The Case Against Becoming A Better Man | Dean Pohlman | Better Man Podcast Ep. 175

Hey guys, it’s Dean. Welcome back to the Better Man Podcast. Today’s episode is a special solo episode, and I wanted to talk about some of my experiences from the recent events that I’ve been hosting with Mantle Yoga. And, you know, I bring this up because most of you guys were listening to the podcast are familiar with Mantle Yoga, and the overall goals of the Betterment podcast are part of what manfully is.

We’re working on wellness as men, but where we really go deeper with the Betterment podcast is we try to focus on holistic wellness. We get into mental and emotional wellness, and we get into social wellness. And and that’s something that was a really common theme in these recent events that I’ve been doing. So the first event I did recently was mid-April, April 16th through 19th, and this was for the Be the Better You Retreat.

And these are very intensive retreats to Thursday evening through Sunday morning event. It’s it’s a small amount of guys for this one. We only had 16 guys. These these retreats don’t accompanies many people as some of my other larger events do. And so it’s a very a very intimate experience. And it really creates this incredible atmosphere where we’re able to go beyond the the type of work that we can do on our own.

It creates this environment where you’re able to be open with one another, where you’re able to access emotions that or memories that you didn’t really know where they are or where we’re affecting you as much as you would think. I think most of us, you know, we have our day to day lives. We have established patterns on how to keep ourselves productive, how to get the things done that need to get done.

And that usually means avoiding the things that cause pain. But the reality is that these things that cause pain, these things that have hurt us at one time or another, and some of these go back to, you know, some of these could be things that happened in your 20s or your 30s or your 40s or your 50s, but some of these things go back to a time where you barely even remember them.

Some of these things go back to, you know, when you were 12, when you were seven, when you were five. And it’s those things that are sometimes some of the most powerful experiences to revisit, but you really don’t get the chance to tap in with those and to tap into them on an emotional level until you’re in the right environment.

And why I really like these retreats. The about a treat in particular, is because it creates that environment where we’re able to access those memories and access them on a deeper emotional level in a way that we’re able to let them go. Right. And I think some people here, you know, this idea of checking in with childhood memories and they’re like, oh, that sounds I don’t want to do that.

And where, you know, I try to step in and say, hey, maybe we should do this is because we all have these goals about improving ourselves, right? This is called the Be the Betterment podcast. But the reality is that we can only do so much when we are dragging around a 60 pound or 100 pound weight, you know.

Yes, we could we can do it. We can drag around that weight and we can do the things that we want to do. But it’s so much harder. And when you don’t get the chance to check in with these things, these memories, these emotions, these this hurt that you’ve been carrying around, it just makes it harder for everything else to happen.

And so, you know, my own experience with this, and this is probably what a lot of other guys go through, remember, I know that I’m not special. So if I’m going through something, I know that other men are going through it. I know that I tend to operate at a 100% capacity. I take on as much as I can, and I try to stay right there, and that is okay as long as there aren’t unexpected things or unexpected responsibilities.

But, you know, life doesn’t usually cooperate with that. Life usually gives you more stuff than you planned on handling. And so in those moments when I do get more stuff, or when I’m dealing with more things, you know, you get, I get overwhelmed. And it’s at times like these when you know, some of those things that you’ve kind of buried or left behind.

When those things come out, when they try to, you know, they make themselves known. So, you know, you have the choice of, do I deal this with it? Do I deal with these things on my own in a setting that I control, or do I wait to get overwhelmed with life and deal with them in a way that’s incredibly inconvenient?

And for many of us, that’s what we have to do. We just have to wait for those times where we’re forced to deal with them. What makes these, you know, these other events special is if we can come to the right environment and deal with them when we are, you know, when we’re not already in a state of panic or we’re not already overwhelmed, makes it so much easier to deal with.

And it’s hard because you don’t want to rock the boat, but you know the boat is going to be rocks no matter what. There are going to be things that come up in life and things that are challenging no matter what. It’s having the courage to deal with those things when things are going well. I think that allows us to move into another level of wellness.

And so, you know, these events are an opportunity for that. And the retreat was, you know, it was amazing. I was I was excited because I got the chance to kind of be a participant in this myself. You know, I came into it thinking that I would somewhat be a participant, but mostly, you know, kind of let that let that, let that go for the people who, who signed up to attend.

But, you know, it allowed me to really practice courageous vulnerability myself and to, you know, to learn things about myself that I didn’t know. Like, for instance, we had a visualization exercise during which Patrick, who is our mindset and who is our motivation, consistency mindset coach, who led a lot of the conversations that weekend. And he was amazing, by the way.

He guided us through a visualization where we went back and, you know, talked to our childhood selves, and we also went back and we talked with our 20 year old selves. And for me, what was really interesting was I was saying all the things that I, that, that I’m already aware of, like, hey, you’re doing really well. You know, you’re doing really well.

It’s okay where you are right now. Things that I’ve, you know, explored in therapy and exported my own self work and, and things that I would assume that that 20 year old me would want to hear. But then I said I can forgive myself. And I felt a very strong wave of emotion come over me. And so I learned that I need to forgive myself.

And I had no idea that that was something that I desired. And so it was only through these, you know, these visualizations and this environment that I was able to learn that some of the other things that we did were that were really helped with this. We, you know, every morning we started the day with a very grounding yoga practice.

It was it wasn’t meant to be a super challenging workout, but it was meant to help you stay. It was meant to help you calm down and to help you relax, help you to be present in your body, to be present in the surroundings. Instead of getting up and rushing out the door and going to work. We also had some of the other highlights.

We had this really cool five minute staring exercise where we all had to sit across from another person and just sit across legged and look each other in the eyes and and just wait for five minutes. And we didn’t. You couldn’t say anything, you know, you couldn’t you couldn’t talk. You couldn’t. You just stared. And that was a I was one that I was always scared of doing, actually.

But I’m really glad that I got through that. But that was that was an incredible experience. We also had some downtime to reflect throughout the throughout the time. And then we had these really amazing conversations that were led by by Patrick where we, you know, we went into we went into other aspects of wellness. So, you know, I think a lot of us really want to, you know, I made a brief, you know, post about this or I wrote this up.

But so many of us look at these wellness practices as a way to get the peace or the sense of fulfillment or the happiness that we want. So we look at weight loss as a way to get that, or we look at working out more regularly as a way to do that, or we look at, you know, some of these other practices like, oh, if I journal, I do this or if all if I work out more, I’ll do this, or if I start weightlifting or if I start doing yoga at night, and maybe if I start doing foam rolling.

And ultimately, all of these things are practices that we hope will get us this result of this sense of fulfillment or peace or happiness. And the reality is that all of those things are available for the taking right now. It just takes, you know, it just takes a different kind of work to get there. It’s it’s kind of being okay with where you are without having to fix the problem.

It’s being grateful with what is around you now and what you do have, rather than focusing on what you have and trying to fix that. It’s also accepting that you don’t have to be the better you to be happy, but you can be happy, fulfilled and and content and have a sense of peace with how you are exactly now.

And I think the trap here is that we think that if we somehow outwork, if we somehow outwork ourselves, or we somehow reach a certain level, that we won’t have to deal with pain. And the reality is that you’re going to have to deal with pain, you’re going to have to deal with setbacks. You’re going to have to deal with unexpected occurrences and loss and all of these emotions that we and we try to avoid.

And so the solution isn’t to, you know, we’re never going to be to reach a point where we get to avoid all of those things. The solution instead, is to practice being okay with those emotions, something that I’ve really found a lot of grounding and a lot of a lot of just a lot of, a lot of benefit from in recent months and maybe in the last year has been focusing on my emotions in such a way that that is the solution to the problem.

Now, I haven’t found a really good way to paraphrase that yet, so I’ll have to explain that in a little more depth. So in the past, and this is probably how a lot of you guys are now, and this is still me now. And in some instances when we have a problem, we want to think about solving the problem, right.

So let’s say the problem is I want to be more consistent with my exercise. Right. So let’s just say that. And so for that we go into planning mode. You know we think about we think about a solution. We think about what we need to do to avoid the disappointment that we feel when we when we don’t have a consistent exercise routine.

And so we’re focusing on avoiding the emotion by taking an action which helps us to avoid the emotion or the hurt that comes from not getting the outcome that we want. And the alternative to this is instead of changing your external conditions, instead of changing how you do something, another solution is just being okay with it and focusing on your body in a way that the focus, that the level of intensity that you focus on that situation, how it shows up in your body is the solution to it.

So when I think about something that I’m really stressed about, let’s say I’m stressed about, look, for example, we have a new team member right now, you know, and I’m we’re helping to get him set up. But I’m worried about his performance. I’m worried about how it’s going to impact other things. And so the planning part of me wants to go to, okay, I’ve got to do all these things to make sure that he does a good job.

I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this. But the other part of me goes to, hey, like, those are all good things and we definitely want to. We definitely want to. We definitely want to take the necessary actions. But on the other hand, you’re not going to outwork this feeling. What I really need to do is check in with the feeling.

And so instead of going into planning mode, I go into focusing on my body mode. I think about where does this stress show up in my body? Where what part of my body is it in? What does it feel like? What’s the intensity of it. And so I get out of my head and I get into my body.

I focus on where that stress shows up, and I focus on the physical sensation, as if that focus is the solution itself. If I couldn’t do anything to alter the external reality or to to to take an action to, to fix whatever emotion I’m trying to avoiding, if the only thing that I could do was focus on that emotion, that’s what I do, and I hope that made sense.

But that’s something that I’ve been practicing a lot lately, and I’ve had amazing results from that. It’s basically getting out of my head and getting into my body, and that doesn’t mean that the problem doesn’t exist once I’ve done that, but it does mean that it’s removed the emotional baggage or the rumination or kind of this, the anxiety that’s around it so that I’m able to deal with it objectively instead of reactively and emotionally.

And so that’s something that I think that’s something I wanted to mention that I think fits into all of this. The other thing I wanted to talk about was my experience with the Boston event. And the Boston event was a, was a, was a was a full yoga wellness weekend. And this this combines it’s mostly yoga. It’s mostly yoga posture improvement.

But there’s also what we call a wellness discussion portion, which is where we give the guys an opportunity to talk about something that they’re struggling with. We start day one talking about a fitness struggle to make it kind of an easy, safe topic. And then by day two, we get into whatever struggle in life they want to talk about.

And, you know, just having these conversations and getting into the root causes of these struggles, you see that. You see that there are common themes that start to pop up. You see that people feel overwhelmed by their situations. Maybe they’ve been out of their workouts for a long time now, or they’ve had other things going on in life, and they just don’t see a way to get back to where they were.

They just lack confidence. And for these guys, it’s it’s it’s well, I’ll talk about the solution for these guys in a second. But for some of the other guys, what we see is people just navigating other challenges in life are just kind of overwhelmed with too many things. You know, the guys in their 50s and 60s are at a point where they’re usually more financial stable, but other people are starting to rely on them more.

And this is in their 40s as well. But, you know, you’ve got your maybe you’re a caretaker now. You’re taking care of your parents as they’re getting older. You’re watching your kids grow up and try to be independent adults. But you’re also, you know, you’re also trying to help them out at the same time. Maybe you’re maybe you’re relatively new grandfather and you’re spending more time watching the kids and and all the time you’re trying to balance your own career with your desire to to work out and be consistent.

Everyone else is struggling around you, and you feel bad taking up space and letting people know that you’re not that, that, that, that you’re struggling to. And so there’s a really heavy weight that, that these guys carry. You know, it’s funny, but the guys in their 70s seem to have it the most together. These are the ones who, you know, the 70 year old showing up to the these are the guys who are saying, you know, I’m definitely not going to be where I want to be with my fitness because I’m in my 70s now, but I’m okay with that.

I’m just going to keep doing what I can and keep pushing myself how I can. They also have gotten to the point where they don’t care what other people think. There was one guy specifically who who brought this up. We go around kind of do like and have everyone share something at all these events. And this guy brought up like, you know, I’m in my 70s now.

And when it was in my 20s, I really cared what other people, what other people thought in my 40s, you know, I, I forgot what he said about 40s, but I think he did say, like, by the time he got to his 60s, he realized that people don’t care, and he didn’t care either. And so he was able to, like, start being yourself.

And his wish for the younger guys was that they came to that realization sooner. So for the men in their 40s and 50s and 30s. You know, they often seem overwhelmed in their own way. There’s there’s major life transitions occurring there. They’re finally getting to the point in age where also their bodies are, you know, starting to make significant changes where things seem a lot harder.

These are the, you know, these are the guys with with kids in their, you know, later kids who are I’m going to say, like, you know, outside of toddler age, maybe like age six to age 18 or a little bit after that. But those are the kids. Those are the guys who always tell me, like, oh, you know, really enjoy the time with your kids because they’re going to grow up fast.

And I have a three and a five year old right now. I always hear that a lot. And, you know, so there’s different guys at different stages of life with different challenges. But getting back to what I was saying earlier, when everyone comes together and they’re able to share those things and realize, oh my gosh, you’re going through that too.

It makes the problem seem less significant when you know that someone else has the problem. It seems less, it seems less challenging, it seems less of a problem. And it removes a lot of that kind of emotional baggage that we were talking about. And it gives you a bigger sense of confidence that you can do whatever you’re working on or whatever you want to work toward.

And, you know, the other thing, and this is kind of the bigger sense that I got, and this is kind of the heavier thing that I really felt throughout these, these events that I’ve done recently, I get this sense that people are missing something from their lives. It’s this very, this middle age kind of concept that comes up that, you know, people are doing all these things that they think they need to do.

Guys are, you know, they’re working out consistently. They’re working on their their professional careers. They’re you know, they’re there might be balancing other responsibilities, like taking care of their parents, taking care of kids. They’re, you know, they’re making time for their fitness because they know it’s important and they want to be able to, you know, to to to stick around and be here a while and live the life that they want to live.

But and you give me your time to your family, your job and your fitness. But there’s there’s not a there’s not a lot of feeling of joy or taking time for yourself in the moment or connecting with other men and having friendships. So there’s a lot missing. There’s like this. There’s, you know, we’re doing all these things because we know they’re important and we know that we need to do some of these things.

But like, there’s no sense of fulfillment or peace or like connection that’s happening in the moment. And it’s so hard, I think, to, to be able to, to maintain all of these things because with social media and with I think also just, you know, the world is getting harder and harder to, to be successful in its there’s the expectation that we have to do all of these things in order just to measure up.

So we have more things that we need to do. We’re looking at social media, seeing all these people put out only the best of their lives there, and we feel like we have to do so much just to, you know, have a base level. And when we have so many things to do, when we can’t just focus on a few things, a few priorities, life just feels like this big checklist with all these things that have to get done.

So, you know, and I don’t think when we don’t have the time to check in with ourselves and we don’t have time to communicate with other men and openly talk about, you know, what we’re experiencing, not just focusing on the good things and not just having conversations with our partners or with our parents or with, you know, our kids and, you know, hiding a lot of our stresses from them, but actually getting a chance to have the full conversation about everything that’s going on with peers, with men who are going through the same things that that we’re all going through.

We don’t realize how heavy that weight that we carry is. And and that’s we need to take time. We need to create time for ourselves. We need to create the opportunities where we can actually connect with other men, where we can actually focus on ourselves because most of us are just running on empty. Most of us are doing so much that we’re barely getting by, and we’re scared to take time for ourselves.

We’re scared. I mean, I’m doing this right now. I’m trying to set up a men’s, just an informal men’s group within my own friends network, totally outside of man. And I’ve messaged a few parents and I’ve said, hey, you want to? I’m just doing informal men’s group. I just want us to be able to get together and support one another and hang out.

And the amount of people who are responding and saying, I’m not available on the nights or weekends because I have kids, it’s just like, guys, we have to be able to make time for ourselves. Like, I get it. I know that it’s really hard being a dad. I’m there right now with younger kids and you don’t want to see your partner.

You don’t want to see the mom or the partner, whoever it is, whatever the relationship setup is. But you don’t want to see your partner struggling with having to take on more. But is that because they can’t handle that? Or is that because you can’t handle the stress that it creates for them? Is that because you’re more uncomfortable with the idea of them being stressed and how that affects you and, and worried about if they’re going to accept you or not?

Or is that because you know so and that’s, that’s that’s the reality. I think men are so afraid of, of hurting their partners that they’re denying themselves things that they need so that they can be happy or get their needs met. Because when you don’t get those needs met, that leads to a buildup of contempt that leads to you not wanting to connect with other people.

It leads to you not connecting with your partner because you’re holding things back. You’re not expressing how you’re truly feeling. And so if you really want to have that connection with your partner, if you want to have better relationships, you have to get your needs met. And that’s why, you know, I think these events are so important is because it gives you the chance to connect with other men, to get in touch with your own needs, and actually take time for yourself so that you can be the person that you want to be for the people in your life.

So I think that that one big thing that we’re missing is getting our needs met as men and really being honest with ourselves about what we need and being able to hold up the mirror and say, here’s what I’m missing, and be okay with what other people in your life are going to tell you when you do that, being okay with what the reaction might be.

I think we’re so scared of, you know, being rejected of of of being, you know, of not being productive all the time or of not, you know, or just being scared of what your partner’s reaction is that we we don’t get our needs met, is my point. And I think if we can work on that, if we can lean into that, that discomfort and realize that all the things that we actually want, which are to feel more connected, to be happier, to feel more fulfilled, to have better relationships, those things happen when we are able to be selfish and get our needs met.

And I used to be really suspicious of that idea. You know, I used to like look at dads going out and golfing. That was the one thing that I noticed. There weren’t a lot of golfers at these events. There weren’t a lot of guys there who said, oh, yeah, I go golfing all the time, or like, I leave for the weekend all the time.

Like, these are guys who rarely ever leave and they’re like, yeah, this is an amazing weekend for me because I’ve never done something like this before. I’ve never been able to take time away and just do something for myself. So it’s a very common. It’s a very common thing. Guys are scared to take time for themselves. So if we can start to learn into.

So we can start to lean into this idea of taking time for ourself, I think that we’re all going to be a lot happier. I think that we’re going to have better relationships. And I think more of the life that we want is, is on that side where we are okay with doing things that might make our partners upset if it means getting your needs met because, you know, in reality, your partner is going to be able to get over it.

He or she might be upset at first, but they’re going to feel better. I mean, they’re going to get over it. I think that’s something that I realized with my own life. You know, when I, when I first when we first had kids and I would, you know, I would feel guilty about taking time. Usually it wasn’t that my wife couldn’t handle it.

It was that I couldn’t handle her first response to it. I couldn’t handle her reaction to me saying, I want this because later on she would say, hey, like, let’s get that thing done for you. Like, hey, how do you how are we going to make it so you have time to do this? Or here’s what I could do this.

She would come back and say, how do we make this happen for you? It’s just me. It was more so me being able to be okay with the initial reaction instead of lashing out because I felt so insecure. Anyways, just my experience. So this is my this is my this is my my call to you guys to be more selfish because you are going to be happier.

You’re going to be better for the people in your life when you are more selfish. So get your needs met. No one else is going to meet them for you. And you know, I don’t know if that lands the same way it does with you that it does with me, but hopefully you got something out of that. I encourage you if you’re interested at all, what we do with Banfield Yoga to join me for an upcoming event.

We have one in Seattle in September. We have another one in Atlanta as of the when this when this podcast will be released are slots for the Be the Better You retreat in Asheville will probably be filled. That’s in October. If you are any reason they’re not, you can sign up for that as well. And I’ll be looking to set up more events for 2027.

So wow, already in May. So yeah, looking at setting those up, I hope, I hope to do one in London for 2027. So if you’re overseas you’re in Europe. Hopefully you can make the trip to London and join me there. But anyways, kind of a lot to go through today. You know, not a set formula. I’m never good with following you know, set formula anyways, but I hope you guys got something out of that.

I hope that resonated with you somehow. I hope it inspires you to be better man, but I hope also hope it inspires you to be more accepting of yourselves and getting your needs met, and being okay with what’s going on now and finding happiness with whatever the situation is in the now. I’ll see you guys in the next episode.

And again, I hope this inspires you to be a better man.

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