How to Find More Connection & Become Less Lonely | Dean Pohlman | Better Man Podcast Ep. 182

Hey guys, it’s Dean and in this solo episode, I am addressing male loneliness. And specifically, how am I addressing this in my own life? So in this episode, I’m going to be talking about how I went through this assessment of looking at my own life and asking myself, am I doing the right things to live a healthy, fulfilling life? Realize that I was missing out on a lot of social interactions and a lot of guy time, and how I started making some of those changes, both in my personal life, in my life with the betterment podcast and also within the yoga community. I also go into what I’ve found from these experiences. So things that I’ve found in other men, um, realizing like a lot of the same things that I’m going through are the things that other men are going through. And then I also talk about just some cool specific instances from my own life, from these different areas of my life where I’ve found a lot of fulfillment and a lot of connection.

And hopefully this is inspirational to you to go out and do some of these things in your own life and start creating a healthier you, not just physically, but also from a mental and emotional perspective as well. So enjoy. Hey guys, it’s Dean. Welcome to the Better Man podcast. Today is a solo episode. And in this particular episode, I’m going to be talking about male loneliness and specifically what I’ve been doing in my own life to try and combat this. So I know that I’m the host of the Better Man podcast. Obviously, I lead a men’s wellness community.

And despite that, um, I don’t practice what I preach all the time. Um, I do not practice everything that I want to, um, there are tons of conversations that I have here on the podcast where I think, oh, that would be really great to do. And then I don’t end up and I don’t end up doing it. And so what really got me to make a change in this particular topic. In the in the realm of male loneliness, I asked myself if somebody came to me and they told me, hey, here’s what my day looks like, here’s what I’m missing. Here’s what I feel. What advice would you give me? And I asked that to myself. And I answered, well, I spend most of my day by myself in a windowless studio which is here, my office.

I don’t hang out with my friends much. Every now and then I might get lunch with a friend. I conduct interviews and calls, mostly on webcam, and I still feel some degree of social anxiety. And the funny part of of all of that is, well, I don’t know if there’s a funny part to that, but, you know, I look at all those things and I think, wow, okay, well, whoever has this lifestyle probably doesn’t really have a full social cup, so to speak. And the other thing that came to mind, I did therapy for a few years with, with, well, I’ve been, I’ve been doing therapy continually for probably close to a decade now. But I had one guy that I worked with for many years and a year and a half or two years in, I asked him like, hey, can you just give me like the cheat sheet? Can you just tell me what I’m missing in my life? I know that I’m supposed to talk to you and you’re supposed to reflect back to me things, but can you tell me what you think I’m missing? And one of the things he mentioned is, yeah, I think you really crave and you miss connection with other men. And so that was just another reinforcement of this whole argument to myself, like, hey, you need more guy time.

And so I started, uh, I so, and so a few months ago, I started to make some of these, some of these changes I got way more intentional, uh, more and more intentional about meeting up with friends. That meant sometimes scheduling lunches or dinners together, scheduling coffee dates, but just making sure that I had dedicated time with my guy friends. I also started weaving more of this into my professional life, so I started reaching out more to other men’s wellness professionals in Austin and whenever possible, meeting up in person. I also, you know, when, when people reach out to me about the Betterman podcast being potential guests, I have conversations with those guys and I have very open conversations with them because they are focused on men’s wellness or their coaches somehow, and a lot of these guys. And so I get to have very, you know, open, honest conversations about where I am in life, what I’m looking to do more of. And that’s been really fulfilling. I also, this is, I think, really cool, but I even created a D&D meetup group, which, you know, admittedly, we’ve only had a couple meetings so far. And the second meeting, only one other guy could come.

But. And this is mostly from kids, uh, kids, dads from my daycare, some of my other dad friends that I have. Um, but it’s just another way that I’m trying to create more, uh, male friendships and put energy, put time into those. And then within Manful yoga, I also started creating more in-person events. So we were doing more retreats. Now we’ve got two retreats this year, um, not including the wellness weekend, which a lot of people think of as retreats. We did Boston and May Denver in February. I just set up another one for Phoenix in Austin and then, um, sorry, in August, Phoenix in August eighth to ninth if you’re interested, and then Seattle in September and Atlanta in November. So I’ve been creating a lot more opportunities for me to have a connection with men and to be able to, you know, fill my cup that way and to be able to have more meaningful conversations, not just, you know, hanging out with guys and talking about sports or complaining about things, but, um, really talking about the things that we spend our time stressing about. And that’s been really, really helpful for me. Um, a few weeks ago, this was maybe just last week or a couple of weeks ago, I ended up having a lot of, um, a lot of these meetups, a lot of these conversations with guys.

Some of them were friends, some of them were men’s wellness professionals in Austin. Some of them, um, were other guys who might be on the podcast. But that week alone, just having a lot of those conversations, meeting up with guys. Um, it kind of got me through a significant hurdle in terms of my own mental and emotional wellness. I’ve been pretty honest about, um, a lot of my own mental, emotional, you know, challenges and my, my stress journey, so to speak, um, you know, struggling with anxiety and, you know, some of that being being panic attacks on and off here. And I feel like I made a major clearance in that, um, a week ago. And part of that just being me getting together with other men, uh, on a more regular basis. And so what I’ve found, and this is what I want to share with you guys, what I’ve found through these, you know, these increased interactions that I’ve been having is that most guys are also looking for opportunities to hang out with other men. I think most guys are missing this. When you look at, you know, kind of the overall life trajectory of men once they become married and settle down into a settle down. That’s a that’s a great term.

I guess it’s a terrible term. But when they when they form a partnership and they start having kids, or if you decide to have kids or don’t have kids, whatever. I’m not trying to make this exclusive to one type of partnership. But the point is that when men enter into a partnership or they get married, They usually stop hanging out with other friends as much. You know, if you do have kids, then your free time really just goes to your family and your job. There’s also increased stress because you’re you’re handling more responsibility. You might also have more of a financial burden at that point, or financial obligations that you need to be able to match to take care of your family, whether or not you are the sole provider. Um, and so, you know, we’re not getting that interaction that we want. Um, but there’s also a lot of guilt that goes with trying to make those make that time for self-care, right? There’s, there’s, there’s guilt for going and doing a workout.

Or maybe if you go to a yoga class or, I don’t know, whatever it is you do fitness wise, there’s, there’s even guilt in doing that. And that’s kind of where a lot of our free time does go to. That’s almost like the, okay, I won’t go, you know, hang out with my friends, but I’m going to get up early and do a workout, or I’m going to squeeze in a workout on the weekend for an hour here or there. And so there’s guilt around taking care of yourself. There’s also guilt around going out and doing things with friends, because if all of your time is spent working or being with your family, then you know, you don’t really have a lot of extra time to be with your family. So you feel like that time has to go to your family and so you do it. But it’s almost done in a grudging way. You know, there’s I think most dads want to spend time with their kids, with their families, but they also don’t want to do it all the time. They want to do it, you know, they want to do other stuff with their free time.

And so this creates, you know, this kind of this kind of resentment toward being with your family or being with your kids when it’s all you do with your free time. At least that was that was my experience. And so it’s only by making time for yourself to go. Things that go do the things that you want to do to go hang out with your guy friends that you’re able to, you know, you’re able to fill your cup, you’re able to take care of yourself and then come back to your family in a better mood. And just like, hey, I’m like, I’m being me. I am getting my needs met. And I’m now I’m coming back to my family and I’m able to really feel present and feel good about being here. So I think it’s a really common situation with, uh, with men, with new dads, um, and with dads, even even me, my, my kids are three and six and I still, I feel like I’m still making, you know, I feel like it took me a solid five years to really make, um, to really start making significant changes and kind of going back to what I found with, you know, going back to my, uh, recommendations on how you would do this in your own life, things that have worked for me and some realizations that I’ve made, the guys that I’ve connected with are willing to have the deeper conversations. Um, you know, so I mentioned that I created this D&D meetup group a few weeks ago, and I kind of chose the people who I invited to that based on interactions that I’ve had with them in the past.

So some of that might be at pickup or drop off at school. Um, there’s, there’s, you know, meeting up with, with dads and their kids at parks or at birthday parties. And so I kind of picked and choosed the, the men that I wanted to invite to that group based on those previous conversations that I’ve had based on like, hey, I’m going to venture into the waters here and talk about something that I think is like a big stressor for me and see what you think and see how well or how you respond to that. And then based on that, I’ve invited or not invited people to this meetup group. If I notice that the conversation isn’t what I want it to be, if I’m, if I’m having that conversation and it’s, it’s not making me happy or it’s not, you know, it’s not helping me feel more connected or it’s not helping me feel, I guess, better about myself in the sense that, you know, other people are going through the same struggles. Um, then I don’t, you know, that’s not somebody that I want to have a conversation with on a regular basis. So, um, I find though that, that having that just kind of just taking the conversation to where I want it to go, taking it to another level. Most people respond to that. I think most guys want to have that, but maybe they’re scared of doing it themselves. I think the other part is when you’re meeting new people, you know, most of us are most of the guys listening, we’re, you know, we’re not twenty anymore. We’re not twelve.

Uh, so, you know, it’s harder to make friends as you get older. And if you only have kind of surface level connection with people, if you’re only just meeting them, it might feel weird to take the conversation to a, to a deeper level quickly. And so you don’t even have the opportunity to do it. But again, I do find that most people are willing to go there. So I usually like to ask questions about people, um, about topics that I’m that I think about a lot. So I’m like, hey, like, how do you feel about, you know, what do you do for fun? One of the questions that I ask people a lot is, what do you do for fun? And that question usually stumps people. They’re like, oh, I don’t know. I don’t know what I do for fun, you know? Um, and they say like, oh, I work out. I’m like, well, that’s not, that’s fun. Yes. But that’s also like, that’s like, you just have to work out, right? Um, that’s not like fun. Um, but I like to ask them questions like, hey, like, what are you stressed about? Like, what do you, um, which, you know, might be weird, but for me, it’s not weird.

My wife usually, you know, my, my wife, Marissa will usually tell me like, hey, like, you need to ease up somewhat on some of these conversations that you’re having. Like you go straight in for like really serious topics. I’m like, well, that’s what I want to talk about. That’s what I want to talk about. I think that’s what a lot of other guys want to talk about too. Um, but I can see how it can also be kind of, you know, off putting if that’s the first thing I ask people is like, hey, like, what’s your relationship like with your wife? Like, how do you guys feel about balancing, uh, you time with kid time? Um, but, you know, there’s other ways to ask that I can say like, do you guys have a babysitter that use regularly? Or do you, do you go out on date night? Like, how often do you do that? Um, and so it’s just having, it’s just having these conversations that you want to have that you’re genuinely curious about. And then, and then taking a legitimate interest in them because it’s helpful to find out that other people have similar thoughts that have, they have similar experiences. So, um, and again, some of the other things that I’ve found, like guys are really missing these kinds of connections. They just don’t make time for them. Um, and again, it’s, I mentioned this before, but it’s kind of hard to for us to justify making the time for them. When all of your time is going to work and family, and then you have a little bit of time left over, hopefully to do a workout, right. To just take care of yourself physically. But men feel really guilty about getting other needs met, about taking time outside of that. And I get that.

Um, it’s, there’s nothing, there’s not really much to say about it other than like, hey, like I get that other men are there as well. So if you’re experiencing that, you feel guilty about taking time for yourself. That’s normal. Um, I think it’s important that you surround yourself with people who can continually remind you that self-care is important and that if you are not taking care of yourself, if you’re not getting your needs met, whatever that means, that means, you know, having time with other men to talk about, talk about stuff, talk about life. Just hang out. Just shoot the shit if you want to, if that’s what you’re into. Um, also making time for, you know, for you working out for time to yourself, for personal reflection, for maybe it’s meditation, maybe it’s journaling, maybe it’s yoga, whatever it is there. Um, but then, then I, I also think like, it’s really important that guys take time to themselves for, um, for, for kind of like personal or personal retreat of some sort, like a day or two here. And, you know, we’re not always going to be able to do that, but maybe a few hours a day, not per day. Sorry, but maybe a few hours in a day. Even if you if you can’t leave for one or two days, then taking time, a few hours, set aside for yourself and to ask yourself big questions like, um, you know, how are things going in my life right now? Where am I seeing the most stress? What do I feel is missing right now? And most of us have those answers. We’re just there might be something holding us back from answering them truthfully. And then some of the other things that I’ve learned from more of these interactions that I’m having with men, especially at the Manful yoga events that I’ve been hosting these wellness weekends, these retreats, men have a lot of unfelt emotions.

Um, we’re so busy with day to day life and we’re concerned with other people’s emotions and, and supporting other people that we don’t really give ourselves the space to, to feel emotions. And it’s not like we’re making a choice to do that. It’s just we don’t have the space and the environment where we can. And so when you create an environment, when we have an environment that those, those thoughts, those emotions are able to flow and able to be let out, you’re able to unburden yourselves, um, of the stress that you’re carrying around. And that’s been a really powerful thing, um, to see. And it’s not that we’re, you know, having a, a crying circle, um, together and, and just, just venting for, you know, hours at a time. It’s not that it’s sometimes it is crying. Crying is great. By the way, I wish I cried more. Um, but it is being honest about the emotions that you’re feeling, being honest about the emotions that you’re, you have in your body, but you’re not experiencing. And then being able to have the courage to let those emotions go to experience, to actually feel them so that you can move through them. I think like I hear a lot of people in men’s wellness circles talking about not letting those emotions show and being stoic and, oh, well, we don’t want to let our emotions dictate us. But the reality is you’re going to have emotions no matter what. There’s a difference between thoughts and emotions.

Yes. You don’t want to listen to every single thought that you have, because a lot of a lot of your thoughts are wrong thoughts. You don’t want to have those. You don’t want to listen to those. But your emotions are something you can’t really argue with. You have to experience your emotions. It doesn’t matter if you think the emotion is unjustified. You have to experience the emotion to move through it. And so it’s really important that you create the space where you can actually figure out what are those emotions that you are not experiencing, and then be able to let them go. And then the last thing that I’ve, that I’ve realized kind of throughout this is, is that, is that the, the, the big solution to lots of these problems that we experience of men is just recognizing that you’re not the only person going through it. It’s just having, it’s just having the understanding of shared experience, knowing like, oh, I’m not the only guy who worries about being a good dad or I’m not the only guy who worries that, you know, I’m, I’m not being successful enough or that I’m not fit enough or I’m not the, I’m not the only guy who is is sad that his wife or his partner spends more time with the kids. and more time and energy there than she or he does with me. And so these are, you know, just getting together with other men, even if it’s just one guy and having conversations, realizing you’re not the only person going through what you’re going through right now, or, or having the feelings that you’re feeling or the challenges that you’re going through, or even like the good things that you’re going through too. It releases the pressure from that situation.

You realize that there’s nothing wrong with you. And it also makes whatever that challenge is or whatever you’re going through easier to solve. So again, sometimes the solution to the problem is just learning that other people also have the problem because these are things that won’t go away, right? You’re always going to have some sort of worry about, you know, whether or not you’re being a good partner or a good dad. You’re going to be worried about your your finances or your success at work. You’re going to be worried about your body and your fitness. You’re going to be worried about, you know, not doing the things that you want to do. Those are those are constants. They’re not going to go away no matter how much you do. But realizing that other people also have those are our things. And I also wanted to have this isn’t going to be that long, but I did want to talk about some of the experiences that I’ve had recently, um, that I think illustrate some of these, some of these points. Well, and also, you know, might give you some inspiration to go out and, and, and create your own opportunities to, to hang out with other men to, you know, address your own loneliness in life. And so last week I met up with a friend, um, and I at the top of, at top of mind for me was a podcast episode that I had just done. And I don’t know if it’s out yet on this podcast or not.

Sometimes we, you know, hold podcasts because we have lots of podcasts ready to go. Um, but we did a conversation about men’s sexual wellness and this was the first time that we had, uh, brought up the idea of just having conversations about your sex lives with other people in your situation. So, you know, when you’re younger, at least my experience when I was younger, when I was, you know, like eighteen, nineteen, twenty in college, sex was something that you bragged about, right? It wasn’t something that you’re like, oh, yeah, I had this really great experience. And I, you know, like, that’s. And so that’s how men are used to talking about sex. It’s something that we brag about. It’s something that we, you know, at least my experience was, um, but when you become married, it becomes, you know, at least for me, very something that you don’t talk about, right? That’s, that’s private. And I’m not saying that you should like, you know, go crazy and share like everything and, and, and talk about details, but conversations like, hey, like, how often do you guys have sex or like, you know, what’s the, what’s the overall dynamic between you and your partner and sex. And so, you know, I, I brought that podcast up and then I started, you know, seeing like, hey, is this a safe conversation to have? Is he going to be responding? Is he going to respond to this? And he did. And so we started talking about like, oh, yeah. Like, well, how often do you have sex? And like, you know, something that my wife and I realized in couples therapy is that we kind of had this weird dynamic where my wife really didn’t want to have sex because it was something that I received in exchange for being, you know, a responsible husband.

It was something that I kind of demanded in response to, hey, I made dinner tonight. I took care of the kids and I helped you with, you know, this other thing. So like, I deserve sex now and that doesn’t feel good to her. And so like bringing that out into the open and acknowledging like, oh, this is how we think about sex. Um, and then also asking my friend about like, how do you guys feel about sex? Like, what’s the, what’s the overall dynamic there? And have you talked about that? Or is it more of a feeling? And so, you know, that was just a really cool, that was just a really cool conversation to have because it was a topic that I, you know, haven’t had before. But, you know, obviously on a topic that most of us are really concerned with, right? The things that we don’t often talk about are the things that we spend the most time thinking about or are concerned with, you know, there’s safe topics, but then there’s taboo topics. And so it’s like, it’s, it’s kind of like having, how do you approach some of those taboo topics in a way that feels respectful, but also like gets you the opportunity to actually talk about things that you think that you spend time thinking about. Um, so one of the other, uh, you know, and I also want to talk about some of these, uh, these in-person events that I’ve, that I’ve hosted and what we’ve, what we’ve seen there, um, you know, going back to just this idea of a significant amount of repressed emotion, just, just emotions that guys don’t even know are there. They’re just so busy with life that they never get the the chance to pause and feel what’s happening in their bodies. And so some example of this, like just just one guy I remember at a retreat, just silently crying to himself after a morning yoga session and not really knowing why. It was just, it was just being there in that environment. Um, you know, pausing, resetting, taking a break from life that, that, you know, his body, the motions in his body had a chance to catch up.

Um, we also had this really cool experience where Patrick, who is our, our motivation, consistency, kind of mental wellness coach guided us through a visualization where we got to check in with younger versions of ourselves. And, and that was really powerful. We got to experience like, oh, wow, I didn’t realize that that emotion was there or I didn’t realize that this, this younger version of myself needed to hear something that, that, you know, and I really like this description of like, we are not the age that we currently are. We are all of the ages that we have ever been and the age that we are now. So all of those experiences that you’ve had as a three or four or five year old, twelve, a twenty, a thirty year old, and whatever your current age is now, you’re not just that one age, you’re all of those ages. And that was really, really powerful visualization. I think it’s also people realize just how much stress guys have been carrying around. It’s the stress of work. It’s financial stress. It’s the stress of, of being a dad, being a partner. Um, how are we measuring up in those relationships? And I’ve also holding it together for everybody else. You know, I, I, for the guys who, you know, seemingly have it together the most, those are the guys who are holding together a lot because they’re not really acknowledging their own stresses, but they’re also trying to hold it together for everybody else.

Maybe they’re supporting other people. You know, we have caretakers in this in our in our community, there’s a lot of guys taking care of their spouses or their parents. There’s there’s guys who are taking care of their kids because their actual kids, but also taking care of, you know, their, their kids as their adults. Maybe they have kids of their own, right? So they’re being, they’re being grandparents now and they’re trying to, you know, balance their own needs with also helping out their kids with their children. And so for those guys in particular who not those guys in particular, but it’s also the guys who seem to have it all together. Those guys are also carrying around a lot of stress. And again, I just want to come back to the significance of this, because it’s not just that we are it’s not that we’re solving any of this, it’s that we are just getting to let go of the weight of it all. We’re getting to experience the emotion to to acknowledge the full weight of it, to acknowledge, oh, wow, this is really heavy to carry around.

Um, and feel heard and feel, you know, like someone say like, yeah, it is really heavy instead of, you know, the, the, what we usually tell ourselves is like, oh, it’s not that bad. Just keep on, right? Just keep doing the thing. But being able to have someone respond to you and say, like, that sounds like a lot, you know, and just being acknowledged, like, yeah, it is a lot. And just being able to feel that heaviness, even if it’s just for a few seconds, that is so powerful. And so yeah, so that’s kind of what I wanted to do today. Um, just talk about how I’m addressing, you know, male loneliness in my own life. What, how I’ve seen this be helpful when you actually get together, hang out with other men. Um, what I’ve found from this, like what I’ve realized guys are really lacking and how, you know, it’s probably not just you who wants this, who wants more connection with other men with more time, um, for guy friends, but it’s other people too. And then some of just like the cool instances from my own life, um, where I’ve been able to see this and work for me.

And again, I will say that this has made a significant improvement in how I’m doing overall mentally and emotionally. So I’m looking forward to continuing to practice this in my own life, to continuing to make time to hang out with friends, uh, continuing to make it a priority that I get my needs met, even if that means other things don’t get as much attention. Like, you know, maybe for me right now, I don’t get to put as much time into Manful Yoga or the betterment podcast. I’m still maintaining everything. I’m still doing a crap ton here. Um, but maybe, maybe it takes a back seat to my own mental and emotional wellness at times. And that’s, I think important. Um, so lastly, I want to mention that I am in the process of creating some kind of regular group, um, groups that will meet and have conversations around this. I’m actually really excited about this. Um, the first one that I want to create is around fitness and fatherhood.

So this is particularly for men, um, who have kids, um, mostly twelve and under kind of in the same phase that I’m in, in life right now. Um, and just an opportunity for these guys to get, get together. Um, we’ll have different topics we talk about, you know, every other week we’ll have a dedicated group chat. Um, but more so than just hearing me talk about these things because I don’t profess to be the expert here. Yes, I know a lot and I’ve practiced a lot of this, but really what this is about is facilitating the conversations. So facilitating the conversations, the connections that we need as men to be able to be ultimately better men for our family, in this case, for fatherhood. So I’m really excited about this.

Um, if you’re interested in this at all, send me a message somewhere, Dean at manfully Yoga dot com. Message me on on social media or in the members area and app. But this is something that I’m actively working on and I’m, I think this is going to be really cool. So, um, and this is just one group, I hope eventually to have lots of different groups around this. Um, because I think it’s important. So if you don’t fit into the fitness and fatherhood group, you’ll fit into another one. Um, but since fitness and fatherhood is the most relevant to me at the moment, um, this is something that I feel like I can. This is, this is a community that I can serve really well. So anyways, that’s what I’ve got for you today.

I hope you guys enjoyed this little episode. I hope it gave you some ideas about how you can address male loneliness in your own life, about making more connections, making more meaningful connections. I hope this inspires you to be a better man and I will see you on the next episode. If you’re enjoying the podcast, leave a review wherever you listen. Um, if you want to learn more about Manful Yoga and join our community there. Manful yoga dot com slash join free, seven day challenge free seven day trial whenever you’d like. Um, all right, I’ll see you guys on the next one.

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