#020 - Adam Jackson - Why Most Men Can't Love One Woman Fully

why is combat so important and so crucial in your work? - Thank you for that question. The violence does not stem from our work. It already exists. We're providing containment for it. We're not encouraging it or evoking it. We're providing a container for whatever energy needs to move, whether that's anger, outrage, frustration, aggravation, being stuff-down, being diminished, being told you're not enough, whatever that voice, whatever that inner critic is telling you, we're providing a stage for you to talk back, for you to push back, for you to fight back, and for you to claim your space, to take up space, to get big. I see a lot of guys who've been playing small and I don't mean like in starting a business or making a being on Instagram. I'm talking about playing small and their existence, and their beingness, even when they go outside, like they're timid and afraid to move in the world, and the world does not need more timid men. The world needs more embodied men, and this type of practice, which is held in a container, and again, we have agreements, protocols, rituals, that we create a safe environment. We're not there to prove anything, or to knock anybody's head off. And sometimes, Billy, I need to get punched in the face too. I need to know how I'm moving, how am I responding to the world versus reacting? This is huge with men. Are you reacting when the trigger comes, when the metaphorical punch from life comes, how are you reacting versus responding? And so this is a test. This is an opportunity to step in and see where you're at. Can you see that clearly in the man when they step in? Do that combat, which, like, is it a representation of how they show up in life, how they show up in that moment? - Every time, and that's the question we ask, often. And so, like, let's say the man gets in, and he breaks every agreement, and he throws his punches as hard as he can, and he does try to take another man's hand off. - And that's happened. - Oh yeah. - And we stop, and we take a deep breath. And then I'll look this man in his eyes, brother. Where is this showing up in your life? Where are you overstepping people's boundaries? Where are you reacting in this way that you're not contained, that this is leaking everywhere? And usually the answer is gonna be in my house, on my kids, with my wife, where it's not being seen and witnessed. And so for that man to admit that in that moment, it is, I don't know if I'm here in the podcast, where I do say revolutionary. - Are we at the part where this is revolutionary? Where are we at the part where this is revolutionary? - It's revealing. It's incredibly revealing, and in that revelation, a man really finds out how he's been reacting to the world, and then through the power of brotherhood, we find commitments, we find practices, we find ways for him to take ownership, we find ways for him to make repair, both with the parts of himself that act out, but also with the impact that that has on others. And so this is restorative work, this is repair work, this is reconciliation, do you feel what I'm saying? - Big time. - And so I wanna make this statement, because this is what everyone needs to know, if you've been watching this, or if you've seen that media with those fights, and you have that same reaction, like why is this necessary? I want you to know that it's not about what happens in the fight. It's about what happens after the fight. After those 120 seconds, a man is honest, a man is in his grief, a man is in his ability to really take a look at himself. - And that's what matters. - What I'm hearing you say is that we're already fighting, and this is just the space for it to actually be done in a healthy, contained way. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes I've ever heard, I got emotional hearing, it was from Jason Wilson, and he said, "All the men I know who don't cry, "cry in other ways." And it sounds like all the men I know who don't fight in other ways. I wish I would've said that. (laughing) - The great quote, bro, that was a great quote. "The men who don't fight fight in other ways." I mean, that is exactly it. - And the fight is, I want to make this clear too. The work that we're doing, the fight is not between self and the outside world. This is this work's done about saving the world. There's an inner spiritual war happening for most of us. There's a lot to be angry about in this world. But ultimately, there's like, the fight is within us and it's within ourselves. And it's only for us to become more of ourselves, the part of ourselves that are in alignment with our heart, with our spirit, with the knowingness of who we are. That's the part that we're fighting. There's a, you know, in a mythological sense, there's a dragon that each of us has to enter the cage to go and fight. And so again, creating a container for that to actually happen in a lived experience building. It's not in theory. - Totally. - It's an actual fight. You actually have to go do that two minutes. And guess what? The guy looking back at you, he's as big as you. He's as strong as you and he's just as scared as you are. - Yeah, fuck. - You know what I was thinking as you were sharing that was, it sounds really interesting in the respect that this man stepping into this contained encounter. There is the way that he's showing up to the fight, but there's also the way that he's perceiving that that man's showing up to the fight. And it sounds like the way he's perceiving that that man's showing up is also how he might be perceiving life itself. Does that make sense? Like, almost like if I'm, how I'm seeing this man right now, it's the view that I have of life and what life's doing to me. - Yeah, it's the reflection. - That's the reflection that's needed to create the awareness. And so what you're talking about is, oh shoot, in this reflection of this man, when they say go, who's gonna come and try and punch me in my face? Whatever that brings up for me, that's my work. And so, you know, I don't wanna reveal too much, but there's a part of this setup where you know what that other man's fighting to. It's, we don't go, we don't send you in blind. We ask these men, what are your intentions? Who are you fighting for? And so when the man across from me says I'm fighting for my children, or I'm fighting for, you know, a relationship that's on the rocks, that's on the edge, or I'm fighting for my parent who has dementia, like I'm fighting that they recognize me one more time before it's over. So now you have this information. And this is what makes it sacred. Sacred combat, it's not sacred because we say it is. It's sacred because of all the lived experience that it took for those two men to get to that point, to be able to face that part of themselves. What do you say to the man who doesn't believe in combat? My first response would just be to observe nature and reframe maybe what is seen as violence as what is a part of nature. You know, when a wildfire breaks out, in the wind picks it up, just think about the elements. And it burns through Pasadena, California. Like that looks violent to us. It looks like an act of nature, it's confronting. It's a harbinger of death. And so we associate that energy as darkness, but that's the same fire that warms your home. It's the same fire that cooks your food. It's the same fire that you sit by and tell your stories to your children, if you're so fortunate. Yeah. And so it's really about maybe taking a step back and having a greater awareness of the whole and that this is all just energy. And whether you claim it to be as such or not, is your choice. Yeah. But it exists. But it exists. And it exists. And it exists. It's not a belief. It's not a belief. No, we had Peter Krone on the show a couple days ago. And he said to me on the podcast, he said, I used to be someone who would say, I'm a lover, not a fighter. And he said, but what I realized is that by the very nature of loving anything, I have to fight. That's it. By the very nature of loving anything, I have to fight. And what I'm hearing you say is that you're creating these spaces so that men one can recognize what's worth fighting for in their life outside of this. But it also sounds like so that they can put down the fights that aren't working outside of your space. So that they can stop bleeding on people that they're bleeding on, so that they can stop showing up in ways that they know in their heart of hearts is dysfunctional out of integrity. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'll share the other side. There's a Laosu quote that I love, which is, never give a sword to a man who can't dance. What does that mean? It means before you go into the battle, before you go into the fight, make sure that you know how to move, make sure that you know how to play, make sure that you know how to dance, because this is not some barbaric behavior where we're just encouraging more violence that we perceive from the outside world. It's also a dance. And so just as much as we're encouraging the combat and the fight in the hearts of men, we're also encouraging the play, the caretaking, the grieving, the songs, the wisdom that comes through, you know, the voices of men when we're singing together around the fire, it is profound. And so it's, I just want to present it's not, it's a balance. Yeah. Yeah. It's a balance. Yeah. You use the word honesty. After that 120 seconds, it's the most honest space. Is there more valuable, more important way of being or character trait than a man needs than that word than honesty? Yes. Okay. What is it? Courage. In order to be vulnerable and honest, it takes immense courage. And without it, the authentic part, you know, the part that needs to be seen and witnessed, it, it doesn't have, again, like the vehicle to carry it forward in that way. And so I applaud these brothers who go through these processes in myself because I believe in this one. And I lean on my brothers too. Yeah. And I think that courage. And in this case, you know, I framed it as confidentiality in the beginning. You said, what are your agreements? Yes. Confidentially first, confidentiality first, and then honesty. But you could also break apart the word confidentiality and think about the word confidence. Confidence. Yes. And then think about what does it take to evoke confidence? What does it take to actually enter into the space? And it's really courage. Yeah. And so that's, that's what is, that's a requirement. That's a requirement. Yeah. It's courage in then honesty. Yeah. And it sounds like at least in my experience, that courage looks different for every man. Yeah. And the challenge is that some men are claiming something to be courageous when it's actually just in their nature, but the actual courageous thing would be something entirely different. You're the thing that is not in their nature. Yeah. So we get a lot of guys just to be real. Yeah. Who rode jujitsu and who have striking. Yeah. They love to get it in the intro. They're like, they're ready. And this is where I come from too. I have a, I used to train in boxing. And so I feel excited. Yeah. I don't feel the fear. Yeah. In that same way, there's always a little bit of anticipation. Yeah. And so a lot of times those men, their work is on the other side. It's like being vulnerable stepping into the center, not to fight, but to let your guard down. That's their work. And so we do, we cater to both of these types of men. Yeah. The man who is so rigid and so strong, but his strength has built walls that prevent him from, from crying and from grieving. We receive a lot of men who've lost people. And they, and when I asked him, why are you here? I'm here to grieve my friend who I lost because I haven't been able to grieve because that armor has been built up for their entire life. And they told themselves, they're not allowed to go into that place. And so for that type of a man, his work is to go into the unknown of grief. And in that place, we're also there to hold that with containment with the same enthusiasm that we're holding the containment for combat. We're holding the containment for the grief and for the waters and for the sadness that exists in the hearts of men as well. What does it taught you about men doing this work? I mean, I'm sure that we could do a whole conversation about that, but we could talk about that for three years, you know, but what at its core has it taught you about men that you maybe didn't know it would teach you going into this one. What a good question, Billy. It's taught me things in the light and in the shadows. Okay. If I'm being honest. Okay. Beautiful. I love the noble. Let's start with the light. One, men are beautiful. Men are incredibly creative. Men have built this world when I look at architecture, when I look at culture, when I look at the thing science and technology, I'm not discrediting the influence and impact and intention of women and men have built this world. And there's a lot of beauty in what we've built with these hands and with this collaboration and with our minds. And in what we've been able to envision as humanity all of us together, men have gone out and created as such. And with that, I believe there's a more beautiful world coming that men will build with the same hands, with the same bodies, but with different intention with heart-led service and mind. I believe that's how we build future society. It's built from the heart, not from the mind, with women and children out the center. And what I've learned is that men are beautiful. I've also learned that men care deeply much more than they let on, much more than you've probably heard if you're close to one of these creatures in the wild. Man, men deeply care about their mothers, their relationship to their mom, you know, from being in the womb under that heartbeat, from their first breath, even until the parts of them that have the shame around how they may have acted as teenagers towards their moms. I see a lot of men grieving their own behaviors because of the love they have for their mom. That's very real. That's very real. And especially in a time like now, so many men are raised by single mothers, right? Myself included. My dad's great. My parents split up when I was young. So I did the every other weekend dance. And I was largely with my mom. So there's a lot of men whose primary relationship was their mom. And in that, there's work of letting go. Still for them. That's that relationship often is what is preventing the evolution from boyhood to manhood. So we do a lot of work with these men around. Their own mother and feminine wounding as well. That's what I've learned about men. That's kind of the source. It all comes back to mom to summarize that. Now on the other side, Billy, as much as I'm talking about brotherhood, I want to keep it absolutely real. I don't know if I trust men. Like when it comes down to it, I'm in this work of brotherhood and creating experiences that we develop and evoke a deep trust. But when the agreements are gone, when the circles gone, and when no one is watching, that is where the accountability really matters. And I'm just being real with you. Like a lot of what has transpired on this planet is a result of the darkness that lives in with that lives within men of the pain and the trauma that they've perpetrated and that they've chosen to pass on. And so the work that we're doing with men is actually making a choice. You want the you choose podcast? This is the most important choice that can be made on our planet right now. And it is for men to stop doing harm to themselves and to women and children period. That is the choice that we have to make. So I invite all of your listeners and everybody who's watching this to make that choice. And that is a choice that we get to make every single day as men. There's a lot of reasons why it's our responsibility. We can we can talk about why this choice falls on men. But that is what is that that's what's at stake here. Men have to choose to no longer perpetuate harm to women and children period. Killing us the greatest problem in the world. It's the greatest opportunity in the world. Yeah. Is it the greatest challenge in the world that men can't be trusted? Maybe at that. So yeah, so let me get clear on that. Yes, please. Okay. A man who is accountable to no one but himself cannot be trusted. A man who has accountability who has eyes on him from other men can earn trust. Can we just say that for a sec? Is that why a lot of men might subconsciously choose isolation, lone wolf ways of being because they don't have to be accountable? Yes. And because they're shameful and because they think they think it's just them. They think they're alone. Isolation is both literal, like you're alone, but there's a deeper psychological isolation that's happening. I felt it in myself as a new father. Yeah, actually. Yeah. I was like, Oh my God, here I am, like feeling frustrated, not knowing who I can talk to, believing that like every other family out there has it all together. And here I am quietly suffering on my own. I've had that I've had that experience in that voice too. And that is the that is the great lie. The truth is that most of us, if not all of us, can resonate with pieces of what each other are going through. And so we have to shine a line on it. We have to come out of isolation and into connection. And that is how we start to establish trust. That's how we start to shift culture. You understand what I'm saying? I understand. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, there's like really there's really dark things happening in the world, but I don't think it's my job, the work that I'm doing, to give more energy to those things. No. Do you know what I'm saying? I totally understand what you're saying. And it sounds to me like in some ways, that is the great fight of sacred suns is the love for humanity and men and the feminine and the entirety of the world so much so that we have to fight against what might be considered some of the more toxic influences that are lacing their way through. Yeah, but even that even that is kind of like victimized as if there's some other force or they out there that's causing all this. It's not it's in your heart. If you're listening to this, if you're a man, if you're a father, it's it's your thoughts towards inactions that you must be responsible for. If you look at the statistics, the type of harm that I'm talking about typically happens within the family. It is within the homes. It is the fathers that are perpetuating sexual abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse within the homes. I'm not talking about the outside problems that we can all blame. I'm talking on what is going on in your home, in your world, in your house. And I think this is a big this is a big piece here for me to say here and now. Sacred Suns is not here to change the world. We are here to change worlds. And at each one of us, when we come in, we have a great impact on our individual worlds. And so that's what we're focused on. This is an inside out game. There's enough blame and enough excuses. Time to take full responsibility as men for your thoughts, for your words, for your actions and deeds. And for the impact of your choices, whether you intend them or not. Yeah. And what about boys who maybe do not have the awareness yet to understand what that level of responsibility means? But at the same time, their primary influence, and this is not through the lens of victimization, but just by the nature of social media. I want to go into the Manusphere documentary and your thoughts on that. But the who were being influenced by. Have you seen the documentary? Yeah. Those those those influence. I totally need to watch it. I haven't. Yeah. Well, we'll do around two after you've watched it because it's a fascinating conversation for me. But what about what can I speak to it? Speak to it. I mean, this is in my heart. This is in my home. Like I'm saying, this is not theoretical. Yes. I have three sons, Billy. I know. My oldest is 12 and he's got a tablet, you know. And right now, it's all anime and manga and that's all good. And my job as a father is actually not to instill all of the values and beliefs that I can because he's not necessarily going to hear it from me. My job is to surround him with the examples of good uncles and good men who he can listen to, who he can be trained and influenced by. That is more attractive than the influencers. That's better than Mr. Beast and the Paul Brothers because they got Uncle Kale and they got Uncle Mason and you know, they got these uncles that play with them and train with them and that they can ask the questions to that that my own son can't ask his own father because that's not my job. Oh, what a power for what a powerful statement. I've never heard it put that way. It's not just you. No. There's so many fathers and men. I think they they bear the weight of the feeling that my son's outlook on life is the the entirety of it is my responsibility. Yes. We have to return. We're not on a trajectory to return to the village. We're not all going to live together on one piece of land and farm in Kumbaya and we have to be returned to village mind and this village heartedness and what that looks like is if you're if your boy is struggling, you should have resources of other fathers, other men you trust whether they're your family chosen family or friends that he that your boy has an example. And so this is how we've created our youth program. It's all about mentorship. And if you look at sacred sons, these mentors are amazing people. They deeply care and they're cool and that matters. And that matters. It matters to be cool. Yes. It matters to grab the attention of the generation coming behind us and to say, hey, I know they're telling you to look that way, but guess what? There's another way of being. Get over here. Get connected to the land. Get connected to the elements. Get connected to yourself. Look at the stars. Listen for answers. You know what I'm saying? Getting connected back to their humaneness through mentorship. This is the antidote to the manosphere. This is the way that we are designed as human beings. But I've also never heard it put that way. They have to be cool. We're up against the shiny new thing. I took my boy to 7-Eleven, like I'm referencing my actual life. And I don't know Mr. Beast, but apparently he has candy. And my kid is like, that is the candy. And it's like, oh man, they're getting them. They're getting to them. And so the only way for me to like combat that, you know, using that language is to be equally yet oppositely attractive, engaging, and present. I guess presence is the ultimate. And can we have the presence of having the village mindedness, of having the uncles, of having another story? We have to tell a new story. And that is the responsibility of men as well. What I'm hearing you say is that it, and I, God, that's so powerful. And that's that, I mean, in the not so distant future, in a few years, God willing, I will have children myself, you know, and I will be the responsible father. What I'm hearing you say is it takes a big man to let your children be influenced by other men. Another way of saying that is it takes a village to raise a child. This is like, this is a common trope, but it's common because it's true. And it takes a willing man. It takes a man who's willing to let go, to go through a right of passage of letting go of his son, so that his son can become the man that he is to become. So there's a willingness in that there's a cutting of a cord. There's a sacrifice that is made. And I was just sharing with you that on a recent weekend that I said, we had a father and son there. And we did that severance for the time. They were not to talk, no eye contact for the weekend. The son went off to do his work, the father to do his work. And then when we come back on the closing day, the return of the boy who's been who's been out doing his work with the uncles who are trusted and who are known by the father. But what happens there is not the job of the father. That's the father. That's the job of the village. So when he returns, the father sees him with new eyes. What does that mean? What does that mean? He sees him with new eyes. What does that mean? Yeah, he sees him not as the boy that he severed from at the beginning of this experience, but he sees him as the man who returned. And so what I mean by that is, every culture on planet earth has rights of passage to mark the life stage from boyhood to manhood. Every indigenous culture on earth has this. Western society has forgotten. And so sacred sons is here to bring the remembrance of such initiations, of such rights of passage. And it is of those marking through life stages. And it's not just from you know, son to man or from boyhood to manhood. But we are now seeing men who are fathers becoming grandfathers in grandfathers being initiated into elderhood. Another, another cause for a lot of the misalignment that's happening broadly is our lack of wisdom from elders. And you know, that's a big focus of us as an organization to evoke the wisdom of elders, to honor the elders, to acknowledge them, to create spaces for them in our circles, to break bread with them, and to call their wisdom back to the village because we need it. We need it. I literally said, Stefan of Cifandos came on the show and he lives here and I love him too. And he's been a really beautiful confidant to me recently. And I really shared to him last week, I'm going in some deep excavation work at my own. And I said to him in a voice note last week, I feel like a part that I missed a stage, like a part of my psyche is stuck in boyhood. Yeah. And his response to me was you probably did, you may have. And in a culture, in Western civilization, that has lost initiation. Yeah. In some ways, and again, not to the lens of victimhood, but there is almost this requirement that a man is asked to, like, self-initiate, but it doesn't seem like you can, you know? It doesn't seem like you can. And I feel like in some ways, there have been certain parts of my life, particularly in the realm of intimacy and romantic relationships in which I've been left, I've been left without answers. Like, I'm in the most deeply committed, beautiful relationship I've ever been in, and it's confronting me in ways that I don't have tools or language to navigate, you know? And it sounds like you answered. My question was going to be, kind of, man, self-initiate, and you said, no. By the very nature of the word and definition and etymology, oneself cannot be initiated into the unknown by oneself. It needs to be. It needs to happen in a group. It needs to happen with those who've gone before. And I think that other kind of things that we see happening sideways in society is a result of the lack of these initiations, right? And I think many people have said this, but the Western culture is like, your driver's license, loser of virginity, drink, try drugs, you know, these are the initiations that we are actually tracking. What is happening in the placement of lost initiation in Western culture? Debutary. Amen to that, I said. Yeah. No, it's being, I mean, if you're a college student, you're in a fraternity. It's being replaced in ways like that. And I can see that as healthier or unhealthy, like I'm not here to judge. It's being, it's in sacred tongues, even in our own modern way of returning these rights of passage. You know, there are ways that you can find initiation, but when you have nothing, when you have absolutely nothing, I mean, it's typically a lot of energy because there's so much energy in those changes as well, that sexual energy, life force energy, like there's a lot of energy that needs to be sharpened and needs to be honed in when it's not honed. It's coming out in the ways where you're seeing a Reddit page that has 64 million views for how to drug and wait rape women. So that's what is happening when young men are not initiated. When they're not in a safe place to ask questions about their sexuality, about their experiences when they're not able to confess the things that are haunting them, that's what happens. They secretly hide, and again, you cannot trust a man who is accountable to no one but himself, and no, you cannot initiate these transitions of life. What is that dysfunction, like for 64 million men to visit a website like that? What are they? This is a hypersexualized culture. This is the product of too much freedom and choice mixed with a hypersexualized isolated world. What creates that? Well, COVID, people staying home and being online, like literal teenage kids, teenage young men in 2020 were forced to stay home and be online. Where do you think they're going to get their initiation from the internet? Where do you think they're going to learn these things? And that's the time in your life where you're the most curious, where we're the most curious. There's a responsibility for the generation who came before to know this, to see this, and again, to carve a new path, to say there's a new way, and that looks like we're going out into nature for four days into the wilderness with no phones, no technology. It has to be that drastic now, Billy, like this is not a luxury, this is not a men's retreat, this is an embodied experience that we embark on together, that we intentionally choose to go on together, because that's actually what it takes to sever from the pains of modernity of what we had, of what we had too much of, what we didn't have, whatever that is, we have to sever from those things too willingly. Now, how do we fix the dating crisis? What's the dating crisis? Maybe, yeah, maybe you'll debunk my language around it, but I just got to say, I'm, I have four children, a wife and a community to tend to, so a lot of the, a lot of the popular culture things that are happening, like I, I'm not always aware of it. Okay. I know, I know clavicular now. You know clavicular now? Yes. And you'll become privy to mom, sure as your boys, yeah, totally, right now I'm trying to combat Mr. Beast and my frickin' cocoa melody. Yes. My, my youngest is true. I love that last one. As I'm getting, as they're growing in the more teenage, I'll be keeping my eye on what's happening that way. Yeah. Yeah. So, wanting for men between the ages of, I think, is 22 and 34, haven't had sex in the past year. The, I don't know the exact stat, but the top 1% of men get more than 90% of the women on the dating apps. That means the other 99% of men are left fighting for whatever's left. I think there's a stat, I wish I, I should have pulled up the exact statistics. But I think 50, over 50% of men between the age of 20 and 30 are single and haven't had a relationship ever in their life. Yeah. That's a problem. Yeah. That's a problem to not know ourselves in intimate relationship. It's also a problem, and a question that arose for me is I couldn't, as a part of initiation for a boy to get off the dating apps and actually have the courage and be supported and going and developing conversation with, with women, you know, like a return to actually being out in, in culture and being forced to, it's almost like we don't have to now if we don't want to go through the discomfort that is required to learn what it means to be in relationship to, to another human. Absolutely. It's almost as if we have nerfed the world and time and time again, whenever we do things for convenience or for comfort, they inevitably make our lives more complex and less convenient. And the internet is another one of these things, right? Not that it's all bad, it's just a tool, it's simply a tool, but this is why confrontation is such an important part of the work we do because we have to sharpen each other. You know, and again, just going back to nature, growth happens through stress, through discomfort, you know, for, for a seed to be planted into the darkness to break out of its shell, to rise up to light, to break new ground, like that's, there's a lot of confrontation in that, a lot of friction that you have to bump up against in order to grow. And so if we have a whole generation, imagine a generation of men who never had to come up against any type of confrontation, and then they grow into these big bodies with these capable brains, but incapable hands, that's a danger to ourselves and each other. So inviting in confrontation, and it's not all bad, because I also see this younger generation is very fit, very fitness oriented, sometimes too much, I think like these guys in their 20s taken TRT too early, too early, but like I think there's, there's something cool that's happening, culturally, we're fitness, even this therapeutic language, becoming more common when people are talking about trauma, so I don't want to say like it's all bad, it's all for naught, because that's actually not how I experience these men who come in, but speaking to the exact question about the dating crisis, I encourage my brothers to have more children, that's a big thing for me, anybody who knows me, I'm like if you're in a committed partnership and you're a seeker of life experience, that's another life initiation, the transition from man to father, from being only responsible for oneself, to being responsible for a family. If you want the full human experience here on earth, sign up for that one, I think it's in my life, it's the most pivotal change, I mean it's actually the precipice for sacred zones for me, it's the moment I knew I needed other men, it's the moment I knew I needed, that I needed support as well, and so I'm encouraging of it, I think it's really sad, I think it's really sad that our humanity in the ways of our own romance, poetry, desire is being suppressed because there's an easier way, but I warn you, it's not the easier path. Connection is going to be, connection in the end is going to be, maybe it's the more confrontational path initially, but it's definitely, it's definitely the way. The way. Yeah. There's two things I want to read to you, I just cannot read you this in this vein because I just thought it was so beautiful, and then I want to read you a quote that I heard from you that I cried when I read about fatherhood. I want to start here. This is Chris, the co-creator on Instagram. He's a writer. And he wrote, "It's 2031. Pornhub traffic crashes after people discover that being witnessed slowly by someone who actually cares is more orgasmic than consuming bodies like vending machines with a blue light screen against your face at midnight. Tinder gets replaced by neighborhood dinners where we accidentally fall in love while washing dishes together. Cities build more gardens than parking lots. Wunder is classified as a gateway drug to awakening." We're all addicted to seeing someone's actual personality leak through crooked teeth and tear streaks, and that little demon gremlin laughs snort that scares away fear itself. Rincles are back in style. Lovers show up to first dates carrying poetry in their back pockets like loose cigarettes. Children learn emotional regulation from grandparents, gardening, barefoot. Spotify collapses after our shadows start singing to each other again. The suicide rates drop like dead leaves of a tree finally getting watered, and surprise, surprise. The sex got better too. There, I fixed it. And when I read that, I think of myself as a father, and the responsibility that I have to sort of stew it the next generation, for lack of a better word and a healthy and empowered way, because I don't think we've ever lived in a time in which that has been a more of a delicate dance and a greater responsibility. But it also makes me think of this quote that I cried when I read it for me, because I'd never heard it put this way. Whenever I blow up, whenever I make wrong, whenever I scream or be let's all, my kids don't stop loving me. They stop loving themselves. It's one of the most powerful lessons that I've had to learn in raising children. And also in realizing what happened to me as a child, you know, and it's real. There's some hard truths around fatherhood that I'm currently compiling for a book that I think is so needed. Can you give me some of them? Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, that's one of them. And so I just want to I want to bring the teaching of that particular statement. Please. The greater problem that you've been speaking to, it's a result of children who stop loving themselves, because they were abandoned, because they were isolated, because they were told that they were wrong, because they were named called by those closest to them, by their parents. And that's what I see in men. I see little boys who are wounded by their parents, the closest people to them in our steel and are still tending to those wounds. And so for myself as a father, I get to look at the parts of myself that are misaligned, the parts of myself that have picked up those traits that I used to be, I used to despise them as a kid. I said the words. I made those promises to myself. The things that I've seen I would not pass on yet. Here I am in my own stress and frustration and those behaviors come through come through me. Almost it almost feels like instinct, because that's how trauma's passed. If we don't address it, it's waiting to come out. And so that's very real for me. I'm a big presence. I have a loud voice. I can open my heart in a vocal lot of love from my voice. And there's a shadow to that. I can also be sharp. I can also be mean. I can also belittle that word, especially that word, for a child to be belittled. Do you know what that feels like? For an adult, it's almost like, get over it. It's not a big deal. For a child to feel belittled by their parent, it does something to them that is like one of the saddest things. So I'm saying this for folks to be aware of it. To be aware of our word choice, to be aware of our impact, our tone, our eyebrows. And not to be promoting that you have to be a perfect person. This is not about perfection. No, no, no. Right. It's about showing up. Yeah. It's about awareness and choice. Yeah. So if I'm aware that my words and behaviors have real impact on my kids. And I see where that leads in men. And I've worked with them. Thousands and thousands of men. As sacred sons, we've literally worked with over 20,000 men in person, eye to eye, in the short time that we've been an organization. And so this level of awareness that we can bring through the father archetype to return the father archetype to this planet through awareness and choice. Yeah. This is this is big work. What are the hard truths of being a father? Every father wants to protect their children. And who they need to protect them from is themselves. That's as real as it gets. And it's a protection from your own wounding, from your own patterns, from your ancestral trauma, if you choose to see it in that way. That is the true responsibility of the father is to protect your children from the worst aspects of yourself. Every father wants to protect his child. And what he's protecting them from is himself. What is required of a father to protect his child from himself? To do his work, to know his darkness, to know his limitations, to understand that there are consequences. And it's in it's again, it's not, this is why this isn't about therapy. This is about getting around other men and being seen. It's more real, it's more raw, it's more human. You've got to go through the confrontation. You've got to exhaust those parts of yourself that want to run, that want to hide. Because I know. And when you come to Sacred Sons, you too will know the stories, the real stories of what men are holding and what they're dealing with behind closed doors. And that's the work out of the shadows and into the light. This is the way through. Yeah. Yeah. What I heard you just say when you spoke about, when you mentioned therapy, again, there is that there's, in some ways, there's an absence of consequence. Big time. Or accountability. Or accountability. At all. And one of the greatest things that men are missing, I'm learning from this conversation is being in environments where there are real consequences for the absence of accountability. Yeah. And having protocol, you know, as men is healthy and there's another side of this that's, that's, I just want to name here, which is men come to Sacred Sons and they get accountability from other men that are also showing up. Yeah. Yeah. This is not a paid service. Yeah. This is a heart-based service. Yeah. And so men come, they resonate with other men. They're working on the same thing, whether that's physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual work that they're doing. And they go, hey, let's hold each other accountable through this. Because the other thing I know about men is we are driven by being of service. We want to be useful. Use, usefulness, utility, purposefulness is what we live for. And so just that, a group of, let's say, four men all working on the same thing. How do I become a better dad? Let's say I want to, I want to just work on the, the, the frustration and the anger. And so we get together once a week, we check in, we make agreements and commitments, and we talk about it. This is a good way for men. And if that, if, if that sounds like, wow, how do you even get there? Who, who are these men? They're not in my community. My friends don't talk about this stuff. You're invited. You're invited. And if that's too much, start a book club. Read a book together and talk about it, with some bros, with some men you trust in your life, because that can also be a mechanism. Yeah. Something as simple as a book club. Yeah. For, for honesty and vulnerability. Yeah. Starts, it starts there. It's very simple. I want to unpack what you've learned about what a child needs most from his father. Have you heard of John Belian? No. John Belian's an artist. His most recent album is called Father Figure. And I've heard him talk about in interviews that his attempt in the album. was to make Fatherhood cool, it seemed cool. It's a fucking banger of an album. But I heard him talking about in the making of one of his songs. - The coolest, by the way. - You know, it's like once you're there, the amount of love, the expansion of the heart for each child that you have, it is the coolest. - Has it taught you a new level of love? - Make it up in the morning in a cozy pile with kids and like celebrating, go to make pancakes. Like my kids also, like making a Sunday morning breakfast with eggs and pancakes and fruit, it's better than, it's better than anything, and it's like, it's just, it's the coolest. - Has that innocent? - It's the coolest, because of how simple it can be. - It can be. - And be so fulfilling. - I was gonna say, has there sort of innocence and curiosity given you a new lens? - Yeah, and I think most fathers who are present, you're asking a question like, what does a child need from their father? And it's simply their presence. - Their presence. - There's a line in John Belian's song. He says, a present father is worth way more than a perfect dad. - Yeah, and I wanna be clear, 'cause there's a lot of guys out here who are split from their families or part time or stepfathers or even uncles who are, you know, in children's lives, the type of presence and the fullness of it, I believe is actually more valuable than the frequency of it. - What does that mean? - So, even if you're a dad, if you're a dad that only has his kids on the weekends or part time, when you have that part time, full presence. - Yeah, yeah. - Knowing, knowing that what matters is the time you have. - Ah, that's so. - Use the time you have. Don't shame yourself for the time that you're not there because of whatever happened. - Yeah. - You feel guilty about it. The way through that guilt is that when you do have them show up for-- - Yeah, yeah. - And so, I think consistency is important, but if the frequency even, even if it's you only got them once a year, that once a year, you leave everything else behind and come full-- - Totally, totally. - Now for someone like me who's in it, I'm in the trenches, day to day four, two, four, six, 12, I'm making breakfast, I'm doing school drop-offs, I'm doing my podcast, I'm going out on weekend, retreats, and then, I'll talk more about this, but I actually brought my sons, two sacred sons already, and they're young, just to be in the presence of the men. - Ah, so cool. - But when it's time to put the work down or to put the mission down, or to put the passion to the side, bring the full presence to the family, just as you do to your passion and whatever mission you're on, or if you're exhausted and the way that you provide, feels purposeless and you're exhausted because of that. Find purpose in the smiles of your children, find purpose in the raising of them, in the creativity, and in asking them good questions and tapping in to their curiosity and wonder through your own. That's enough, I see a lot of men who are like, man, I just work a nine to five to raise to raise them, and that's all I got time for. And I'm like, good on you, brother. Thank you, thank you for staying in, what is hard. Thank you for being that pillar and not providing your family, that's enough. Like a lot of dads need to be told, thank you. - Yeah. - You know, some of these things that I said that were really harsh need to be met by acknowledgement and gratitude. Like, thank you dads for doing your best. Thank you for staying in when you fucked up. When you made the mistake, when you, thank you for saying I'm sorry. When you needed to say I'm sorry. These things are incredibly important too. And if you're a son, I see a lot of this too, men who have the father wound and they have a tumultuous past or current relationship with their fathers. Access back to your heart is due gratitude. No matter what happened, your father gave you life. No matter what story you tell yourself about who he is, there's a part of this where we can imagine that they tried their best with whatever it is that they had. And there's something for sons to realize which is they don't know what it took. And I can say that honestly from my dad, I don't know what it took, you know, for him to give us what he was able to give, to provide what he was able to provide, to be there when he was able to be there. I don't know what it took, but I'm grateful. Yeah, that narrative around I don't have time has been a major one for me to debunk in my life, don't have time. And one of the best ways I've ever heard it put that shifted my relationship with the time that I do have and presence with other people was from Jay Shady and he said, people don't want all of your time. They want all of you in the time that you have. And that touched me in amazing ways because to think that I don't have the capacity, like you just mentioned, you reference men who have nine to five, some men are working longer hours than that. Some men are entrepreneurs, they're trying to provide for the family. You know, I don't have kids yet, so I'll never have more time than I do now. You know what, I still think that narrative is still here. It's hilarious to me when young single people thought of the shot time. It's a fucking crazy. Yeah, you have all of it. You have all of it. You have exactly as much as you'll ever have. But I'm sure there were seasons in your life before kids in which like, I totally took my life in time for granted. I also built a lot of amazing things with the time that I had as well in relationships. Yeah, yeah. You asked me before the podcast, what happened for this show to start doing so well? Like, why is it doing so well? (laughing) And I shared this passage I do it and called the Age of Ancestral Amnesia. I wanna read it to you if that's okay, because I want your perspective on it in a world in which we've lost connection to our ancestors. This is called the Age of Ancestral Amnesia. We are living in a time where it has become fashionable to blame our parents, to dissect them, to diagnose them, to explain ourselves through their failures. But here's the dilemma. We've learned how to critique our elders without learning how to honor them. We speak fluently about trauma, but rarely about sacrifice. We analyze their emotional limitations from the comfort of vocabulary they never had access to. Many of our fathers were not taught to feel, they were taught to endure. Many of our mothers were not taught to process, they were taught to survive, and survival built the ground we stand on. Reference does not mean blindness, it does not excuse harm. It means remembering context. You are not self-made. You are inherited, inherited resilience, inherited endurance, inherited imperfect love. And one day, you will be the imperfect elder. And the next generation will see your blind spots clearly. The question is, will they also remember what you built? Because a culture that forgets its ancestors does not become enlightened. It becomes unencored. - There's a lot of truth in that for the current moment. - Do you think there is harm in the severing of a relationship to the lineage? Is my first question the second question? Is that a dysfunction that you see in your workshops? I use that word, but I'm hesitant to use the word dysfunction. Is that a narrative that you see often when people come to your retreats and men come to your retreats, and this way because of them? - Oh yeah, there's so much blame and that's the victimization playing out. And especially in younger people who haven't yet had the life lived experience to understand what it actually takes. I'll use myself as an example. Being raised by a single mom, maybe guys can relate to this. You see, I saw how hard it was for my mom and I was like, I would never do that. Never, never leave a woman single. Now, it's like a seven year old boy. I can say that with some type of conviction because I'm ignorant. I don't know what I don't know. And when I'm going through my first breakup at the age of 17, for a significant breakup, then I'm starting to go, oh, relationships are hard. It's not just going to be a one and done here. Oh wow, like betrayal, you know, capacity, romance. - Like look over here, like there's, oh wow. Now, so now at 17, I'm starting to like get understanding that, okay, relationships are hard yet. Somehow, I'm better. I'm better than they were ever he was or whatever your story is. I'm gonna do better than I'm gonna do better. And it's okay to desire to do better until the relationship that I believe, let's say it was the one, the one and it's not. And here I am with my two year old son preparing to leave the house into the unknown. And to my question was more like, man, am I just doing the same, am I repeating that same pattern? Is this coming out now because it's the same pattern? Yeah. All the things I said I wouldn't repeat. All the things I said I wouldn't do now I understand, now I understand, and only now can I understand. And in that understanding, I have a lot of compassion. Not only for myself and my lineage, for my own parents, but for all of us, I have a lot of compassion because we don't know what it takes and we don't know what it took. Culturally being severed from our ancestors, from our traditions has a significant impact on us. And this has been happening for 300,000 years. Cultures rise and fall, empires rise and fall. I think there's something to be said for the natural arc of these things. And there's an opportunity because of everything that's happening and all the symptoms that we're seeing played out by men to create new culture and to stand for something and to abide by a code as men and that code again, responsibility, integrity, service, and being ethical in all of our relationships. This is our code of sacred zones of rise. And so there's room for new culture because we see what happens when we lack it. There's room for rights of passage and initiation because we see what happens when we forego it or when we've forgotten. And so here we are. This is the remembrance. This is the great remembrance of those things that have been forgotten and it's our responsibility to claim them, to own them, to provide space for them, to get creative with how we show up in them. And there's a lot of room for us. I think that's one of the pieces that I feel really hopeful. I feel hope for humanity. Every time I come out of these gatherings, I feel a lot of hope for humanity. I feel a lot of love for my brothers and for my sisters. And ultimately, again, I think that's what all this work leads to. It's about the unity and the oneness that we can experience through love. Love for ourselves. Love for God. First and foremost. Love for ourselves. Love for each other. Our families. Our communities. And ultimately, this whole earth. If there was one message, I know there are more than one, but if there was one message that men needed to hear from women, you have to ask them to ask them. Even for sure, I have to ask women. Well, what is the message that men need to hear from women? Listen, listen to them. It's listen, just listen, just to be clear and I don't, you don't have to say this, I would never dare to speak for the collective of all women to all men. But that's the message. Just listen, they're asking for exactly what they need. They're backening us to provide a better world, a world without harm. Potentially a world without war. I believe in knowing my heart that that's actually possible. And so one of the other things I know about men is, especially the fathers is that we love our children. We love our families. We love our mothers. And we would never want to perpetuate that level of harm or war or violence upon other human beings. There's a knowingness for us in our hearts. And in order to get there, we have to listen to the women. And if we would have flipped that on its head and shift that from men to women, what is the message that women could hear from men? We're coming. We're here and we're still getting, we're still getting the men ready. We're on our way. On our way. Yeah. Remind me of a video I saw of you on the Sacred Suns page a few years ago, and I got chills watching it. And it was you in a circle, in the middle of a circle, that must have been 300, 400 men around. And you had a staff. Remember the video? I know. I am here. I am. You are here. We are here and the level of unity that looked like it was pouring through. The more you did it, the first time I was like, oh, that's cool. Second time it was like, you can feel it. And by the fourth time every man's like fucking going for it. And the power in that, it was like, we're going to go to war for the world. And it was just, it was, yeah, it was, it was beautiful. The final sort of topic I want to go into here is the sevens of the family system. Is man in your eyes meant to be with one woman forever? No. That's not something I would say broadly, because culturally, historically, contextually, all of that stuff matters. And I believe that there are ways of being culturally, that I don't have the experience of. So I can't judge. Not judge. Okay. But I will say this. The greatest way to love all women is to love one woman completely at a time. Relationships do end. Breakups happen. And the greatest way to love all women in the most women, if that's something you're interested in as a man, love one woman completely and utterly with your full heart and devotion. Because if you do that, you are protecting the rest of the women from yourself. Does that imply that polyammy and those types of dating multiple women at the same time is, is that leaky? I hope and I trust that those are conversations that are consented by adults. And I would never suppose to project my judgment onto the, onto the behaviors of consenting adults. And I'm here for love, freedom, safety and truth, if you're truth and your love says that this is the way and it's with consent and devotion, then I have respect for people to have autonomy and choice. And I'm actually like, I don't have a lot of judgment for whatever people choose. And in my own personal experience, I have realized for myself that I feel more alignment when I'm honest and I'm in committed partnership with one woman. And so my wife, Hannah and I, we've been together for nine years and we're pushing on a decade. And I can say that from, from my current experience. And it wasn't always that way. Yeah. And I haven't done it perfectly. Yeah. I've, I've made a lot of mistakes. And I feel confident in what I'm speaking to. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really curious to know you have three or four, four, you four. 12, six, four, two. You've been with Hannah for nine years for me as a 27 year old man who wants to build a family and have children and raise them responsibly and to be empowered human beings in the world. What guidance would you give to me? Choose wisely. I love that your podcast is about choice, you know, and this is, this is also one of the hard truths of fatherhood. If you're going that way, the partner you choose is the key to everything. And so choose wisely. And if you wanted me to expand on what that means, I would say something to the effect of really, really, really get to know yourself, get to know your values, what you hold sacred, get to understand how you see the world and make sure your partner that you're choosing is in alignment. I would say with your vision, with your values and with your mission, to some degree. And even if that mission or vision is like, I want to have a family and we conduct ourselves in this way and we go to church and do whatever those values are, make sure your values are in alignment with your partner before personality or over personality, over physical looks and things like this. Make sure the values are deeply aligned because when it gets hard, that's the only thing that matters. And it will get hard. And then it will be challenging no matter what. But that's the type of man that I'm choosing to be. It's like, one of devotion and commitment, it makes me more responsible. The level of commitment and discipline actually provides me more freedom. I could not be who I am in the world and do the things that I choose to do without the loving support of my wife, like really having my back. That's, that's the real. I'm coming before you today, you know, with my ancestors. behind me, you know, with my great, my grandparents, my parents, and then my family in this lifetime, my wife, Noah, Holland, Johan, Winona, like they're all here with me because I'm not me without them. And then for my descendants, my future children, my great grandchildren, my great-great-grandchildren to come. Can I live in such a way to be an awareness and devotion to them? And can I choose to break the cycles that are happening here in my lifetime so that they don't have to be passed on to them? I don't know if there's a more beautiful way to close this out than that. Thanks, thank you. Adam, thank you for. When you walked in today, the manner in which I just felt your presence with me has brought me into a deeper sense of connection with reality, just from sitting here. And I don't know if there's anything more beautiful than to take responsibility for one's own sense of presence because what it can do for someone else's nervous system. And so I'm really grateful. I'm grateful for your willingness to talk about topics that maybe some men and many people would dance around. Your willingness to see both sides, your willingness to hold nuance, your willingness to call men forward while at the same time holding grace for the ways that we've been impacted. And I think the litmus test for me is to whether I've enjoyed a conversation or not is whether I'm going to go back and listen for my own benefit. And I can't wait. I can't wait. So thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, Billy, I see you. I appreciate you inviting me to be here with you. Full support of the mission that you're on and keep going. Keep going because what you're doing is meaningful. It's impactful. You're bringing consciousness more of it into the world in a good way. And so just keep going. Choose to keep going. Thank you. As we close this out for sacred sons and the things that are on their way for those that have listened to this and the men that are like, fuck, I got to go. I got to be there. You got to go. You got to go. What's on the horizon and where can people find the organization to tap in more deeply? Check out sacred sons dot com. Go to the calendar. We're currently hosting around 70 events per year around the world. I'm stoked to let you all know that we are in 23 countries where we're hosting experiences. We have sacred sons men joining us from all around the world, all backgrounds. This is a, this is actually becoming a cross cultural phenomenon. Sacred sons is in Mexico, in Europe, we're in Africa. It's more than me, also in that way. There's many men that make sacred sons move in the way that we do. And if you're curious and want to hear more, check out the sacred sons podcast. It's available everywhere. And if you want to connect with me, I like to say this. Join an event. Go to a sacred sons experience because my heart is in that. And you will feel connected to the essence of this movement from the core just by your participation in it. And yeah, we'll see you on the inside. Adam, thank you so much. You're welcome, Dylan.