uh to moving through like four different gyms, rebuilding my clientele base four times, working part-time jobs throughout that, while I'm doing all this other stuff, uh, all knowing that this is just a stepping stone to exactly what I'm doing right now, today. And if I didn't allow myself myself to go through that because I wanted the instant gratification of wanting to make money now, wanting to win fast, I wouldn't have received the gifts and the lessons and the embodiment through that period of contraction. Yeah, through that, you know that.
Speaker 1:That period of contraction, yeah, also the whole process of making, making yourself a better person sounds trite, but you're working on yourself in order, in order to be a person that you can actually deliver. What you're delivering now, right. Otherwise it's almost this dissonance. It's like inauthentic you, where you're trying to be this person but actually you're not that person, right? So there's still that whole process and it's the same with photography or something a little bit more, I guess, tangible same things Like don't, don't try not to run before you can walk, and um, I talk about that all the time, cause I did. I was that guy. I was like, yeah, I could do this, let's go, let's go, let's go, couldn. I just didn't know myself, actually wasn't good at what I was doing anyway, and it backfires and you have to start all over again. So it's easy to talk about. It was very difficult to do, as you well know. Let's rewind even more before we move on.
Speaker 1:How did you get to that? Because we started your story really at the age of 21 ish, doing construction. Tell me, because I know a lot of what you you do and we'll talk about the the men side of the male side of it later but is working through childhood trauma and understanding the impact of that on the adult self and what we put out there in the world. So first of all, give me a bit of an insight as to to why that is something that you became very interested in. Was this something that was very personal to you in your childhood? So give me a bit of a story up to that age where you were working in construction and how you think these pieces kind of piled on top of each other to get you to that low state that you were in.
Speaker 1:Through our childhood we've got certain stages of development, all the way from being in the womb to infancy, to toddler, to preschool, to school age, to teenager, to adult, and there's even iterations throughout being an adult where there's certain stages of development that we're still actually progressing through. Adult, where there's certain stages of development that we're still actually progressing through. And in those stages of development, when we don't receive the strengths that we're supposed to gain in those stages of development along the way, we stay stuck at the last stage of development that we received received. So this is why most men are walking around today as grown adult children, because they're still stuck in the level of thinking, psychology, behaving, level of consciousness and energy of a little boy that's seeking to fulfill those unmet needs that he didn't receive in childhood.
Speaker 1:Now, through the world, this is where a man becomes a high performer, he becomes even extremely successful, and it never feels enough because beneath that is actually a little boy who once was seeking and doing anything in his power to receive that love and that acceptance and approval from his father, and then he realized that I can get this from the world, yeah, so beneath the success that he goes out there and creates is actually this little boy who's still just wanting that from his dad and he's turned the role model or the figure of his dad. He's transferred that to his business or to the success that he wants to create. So then he achieves it and he creates that level of success, but then he loses himself because he realizes that it wasn't about that. And this is where I was very fortunate to experience that at a very early age. Right.
Speaker 1:Where I got into construction, because there was a boy, a little boy, within me. Through. I grew up racing motocross as well. So through performing as an athlete, through being this successful builder and being really good at working with my hands on the tools, I thought I'd impress my dad enough to get the approval and the love and attention that I'd been craving most of my life. So, beneath this young hustler that was just trying to prove himself and succeed, was this little boy who was just trying to prove himself and succeed, was this little boy who was just trying to be seen by dad. He was just wanting the love and the attention, the approval and the validation from the masculine and receiving that love and support, that deep emotional connection from my father.
Speaker 1:Now, that's the road that I walked down, and I got down to the end of the road and it was empty. I was making six figures a year as a carpenter, I was working all these hours and it was just so empty and so meaningless because I was doing it from the wrong place. Empty and so meaningless because I was doing it from the wrong place, and this is why so many people work careers and jobs that are so unfulfilling and so empty and so meaningless to them that they're just drained, they have no energy to, they're just lifeless because their soul was not being fully expressed in the way that it's seeking to be expressed. This is why today I can work crazy amounts of hours, because it's not work for me. It actually gives me energy because this is what I'm supposed to be doing, and I know that when you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, that's where you're going to be most happy, fulfilled, successful and you're going to have the most impact. So I was lucky to experience that at an early age, where I got to 21, 22 years old, where I hit that rock bottom of questioning like what's the point of all of this?
Speaker 1:And through that journey, as I shared before, from working at the bottle shop to being a PT, to becoming an online coach and doing all of this stuff was me healing the little boy within me who was still seeking for a relationship, a woman, a business, a level of status or success to validate that who I am in my core is lovable, worthy and enough. And when we're living in a body that's not ours. What I mean by that is I'd created this false self, this inauthentic false self based upon the foundation of that little boy. It's like building a house on foundations of just cracks of just, and most people carry that throughout their entire life. So for me, it was coming back to those cracks and the foundations of healing that little boy and reclaiming that little boy and gaining the strengths through rites of passage and through doing men's work and through doing deep inner child healing, that I was able to come back to who I was before I felt or thought that I needed to be something other than myself. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And when we speak about purpose, that's where your purpose lies, because that little boy was very expressive. He loved to use his voice, he loved to, he was very passionate, he's very playful, he's very curious about the world, and when I came back to that, it's what you shared before it's, instead of trying to be this person, it was just being this person, where so many people are trying to be something instead of just being who they are and letting that speak for itself. And, for example, at the you, at the event that we're at on the weekend, some people will be in my presence and they will just start asking different questions just because of me, just being me. Like there's people asking questions like why do you pray, like why are you intentional with your food? And it's like this is what I do and by me just being me, that sparks questions for other people, right, and that's what I'm here to do. But yeah, to come back to your question, the journey for me has been healing the little boy within that thought that he needed to prove himself, to be loved, and he thought that he needed to be everything and anything other than who he is at his core, to be worthy and, yeah, to be loved and accepted and validated by the world. Yeah, you basically described me, and I'm not alone in that in any stretch of the imagination. Quite the opposite.
Speaker 1:It's remarkable, since I've kind of been a bit more curious in this world over the last five years as well, it's incredible the amount of people that are living as a child, right, living for someone else's purpose living or living for status, for external validation, et cetera, not nowhere near aligned with the true, authentic self. Maybe they don't know how, maybe they're not aware, maybe, um, their childhood was traumatic? Um, it was. It was funny, actually, at that event when we did the breathing exercises that you so well led.
Speaker 1:Every time I do those with um, with other people in the room, nearly all of us crying, right, because it's the point. And when you talk to people after that, it's the point at which you tell people, or the facilitator tells them to think of themselves as a seven-year-old, 10-year-old, give them a hug, tell them it's going to be okay. Then everyone's just starts crying, right, so there's, there's so many scars. Often I'm not saying with everyone and everyone is so different. Everyone has a different upbringing, everyone has a different experience. Some people don't have an upbringing at all, right, but there is, there is always these scars that we are not aware of. I was probably 37, 38 before I even began to even think about that. So I empathize with that state of being, that state of mind.
Speaker 1:Why men, for a start? Why just men? Because we all have different traumas in our childhood and different experiences. So why was that a business decision to focus on men, or just what you knew, or yeah, just explain that for us, my deepest passion is through helping men become the absolute best versions of themselves, through coming home to themselves and being who they truly are in the world, being the powerful, grounded, safe, mature, masculine men that they're placed on this earth to be. What that then does is creates the foundation for there to be connected relationships for the, for the most part, but safe families and safe homes where children then have that loving support that they need to become who they truly are and to get their needs met and to be in a loving, supportive family, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:The things that we our deepest voids, the things that we had missing in childhood, typically become our greatest purpose. So the things that you value most in life are based upon the things that you didn't have as a little boy. So what I value most is, for example, growth, personal development, creating impact. What I didn't have as a little boy was I was always told that I wasn't smart enough and I have to go work with my hands physically. So that was a deep void of mine and typically our void becomes our highest values, becomes our highest values.
Speaker 1:Why men is?
Speaker 1:I know that through men being the safe, masculine, mature leaders in the world, it's going to create the safety that most women have been craving most of their life, that they didn't receive or haven't ever received from the masculine, and through that, that's the invitation for men to step into their potential and become who they were placed on this earth to be.
Speaker 1:What I mean by this is the feminine has been my greatest teacher. Relationships have been my deepest teacher, and I wouldn't be on this mission and helping this amount of men if I hadn't been initiated through the feminine. And what those initiations look like were those triggers that came through relationship, that were my deepest mirrors into where I wasn't fully connected to myself as a man. And I know, by through men coming back home to themselves and being the powerful, grounded leaders in the world, they not only they create that safety for women to also be their full expressed selves and for them to also be living on path with their you know true expression and purpose as well. And through that is this union of the masculine and feminine energy working together, and the way I describe it is by that, by both of us coming together.
Speaker 1:It's like a rising tide lifting all ships yeah it's like we all, we all benefit, benefit from it. Yeah, through witnessing years of being in the personal development world, just seeing the amount of women who've experienced or felt unsafe from the masculine has just it lit this fire within me. It's like someone needs to do something about it. What do you define unsafe? When a man is operating from the consciousness of a boy, he's emotionally immature. To be emotionally immature is to be at a young stage of development, a young stage of emotional connection. So by men going back and reclaiming that little boy and healing the boy and gaining the strength that they were supposed to gain, they gain the maturity that they were supposed to. How else can I describe this? Can you ask the question again Define unsafe?
Speaker 1:Yeah, when a man is operating from the emotional maturity of the boy, he doesn't have the capacity within himself to even hold space for a partner's emotions, for a woman's emotions, her emotional expression.
Speaker 1:And when he's operating from that immature state of consciousness, he's still looking at the world through the lenses of his unresolved childhood trauma.
Speaker 1:So this is where he no longer sees a woman's emotional expression as that's her process and she's going through what she's going through.
Speaker 1:He sees it as a threat to his nervous system, that there's something wrong with him right, that there's something that he hasn't done right. There's something wrong with him or he needs to be something other than himself to be loved, if that makes sense. So in that moment it takes him out of the ability to hold a safe space because it's now about him, because he's triggered, because there's a little boy within him who sees this partner as a reflection that there's something inherently wrong with him. And in that moment he's taken away from just holding a safe space for his partner to be supported emotionally in the way that she needs. Because an emotionally mature man, which is what I call a safe man, is able to hold himself, be in his own wound, his own trigger, and still hold a safe space because it's not about him. Here's the level of emotional maturity where he doesn't need the validation and approval from a woman to validate that he's enough and he doesn't see her emotions as a threat, that there's something inherently wrong with him.
Speaker 1:So therefore he no longer reacts to her. When a man is emotionally immature, he's acting from the consciousness of a little boy. This is where he becomes reactive, defensive, shut down, insecure and a lot of the toxic masculine traits that we see today. Beneath toxic masculinity is a little boy who's living in a state of survival, trying to get his needs met through a relationship or seeing this relationship as a reflection that there's something wrong with him. And as humans we do everything in our power to avoid our shame. If a man is operating from the consciousness of a boy the boy who feels deeply shame-based that there's something inherently wrong with who I am as soon as that shame's triggered in relationship, he's going to do everything to avoid that. This is why men minimize or become easily dismissive or shut down a woman's emotional experience or expression because he sees that as a reflection that there's something wrong with him and it's bringing up this shame. But a mature man can be with that emotional experience of shame or guilt or fear of rejection or abandonment. He can be with that fully in that moment and not react but respond.
Speaker 1:At the core of what it means to be a safe man is the window between reaction and response. When a man is unconscious to his wounds, he reacts from his wounds. When he's deeply aware of his wounds and he's got that connection with his own emotions, he has ability to self-soothe and regulate himself. He can then respond, not from the wound but from the awareness of the wound and what that might look like, instead of, for example, his partner being in this emotional expression and him going, oh, this is too much, no matter what I do, it's never good enough for you. That's reaction, response could be. I notice there's a part within me, there's something within me that feels this shame that I'm not good enough within me.
Speaker 1:There's something within me that feels this shame, that I'm not good enough, and that's for me to be with, that's for me to bring to my bros, to my men and really sit with. That's not for him to bring to her, for her to fix. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's for him to go to his men, to his brothers, gain the awareness, go through whatever process he needs to go through and then bring that awareness to his partner. What if he doesn't have brothers? Well, this is where I come in. Yeah, and that's the issue. When a man doesn't have other men around him, he typically uses the relationship as his emotional support and, for example, like, if you think of that-. Or alcohol or lashing out in other ways, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, if you think of it, if a man is leaning on his woman for emotional support, who is she supposed to lean on?
Speaker 1:yeah and it's like the masculine is the rock. If you go out to the ocean, you go on the coastline, like I was sitting down there the other day just the coastline, like I was sitting down there the other day just the coastline, like just the rock, the formation of the rock, that's the masculine, just holding its frame. The feminine is the crashing of the waves against the rock. It's just immovable because it's so grounded and connected to itself. But most men, they have these waves crashing against them and they crumble because they don't have that solid grounding or anchor within themselves.
Speaker 1:I can hear a lot of women saying the opposite as well. Why can't women be that strong, rock, immovable being that's there, in place to support the you know the masculine that's. Or why can't they be a you know an even symbiosis of of both? Is it just the way we're wired or is it environmental or you know? Talk to me a little bit more about that. Yeah, it's extremely important, for I speak a lot about men cultivating this depth of connection with themselves and being that deeply grounded pillar of support, emotionally, for all the people around him, not just intimate relationships. It's just as important for a woman to also cultivate that within herself. Women also have a little girl within them, an inner child right, and when that little girl within them an inner child right, and when that little girl's playing out, she will struggle to trust his leadership and trust his or really be able to receive this man for who he is, as a man, if she's still looking at him through the lenses of this little girl who can't trust the masculine right.
Speaker 1:But when we look at the energy of the masculine and feminine energy, the feminine is very expressive, it's very flowy, it's very free. It's chaotic energy. That's what the feminine is, and I'm not just speaking about females or women. I'm speaking about feminine energy as the energy. We all have masculine and feminine energy within us. So the feminine energy is the emotional expression that's happening within our body. Then the masculine is the grounding, it's the direction of that energy.
Speaker 1:It's the structure. You're talking more in terms of concepts of energy, rather than a male and female, a man and a woman, right? So, because we all have that in us, and this is why I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's important because I'm going to touch on this later. This is why people think it's girly to express your emotions as a man. Right, because it's it's identified with feminine energy, or it is feminine energy in some respect, and so you become identified with a girl or a snowflake or a softie if you start expressing your emotions. And this, this is many, many generations behind us that have created this stiff upper lip syndrome. Right, it's certainly in men. I'll talk about that a little bit later, but I just wanted to make that point just to clarify what you mean when you say masculine and feminine. A man who's emotionally disconnected from himself has disowned the feminine within his own body, and this is why he sees emotions his own emotions as an overwhelming experience, and this is why he sees his partner's emotions as an overwhelming experience. So when she's emotional or she's not, okay, it's extremely overwhelming for his nervous system because he's disconnected from the feminine within himself. So the more a man connects with the feminine within himself, his own emotional experience and his own authentic expression. It opens up this capacity within his nervous system to actually just hold a safe space for the feminine in his life.
Speaker 1:But coming back to the energies of the masculine and feminine, when we look at the energies, we live in a two-sided reality. There's two sides to everything. We have the sun, we have the moon, we have up down, left, right, positive and negative. This is what the masculine and feminine is. The masculine is the positive charge, it's penetrative energy. The feminine energy the negative not meaning good or bad, it's just an expression of energy is the receptive energy. We've got the negative, not meaning good or bad, it's just an expression of energy is the receptive energy. So we've got the expressive, penetrating energy and then we've got the receptive energy. When we look at our sexual organs, you can see it there and then right. So the greatest way to explain that is a riverbed right.
Speaker 1:The masculine is the grounded support for that to be the flow of water and you get to be the direction and the support and the grounding to direct and guide the feminine. So this is what I call emotional leadership when a man is deeply connected to himself and he's got his men around him right, and he's integrated in the masculine archetypes of the king, warrior, magician and lover. That's a whole thing in itself. But basically he knows where he's going, he's clear on his mission, clear on his purpose and he knows who he is at his core. He can then lead, guide and direct the relationship by being the structure for there to be flow, so his woman or his partner can be in her emotional expression and be in her flow, while he can just be this grounding.
Speaker 1:But when a man is in his flow too much, there's no grounding or direction, not only in his own life. So if you look at a man who's way too much in his feminine, he lacks a lot of structure and direction in his life and guarantee you he doesn't live by a calendar, right. When he's too flowy compared to you can also be too structured as well, where you don't have space for there to be flow. So it's the balance and the integration of both. But when a man gets to be that, he then creates the balance and the integration of both. But when a man gets to be that, he then creates the opportunity and space for there to be that the union of the masculine and feminine to work in balance and symmetry. When you look at the positive and negative, there's an electrical charge, there's a traction and it clicks, it goes together because they're opposites coming together. So when a man gets to be that structure and that grounding and that direction and that support because of the man, that he is right, his partner gets to be more in her flow, in her true essence of the feminine. Most women are typically more in their feminine, most men are typically more in their masculine and when we come back to the, most men are typically more in their masculine. And when we come back to the, the core of the energy that's most true to us, it's like that's where our power is right.
Speaker 1:I know, for me personally, the power that I, or the gift that I, provide in relationship is the grounding and the security and the direction and the emotional leadership for a woman to be in her flow, to be in her essence, to be in her creativity, where she can birth whatever it is that she wants to birth into the world. Because that's what the feminine will you give. The feminine you give a woman something, she will multiply it. The feminine you give a woman something, she will multiply it. So the feminine gives back. So, for example, you give her your seed, she creates life. She literally creates a baby. You give her the safe foundation for her to be herself, she will give you the nourishing support that's going to support you on your mission. Whatever you give to the feminine, she gives back, and this is why, when you asked me before around my passion, around being the safe man, it's like because this is what we get to experience is the union of the masculine and feminine working together.
Speaker 1:It's truly incredible what can happen when we're both in that place within ourselves, and it takes for us to first of all heal the younger parts of us that are preventing you, as a man, being so solid within yourself and having that deep connection with yourself, emotionally and also spiritually, where you're clear on your mission and your vision, moving forward. So simple, then. No, it is Difficult, but simple it is. I used to teach masculine and feminine. I was like a polarity coach, right, and I steered so far away from that. I don't even talk about it this is the first time I've actually spoken about that in a while Because, at the core of it, when we come back to who we are at our essence and a man goes through his stages of development, he goes through his rite of passage from boy to man. That grounded, secure, emotionally mature man is just the byproduct of that. It's not about him trying to be more masculine or be more feminine. It's about him coming home to who more masculine or be more feminine. It's about him coming home to who he is at his core, going through the initiations that he missed in stages of development and stepping into his fucking powers as the man that he was placed on this earth to be. So why do we see so many manifestations of the toxic side of masculinity.
Speaker 1:You talked about wounded ego before you know. And I think about? I think about my dad, you know he's. You know, if he can hear me talking like this, he'll just call me a snowflake, right, just like. Oh, just just get on with it. I just grow up and get on with it. What are you? Why are you talking about all this crap? You know, his version of a strong man is the man that doesn't say anything, that doesn't complain, that doesn't show emotions and just gets on. Just get on with it. Work hard, provide. You know, the old school type approach. Is that the breeder of the? You know, the opposite of what you're talking about, the toxic masculine persona. Is that what's created these types of characters? Um, where do you see we went wrong? As a weep, the proverbial we. Where did we go wrong in terms of seeing these really polarized characters and almost extreme types of the wrong version of strong man? Right, because it's interesting to talk about strength and being a strong man.
Speaker 1:The definition for one man is so different than what it is for another man. Strength for me is about honesty and authenticity and support and providing a safe space. That, for me, is strength, which means showing emotion, because you have to be honest, you have to share your life with another person. It's difficult, but for me that's true strength. For other people it's driving a Lamborghini, earning shit loads of money, providing for a woman that they don't really care about, but just giving them the money that they need to go and buy handbags, and just being this bro right, being this super strong and kind of um you know superhero type character that just goes and wins. It's all about winning and and money and and materials and just houses. And that's me. That's what a strong man is.
Speaker 1:So where? First of all, how do there's so many questions from that? But how do we prevent being that man and I know it's, we've talked a lot about it already, but it's just. It's simple to hear. In theory, it's difficult to get up and go and a identify that you have to pivot a little bit or that you've got issues to really dive into and sort out. Where. Where did we go wrong in that respect? And what do you say to the naysayers who think that what we're talking about now is just a bunch of bullshit?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of perceived strong masculine men out there and what people see as strength is what they've mastered in the physical world. People see as strength is what they've mastered in the physical world the money, the status, the literal physical body. So there's the physical strength, but I believe the most courageous thing that a man can do is feel his grief, is to feel and grieve the little boy within him who didn't have the safety to cultivate a relationship with his emotional body, with his feminine, his own internal feminine. That takes true courage. What I see as strength is a man feeling his shame instead of running from it, the shame of the little boy who feels or felt that he needs to be something other than himself, to be loved or to gain approval. And for the most part, that's where a lot of people are. That's what they are running from when they're creating a lot of success in the physical world, right, or they're building their bodies to look a certain way. A lot of it is coming from world right. Or they're building their bodies to look a certain way. A lot of it is coming from them actually running from the shame. So that's not true strength. True strength is yeah, you can amazing, master the physical world, but can you actually sit and feel the shame and cry and grieve. The little boy who felt that at his core there's something inherently wrong with him and he must be something other than himself in order to be approved or to feel worthy to be loved. That's true strength.
Speaker 1:And where I feel that we went wrong is over the last few hundred years with war, the industrial revolution, those two main things war and the industrial revolution, where men started to go away to war or they started to go away to work and then they would come home and they'd be so emotionally disconnected from themselves or they have all of this trauma that they're then shut down from themselves and they don't have the capacity to create this loving space for their family. And where the real problem happens is their children, which are most likely our grandfathers or our fathers. Right, that then didn't get their needs of love and connection met or community, because their fathers had to go off to war or go off to work, that they didn't have their core emotional needs met, which then are passed down into us. So for the most part sounds like you did as well, but you know, I received a father that was quite emotionally disconnected and he worked a lot from the place of his little boy, wanting to give me everything that he never had from his dad, because his dad had to go to war or he had to go away and work and he was emotionally disconnected from himself. So this is what we call ancestral trauma the trauma that's passed down the lineage.
Speaker 1:Ancestral trauma, the trauma that's passed down the lineage. And typically it gets to a point where there's one person who breaks the. There's one person in the line that changes it for everyone, and for me I know that's that's me and my family lineage is and whoever's listening, like you, you get to be the person who changes your entire lineage, moving forward by healing the masculine in your lineage, in your line, of this emotional disconnection that's been passed all the way through. So it's not typically the trauma that they experienced back then, but it's how it's been passed down because of these children who didn't have the environment they needed to gain the strength that they needed in their stages of development, along with us missing and stepping away from rites of passage and ritual.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, a boy at a certain age needs to be stripped away from his mother. The mother is our oxygen supply of nurturing and after that he's stripped away from his mother and he goes on his initiation. He goes on his rites of passage, where he goes through something challenging and that challenge. What that does is this is where he breaks through the shadows of his ego and he meets a deeper part of himself through some form of challenging experience. He meets a deeper part of himself through some form of challenging experience and in that challenging experience, this is where he gains the strength to know that I've got myself. No matter how challenging something might be, I've got myself. I can stand on my own two feet. That initiation and rites of passage also being held and supported by elders, yeah, also being held and supported by elders.
Speaker 1:It gives this little boy this sense of connection to himself, this sense of validation within himself that I have what it takes to be a man. I no longer have to spend my entire life trying to seek that from the world, because when we don't get that, we seek for our entire life to try and receive that from the world. Because when we don't get that, we seek for our entire life to try and receive that from the world. So this is where a lot of men are creating that success They've got the Lamborghini, they've got the money, they've got the body, the status whatever from this little boy who's still seeking that very need that he needed in initiation, very need that he needed in initiation. And this is where I believe we've gone wrong, is where we've steered away from this ritual from boy to man, which has been recorded for as long as time, like there's been. It's in the Bible, it's in story, it's in mythology. There's a book called Iron John which the story was written in the 1700s and it was about exactly what I just spoke about the initiation, where a boy is taken away from the mother and he goes and lives with the men and he learns what it means to be a man and he goes through a challenging experience where he's initiated into his power. Challenging experience where he's initiated into his power Interesting. How can we then bring all of that and let's try and unite the genders again, because there's a lot of people out there watching, listening, thinking okay, how does this even matter to me if I want to go and pursue a photography career, or if I want to go and be an artist, or if I want to go and be a content creator, or if I want to go and make something of my own, start a business or do something that's in the creative realms. In that respect, why does this matter to me and what can I do as of tomorrow to start this journey where I can become essentially a better person, more authentic, truthful person to who I really am, but, more importantly, create in alignment with that right, not create for validation or for success or for followers or for metrics or for the Lamborghinis and the status that other people outside put on me as a label so I can then feel like I'm important or I'm a success. How can we start that journey and why does that journey? Why does that knowing thyself almost matter so much in terms of the artist or the creator.
Speaker 1:For me, as a creator, through creating content on social media that's reached hundreds of millions of people all over the world through, let's say, musicians and artists that have been extremely successful in their expression, typically they've done well because they've turned their greatest pain into their purpose and by you leaning in and doing this deeper inner work and uncovering your deepest core wounds, you get to then turn that into your greatest purpose and that's where you're going to have the most impact. Because if you're doing it just to look a certain way or just to gain, like because you want the following or you want the status or whatever, it's not going to last long. When we look at the scale of consciousness, that's a very low vibrational frequency. Right. When you're doing it from a place of inspiration, of wanting to serve and help and create impact, that's coming from a higher vibrational frequency. That's where you're going to have the most impact.
Speaker 1:There was a long time where I was trying to be this men's coach and when I stopped trying to be this men's coach and I just started being myself and doing the deep inner work on myself and just being my full expressed self, that's where everything changed for me, and what I mean by that is uncovering my deepest core wounds and bringing that to the world, because in our core wounds, the most painful things that we experienced in childhood, in that is the gifts that maybe for the very reason that's why you were put through that, to go through that. I know that I was put through certain initiations, through being a wounded little boy in relationships and in business and whatnot. I know that those were my gifts for me to lean into and heal so I could bring it to the world. So what I'd be saying or asking someone who was listening to this is from what place am I doing it from? Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then ask yourself why, seven times, from what place am I doing this from? And then just keep asking yourself well, why, why do I want to do that, why do I want to do that, why do I want to do that? And you might recognize maybe how surface level it is, and that's why it's not successful.
Speaker 1:So when you, it's like a tree will. There's a famous quote by Carl Jung a tree cannot grow to heaven if its roots have not reached down to hell. So the more you reach down into the deepest depths of yourself, that's where you're going to uncover your greatest gifts and in that, that's going to be what you bring to the world. That's going to be what you bring to the world. So any creators out there especially, it's like I know, as a creator, the most creative. The times where I've been most creative is where I've been so deep, in the deepest depth of myself, and what's come through me has been something that's beyond me, that if I was to sit there and try and figure this out, or try and be a certain way, or try and say something a certain way, it just wouldn't be received in the in the same way. So it's the more you you deepen within yourself, the more it's going to naturally unfold. Yeah, talk a lot about exactly the same thing when people are. I kind of label it as like trying to find your own voice. You know essentially, what do you want to put out there in the world, whether you want to contribute to a specific purpose, great. Or if you just want to find yourself, just be comfortable with yourself and what you want to do, whether it's behind closed doors or out in the public, it doesn't matter, it's still your voice, it's still the emanation of who you are as a person. But it's so difficult to come from that foundation right, come from those roots that touch hell. So I think it's really really important for people to understand if they want to go and pick up that camera at the weekend, if they want to go and pick up that guitar and potentially do the odd gig here and there or start writing or poetry, whatever it might be, as long as it's coming from the right place, then you're going to find fulfillment in it and you, you will eventually find your level, your definition of success, whatever that might be. So I think it's it's really kind of joyous to talk about that, but it's just. I know it's very, very difficult for people to to kind of start understanding where that foundation is, how to build that, that, those, those roots, essentially. Well, I was just going to touch on this quickly. So I, you, are the instrument, we are the instrument, and the camera, social media, your phone, of that. Those are our tools for expression. My phone and social media is legit, just a tool for me to express myself and to express that deeper gift that I'm here to bring to the world. So, in whatever way feels most true to you to express that the camera is just the tool, but it's the actual message behind what it is that you're actually creating. That's truly where the magic is going to lie, and that only comes from facing the depth of yourself.
Speaker 1:What's one thing that we can all do when we wake up tomorrow to start contributing to that inner work? Just one little thing. What's one thing that we can all do when we wake up tomorrow to start contributing to that inner work? Just one little thing. What can we take away? Cultivating a relationship with the breath. Breath, yeah. Through the breath we get to silence the noise of what's happening up here and we create the space to begin to listen to what our body already knows. We create the space to. For example, we're at a business event for three days together.
Speaker 1:What I recognize and what I've seen through the many years of going to personal development events is so many people are going to the events, events for the the one thing that's going to change everything for them.
Speaker 1:Yet they're still seeking to outsource their power to people and things outside of them. And through the breath, when we get quiet enough, we can actually listen to the answers and the deep inner knowing of. I already know what I need to do, but I'm still looking for someone to give me the permission to do the thing I know I already know what to do. That's why, when I took everyone through that breath, some of them were just that's what they needed for the most part, for some of them, right, and once we create that quietness, we can listen to that deeper inner knowing, that deeper voice, and typically that deeper inner knowing goes against everything that the ego wants, because the ego wants to keep you safe and comfortable, and how people avoid facing that knowing and that deeper inner truth is by trying to find the magic pill, the magic answer Distraction with that.
Speaker 1:The magic you're looking for is in the work you're avoiding or it's in the deeper truth that you're avoiding actually acknowledging, accepting and taking action on, because it's tough and, like you said, we want to avoid difficulty. We live in a world, world of abundance, so why would we have to face that when we can, just, you know, go watch a youtube video about it or scroll on social media about it or talk to someone or put netflix on or whatever it might be right? So it's um, yeah, I think. But the breath is something that we all have. You know it's free and I think it's one of the most powerful things, or at least the relationship with that breath, like, like you, you know it's free and I think it's one of the most powerful things, at least the relationship with that breath, like, like you said it's it's, it's incredible how powerful it is, especially when you do breath work right and when you really work at it and practice it. So, yeah, incredible. Well, look we. I think I've gone through one page of notes of about 10. So there's there's so much more I want to talk about.
Speaker 1:We are out of time and I didn't even really touch upon your business. I mean, I wanted to kind of end with your authority in the space. It's very easy to look at a young man who's made a very successful business over the years and we look at someone like you and we just see kind of the end result. We don't see the roots down to hell. We don't see all of the pain and strife and the years of hard work you put behind it. I know it, but I just wanted to make sure that that is clear.
Speaker 1:But when people come and find you, I also want them to know, um, that you are extremely good at what you do, uh, and that you are you and that you don't have to kind of stamp authority on what you do, right, which is freeing, very inspirational in that sense. So congratulations there. I'd certainly be following your journey and look forward to seeing you when you do come back here. And thank you so much for your time. It's been very eye-opening and extremely inspirational and very calming. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank time. It's been very eye-opening and extremely inspirational and very calming. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you, brother appreciate it.
