Defining Healthy Masculinity & How to Build It | Terry Real

When the moment calls for fierceness, a good Morirani is a killer. And they they are. They're warriors. They'll kill you. Don't cross them. When the moment calls for tenderness, a good Morirani will lay down his sword and shield and be sweet like a baby. What makes a great Morani is knowing which moment is which. Welcome to the Hubberman Lab podcast, where we discuss [music] science and science-based tools for everyday life. [music] I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and opthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Terry Reel. Terry Reel is a therapist and considered one of the world's foremost experts on male psychology and on male female dynamics in romantic relationships. Today we discuss what it means to be a man and the mental health crisis that men are facing nowadays. As you may have heard, rates of depression and suicide are at an all-time high in men right now. Fewer and fewer men are in romantic relationships, and many don't even have a single close friend. And for those that are in romantic relationships, the public messaging about how to show up in those relationships is very conflicted. Today, we address all of these issues headon. Terry explains that to thrive in life, men have to look at relating as a skill that requires action and yes, feelings, but also processing and communicating those feelings in a specific way and sometimes not communicating them at all. We also discussed the critical importance of fraternity, not necessarily college fraternities, but finding and belonging to a group of men that you can trust, that you can enjoy time with, that give you honest feedback, and that hold you accountable. What I appreciate so much about Terry Reel is that he's willing to answer the hard questions about men and women very directly. And frankly, most therapists are not willing to do that publicly. For example, he explains that in his extensive work with couples, women and men are equally bad at relationships, but in different ways, and he offers solutions for them both if they actually want their relationship to thrive. Thanks to his honesty and providing practical tools, Terry Reel provides us today with essential information for men and women of all ages. It cuts through all the generational differences that certainly exist to highlight the practical ways that men can build and support their mental health and thrive at work, school, and in romantic relationships and also just as importantly in their relationship to themselves. That is how men can build a strong self-concept, sense of agency, and confidence. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Terry Real. Terry Reel, welcome. Uh, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. What's going on with men? What's this mental health uh men's crisis suicide rates are way way up? What's going on? What's going on is that the old role is shifted. The sand is uh shifted under our feet and we're trying to figure out what the hell we are and if we're not going to be what our dads and granddads were, what are we going to be? and we're searching and we're grappling. I got to tell you the other thing that's going on is somewhat in reaction to feminism and you know somebody said about my work women have had a revolution and now men have to deal with it. It's like what are we supposed to do here? And there's been a backlash. Uh there's been a resurgence in our country and around the globe of almost a celebration of some of the most difficult unattractive aspects of traditional masculinity. And we're not sure what it means to be a man anymore. particularly young guys are are grappling and um there aren't a lot of healthy examples saying, "Okay, here's the new territory. Let me let me show you what it looks like." Uh the biggest response that I see uh to the confusion about what are we supposed to do here uh has been uh regressive. Let's go back to being powerful, dominant, entitled, aggressive. Uh, and you see this at the top. You see this in politics, not just in our country, but all over the globe. Um, autocracy dominance is is celebrated. And it's like we're tired of the woke. We're tired of being told that we're bad. You know, I grew up in the 60s in the height of feminist and I consider myself a feminist family therapist. Did you have long hair in the Oh, yeah. And a mustache and the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah, I did. And a lot of drugs. And uh but uh when I grew up, the the joke was um you know, the philosophical uh if a tree falls in the woods and no one's there, does it still make a sound? And when I grew up, it was uh if a man speaks in the woods and there's no one there, is he still wrong? [clears throat] That was the the first surge of of major feminism. Yeah. Well, early stage feminism was uh angry. I am proud to say my dear friends and colleagues who are uh in the forefront of feminism, Mr. Pel, Carol Gilligan are man-loving feminists. But that's that wasn't the first wave. And it was really a um understandable uh reaction to the entitlement and the oppression of women. But I call that political patriarchy and it exists. Look uh you step out of America and it's pretty clear uh women are oppressed by men all over the globe. That's true. But what I as a psychologist, what I'm interested in is what I call psychological patriarchy. The dynamics of patriarchy. And that can take place between two men, between two women, between a mother and a child, between two races. And the psychology of patriarchy is a straight jacket that is, I believe, toxic for everybody. Uh, now there there are some positive traits to traditional masculinity. It's not completely black and white, but a lot of it is really unhealthy. So, a lot of guys reacted to being told, "You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong," by, "Hey, I'm throwing off the shackles. I'll do what the hell I want." And a kind of celebration of the old freedoms and the old entitlements. But that ain't the way out. And even though we see this resurgence right now, that does not breed a happy human being. Uh so we need models of progressive masculinity, not regressive masculinity, and they're rare. Is it possible that now there are more templates of what it is to be a man than there were before? I mean, in my mind, in my very simple-minded, not formally educated about this topic, except having grown up. Yeah, you are a man. You are a guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the only experience I have, right? So, everything's filtered through my own experience as best as I can try and get outside. I mean, this is where I started and where I'll end up. uh you know that the model that I was exposed to was okay you know um in the 40s and 50s men looked and acted a certain way and there it was a fairly narrow template very narrow pretty narrow template and pretty inhuman in some ways the essence of traditional masculinity which didn't end in the 50s it's still with us very much today is stoicism uh The essence of being a man is being invulnerable. The more invulnerable you are, the more manly you are. The more vulnerable you are, the more girly you are to this day. And being girly is not a good thing. Well, there's some problems with that. One is we are vulnerable as human beings. That's a lie. Denying our vulnerability is a lie. And so I see chronic anxiety, depression, everybody's in a state of do I measure up? And you don't because what you're trying to measure up to isn't real. You know, I say to guys, uh trying to to run away from your own vulnerability is like trying to outrun your rectum. It has a way of following you everywhere you go. We are vulnerable. And the other issue with that traditional model of stoicism is we connect to each other through vulnerability. That's how human beings connect. And men are walled off. And one of the issues facing us uh is in heterero relationships. Women across the West are insisting on levels of emotional connection and openheartedness and intimacy from their from us guys that literally were stamped out of us as boys. You know, the way we turn boys into men traditionally in this culture is through disconnection. You disconnect from your feelings. You disconnect from vulnerability. You disconnect from others. you disconnect from your mother. We call all this becoming autonomous. Well, this whole story of achieving autonomy has nothing to do with real psychology. There's no basis for it at all. It's just patriarchy. So, like for example, you know, the monoselabic adolescent boy who won't answer his mother, that's not normal. We we think of it as normal. Uh but that's not psychologically necessary. It is a mandate of traditional masculinity. And I'm here to tell you that traditional masculinity is harmful. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out entirely online. Now, I've been doing therapy for a long time, and I can tell you that in many ways, it's like a physical workout. There are days when I want to do it, and there are days when I don't want to do it. But whenever I finish a therapy session, every single time, I come away feeling better and knowing that the time was well spent. And more often than not, when I finish a therapy session, I come away with some valuable insight, or some cases many insights, or new perspectives on something that I'm working through, whether it's with work, with relationships, or with my relationship to myself. There is just so much benefit that comes through doing effective therapy. And with BetterHelp, they make it extremely easy to find an expert therapist that can help provide those benefits that come through effective therapy. Also, because BetterHelp is done entirely online, it's very timeefficient. There's no driving to a therapist's office looking for parking or anything like that. You just log on and hold your session. If you would like to try BetterHelp, go to betterhelp.com/huberman to get 10% off your first month. Again, that's betterhelp.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by David. David makes a protein bar unlike any other. It has 28 grams of protein, only 150 calories, and 0 g of sugar. That's right, 28 g of protein, and 75% of its calories come from protein. That's 50% higher than the next closest protein bar. These bars from David also taste amazing. Right now, my favorite flavor is the new cinnamon roll flavor, but I also like the chocolate chip cookie dough flavor, and I also like the salted peanut butter flavor. Basically, I like all the flavors. They're all delicious. Also, big news. David bars are now back in stock. They were sold out for several months because they are that popular, but they are now back in stock. By eating a David bar, I'm able to get 28 grams of protein in the calories of a snack, which makes it very easy for me to meet my protein goals of 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day and to do so without eating excess calories. I generally eat a David Bar most afternoons and I always keep them with me when I'm away from home or traveling because they're incredibly convenient to get enough protein. As I mentioned, they're incredibly delicious and given that 28 g of protein, they're pretty filling for just 150 calories. So, they're great between meals as well. If you'd like to try David, you can go to davidprotein.com/huberman. Again, that's davidproin.com/huberman. Let me ask you about this uh template. Like, so there's the 1940s went into the 60s somewhat template, right? As Steve Jobs so aptly said, you know, the 60s really happened in the 70s. The long hair, the mustaches, most of that was in the 70s. Some of it was in the 60s, but most of it was in the 70s. Okay? So there's that very stoic template, right? Right. Um provider, protector, stoic, no feelings. Right. Yeah. And it's actually interesting to look I have looked a little bit of the history of this. Um you know, there were even uh diagrams that, you know, men should never stand with their hands on their hips because that was like a feminine stance. Never tilt a hip to one side. I mean, this stuff was but it was out there, right? And it was also coupled with etiquette. It was very clear how to act, right? There wasn't much range, but the sort of range of things to do and say was fairly scripted, which I I'll just make I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, but it made the script simpler and therefore more accessible, but it masked a lot of other things is I think what we both agree on. But then came the template. You I was born in 75, so I'm 50 now. Um, in the late 80s and 90s, it was kind of a mishmash of things. We saw our first um, gay male characters in television shows. Yes, we saw also g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g gay female characters, but since we're talking about men and masculinity here, that that be that was the first time I think it was the character on the real world San Francisco that um the first character, forgive me for not remembering his name, he died of AIDS and it was during the AIDS um AIDS epidemic and Willian Grace and Yeah. Yeah. So, there was more of that, right? But there's a difference between having gay men in the public eye and saying that the role of straight men had changed. Totally agree. Totally agree. Those are two separate things, but there was sort of an expansion of of notions of maleness. I would say in the 80s and 90s, it's almost like um things became somewhat more of a buffet, right? You had your football jock types, your finance guys. There was the stoic thing, the provider protector thing, but then there was more of an of an art artsy artist phenotype. Yeah. That um emerged as well. You had um I wouldn't say sensitive artist, but the artistic expression. Became kind of it was always, but it became part of masculinity. Well, you had hippies. You had hippies and then it became and then it was like rock and roll, right? Right. I mean, you had also, not my taste, but you had like the bonjovies types, you know, you had like long hair and and it was Oh, you're from Jersey. Okay. I've got memory. So, so Bonjov is an appropriate example. So, there was somewhat of an expansion. Right. There was somewhat of an expansion. And then now it seems that the templates of maleness, I mean some of the most famous musical artists who are men and you know report as heterosexual from what I know are, you know, dress in what used to be considered a very feminine way, right? You had that before too, David Bowie. Right. I mean, so there's always been a bit of gender bending within this template, but it really, I think, emerged the most in the '9s, and it's continued forward. And now, when I talk to guys in their 20s, cuz I have friends with kids who are now in their late teens and 20s, um, it seems that they are very comfortable with the idea of self-expression. I guess this is where I'm trying to reconcile this notion of like that we're so you said that we're kind of still steeped in the patriarchy, but it seems like the the kids in their 20s and 30s um and maybe even 40s, they feel like they have options. Well, they they have access to emotion in ways that we didn't. You know, they were all raised by feminist mothers. Uh and it had its uh impact. But the the problem is, you know, I see these guys and they're all whining that women aren't attracted to them. And there's a reason for that. A lot of guys who get in touch with the emotion and the the sort of more heartfelt uh issues uh bring along with it traditional male privilege. So it's like I'm emotional now. Come and take care of me. And a lot of the women are complaining that these guys are kind of children. They're not they don't stand up. The issue is this. Can you be big-hearted and open and emotional and show up and be responsible and be giving? The thing that hasn't changed for a lot of us guys is giving. uh back in the 50s and it was stoic. It's about me. I show up and I am responsible in ways that our younger guys are less responsible than our dads were. That that's all true. Uh but you know, I go out and I fight dragons and I come home and where's my martini and slippers? Then the 60s came on and feminism and uh okay, it's okay to have feelings. It's might even be okay to be a little bit uh vulnerable. Um, but it's still about me. And when I talk about progressive masculinity, I want men who are big-hearted, strong, connected, and giving. And that's missing both in the um traditional patriarchal model and in many of the countercultural model. You know what's missing in our culture? Uh I'm going to fade back from men for a moment and talk about generally. What's missing in our culture generally is relationality. What's missing in our culture uh is the beauty of connection. And look, you you follow the science. I've been saying this for 40 years and now the science is really very clear. Being connected, being intimate with yourself and with others, uh that's what we humans are born for. That's how we're designed. We're pack animals. And the lack of intimate connection uh is not only bad for us psychologically, but I think it was Vivic Murthy who quoted uh is as bad as smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day on your body. We are born to be connected and related. I wrote about male depression back in the 90s. Um what I said is the way we quote turn boys into men is through disconnection. We tell them to disconnect from their hearts less so younger men disconnect from others. That's being independent and autonomous. And the cost of disconnection is disconnection. And some men have recovered more feeling inside their skin, but they haven't developed the art of connection. You know, I deal with uh uh just like you and many of your uh I deal with high rollers in my in my practice. And one of the things that I teach these guys is the difference between gratification and what I call relational joy. Gratification is just what you think, a short-term hit of pleasure. And our culture loves gratification. And you know, these captains of industry who come in and fly their private planes in to see me, they're all about gratification and they've done beautifully at it. You know, they're rich, they're powerful. That's great in this place. I'm I like pleasure. There's a deeper pleasure that I call relational joy. And you get that as a parent. Sometimes your kids are gratifying. Sometimes you want to throw them through the goddamn window. But if anybody said, "Hey, we could do a time machine and you don't have to have this deck yet because there's a deeper down joy in just being there and being connected, just being in the relationship." And that's been lost in our culture. We live in an anti- relational narcissistic culture. And even though some of the terms of patriarchy have moved, the narcissism and the lack of relationality has not moved. It's just a different variation. There's a lot there. And I I want to um make sure I ask about this notion of emotional experience and expression from men. Um, seems like a very important topic to to parse because indeed it it seems that men now are thanks to your work and and others are hearing that it's important to feel to feel. That feelings are not just okay, they're encouraged um that if you bottle them in, you know, we used to hear about this in the context of the impact on heart health, right? type A, type B, like if you go back and look at the it was it was almost like a mask for this other thing. It's still true. You know, you can destroy your heart by smoking cigarettes and all this other stuff, but it was really it was about the those that original typing of people who tend to die early from heart attack. It was the people who hold it inside. It was about people who who manage a lot, do a lot, but hold inside. And it's kind of interesting because the ones that turned out, and I'm not suggesting people do that, screamed and yelled a lot. that that catharsis actually helped them in terms of longevity. Not saying you should go scream at people um but Steve Jobs used to um be a big proponent of scream therapy and um you know and just getting out there and and and vocalizing. But the I think that the real that the question that's in my mind is okay so if it's important to feel then let's just do this as a decision tree. Okay. So I think if we agree men need to feel their feelings. Yes. Then the question becomes should they feel those alone or in the presence of someone else? And I'm guessing there's a case for both. But then at what point does one uh not have this um what you refer to as emotional privilege where it's like putting it on someone else to take care of them. Could you give an example of what healthy expression of an emotion is? Let's keep this in the context of heterosexual couple for simplicity. Obviously it carries over. Sure. Um what is an example of healthy emotional expression? Let's say sadness, deep sadness or frustration and sadness. in the presence of a partner. That doesn't bring about this thing of of that they're regressing and are some now becoming a child. What does that look like? It looks like a negotiation and not a demand. Could you tell me more? Yeah. Because even in our I'm going to push us. Even in our talk, I don't care about the feelings. I care about the connection. What what will make us men healthy is connection. So, yeah, great. Have your feelings. And then what are you going to do with them? Uh uh I I uh I used to have no feelings and now I have feelings all over the place and I don't give a about you and your feelings. I want you to pay attention to me and my feelings. Well, is that a step up? I mean, a little bit, but it's not where I want to leave you. Uh so, what I want men to move beyond is our selfishness. And because it's in our interests to move beyond our selfishness and so recovering feeling being stoic or having feelings. Sure. That's good. That's important. The way we connect is through feelings. The way we connect is through vulnerability. So I was nervous coming here talking to you. Really? Me? Yeah. Well, I hard to imagine, right? But it's true. Well, it's true. I I spent a lot of time here, so it's it's a very familiar place. But I I would hope that's not because uh I'm intimidating. No, it's not that. It's more like um there are a lot of people listening to us right now. Oh, yeah. Who are intensely interested in these issues. Men and women, young and old, are really interested in these issues. Yeah. As we should be. And not just because men are killing themselves more. That too. But also because as you pointed out, we are a oldw world primate species and we are not going to go back to living in troops. Sorry folks. No. My colleague, I like to consider him a friend as well, Bob Sapolsky. You know, we talk about this from time to time. It's like, yeah, that's how we evolved. Guess what, folks? There's no little village where everyone moves to. I know. It's not happening. I know. Well, but we are also very adaptable old world primates. That's true. So, but but that the circuitry is not going anywhere. We It's a need. So, if I could hopefully you're not feeling nervous anymore, but [laughter] Well, but let me ask you a question. Yeah. Because what I did is I called our mutual friend Bea. Oh yeah. And I said I was nervous. Is that right? And she's wonderful. Yeah. And she said he's wonderful. Let me tell you about Andrew and what's going to happen. And she like read me through the whole thing. And little uh I'm not going to get into it, but my fears about well we're going to disagree about this and No, you're not. Let me tell you how it is. And after I was done talking to her, I was chilled. Uh that's a that's a blessing that what men lose when we don't uh uh when we're not in touch with our vulnerabilities is we lose the capacity to ask somebody to help them but it's ask someone not demand and it's also reciprocal. It's not you know then Bea started talking about her relationship and I started supporting her and that's a relationship and yes I want men to come out of the straight jacket and have feelings. I want us to be whole and own our human vulnerabilities, but in a context in a context in which we're connected to other people and we're neither cut off from them nor are we imposing on them, but we've learned the art and it's virtually lost of how to be with simply how to be with how to ask them to be with us and how to reciprocate and be with them, you Well, so many women are angry at us. I mean, I deal I'm the medic in the gender war, you know. I I deal my beat are couples on the brink of divorce that no one else has been able to help. That's my specialty. And um it's like we just don't know. I have a saying, and I may get into the trouble, but it's a broad generalization, but clinically I like to say an angry woman is a woman who doesn't feel heard. And so many men are like, "What is going on here? My marriage isn't that bad, but if you could just get her off my back, I don't understand what the problem is." Uh, and you we're hit with an angry Well, I'll double back on this, but we're hit with an angry woman and we either push back or get defensive or withdrawal. I have to lead men by the hand. Let me teach you something. Tell me why you're angry. Tell me what you would like. Let me give you, unless it's jumping off the bridge. I I have a saying. I know how you can disarm an angry woman in five seconds 50% of the time, which is better than you're doing. Okay. How do you do it? Give her what she wants. Let me ask you what's going on with you and do what I can to help out. This is a skill that's brand new for our culture. And it it if I may, it doubles back on the central issue which I hope we get to of men and self-esteem because most men in our culture have no idea what healthy self-esteem looks like. Well, we uh self-esteem comes from the inside out. I have worth because I'm here and I'm breathing. I don't have to earn it. I can't add to it. I can't subtract from it. You know, it's democracy. My worth is no better or worse than yours. I'm born with it. Men are taught outside in self-esteem and it's mostly performance. I have worth because of what I can do. I have big muscles. I can land I can give my wife an orgasm. I can land this job. I can hit this homer. That's great when you perform well, but when you don't perform well, you go into shame. What happened to your worth? And so healthy self-esteem, if I may, and I may double back and talk more about it, which I have to teach men, is the capacity to feel proportionally bad about bad behavior. I screwed up. I hurt you. I'm sorry. And at the same time, hold yourself in warm regard as the imperfect person. And what what we do is we either don't feel bad about bad behavior. That's shameless. That's grandiose, sociopathic even. Or if we do feel bad, we go right into shame. I'm a useless piece of I feel terrible. I have to teach men to come up out of shame and not be obsessed with the, you know, one of the things I say is when you go from shameless bad behavior, irresponsible, selfish, insensitive to, oh my god, that's terrible. I'm a big I should just beat the hell out of myself. You're you're trading one form of self-reoccupation or guess what? Another form of self-p preoccupation. I definitely want to get into self-esteem, but I just want to um for my sake and for some of the listeners, make sure that I summarize uh two what I think are conclusions and then you can modify these as it relates to expression of emotion which which you I and I totally agree. I mean, you have to be able to feel your feelings. If for no other reason, one good reason, great reason to get started on that trajectory is it's great for your physical health. It's also great for your mental health and your relational health, but oftentimes um as you know um men need to be kind of like led to the trough for for a particular carrot and then there additional carrots in there. But it's holding everything inside will kill you. Yes, it will kill you. And it makes everyone else around you miserable too even if you think you're protecting them from it. But as you very importantly pointed out, it can't be a dumping of emotion on other people. So what I heard from you was a at least two very healthy ways to engage emotionally for men is one to ask for help. Yeah. And the help from your example, you're referring to also a very talented therapist, Bea Voce, uh when you called Bea was to ask for help by expressing what is on your mind as the point of concern. Like one is nervous or one is sad or um and and I think in my experience, women naturally reach out to help when you couch. Everybody does, right? And then the Can I slow that down for a second, Andrew? What we have is what what I call the icorus syndrome. In the absence of worthiness, so many of us feel we have to earn love. We have to earn worthiness and and I like to say guys leave their wives. I'll be heterero for a moment. Guys leave their wives and kids go fly off into the sun to be worthy of love. And meanwhile, their wives and kids are saying, "Where the hell is dad? What what's going on here?" Well, I I'm off trying to win your love. Well, sit down and play Monopoly with us for Christ's sake. You don't have to do that. It's like it's a bill of goods. It's it's a scam that we've all bought. Just sit down and be still and be connected. That's all you need to do. But we don't we're not taught that, right? And uh we'll get back to this later, but the the demands of also and the joy frankly of being a provider and protector many times, not always, involve having to leave the home and go do work. And frankly, all my friends with kids and uh you know, and I've certainly experienced this. It's when you're not able to be home because you're working, it's it's it's this weird pain. It's like because you I certainly love my work. Being a provider is wonderful and at the same time there's this pain of not being able to be there for things and we can get back to that. but asking for help and then in terms of responding in a in the in a non-gressive non um uh you know entitled way privileged way as you said is when a woman is upset the words what do you need? H that is water in the desert. And uh perhaps also what do you need from me right now? What do you need from me right now? Okay, great. I'm just trying to um put some structure on this because as there is also something about the Y chromosome like we respond well to simple instructions. Okay, I'll take that. I I I believe that I have a whole theory about why chromosomes and and how men evolve to be the way that we are. We can talk about maybe at the end for fun because it's somewhat facicious but not really. And then the the next thing that you were saying, and I think this is so critical about self-esteem, is the ability to accept responsibility when we screw up and at the same time not take ourselves into a place of shame, to be able to still hold on to one sense of goodness. I'm a good guy who screwed up. I'm a good guy who behaved badly. What if the words coming at you are not of that? It's not, "Hey, listen. I'm upset cuz you really dropped the ball on this thing." It's, "I'm upset cuz you really dropped the ball on this thing." And you're and it becomes character uh, you know, characterological assassination. That takes an extra level of work. It does. And in that case, is your recommendation to try and counter that or to just sit with it and do the work internally to say that's not true? Well, good luck countering it. How's that working? Listen, uh, this is a trap. And look, I'm a First of all, the thing is this, the lack of self-esteem leads us guys to be unaccountable in our relationships. When we're confronted with an imperfection, we're going to go into shame. We don't have the capacity to feel proportionately bad about the imperfection. Okay, you're right. I screwed up. What can I do to help? It's like, oh, you mean I didn't hit a homer and that means I'm a loser. And we defend against the overwhelm of our own lack of selfworth. What do you mean I'm not perfect? We defend against that awful feeling. And it's an awful feeling by warding off the criticism. Well, wait a minute. You have to understand. Well, you I mean, you know, we do all these defensive things that women always complain we do and we do because we're protecting oursel from the overwhelm of getting swamped. I'm a bad guy. So, interestingly, I teach men self-esteem as a way of helping them be accountable in their relationship. Interesting. If you don't have healthy self-esteem, you can't afford to be accountable because it's too overwhelming to admit how imperfect you are. This is so important what you're saying. Um, also for people who aren't in romantic relationship, for men it's so critical because look, we could, in my mind, we could easily transpose boss or feedback. Absolutely. And there's I feel like, and again, forgive me for kind of going slow here. Um, but I feel like parsing some of this into a structure is going to help me and hopefully help other people. They're kind of two forms of criticism that perhaps I've experienced in life. I'm being I'm joking. Of course I've experienced it. One is someone is upset about what I did. Okay. And I hear you loud and clear even if it's coming at me with characterological assassination to have the internal reservoir of self-esteem that I can hear that what happens to us. And look, I I've been married 40 years. It's me too. We get caught in the horrible delivery and we react to the horrible delivery. You know, come on. It's not that bad. Or well, hey, you're talking horrible. [gasps] Uh, a black belt in a relational guy. You duck under the horrible delivery. I'm not saying it's not horrible. It is. But you try and get to the point that the person's trying to make. Why? It's jiu-jitsu. You duck under the horrible delivery. You deal with their ouch. And guess what happens? They calm down. Sure. You react to the horrible delivery. That's exaggerated. Blah blah blah. You're and well, you're off to the races. So, but oh my god, what an enlightened man. Your your partner or your boss or your kid is saying, "You're a shitty human being. You know, this isn't about your bad behavior. You're just a rotten person." That's shame. You have enough boundaries. You have enough self-esteem to go, "Well, they're being abusive. This is not the best part of them." But rather than react to that, what are you so upset about, honey? What can I give you right now? And oof, the beauty of these skills is that they work. You know, you react to the bad behavior on your partner's part and you're off. This goes on for hours, days. You duck under that and go, "Okay, you're upset. What can I do to help you?" and you that all of that toxicity just passes through you. That's a real man. And it's like something that could have been misery for a day to a week, it it calms down in 10, 15 minutes because it's a good job. And when I talk to guys, I want to redefine strength. strength in the way we normally think of, you know, it's it's the rumble and you give me your best shot. I give you my best shot. I like jiu-jitsu. Duck under it. Duck under the wave. And at the at the end, instead of saying, "I was really strong. I didn't put up with that I stood up." No, I want you to say, "I was really elegant. I just sidestepped that whole thing." And what might have been a struggle that would go on for days, I just diffused in 10 minutes. Aren't I cool? That's a real man in my book. By now, I'm sure that many of you have heard me say that I've been taking AG1 for more than a decade. And indeed, that's true. The reason I started taking AG1 way back in 2012, and the reason why I still continue to take it every single day is because AG1 is, to my knowledge, the highest quality and most comprehensive of the foundational nutritional supplements on the market. What that means is that it contains not just vitamins and minerals, but also probiotics, prebiotics, and adaptogens to cover any gaps that you might have in your diet while also providing support for a demanding life. Given the probiotics and prebiotics in AG1, it also helps support a healthy gut microbiome. The gut microbiome consists of trillions of little microorganisms that line your digestive tract and impact things such as your immune status, your metabolic health, your hormone health, and much more. Taking AG1 consistently helps my digestion, keeps my immune system strong, and it ensures that my mood and mental focus are always at their best. AG1 is now available in three new flavors: berry, citrus, and tropical. And while I've always loved the AG1 original flavor, especially with a bit of lemon juice added, I'm really enjoying the new berry flavor in particular. It tastes great. But then again, I do love all the flavors. If you'd like to try AG1 and try these new flavors, you can go to drinka1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. Right now, AG1 is giving away six free sample packs of AGZ, which is AG1's new sleep formula, which by the way is fantastic. It's the only sleep supplement I take. It eliminates [snorts] the need for all these pills, and my sleep has never been better. The special offer gives you six free samples of that AGZ as well as three AG1 travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your first subscription. Just go to drinkag1.com/huberman to get started. Two questions about this scenario that we've kind of got um structured here. Um there are at least two general types of uh criticism. One is you did something you screwed up. Like it you screwed up. You you did the wrong thing. You did the bad thing. You did something poorly. The other is upset about what you didn't do. Okay. And in my limit I'm not a clinician obviously, you know, but in my um limited number of uh interactions with men where they they share about a frustration could be from a boss, could be from um a partner. [clears throat] oftentime it's it's what about it's what they didn't do. And they'll confide that the reason they didn't do it, the reason it seemed like they didn't think about it is because they are awfully busy doing all the other things that come with being a provider and a partner uh entails. Um and there's the real world constraints of time, right? And and so it's not like, oh, you know, you forgot the anniversary or you forgot the present. It's not not this. It's the it's the the things that never get asked for that someone doesn't just naturally see. But I'm a vision scientist first and a neuroscientist second really. And um we have giant blind spots about certain things. Women see and hear things that we just don't. Yes. And men see and hear things that women just cannot see. No, you're not allowed to say that. It's very politically incorrect. But like men see things in women that they can't see. Women see things in men that they can't see. This idea that women are all knowing and men are dopes is part of what it's part of what got us here. That's true. That's true. You know, this notion of like, you know, the Homer Simpson type thing, you know. Um, now there are certainly men like that, but I would say there's a real world version of Homer Simpson that was actually working very steadily at his job trying to make things work, you know, to, you know, uh, so when it comes to dealing with criticism about what one did not do, yeah, I can imagine same rules apply, but I think it's only fair to say what aspect of this falls on the partner and the way They raise an issue. Yeah, obviously characterological assassinations are not going to help. They make the jiu-jitsu harder. It makes it harder to accept responsibility, but it's going to happen. It's going to scale with how bad the infraction was. Right. Okay. Um, but what is a healthy delivery of a criticism? Is it all eye statements? Is it purely based on how one feels? Um, I'm not trying to distribute responsibility here, but let's be honest, it's a two-way street. It's more than a two-way street. And again, let's own these are broad generalities. We we both understand that, but we we're speaking simply because we got to start somewhere. So, I teach women, too, how to be relational. I'm not saying men aren't relational, and women are. We're both pretty screwed up in this in this culture. And uh the the tough news for a lot of women uh I I have 8 million sayings and one of them is you don't have the right to get mad about not getting what you never asked for. Could you repeat that? You don't have the right to get mad about not getting what you never asked for. And that's a that's women stepping out of their traditional role. What do you mean I have to tell them? like Prince Charming should just know if I have to tell him it doesn't count. I mean, I literally hear that. And you know what I say is, "Well, gals, uh, uh, Cinderella's dead. Uh, Prince Charming probably just came out of rehab, and I hate to tell you, but I know it's not romantic, but if you want something from your guy, you're going to have to roll up your sleeves and fight for it. You're going to have to assert what you want and then teach him what you want." And there are three steps of getting more of what you want in a relationship. And this particularly true for women because they're the ones carrying the dissatisfaction. One, dare to rock the boat. Honey, this is really important to me. I don't think you've been listening. You better pay attention. Two, once the guy is on board, okay, what do you what do I need? Teach him. Don't expect them to know. I've been listening to women for 40 years tell me men don't know how to be relational. Guess what? I believe you. So, how are they going to know how to be relational if you don't tell them? Not that you're the objective teacher. That's a trap. But subjectively with humility, this is Sally instructions. This is what I want from you to make me happy. But roll up your sleeves and show them what you want and then reward them when they try and give it to you. People don't do any of that in in this culture. You know, the the concrete example is uh John Gray, God bless him, made millions of dollars on this. Men problem solve listening and women want empathic listening. There's nothing wrong with either. What's wrong is it doesn't get negotiated up front. So, I teach women to say, "Listen, I'm going to talk to you about a fight I had with a girlfriend. 10, 15 minutes." First of all, it helps to limit it. Guys here, we have to talk. They think they're in to 4 in the morning. 15 minutes. In that 15 minutes, I want you to be like a girlfriend. I want there. That sucks. Tell me more about I want you to do empathically. This is what it looks like. We're passive in our relationships. We let we let each other do what we do and then we complain about it. We can do shape it up. More assertion up front, less resentment on the back end. So roll up your sleeves and teach your guy what you want. I don't want you to solve my problems. I want you to do this instead. as a favor to me, would you do it? Not, I'm God's gift to relationship. This is what you need. No, as a favor to me, would you do it? And then three, once the guy starts to do it, encourage him. Don't discourage him. We all, oh, too little, too late. You did a half. I tell women, celebrate the glass 14% full. It was only 5% full a week ago. Hey, you did a halfass job. Good for you. what are we going to do to get the other half on? Uh but we're discouraging people because we don't want to be vulnerable and receive. There's an art to receiving. So there's an art on both sides of how to work a relationship. And um I have to teach women how to be more um empowering of their partner and less complaining of them. Uh, and I believe in that and that's that's often their work. Uh, but you can't sit around and wait for your partner to do it right. You have to be able to respond whether on Tuesday they do it beautifully. On Thursday, they're a goddamn but you still have to respond well. This is your own integrity. And it's a great freedom to uh take it upon yourself to behave with integrity and skill independent of what your partner's doing on their side of the seessaw. It doesn't always work, but it's your best shot. And uh you don't have to be a slave to their immaturity. If every time they're immature, you jump in the mud pit with them. You're a flag in their wind. It's liberating. You're immature right now. I could be immature five minutes from now, but I'm going to meet your immaturity with my maturity right now. That is a very beautiful thing. Amazing. uh question about childhood patterns, but rather than get right into the parents piece of it, Mhm. which I want to um have this very crude model in my head that goes something like we all have an like an inner child or a childlike part of ourselves and there's a healthy part and an unhealthy part because it's kind of wonderful at least in my experience um to be in the company of someone especially a romantic partner where you can be in your kind of like childlike uh I call that the natural child the natural child right it's healthy it's explorative it's fun it's it's sweet and um and um and sometimes it's mischievous. Um I've certainly observed that. Um but it's lovable. It's very lovable. Uh and then there's the unhealthy uh child and that could take the form of, you know, brattiness, entitlement, um whatever, closing up. I mean, it could be any variety of things. I imagine that a great number of people listening to this conversation are in relationship and a great number of them are not. how much work and what kind of work can be done to understand those two parts of oneself on one's own maybe even if you're in a relationship because uh that unhealthy child is a very uh dangerous thing to show up yes in relationship it can be very destructive very fast um so if I were a patient [laughter] uh client I don't know what you call them do you call them clients customer no client client if I were a client and I just said okay yeah I I don't want to talk about my parents parents right now. We can do that later. Um, but I know the healthy childlike part of myself and I think I know the unhealthy one and then like what's some good work that I could do to have those understood and and have them in their proper place. So that I make sure that I keep like the bad child like Andrew locked away and the good child like Andrew at appropriate times let him out to play. Right. I mean, I'm very fortunate that my girlfriend now like she's very good at expressing that healthy child, the natural child part of her and she's also a woman and that part just shuts down and then she can be in that mode or and they uh you know I've seen this before. It's really wonderful to experience to and when those mesh very seamlessly it's also just awesome. You're like wow it's like total ninja virtuoso of this. Let's say I'm not then what does the work look like? Okay. So, first of all, it um you're in relationships. Anybody listening to this podcast is in a relationship. It may not be an intimate sexual relationship, but you've got a boss, you've got colleagues, you've got aunts and uncles, you have cousins, you have a dog. We're all embedded in relationships. And the work is the same uh no matter what. Uh relational skills are relational skills. So, I don't care whether you're single or whether you've been married for 40 years. That's the same thing that that's a. So here's my model. That natural child, leave him be, enjoy, let him play, love him, enjoy him. That's our creativity. And and interestingly enough, that's erotic in the broadest sense of the word. It's that's the life force. That's spontaneity. And you know, that's unhampered, unwounded. Uh that's a beautiful part of us. Um that's fine. Leave it alone. Celebrate it. What you call the unhealthy child. Here's my model. And uh interestingly, this jibes with Dan Seagull, the neuro uh scientist. Um so I talk about the wise adult part of us, prefrontal cortex that can stop and think and reason and choose. That's the part I'm trying to grow and cultivate and give skills to. The issue is when the heat comes on uh and it really has to do with trauma. When something happens in the present that is similar to what was dangerous or injured us in the past could be a violation, could be abandonment. It could be either an act of uh mistreatment or neglect. either when something in the present, you know this, of course, we don't remember trauma, we relive it. So the combat bit hears a car backfire and turns around like she's got a gun in her hand. She's not thinking, I'm walking down Main Street remembering combat. She's in combat. The the the present goes away and it's subcortical lyic system amydala and you get flooded. That's what we call the wounded child. Very young when I do experiential work with somebody first minutes of life through four or five years old. And that's all feeling that that's the part of you that just experienced it. Between this very mature present-based part of us and this totally flooded, very primitive part of us is the part you call the bad child. I call it the adaptive child. This is the you that you learn to be to cope with whatever was going on with you. And it's neither, you know, fight, flight, or fawn. Uh, it's automatic. It's subcortical. And it's utterly compelling. I've got to stand up for myself. I've got to shut this down. I've got to fix you if you're upset or I won't. These are basic, you know, these are animal survival instincts. And when you're in the adaptive child, you won't use relational skills because you're not interested in relationship. You're interested in survival. It's literally a different part of our neurology. And the work I do, I call it relational mindfulness. When you're flooded, you got to bring the prefrontal cortex back online. Take a walk. Take 10 breaths. Go around the block. Take a break. I'm a big fan of breaks. Get reentered in the more thoughtful, non- flooded part of you. Dan calls it the responsive brain instead of the reactive brain. When you're reentered, I call it remembering love. You remember the person you're talking to as someone you care about. Then you go back and you you you try. But we all struggle with these adaptive child parts. I deal with couples on the brink of divorce. Almost all of them have been living in their adaptive child thinking that that's an adult. And the world will reward you. The world will reward an adaptive child, but you'll make a hash in your family life. So fight, flight, or fix. Anybody listening today, when you're flooded, when you're an automatic, because that's the hallmark of the adaptive child is automatic. Fight, flight, or fix. What are you and what's your partner? And then what's the dance between you? The more I fight, the more they fix. The more they fix. Okay. The way out of this is to bring your thinking brain back online. And the the beauty here is that capacity. I call it relational mindfulness. That capacity to remember to think to bring yourself back into the present can be cultivated and grown. So can I give you a story? Enough talk. Let me tell I I I Yes, please. Uh before I just want to make sure I ask one question about when one enters this adaptive child. I think that's how the which is reactive in the moment at worst and one can learn to dance with that and uh turn on their prefrontal cortex and and remind themselves this is a relationship that I care about and there's etc. um taking space a break is is something essential is essential. What's the best way to ask for that? Because here's perhaps something I've observed. Um things are getting ratcheted up internally, maybe both people, and you need space. Yes. You ask for space like, "Hey, I I need to take a break to be able to hear this." Or and then the other person gets very upset because it activates their sense of abandonment. Exactly. And it runs countercurrent to this idea that we need to stand in the face of it, jiu-jitsu it, etc. Like that it's a it's a pause. We're not talking about like, hey, I'm leaving for a week. We're not talking about I'm leaving for an hour even. It's just need to decompress this. if that's met with additional criticism about the request, um, that can be problematic. Yeah. And common is mud. So, here's what you do. Contract for it when the heat is not on. Listen, honey. I get flooded and you don't want me flooded. I'm not nice. I won't be nice. I won't be skilled when I'm flooded. I need to collect myself. It's in your interest to let me go collect yourself. Um, I have a skill for everything. And this is a skill I call responsible distance taking. Most of us take unilateral. I'm just I'm gone. No, I'm gone. Here's why. And here's when I'm coming back. It's not a rupture. It's a break. So, if I have a partner who's vulnerable to abandonment, if I go, I'm gone. Boom. They're chasing me. This is a good example of relational skill. If I want distance, let me take care of my partner so she'll give me distance. If I don't take care of you, I'm going to get chased. Is in my interest to behave with skill. So I say to you, when we're not flooded, let's have a contract. I get flooded. We don't like it when I get flooded. I want to take a break. Here's what it looks like. 15, 20 minutes and then I'm back. If I'm not in control, I'll text you or call you and say, "I need another I'll negotiate with you, but I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to be irresponsible. It's not unilateral and it's not forever. I will be back. What do you need in order to be calm enough to let me go?" Uh, and nine out of 10en times is like, "This contract is fine. Remind me of the contract. I'm taking a time out so I can be with you. 20 minutes I'll be back. Here's why. Here's when I'm coming back." Okay. No abandonment. Leave those steps out. You get abandonment. So, it's a really good example of how using relational skills in your interests. That's very helpful. Thank you. I also realize that how resourced one shows up to interactions like this is a big part of it. I mean, if you're sleepd deprived, overworked. I mean, you've got stuff coming at you from other angles. kid has been up all night, you know, it financial issues, you know, if the well is low, um, access to these skills becomes infinitely harder harder and I don't believe in pleading special circumstances. This is relentless. You don't get a pass. I don't care if you're up all night with the kids. I be be immature. be unskilled. I I can understand why you would be and brother, you'll pay the price. So, yeah, I get it. You're sleepd deprived. It's harder to be mature. And when you behave immaturely, this is the crap you're going to wind up with. It's instant karma. So, the beauty in this is remembering it's in my interest to behave artfully. It's not for them. And one of my sons is uh in residency right now and he's out of his mind and he's sleepd deprived. And so we don't hear from him for, you know, a week. And um uh and his mom calls. I'm worried about you. I've been calling. You don't text. I'm worried you're like dead on the street. You know, I know I'm crazy, but I'm worried about you. He says, "You know, I called uh and you you weren't there." I said, "Well, did you leave a message?" "No." I said, 'Well, why didn't you leave a message? You don't understand what it's like in I didn't have it in me. And okay, listen, pal. Leave a 10second message. I'm alive. I'm fine. Don't worry about me. You'll you'll wind up having less to deal with. If you put 10 seconds into it, then if you don't put the 10 seconds into it, and then you've got mom on the phone talking to you for 20 minutes about, you know, why can't you be a more responsible? It's up to you. But it's an investment in your future, your well-being. It's what the prefrontal cortex knows that the lyic system doesn't is it's in my interest to behave well because I'll get less for it. I don't mean to jump into family matters, but uh having come from the not medical but science profession, your son had some overlap with places I've been and people we know. Um I don't know him, but I'm about to advocate for him here. I I suspect maybe ask him. I suspect that the could be wrong, but part of the reason he didn't leave a message is when you get like your son got three degrees from an elite university. He is a doing his residency in medicine. Uh he's clearly a high achiever. Uh and he's involved in other things as well. Um the 10-second message is very hard for a high achiever. It's like you either do things really well or you don't do them. And this is I I'm probably just projecting myself into this here. Sometimes the reason I don't respond to things is I'm like, I can't do it well. So I'm not going to do it at all. They told us that if you're not going to do something well, don't do it. You know how you do one thing. And it turns out it's so silly, right? Because not doing it for 10 seconds is clearly way worse than doing it 10 seconds becomes perfect under the circumstances. But high achievers don't hear that. So here I am advocating for your son. I don't even uh [laughter] really know him. But but I'm going to but and I don't do it because I want to bail him out. I think everything you're saying is is spoton. I just what I felt in that example like oh gosh like I can't help but I know that feeling. You want to do it so badly, but you don't want to do it poorly, so you don't do it. Yeah. But that's not relational. Sure. And medicine is saturated with patriarchy. This is all, you know, the hazing that goes on. This is all masculinity. It's just like boot camp. And for the Marines and this notion that you either do it excellently or you don't do it all is another, it deprivives us of being human beings with each other. It's it really gets in the way. So, yeah, you're right. I'm sure that's what he's thinking. And also, take a step back. What is in my interest? A 10-second message or a 20-minute conversation? I'm busy. What do I want to do here? And this is how we have to start thinking. We we're we're not individuals. That's the great fallacy. We're living in a context. Our relationships are our biospheres. We're not we're not separated from them. We're in them. And it's in my interest to do what the biosphere needs because I'm incited. That's the new news. That's my message to the world. The great mistake this culture has made. the the father of family therapy, Gregory Bas, an anthropologist married to Margaret me, genius man, called it humankind's uh epistemological philosophical mistake that we stand outside of nature. You know, I get these big burly I tough I I I deal with tough guys. I get these gly why should I have to work so hard to please my wife? I go knock you live with her. It's like we have lost the wisdom of ecology. You're in this together. You know, indigenous people around the world understand this. We don't. We're not above nature dominating it. And for traditional women, we're not below nature upregulating it enabling code. No, we're in it. is in my interest to do what the biosphere needs because I'm breathing it. This is a whole new world for most of the people that I work with. And by the way, this to me is the essence of the new masculinity to understand life as a human as relational relational and ecological. I'm not above it. I'm in it and I'm a steward of it. It's in my interest to give to my biosphere. That is wisdom. There must be a place for men to develop some of these skills in the company of other men because that traditionally was the way it was done, right? Even if we look back to the you know um not so much the ' 40s um because the world was in a different sort of duress um but in the 50s and 60s um there was a certain kind of socializing that men did. It was still today. It was it was often around alcohol um and sports. Yeah. Brief brief uh anecdote around that. When I started graduate school, um it was amazing that every Friday they would do a seminar and then people they' have some food and people would go home. And I was told by a chair of department, he said, "Do you know that for something like 30 years in this room, it was called the beach room named after Frank Beach at at UC Berkeley, one of the great biocsychologists and endocrinologists. Frank Beach and colleagues would get together. It was all men then. um every single evening, not Fridays, every single evening and get trashed. And then basically stagger home to their families. This was like how it was done. Very very different time. And it was standard. It was standard. People smoked men smoked and drank and then got drunk and went home. Okay. That was real. obviously that's not the way it is now. And I said, "Well, what would you guys talk about?" And you imagine that it would all be about, you know, um kind of like fraternity talk and locker room talk. He said, "No, we would talk about science. We'd talk about grants." Um occasionally people would talk about what was going on with their families, but I said, "Why did people do it?" And he said, "It just felt really good to be able to relax and say whatever you wanted." Obviously, there were no phones then or even the internet. And it was kind of an end of day catharsis. And I said, "On average, do you think those men showed up drunk? Obviously, better or worse when they got home?" And he said, "Oh, that was our therapy. That was absolutely our therapy." Now, I don't doubt that there were elements of abuse and all sorts of things that go with alcoholism. I've been very vocal about the fact that I'm I'm discouraging of people to drink, certainly if they want to be healthier in very very low moderation perhaps, but zero is better than any. But where do men go now to relate to one another in a way that builds healthy relating with romantic partners? Builds healthy relating at work because I'll tell you just even the notion I know because I've been told just the notion of men gathering scares the hell out of a lot of people. The immediate assumption is when guys get together bad things happen. This is this is the idea. But I also think that we've um erased some very powerful vessels for self-standing and for relating and for and also for throwing off some of the stresses of the day that frankly don't need to walk in the door at home. And so guys are trying to do it all alone or on their phones. And then people wonder, and there are a lot of reasons for this, but then people wonder why there's so much dissociation and distraction and and worse by way of social media. It's like if guys can't hang out and talk, they not say drink, but if they can't hang out and talk, then how are they supposed to be their best selves when they go back to their families? You're dead right. And you know, we talk about the epidemic of loneliness. We're talking about men, you know, um heterero couple, uh the the man dies, women do okay. The woman dies, men are in deep trouble. The single men uh are the greatest public health crisis uh around. And we've talked about relational skills with your family, your woman, your partner if you're gay. Um, how about relational skills with pals? And I work with men around getting friends. Uh, many of the men that I work with have few to no friends. And I have, it's part of my therapy. I want you to start having friends. And I want them deeper. And I teach men. Okay. So, the six guys you go golfing with and you talk about sports and politics and maybe about your wives a little bit. I I I want you to try pick one that you think might be most receptive and share something a little more vulnerable with them. You know, I've been uh I've had chronic back pain and I'm I'm getting old. It's a little scary. Or if you're a young man, I've been out of work for 14 months and I'm getting show some vulner Oh yeah, what about those socks? Well, he ain't having it. Okay, nice experiment. You're done with Steve. Go back to your superficial relationship. Enjoy it. [gasps] You talk to Dave and Dave, you know, I can really hear you, man. That's tough. I I've been worried too about blah blah blah blah blah my dick ain't working the way it used to and all of a sudden you're having a hearttohe heart in a way that you may never have had in your life before. So I teach men to experiment and to try and drive their relationships deeper by sharing more and seeing what they get. It's not a shoe in this guy may be great that you have to be discriminating. It's just in brain death. Protect yourself. Be discriminating, but also be courageous. Open up and try a little more. Uh the crisis of men being alone and not having other men to support them and share uh is one of the great problems in modern society. Uh on the other hand, [snorts] I had the privilege of being and many of your uh listeners are too young for this, but uh there was a great guy, Robert Bllye. Uh he wrote Iron John and he was a great book. Yeah. And amazing book. He was like the Mr. Men's movement, guys drumming in the woods. And I went to Moose uh Lodge and I was invited. So you met him? I did one of the one of the men's weekends drumming in the woods with Robert and the guys. I I love the book. I think that has some brilliant insight about um all boys's relationship to their fathers, even if they didn't know their fathers. And uh there's this wonderful and terrifying passage in there. Wonderful because it's so astute. terrifying because it's terrifying which is it is the places of absence of the father that the demons enter a young boy. Yeah. That's absolutely true. And something like that. And Bllye is a great writer and I didn't capture it well. But that whether or not someone had a close relationship with their father and he was very present or they didn't there there are these like um I think of them as actual like physical shards of of shadow a wound, right? that that that's where addiction shows up later. That's where all sorts of things show. It depends on the circumstances. But BL Bllye um BL was really ahead of his time. It's awesome that you trained with him. Yeah. No, we dance we did Sufi dances together and Oh, so he was into the hippie thing too. Drumming in the woods and and he was tribal. Tribal. So forgive me. I wasn't trying to be pjorative. I'm from Palo Alto. The Grateful Dead are from Palto. I get a hippie pass. Anyway, listen. Um, so there was a wonderful shaman. I got to tell you this story. We've been so straight, but I just love this story. So he brought in BL um adolescence. He had all these guys boomer guys in their 50s and 60s, me included. And he trucked in Bloods and Crips, not only teenagers, but teenagers from urban gangs to do this thing. And he really strongly believed that older men needed to teach younger men how to be in on the planet that there was an initiation that was missing in our culture. And Martin Prel the the shaman as these kids were getting off the bus. I love this. He told I wasn't there. He told the story though I was in he he he give me a sheet. He held out a big sheet on the ground. He goes old cre shaman custom. This is a sacred weekend. We must divest of all metal. All metal goes on the sheet. And these gang members are like knives, brass knuckles, chains, guns. All of their weapons were all good. Good. There wasn't an old that's It was just made up. He was just divesting them of their weapons for the weekend. But anyway, but even there, I mean, you can go on YouTube and see this. When I when it was my turn to speak to the men, I said, "This is beautiful what we're doing with each other. It's beautiful. It's necessary. And now we have to take it home to our families. It's great for us to be intimate with each other, but we can't be intimate with each other for the weekend and go home and be to our wives and kids." It's an amazing story at so many levels and it brings to mind something I've been thinking about for a number of years which is okay I wasn't in a university fraternity but I sort of uh I entered a fraternity of way back when and got involved in skateboarding when there were no parents involved there no girls or women involved there was like one or two but it was like just a bunch of guy territory it was all guys and the interesting thing about skateboarding is it's um to this day you can be 13 and you're hanging out with people that are in their 30s and 40s right so that was First I used to say non-biological family but it was a fraternity of sorts. You sort of like I want to be in and then there's a bunch of tests or not tests and you're you're part of it and then eventually I joined the fraternity of science and research which is its own very interesting different podcast topic fraternity um with its own great aspects and its own complete and uh you know etc. is like any fraternity, When you talk about the crisis of loneliness, especially among men, but even for people who are perhaps happily or at least amicably in relationship, I feel like what's missing are these quote unquote fraternities that, you know, they don't they're harder to access now. Um, and people have gone online. I actually think part of the the success of of podcasts um certain podcasts in particular has been because um you know if you didn't uh you know go to the military or something you watch a Jaco Willing podcast and I mean Jaco Willing looks like the modern general Patton and he's a very nice guy but he's he's a nononsense guy. I mean he's a very kind amazing father amazing husband to his wife and and great friend and it but he's a he's a warrior. He's a legitimate warrior. And so young men and old men uh now go online to be to feel like part of a fraternity to access these different fraternity so to speak. But I think there's real value in the in-person um work and collaboration and to some extent what I described before about the the the excessive drinking at the end of the day in the beach room and Tolman Hall at Berkeley that took place in the you know 40s 50s and 60s that was a fraternity. I had it in family therapy. Yeah. and and but it it was an important part of learning not just the conventions of the job you're in but where you sit in this you know it's a very touchy word it's like a third rail word word nowadays this the the hierarchy right but the way I see hierarchy among men is very different I feel like within a fraternity you figure out not where you sit on a kind of staircase you figure out what you're good at what you're less good at what you might get better at and what you'll never get good at. And then you kind of arrange yourselves in a group that you go, "This is great. I'm really good at certain things, terrible at others, and so so at others." Fortunately, there's complimentarity here. They're really good at other things, and so you can learn, and you feel empowered in the best sense of the word because you're like, "Yeah, we're kind of a a force because there's no there's no major gaps here, but not because everyone's validating each other and you're interested in going out and doing bad things." I actually think this is why people go into gangs. Gangs are It's a fraternity. It's a fraternity. And and the home was never the place where you were supposed to feel fraternity. And I think this is a difficult one for men and women to understand and hear, but especially men nowadays where young guys will come to me and they'll be like, I don't know what to do. What should I study? What should I do? This is not the Stanford students. These are the some failure to launch or potential failure to launch kids. You know, parents now call me, text me, they get a hold of me. My kid is a and I'm like, they have no fraternity, Their fraternity is video games. That's not a fraternity. They don't have a group that they can go to to figure out what they're good at, what they suck at, and what they could get better at. And so they walk around, and I do, forgive me, but for going long, but I think that but because online you can see all the fraternities. What I also hear is they're overwhelmed. They're like, "Wait, I'm supposed to work out. I'm supposed to also eat right. I'm supposed to be empathically attuned. I'm supposed to be a provider and protector. I'm supposed to, you know, and they're like, "Holy like this is really tough." I was fortunate that, and you were fortunate that we grew up in a time where the models were whatever we were interacting with, like when I decided to go into the fraternity of science. Sure, I kept exercising and stuff, but what I was like, "Okay, how do I get good at this thing? Who who are the good mentors? Who are the pieces of mentors? we all talked and you're in this fraternity and you learn. Now, that fraternity included women because academia, at least in biology at that time, was about 50/50. Okay? At the faculty level, it it's a steep shift. That's changed somewhat now. But the point being, it was never about getting everything from your romantic relationship. The learning, the indoctrination, the learning of self and the kind of self-esteem and acceptance, a lot of that happened in this context. And I understand there's not a car carryover of skills to the home necessarily, but it it filled a a good good fraction of the vessel of feeling like yeah, like I far from perfect. Believe me, I'm replete with flaws to this day. I say it over and over again. Uh and it's true, but where are the fraternities that young men and older men can go to if they don't have one? It's tough. Uh, I I'm a big fan of do a men's group. I love men's groups. Pure, you don't need a therapist to lead it. Get together with four other guys and just start talking about your lives. Um, do a bowling league. Um, the the only thing I want to say two things. One is I want the fraternity to support your relationality, not your individual empowerment and entitlement. Yeah. I I see fraternity as only being relational. Anything that you could do on your own is not really relational. Yeah. That in my mind it's sort of like Well, but to get together with four other guys and about what a rotten life this is and how women are, you know, be an incel. No that well that that's happening online. I I I it might be happening in person but no I totally agree. I mean obviously it would be um to cultivate oneself. Yeah. Not to because there's something I mean we all do it. We all complain from time to time although I have friends who don't have the circuits. Um it's really impressive. But I think that complaining a form of self abuse. I do. I think it's a I think the there's a threshold beyond which complaining becomes a form of self- abuse. Well, going back to having friends and training friends and cultivating friends, one of the things I teach guys is you want to train your friends to support your relationship, not your individual empowerment. So, oh my god, I had such a hard time with Belinda, blah blah blah blah blah. I I don't want to hear you talk to me about what a she is. or maybe you can start that way, but pretty quickly what I want to hear is, okay, Terry, what did you do to contribute to that? And what might you do differently? I want you to support the mature part of me and the relational part of me, not my individual empowerment. And we have to train people to do that because our culture will gravitate toward individual empowerment. I wouldn't put up with that if I was you. That's not the support I want. acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year, I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune functioning, nutrient levels, and much more. They've also recently added tests for toxins such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics and tests for PASES or forever chemicals. Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers key to your physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors who are expert in the relevant areas. For example, in one of my first tests with function, I learned that I had elevated levels of mercury in my blood. function not only helped me detect that, but offered insights into how best to reduce my mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption. I'd been eating a lot of tuna while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with knack and acetylcyine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification. And I should say by taking a second function test, that approach worked. Comprehensive blood testing is vitally important. There's so many things related to your mental and physical health that can only be detected in a blood test. The problem is blood testing has always been very expensive and complicated. In contrast, I've been super impressed by Function's simplicity and at the level of cost. It is very affordable. As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Hubberman podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to function. Recently, I've been approached again, parents will reach out and I have a real soft spot for for doing this and and and they'll say their son. It's their is always their son, right? They're no one's reaching out about their daughter. Um to me, they're saying, you know, my son is it's a real problem, right? Like he either graduated college and he's going nowhere. These are smart kids. Or they didn't graduate and and it's like getting scary now. Yeah. uh and we had them checked out for the ADHD, the depression thing, and that nowadays there's all this information. People try a bunch of things. It's just very clear they're on not a good path. When I talk to these guys, 100% of the time, what they are asking for is not to figure out how to be in relationship. In fact, in more than a few cases, they're already in relationship and they have the really caring, wonderful partner. And sadly, a lot of these women have kind of gotten used to the fact that a lot of guys are kind of failure to launch and she's taking off and he's at home and we don't know how that's going to play out. But can't be good. Uh not in the long term. But the questions are always to me are about what do I do? How how can I find a group? How can I find work? How can I be part of something? They want to be part of something. and they're smart and their parents are smart. They're realizing that just podcasts are great, but ultimately, you know, I mean, this isn't going to happen, but maybe maybe you watch one podcast a week and you get together with friends and you watch it and then you talk about it. Okay, that's not going to happen. That's not really how it works. But they're alone. They don't have male They don't have the golf buddies. And this is, you know, this is a new thing to me like guys in these are guys in their 20s, sometimes in their 30s. And very often they no knock against anti-depressants where sometimes they have their…

Transcript truncated. Watch the full video for the complete content.