117. A Peek Inside Men's Work with My Husband

Coming to you all the way from a closet in Arizona, Danny and I are here to tell you all about the work Danny is doing for himself.
As you all know I’ve mostly done work with women’s empowerment, but in the past six months or so, I’ve had more men come to me for help. Most people don’t want to do this inner work because it’s fucking hard. It’s literally looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing all the things you're unhappy with and figuring out if and how you’re going to change those things. 

Why did Danny get started with this work?
For the past four weeks Danny has been in a men’s group. Him doing this work was definitely not on his radar initially, but he had a huge transition in his life with leaving his job.  His new job was not in his repertoire, he’s never been his own boss, where what you put in is what you get out of it. Going into that mindset was a huge change, and it opened him up mentally that he did need to make a lot of personal changes in his life and the way he did things.
Danny has always worked so much, he’s always had a financial cushion, and switching to this job really blew up his anxiety. It opened up a whole door that he wasn’t ready for and the anxiety took over.
Around February, things started to pick up, he was on his way but we both recognized that there was still work to do. I knew that having a community for support was really going to be a beneficial thing for him. People who aren’t your friends or your family, people who allow you to be real and raw, and challenge you and not sugarcoat anything. He was still extremely heavy on the skepticism, because a lot of this so isn’t his style, but he really needed the clarity and the rawness of hearing things he wasn’t expecting. So he decided to take a shot in the dark and knew if it worked it was going to be great.

How to these men’s group zoom calls go?
You get into the room and there’s around 15 people. Danny was not expecting so many people, he was definitely expecting only 5 people, so seeing all those faces really just kind of made him go “fuuuuck”. Once they started to get into things and hearing the voices, and knowing these guys have done this work, Danny knew he had to show up and do some talking. It’s really just a bunch of guys who are just trying to open up and find themselves and that’s exactly what Danny was trying to accomplish. 
These calls really let Danny feel like he wasn’t alone, that he wasn’t the only one going through these things. Not only are you trying to get through your own shit, but hearing all these other people can really provide some perspective. There is a lot of trauma that can settle in the deepest part of your brain, and you can hear someone say something that can really make you realize you’ve been holding onto something. 
One of the main things that Danny is working on is being more assertive and not over thinking things. People pleasing, and fear of being judged is just such a common things that people are struggling with. Danny has been listening to the book No More Mr Nice Guy, and it’s really opened up a lot of things and helping him find that assertiveness and realizing where you can go with it. It’s about realizing the tendencies of the nice guy and how you can use that niceness to hide a lot of stuff. 

Would Danny recommend this to someone else?
He would, yeah. You have to get past the fear of doing it, or the skepticism. Do it when you’re ready. If you’re just showing up and going through the motions, if you’re not actually doing the work, it will be a waste. It takes a special kind of person to step up and ad