Claiming Your Power

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to Gay Men Going Deeper, a podcast by the Gay Men's Brotherhood that showcases raw and real conversations about personal development, mental health, and sexuality from an unapologetically gay perspective. I'm your host, Michael DiIorio, and joining me today are Matt Lansitl and Reno Johnston.

Today we are talking about taking responsibility for your emotions. We'll be talking to that version of us, and we all have it. Who blames others for how we feel, who expects the people in our lives to behave in such a way that pleases us, to make us feel better, and the version of us who reacts poorly when they don't. But also we'll be talking to the version of us who doesn't take responsibility for our joy either, who chalks up our success to good luck and gives credit to others, but never to ourselves.

If this sounds like you, I'm going to give you fair warning. Today's episode might be a little uncomfortable, but I really do encourage you to sit through the discomfort because ultimately, what I want this episode to offer you is liberation from blaming others for how you think, feel and act, and at the same time, empowerment to show up as the man you want to be in any situation, no matter what others say or do.

A lot of listeners will tell me when they meet me or chat with me that they actually, for some of our episodes, write notes from our episodes. They'll listen to them, go back and listen to them again, pause and listen to them again. And I love that because I'm the same way. I'm a nerd like that too. And. Or they'll save them and they'll say, oh my God, that episode was so good I saved it. And I had to go back to it every once in a while on their podcast app when they need a reminder. This is one of those episodes, okay? So just note that if you're new here, welcome and please subscribe to the channel. If you're watching us on YouTube, go ahead and click that bell to get notifications on new episodes, which are released every Thursday.

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Okay? Let's get into it today. The questions are designed where we're going to be actually sharing a lot of our personal stories and experiences on this topic. So first I kind of wanted to get into coach mode and explain two key concepts that we'll be going back to. The those two concepts are, or terms, maybe I'll call it, are emotional immaturity and emotional maturity. Immaturity, maturity. Okay, let's be honest. We call ourselves adults, but many of us still function as children emotionally. And that's because we were raised by people who were also emotionally immature themselves. We talked about this in the last episode about feeling your feelings. Okay, this is a beautiful segue from that episode.

So most of us were never taught how to feel our feelings, just like most of us were never taught how to be emotionally mature adults. There was no class in school. Not least the school that I went to that was called how to handle your emotions like an adult, Though I believe there should be. And if your parents didn't model it for you, then how in the hell could you possibly have known or learned this? Good thing we got this podcast, right, boys?

Okay, so these two concepts, Emotional immaturity. We'll start there. That's the one that we all. We all start there. We all start in emotional immaturity. And some of us just don't continue. We kind of stay stuck there. So emotional immaturity is when we don't learn how to manage our emotions like adults. Here's how you know when you're in emotional immaturity.

First sign is you're blaming literally everyone else for how you feel. The president, your boss, your spouse, your kids, your friends, anyone, anyone who can, they are responsible or they're responsible for how you feel.

Think. If we're talking about emotional maturity, another sign is when you think of a toddler, think of an immature toddler. How do they respond emotionally? They react, right? They're emotionally reactive. Throwing temper tantrums, having these outbursts, reacting poorly to lots of little things, or potentially shutting down and stonewalling in defiance.

No, I'm not going to open up to you. Okay.

Uh, another thing that toddlers love to do is sulk in the corner and expect someone to come. Oh, are you okay? Let me come take care of you. I'm just gonna. And then what they do is they just sulk there. Cause they know someone's gonna come save them, right? So that's how you know you're in emotional immaturity. It's really expecting other people to make you happy or to make you feel better. It's putting all that responsibility onto the other, not taking it on your own. You know you're in emotional immaturity when you have a constant trend of feeling powerless and victimized, even as an adult. Okay.

And sometimes a lot of people will resort to emotional manipulation to get their needs met. Instead of simply saying, I need a hug, they'll do all these other things and simply instead of saying the truth of what they need. So, yeah, ultimately, it's not taking responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, or actions. Okay, let's switch.

Contrast with emotional maturity. It's taking full responsibility for your emotions.

And like we talked about last episode, it's feeling them fully, allowing them to be there, not resisting them, not avoiding them, and being emotionally responsive. Not reactive. Responsive is intentional reacting is automatic.

Maturity is knowing that happiness is an inside job, just like all of our emotions are an inside job. And when you are more in emotional maturity, you will feel more empowered and in control of your emotional state. Most of the time. Not all the time. Most of the time. Even when it's a difficult emotion. Anger, sadness, shame, disappointment. And you can communicate your needs clearly, even when you're feeling a negative, quote, unquote, negative emotion. Even when you're angry or frustrated, you can simply say, you know what? I'm feeling angry and frustrated right now. You don't need to necessarily act it out and, like, throw things at people. Okay? It's knowing that you get to choose how you respond in any given moment, regardless of what's going on around you. Even when you're raging on the inside and you have the urge to punch someone in the face, you can respond intentionally, not react impulsively. That is a key difference. Okay, now, how do you get from emotional immaturity to emotional maturity? That is this episode? It's called taking responsibility for your emotions.

That's what we're doing here today. So why does this matter? Lots of reasons. When you learn to step into emotional maturity, you reclaim your power. So you're not looking to others to make you feel good. You own that responsibility yourself, and you stop outsourcing your peace of mind to other people. I'll share an example later in the episode of How I Used to do that. Now, let's be real. We're all human here. All of us, myself, Matt and Reno included. We're going to have moments where we react and we go back into emotional immaturity. We all have that. We all do.

The purpose here is not to get it perfect. It's just about having that awareness, more emotional awareness. And when you catch yourself in those moments, you don't beat yourself up, right? You don't panic. You just check in and say, ah, here I go, doing that thing that I want to do. And then you can own it. And if you did make a mess, if you did react and say something or do something that was not cool, then you own it. And you own that, too. And you apologize wherever you need to, but you don't ever beat yourself up. You own it and you move on. Now, I want to make a note here for anyone who has experienced trauma or were victimized growing up. This conversation is not at all about blaming you for your pain, because what happened to you was not your fault. But healing only becomes possible when you take back the power today. Now, how you choose to respond to that going forward. Okay, so emotional responsibility is not about denying your past. It's about really about reclaiming what that means going forward.

Okay, and the last word before we jump into our first question is, you know, as you listen today, I always want to have these. These deeper discussions with that air of self compassion. We don't have these conversations to judge ourselves, to poo poo on ourselves, and to say, oh, my God, I'm such a terrible person. Oh, my God, I'm so emotionally mature. What's wrong with me? No, no, no, no. We don't do that. I encourage you to approach this conversation with curiosity, not criticism. And just notice, because we all do it where emotional immaturity does show up in your life and where you might be ready to take a little bit more responsibility for how you feel. The reason why I set up the questions the way we did is because I wanted it to be more of a, hey, we do it too, and here's how it shows up for us so we could be the example. All right, that said, let's go into our first question. We're gonna be sharing stories today, and let's start with Matt. Today, Matt, tell us a time when you did not take emotional responsibility for your life, and what were the repercussions?

[00:09:01] Speaker B: Well, first of all, I want to say I'm glad you mentioned trauma, because it really. I think trauma ruptures our relationship with our nervous system. And I think it's through the nervous system where we learn how to take responsibility for our emotions. So, you know, I think about the context of, you know, growing up, and it wasn't safe to feel my emotions, and I learned to internalize everything.

So, you know, trying to share my emotions with people in Relationships has been very hard at times because it feels really vulnerable. It feels like I'm not going to be validated.

So the story I have is a story about jealousy. I said last, last episode about feeling our emotions, that jealousy and fear are the two hardest emotions for me to experience.

And in my opinion, you can't have jealousy without fear. But so I'll paint. I'll paint the picture. So I'm walking on this beautiful beach on a date with the guy that I'm dating at the time. And we're having this lovely time, just amazing. And we're just hitting it off. It's feeling really good.

Keep in mind, at this time in my life, this was about seven years ago, and I had a lot of unprocessed trauma in my nervous system. And I. I was dealing with a lot of stuff at this time, but so he starts talking about wanting to go to see his ex, a guy that he had dated prior, and have a massage exchange.

And I was like, oh, okay. Like, immediately, as soon as he said this, my nervous system went into like, this activated state. And I could feel it in my body.

And I had this belief about jealousy, which is not to share it. It's going to make me look petty and it's going to make me look whatever, right? So I had all these really judgments towards jealousy.

And so I chose to do this whole song and dance and gaslight the whole situation and make it to be something completely that it wasn't about that.

And I could just tell he was so confused. And I was like, in fear. And then the fear turned into anger and it just imploded the whole day. The whole day. Bas went to shit.

And so the. A little bit of time goes by and I had some time to really land back into what was going on for me. And I could feel like, okay, this is jealousy. This is coming up for me. And the repercussions, though, of this situation, of me gaslighting and not taking responsibility, were more confusion on his part and him almost kind of feeling like, you know, he knew I was gaslighting, but he wasn't quite sure. He was confused. Like, am I, you know, at fault here? So I think there was a major trust breach at that time. And then my needs couldn't get met, obviously, because I wasn't being honest about what I was feeling. And I think if I were to have, you know, I think about it now, if jealousy comes up for me in a. In a relationship, I'm going to own it and I'm going to Talk about it. I think jealousy is a. It can be a beautiful opportunity to create intimacy and closeness in a relationship and.

And really highlight how important somebody or the relationship is to you. Right. It can be explored differently, but I didn't really have that skill set at the time. So anyway, after things kind of passed a little bit, I remember I took the day after that to really just sit down and write down in my journal, like, all the. The ways that my ego gaslights and manipulates and tries not to. To. To take responsibility for. For my emotions. And then I invited him over, and I just had, like, a reveal. I just revealed to him, like, this is what my ego does now. You know, and you can help me with compassion and, like, call my ego out when it wants to avoid having to. To feel these emotions. And I really do think that emotional immaturity comes from that place. It comes from the ego not wanting to face what it's feeling, and it wants to become defensive and, and blame and. And do these sorts of things. Gaslighting. So. And then that situation actually allowed. Well, first of all, it was very humbling for me to do that. Like, can you imagine sharing every little thing that your ego does to try and dance around? It was very painful for my ego, but my soul was, like, clapping the whole time, like, yes, this is such great progress for you in being vulnerable and disintegrating your. Your ego, which was very strong at the time. So.

And then it just led to greater intimacy. And thankfully, he didn't use those sharings as, like, ammunition against me. Because I know sometimes if other people have emotional immaturity in themselves as well, and you're practicing emotional maturity and being vulnerable, they can use the vulnerabilities as weapons against you. And, you know, I'm just grateful that he didn't.

He didn't play that out.

[00:13:37] Speaker A: So I love that example. Really, really good example. And just for the audience out there who might not know what gaslighting is, can you explain that term?

[00:13:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's basically just, like, shifting perception of reality, like, trying to twist reality into, like, confusing them and being, like, getting them to question themselves. Like, is that really? So it's like, a lot of times people are like, they're sharing perception. Like, my perception was this. And then it makes somebody question their own perception. Like, did I really not see this properly?

[00:14:07] Speaker A: So, yeah. Good.

[00:14:08] Speaker B: I think most people do it. Like, a lot of people, like, attribute it to being, like, narcissistic. But I think all human beings like gaslight, because if you look at what it is. It's basically somebody blaming or becoming defensive or twisting reality so they don't have to take responsibility. It's a very common thing. Yeah.

[00:14:24] Speaker C: I also, I think to add to that, there's, like, an unconscious component, too.

I think sometimes people who are engaged in gaslighting don't always realize that they're even doing it because we are so skilled and practiced in doing it to ourselves.

Yeah, I definitely see that growing up, like, the ways in which I became practice skilled in, like, in gaslighting myself or in sort of denying my own experience and then shifting into. Yeah, just being more discerning and more open to, like, oh, I am having this experience and I'm going to validate it, and then I'm going to bring curiosity to what is happening here rather than, you know, shutting it down and being like, this isn't happening. This isn't happening, you know? Yeah, no, it is what you're feeling. It's there.

[00:15:15] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the whole situation could have been bypassed if I would have just said, hey, listen, like, I'm. I'm feeling an activation. I don't feel comfortable with this. Like, I don't really want you going to, you know, give your ex a massage and have a massage swap. That would be a boundary in the relationship with me, which is not me controlling him. It's like saying, if you want to do that, then it's going to be outside of a relationship with me. I'm entitled to have my boundaries around that. And that could have bypassed the whole day, and the day could have just went on and been, you know, like, what it was intended to be. But, yeah, I didn't. I didn't feel like I had that capacity at that time.

[00:15:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's what. That's what this is really all about, is teaching that and knowing that. Because, again, wouldn't that have been so nice to have at the time? Or, like, I can think of so many of my own examples where it's like, oh, shit. I reacted this way because I couldn't say what I was really feeling. I couldn't. I couldn't communicate a need. And therefore, I made a big fucking mess of this relationship. And, like, it didn't get the need met. So, yeah, great example.

[00:16:14] Speaker C: I had.

I had some notes coming into this conversation, and one of the things I wrote down is, like, I'm responsible for my experience.

And then if something outside of me is contributing to an experience I don't want to be having, then I am free.

Like, if I'm aware That I have that freedom and that autonomy and that agency. I'm free to make space for the experience I'm having, receive the information or the message in the moment. Right. So I'm not rejecting it, and I'm not denying it.

I'm meeting it. And then I get to decide, do I stay and alchemize that situation that I'm in. And an example of that would have been, like, revealing, you know, like you said, revealing the experience you're having, and then like, asking for. Advocating for your needs, essentially.

Or, you know, you also have the freedom to. To move on, you know, in. I guess what I'm saying is like, yeah, responsibility gives way to the freedom to respond.

And that may look like staying and sort of advocating and correcting the situation or leaving, you know. Yeah. Which can be really powerful.

The other thing I want to mention as well is, like, something that I started to understand, like, years and years ago.

There was sort of this moment, I think, in my experience, where through spiritual awakening, breakdown, breakthrough, I started discovering some things. Like this new awareness came online and, you know, a book I highly recommend that I think is pertinent to this conversation is the Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. That book, which showed up in my life, and it was a game changer because what it did was it created distance between the notion of my identity, essentially. It just created more space, and it allowed me to be aware of my experience, whereas before, there was no separation between the two, so there was no room for response, ability. Right.

And at that point, or up to that point, I was living outside in versus inside out. Right. So everything that was happening outside of me, you know, I was. I was reacting to in a lot of ways and was responsible for the, you know, like, was to blame for the experience that I was having.

Now, I'm not saying that there isn't validity there. You know, it's like, okay, yes, what's happening out here is creating an experience for me internally, but it might not necessarily be to blame the outside, but more so to look inward and kind of. Yeah. Create space for the experience I'm having.

The story that I'll share is recently I started to notice, and thank God I had the awareness.

I was moody, like, really. I know I. Like, we have these Monday calls with these groups, this group of coaches that I participate in, and I noticed that I came in with this kind of agitated energy.

And through the week, I started to notice that I was like, yeah, just continually agitated, questioning a lot of different things, wanting to kind of control Everything.

And I said out loud to my friend in that community on maybe the Tuesday, I said, you know, I think I'm just moody right now, and it's probably best that I don't do anything drastic. Like, there were a lot of things I was thinking about doing in the storm that I was navigating, but I had the sense and sensibility to not make those moves, but instead to just name that whatever's happening here is probably because I'm moody.

And then I think it was by the Thursday, if I'm not mistaken, I had a conversation with my mom, and I started crying, and she named it. She was like, you're feeling grief right now. That's grief, what you're describing. And I was like, oh. Like, is that what that is? Because the range of emotionality and feeling that I was experiencing was just like. It was kind of all over the place, and it was confusing, and if I didn't know better, I would have explicitly blamed it on everything outside of me, and then gone and made a big mess and then probably tail between my legs, did an apology tour, you know, and how to clean it up. Many of us listening know what that's like. You know, this is the distinction between being responsible and, you know, and not right.

And so, yeah, the moment I saw that and I started to feel it and make space for it, everything shifted. You know, it's like, oh, okay. You know, the tears came, and the grief started to come off my chest and my lungs and off my body. And then I was tender and raw. And it's sort of that feeling after, like, a big rain or thunderstorm, you know, there's like a freshness in the air, and it's kind of sweet, and you're like, you know, it's like that. That's what it felt like. And. And then I could sort of move through the world with this humility and spaciousness and greater responsiveness and clarity as well, because I had felt my feelings, and I hadn't made the whole world outside of me and around me responsible for all of that, right?

Like, yeah, there were some things that were genuinely affecting me. But do I want to storm in and make a. Make a mess, you know, or maybe take pause, slow down.

And I would say, if you notice that you are experiencing big emotionality, that's probably time to pause. Like, picture a barometer on a vehicle when it gets into the red, it's time to switch gears, you know? Or, like, you know, if you see that engine overheat light come on, check engine Light come on. Like, you pull over, you don't floor it. You know, you. You pull over to the side of the road, you smell smoke, you feel heat, you pull over. You know, so that's, like, huge lesson for me, because when I was young, I watched an elder in my life. I won't say who, but I watched an elder in my life. And many of them, in fact, model something different. You know, external stimulation followed by internal outburst, you know, every time. And then it was always, you guys did it. Do. You know, and life did it.

And it was like, okay, cool. And I would say to that person, like, I didn't say it at the time, but, you know, now I would say, how's that going for you? Like, is that creating the experience that you want to be having in the end? You know, if it's not, I'd check that. You know, I would check that. I would reflect on that. You know, is everything outside of you to blame, or is there something going on inside? And last thing I'll say on my tangential there's in the Untethered Soul, Michael Singer talks about removing the Thorn.

And what I think we do, and this is the distinction between authentic power and inauthentic power, you know, is we will safeguard the Thorn, and we will try to keep at bay anything that brushes up against it. Right, Instead of just fucking removing it. Right. Like, remove the Thorn, you know, instead of safeguarding against it. And when I heard that analogy, I thought, it's so brilliant. You know, it's so brilliant. How do you remove the Thorn? Well, I don't know. Maybe I'll get to that in the second half.

[00:24:22] Speaker A: I love that book, and it's one of those books on my bookshelf that is full of, like, notes and highlights. As I said, I'm that nerdy guy who likes to make notes. You know, one thing about not taking responsibility is that it's so hard to do that it's so much easier to just be like, oh, it's not me, it's you. Like, clearly, this is not my fault. You're the one who's doing this to me. So I think that's why a lot of people don't do it. That's. So it's not just a matter of, like, educating and talking about it, but it's really like, you have to, like, own the fact that it's your shit and you gotta take care of it. People don't want to have their shit. They. They don't want to own that. It gives them work to do. And why would I want to do work on myself when I can just blame it on you?

[00:25:00] Speaker B: Yeah. The benefit of doing the work is less frequency in trigger activation.

[00:25:05] Speaker A: Of course.

[00:25:06] Speaker B: Right. You start owning your emotions and taking responsibility for them, and then you have less thorniness. Right. And less thorns to be rubbed up against.

[00:25:15] Speaker A: As I said in the beginning, it's really about liberation and empowerment because.

Yeah, it's when you eliminate all that noise and take out your own thorn and don't expect someone else to, you know, don't expect the world to, like, tiptoe around you. It just becomes so much more empowering and light. Yeah. How I discovered this for myself was in an. Actually in a relationship with my boss at the time. When I worked in my 9 to 5, I found with her, she had entire power over my day.

So people say, how was your day today? And my entire mood, even after the nine to five hours, would be based on how she reacted with me. Like, if she was having a good day, good day, and she was happy, I would have a good day, and I'd be happy. If she was frustrated and something had not been happy, I would take that with me, and then I would not be happy, and I would take that out on everybody else as well. And so that is an example. And this. This. This happened over the course of about a year that we worked together, that I worked for her.

But it was. At the time, I didn't see it.

I just knew that I was miserable because she was often miserable. And it dawned on me through coaching. My coach at the time, she's like, why would you give this woman all of your power? And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, I'm not giving her any power. She's like, no, listen to you. Like, all of your day, how Michael feels is dependent on how boss reacts and how boss feels. So if boss is having a bad day and takes it out on Michael, now she's unloaded that onto me. And here's the thing. She can unload it onto me, but I don't have to accept it. The problem was I was accepting it, and I was like, oh, yes, give me your emotional state. And now I'll take it. And now I'm gonna go throughout the world and be a little shit as well.

So that for me, I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm giving this woman all my power. I don't want to give her my power. I don't even. She's not even that smart. I don't like it. That much so, you know, and as much as you try, you know, think of your own life, I still do this. As much as we try, we can't control how other people feel, right? And we did. We did a whole bunch of episodes recently on people pleasing. We can try our darndest, but if someone wants to be in a bad mood, they're going to be in a bad mood no matter what you say or do, right? And most people can't even make themselves happy, let alone somebody else. Like, focus on the inside job first, friends. Don't start trying to make everybody else happy. I'm saying this as a recovering people pleaser. So the repercussions for me in that instance were, yeah, I was very dependent on her mood, which was not a good one. I felt powerless, I felt victimized. I felt she was walking all over me. I felt resentful, I felt anxious, I felt exhausted. And of course, I wasn't pleasant to be around because people would say, hey, how was your day? And I say, I was miserable because blah, blah, blah, blah, something happened to her, I'd be talking about her, not me.

Okay, let's give our audience a chance to chime in here and check in with our audience there. So I know that this is a, you know, maybe a triggering conversation, maybe calling some peeps out, but hopefully we're calling ourselves out as well. So you're not alone. Now, if you're watching us on YouTube, I want you to go into the comments and be honest with us.

Tell us when you're facing difficult emotions.

What's your go to response, your automatic response? Do you blame other people? Do you shut down, stonewall? Do you do something else? Whatever that is, what do you do? Let us know in the comments if you guys are enjoying this conversation we're having here. Deep and triggering as it may be, we invite you to our weekly events. Within the Gay Men's Brotherhood, we have two different events for every month. Two of those events are sharing circles. That's where you'll have a chance to share your own experiences in a bigger group. On Zoom, it's a bit more passive. Sharing is optional. You can come and just listen if you want, or you can share. It's structured.

The three of us are there and Ellery, but we also have our connection circles. Those are a little bit different. That's really about engaging in conversation in small, intimate breakout rooms of three. Just like Matt Reno and I are here, where you can discuss the topics of the podcast with other members of our community, other listeners. Okay, so if you're interested in those events, please go to gay mensbrotherhood.com and check out our events section to RSVP. If you don't have Facebook, that's okay. Make sure you are on our email list where we send you all of the details and zoom links. All right, let's shift. Matt, how did you learn to take responsibility for your emotions?

[00:29:27] Speaker B: It's been a long, long journey.

I wouldn't say this is an overnight thing, folks. And this is a.

I don't know, you look at, like, levels of skills. I would say this is like a level 8 skill. It takes a lot of. A lot of work.

You're terrible at it. That's okay. Again, like what Michael said, don't shame yourself. I also want to put a little asterisk here, too. I think a lot of people. It takes a lot of emotional maturity to receive someone taking responsibility for their emotions as well. You think about in a conflict, right? Like, there's a. The other side of the coin, too, that's required to, like, is this person able to hold me as I reveal something very vulnerable. Right. Oftentimes, when we're taking responsibility for our emotions, it's extremely vulnerable. There's usually a need associated with it or a boundary associated with it, which can feel even more vulnerable. For people that are people pleasers, owning your own emotions can feel completely terrifying. Right. And it's often times because there was emotional invalidation in our relationships growing up with our caregivers. So I just want to point that out. That's one of the main reasons why I think people don't take responsibility for their emotions is because it can be very terrifying. So I wanted just to say that and then, yeah, healing, that is the root. Like, you gotta heal. I think healing the inner child that felt emotionally invalidated growing up or felt banished to his room when he was having big emotions, like these sorts of things, that's the stuff that has to be healed. And I think once I healed that, that stuff, I was able to start connecting with, like, more humility, I guess, and my ego wasn't needing to be constantly on guard and protecting against feeling inadequate or feeling fear or jealousy or these sorts of things. And then once my ego took a bit of a backseat, became a little bit more flexible, I met a lot more humility. Right. And then the last four or five years, working with the brotherhood and working in on teams more so. And like, all sorts of things, like, I've really, really had to deal with my emotions and face, you know, Control issues and trust issues and these sorts of things. And those really, that brought me to a place of humility. And it takes a lot of vulnerability, authenticity and hum or like the three things that are required in order to do this work around taking responsibility.

So those would be, that would be kind of like my, my answer, like, you know, when it comes to the roots. But I do think there's skills that are required to develop in order to do this. And you know, I learned most of these in authentic relating. So active listening and learning how to express myself, learning how to reveal, you know, what's going on for me. But I think for me it had to actually start with myself. So learning how to listen to myself and my emotions and then learning how to express them to myself and then reveal what's going on internally to me. Right? It's maybe it's my inner child is having this complete terrified experience and I have to reveal that to my higher self. And there has to be a connection, right? The cord has to be connected between those two entities. So the feeling my emotions, I think was a really big piece because once I started to feel my emotions, I was able to get the data from them about what my triggers were. And then having awareness of my triggers allowed me to either a, not put myself in situations where I'm going to need to gaslight or, or whatnot. And it just really allowed me to take responsibility for what I was experiencing. Right. And then also being able to communicate that, especially in intimate relationships, like, hey, this is my baggage. This is how I experienced trauma as a child. Like these are likely going to be the things that get flared up in our relationship. Like, it's almost like prefacing wounds, right? In a relationship that these are likely going to become activated. So hold me with care if they do and I'll try my best to be mature about it when I can. Yeah, acknowledge and own what I feel. Speaking in I statements is really, really important. Like as soon as I start owning, like even in, in sharing or when I'm in the sharing circles with, with our guys in the brotherhood and somebody's talking in or use and they're talking about the community at large and it's like, it's not landing for me, I'm like, this feels like a general share. Whereas when people talk with I and they really own what they're saying, I'm like, yes, this, this feels like this person's transforming before my eyes because they're just simply owning the energy of what they're saying. I think it's a. A powerful tool. And then the last thing I wrote was just pause before reacting. So sometimes it's like, you know, I think about that situation on the beach, and I'm like, okay, if I had an activation going, it was like, literally an electric current go through my whole body. My nervous system just went, like, jolted. And if I could just take a moment and just, like, pause and maybe take a breath as opposed to just reacting right away and going into defense mode. It was almost like young trauma. Matt got activated, and he just went on his rampage of. Of trying to make the other person responsible for my big emotion at the time.

So, yeah, that's a lot of it for me. I'd still say this is a work in progress for me, But I'm such a strong communicator, and I. I'm very comfortable with vulnerability, and those are my secret weapons when I'm in relationships, and I'm able just to say, hey, this is what's coming up for me.

So. Yeah.

[00:34:47] Speaker A: Are there any particular relationships, people, or situations where it still is a bit of an issue for you, where you're still working on it?

[00:34:54] Speaker B: To be honest, probably with family, like. Yeah. I tend to keep my family at an emotional arm's length.

[00:35:00] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:35:01] Speaker B: Like, I'll share intellectual with them, but I don't share emotionally with them.

[00:35:04] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:35:05] Speaker B: So. Yeah. But I feel like I'm okay with that right now. Like, I just. I want to be surrounding myself with people that I feel can hold me, and I just. Yeah. It's not the context where I feel the most held, to be honest. Yeah.

[00:35:17] Speaker A: Yeah. I think family is tough because those are the initial, deepest, longest wounds, if you want to call it that, or just those patterns were born there. So they go. They go deep. So it's hard to change those ones. Yeah.

[00:35:30] Speaker C: The origin of relationship. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is huge because it informs everything moving forward, you know, and then you gotta go clean up that mess.

[00:35:41] Speaker A: Yeah.

If they're still around and if you can. Because sometimes they're not around anymore.

[00:35:46] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:35:46] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Reno, how did you learn to take responsibility for your emotions?

[00:35:53] Speaker C: It's still at it, you know, but. Well, there's. There's a few angles here. First, I'll just. I'll speak to my experience.

As I shared earlier. I had a spiritual awakening in my 20s, and it was off the tail end of really avoiding my experience in a lot of ways. I was doing all sorts of things. Partying, experimenting with, you know, sex, drugs, alcohol. All of the things I kept Myself very busy and very preoccupied.

And at some point it all caught up to me. September, long weekend, 20, you know, I don't know what year it would have been, but I looked at myself in the mirror for the very first time and I saw myself for the very first time.

And I, I bawled like, I, I, I turned off the light. It spooked me because I never seen myself, like really pulled the blankets over my head, cried myself to sleep, woke up the next day and felt different. I was like, something's different.

And that just kind of carried. And I would say that was the moment. Nothing changed and everything changed and it was only the beginning, you know, but what happened was I became aware of myself and it's like, well, who's I and who's myself? Like, what, what do you mean? I became aware of myself, like, what? You know, again, Michael Singer, the Untethered Soul. Like, get your hands on that book. You know, the Power of Now is another one.

But what I started to notice was there was kind of this distance between the experiencer and the observer. And I'm probably getting really sort of woo woo and metaphysical here or whatever, but, you know, that's my playground. But it changed everything.

What I want to say is, you know, to echo some of Matt's sentiments. Like, it's simple, but it's not easy, this work, it really isn't. And it's ongoing. You know, just when you think, oh, I'm the shit, I got this figured out. Life's like, no, you don't. I'm going to send you this. And I'm like, really? Like, I thought, I thought we were done. It's honestly, I don't think it's ever over. And I think the moment we come to terms with that and meet the fact that this is what we're up to with enthusiasm, because this is it. Life gets really interesting. And so I try my best, I try my best to. And Matt, I think you've said this multiple times on this podcast. To view my triggers as teachers, you know, and to view my life in every moment I encounter as an opportunity, you know, very difficult. But I would also say, yeah, the things that make the biggest, the biggest difference are simple but not easy. You know, be patient, be gentle, be honest, be kind. You know, I'm practicing this with myself, becoming my own friend and befriending my experience has made a huge difference what that looks like. You know, it's like meeting myself on an ongoing basis, like from the time I wake up, you know, how often do we just sort of pick up our phones or. And I do it every morning, you know, I still do this, but am I. Am I meeting myself at the start of the day? Am I meeting myself throughout the day? Am I meeting myself at the end of the day? And what does that mean? You know, it means again, authentic relating. Authentically relating to myself. You know, noticing. Oh, okay. Good morning, Reno. What. What am I feeling in this moment? You know, I'm up, I'm here, I'm noticing, I'm making space for, you know, are you meeting your thoughts? Are you meeting your emotions? Are you naming what's there, you know, and then befriending it and maybe sharing it as well. I have a practice called.

I call it God Walks. And it's where I talk to God and myself, which are one in the same. You know, I believe we're all God and it's all God. That's just me. That's my language. Don't get caught up in it. It's semantics. But. But I go on these walks and I talk into a voice recorder and it's like a morning dump, but it's emotional and it's thoughtful and.

And I do it until I'm empty. And then I get on with my day and it's absolutely wonderful. I meditate, I exercise, I move, I engage in erotic practice. Because, believe it or not, you know, that is also, I think, a way, a place where we can heal and also a place where we can avoid emotional responsibility, personal responsibility. Right. I engage in breathing practices, sharing circles, community, the gay man's brotherhood, self care and self soothing. Like all those things are so important.

And as there's a couple more things I would say, one is I wrote something down here about engaging with reality. And I think this is really important. And I would recommend to the listener, like, look at the work of Byron, Katie. She has these really powerful questions. Is it true? Can I be absolutely certain that it's true? How do I feel when I think this thought? And who would I be without this thought? Or how would I be without this thought?

What her work does, and I think what Michael Singer's work does, and a lot of these sort of spiritual teachers, you know, that we gravitate toward at some point that I have gravitated toward. What they do is they put us in touch with reality.

Like reality, right? What. What is actually happening in this moment? What is actually occurring?

And. And I think what that has done for me, that practice, is it has liberated me internally so that I am response able Right.

So, yeah, I mean, that's. That's a lot of it. That's a lot of it. That's what I'm up to on an ongoing basis. And it's. It really is a daily, daily practice. You know, life will literally throw me some sort of curveball probably every day, you know? And it's like, this is training ground, you know?

[00:42:24] Speaker A: So, Reno, same question.

What areas in particular, if any. Or any in particular relationships, does this still flare up for you?

[00:42:32] Speaker C: None. I'm perfect.

No, you know what?

It's crazy. This is actually so fun. This is so fun, because I know sometimes I can sound like this really sort of spiritual person or whatever, right? Like. Oh, but like, in this house, let's say I go out into the living room, and sometimes the pillows are not put back in the right place and fluffed. That shit sends me, like, I'm like, put the pillows back. You know what I mean? So it's wild. Like, there's just, like, little things. Little things that'll throw me off, you know? But this house, for sure. Four years in it with five other people who you don't know, and then you get to know, and you also really get to know yourself in that process that did it. Like, this place has been boot camp in every way. And it could be a number, any number of things, you know? So I would say that, yeah, I moved into it and set up camp. If you can imagine what a crazy person I am, who would do that?

[00:43:38] Speaker A: That's the great thing about other people. Other people are our best teachers, even if they're sometimes the most frustrating. Yeah.

[00:43:43] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:43:44] Speaker A: Me as my boss. That's what sent me into. Into coaching, and.

And here I am. Right? So it's all for the best. And the reason I asked this question to both of you guys is just to show everyone again that we are here talking about it as if, like, we know what we are talking about, and we do, but also, we still struggle. So just to normalize that for everybody. Reno gets really upset over unfluffed pillows. All right.

Okay. So how did I learn to take responsibility for my emotions? You guys already answered in such great ways. I really want to honor the fact that I had help, and I said it earlier, coaching my coach. At the time, I didn't know anything about anything. I didn't know anything. I didn't know my thoughts. I didn't know the difference between thoughts and feelings. I didn't know that. That feelings were messengers. All the stuff that we're talking about here today, that I'm sharing that you guys are sharing. I didn't know any of this. And so it wasn't until, like, what caused me to go there, to go to my coach, was I was just feeling very powerless and unhappy with my life, unsatisfied. Even though on the outside looking in, I had everything I wanted. Everything, right? So I was like, okay, something's going on. This is. This is not great for me. And then that's when I started learning through her. Like, oh, my thoughts and my feelings are connected, and my feelings dictate how I. What I do, and what I do dictates the results I get in my life. So I really want to give credit to coaching.

It really helped me let go of trying to control the world around me at the time I was needing and trying to control the world around me so that I would be happy. Right. Unconsciously. I wasn't saying that out loud because that makes me sound wacky, but that's what was going on, truly. Right? It's like, I need you to behave this way. That way I will be happy. Okay? So help me let go of that and really just throw that all away and take ownership over the things. I only have control over what we all do. Our thoughts, our behaviors, our actions, our feelings, and how I was showing up in the world. And that's where my power was the whole time. And I've been trying so hard and exhausted to get other people to change when really I just needed to change myself. And, of course, I'm human. And, you know, I still catch myself blaming and wanting to control. And I guess I'll answer my own question that I asked you guys. How it still shows up for me is, like, in the world at large, in, like, politics and injustice happening in the world. And it makes me so angry. And here's the thing. I want it to make me angry. I don't want to be happy about injustice and bigotry. But the difference is, is how much do I let that take over? Do I let it take over, or am I okay to just feel angry and whatever. Whatever it is, I'm feeling usually angry instead of then taking that anger and lashing it out on other people who maybe don't deserve it or myself or blaming others. Right? So there's. Again, there's a fine line there. And that's something that coach, how some we get to. Yeah. So I know when to pause when I'm feeling negative emotion. I know when to check in with myself. And when I do veer off and I do I know how importantly to get back on track. I'm not lost in the weeds forever. I'm like, okay, I've gone down a road here that I don't want to be down.

Let's. Let's trick it back. And as I say so often, it's progress, not perfection.

And because my initial foray into this was through relationships, I want to bring it back full circle to my relationships and really underline for everyone out there how much my relationships improved in the before, in the emotional immaturity versus the emotional maturity. And you can tell. You can tell. You guys can tell. When you're talking to someone who has that emotional maturity, you just know. You just know. You feel it. You might not know exactly what they're doing, but you can just feel their presence, how they can hold you, how they can listen, the communication, everything. And so my relationships, first of all, my circle shrank because a lot of people just fell away, and that's okay. And my romantic relationships, my friendships, my relationships with my family, everything. I just, you know, I let people have their emotions, and I didn't have to take it on, and I wasn't responsible for it. Now could I support them? Absolutely. Of course. This is not about saying, okay, fuck you all. You're on your own. If I wanted to, I could support people. I can help them. How I show up surely influences their feelings and vice versa, but it's not ultimately my responsibility.

The way that I see romantic relationships now, the way that I want a romantic relationship is two people come together and they agree that they know how to meet their own needs first, and then they can meet in the middle and enjoy that time together.

And if one of us is having a hard time, we're in an emotional state, we can talk about it. We can ask each other to support each other, but we don't give the responsibility. Like, I'm mad, boyfriend, you have to fix me now. That's not what it is. It's like, listen, I'm mad. I've had a bad day. Can I share that with you? Can we talk about it? Do you mind if I just, like, release the bed and you just listen? You'll say, if he says, no, I can't. I don't want to. I don't have time, then that's not his fault. He doesn't have to. That's something I can get. Or if he says, yeah, absolutely, babe, please, let's talk about it. That's great, we can support each other, but it's not his responsibility. It's Always, always, always my responsibility, ultimately.

And the reason I know this is because this happened a couple years ago. My partner at the time said and did everything right. I was in a bad mood. I was agitated. And he said, and did everything right.

Literally, like, textbook did everything right. And I just was not wanting to feel better.

And I'm like, you know what? This is a me thing. I don't want to feel good right now. I don't want to feel better. I don't want to be fixed. I want to be agitated and pissed, and I want to be moody for, like, a little while longer.

And I was able to understand that. I was able to understand that he didn't need to do anything more. He did everything wonderfully. He didn't have to do it because it was ultimately my decision on when do I want to come off of this mood and join you back in reality over here, where you're having clearly a great time. And I've decided to go off into this. We call it the burning building. And that if I'm in the burning building, the burning house, he's not going to come in because then his house will be on fire, and then we're going to have two people on fire. And that's not going to serve anybody. So we had this analogy where I'll stay out here while you go in there and set yourself on fire, and when you're ready to come out, I'll be here. I'll wrap you up in a nice blanket. We can talk about it. And so that's the analogy we used. I digress.

[00:49:54] Speaker C: Michael. That's so beautiful, too. Like, I noticed when you just shared that now, like, I really respect. I'm. I'm realizing this. As you said what you said. I really respect someone who's, like, aware enough to say, here's the experience I'm having, and I actually want to hang out in it.

And so, like, you can go and be in your experience, and I'd like to stay in the one I'm having right now. I have a lot of respect for that, you know, because it's like, they know what's happening and they're choosing to be in it. You know, it's not like, oh, I'm a. I'm a victim of this or whatever, you know, which is understandable. I get it. I've been there. But to be like, yeah, I'm moody today, and I want to stay in moody today, you know, and I'll see you tomorrow, you know, and then they just kind of carry on they're like, I'm. And I'm gonna go and hang out at the park while you are in moody today. See you later.

[00:50:46] Speaker A: You know, it goes back to our last episode, so. Well, these two episodes really go together. So if you guys have not listened to feeling your feelings or feeling your emotions, go listen to that as well, because these two are beautiful. Two companion pieces.

[00:51:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it was a banger, guys. Go listen to it.

[00:51:03] Speaker A: Any last words before I wrap this up?

[00:51:06] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Sparked by something you said earlier. You know, you. You spoke to chasing happiness, and I was like, I wrote something down that I was chasing. Well, being outside of me and not recognizing that there is a well of being within me, you know, that there is infinite wisdom and abundance and creativity and just possibility, like, ripe inside of me. Right inside of me, you know? And so I would. I would just leave. Yeah, I would. I would leave you with that today. That it's. It's all in you, you know, make space for it, connect to it, feel it, be with it. It will set you free. Might not seem that way at first, but like, holy shit.

It gets good. It gets good. It really does.

[00:51:56] Speaker A: All right. Reno always gets the last word, apparently.

Okay, guys, thank you, Matt, thank you, Reno, as always, for your wisdom and sharing and vulnerability. Thank you to our viewers and listeners for sticking through this episode, which might have been a little bit triggering at times, by the way, guys, if you did enjoy the things that we were talking about here and you want to learn more, we do have some great videos in our coaching collection library that are specific to this exact. This exact topic and feeling your feelings. In the library, there are coaching videos called how to feel your feelings, emotional intelligence 101, taking responsibility.

Those are just some individual coaching videos. We also have our two courses, healing your shame and building better relationships, which talk about this. With all of it, you get lifetime access to the entire coaching collection. So if you're interested in taking it step further than just this podcast, head over to gaymengoingdeeper.com reminder again that this podcast and YouTube channel are supported by listeners and viewers like you. So please do make a donation if you enjoyed today's episode. And if you're watching us on YouTube, it's really easy. You just gotta tap that thanks button. You could also subscribe to the podcast on Apple. You can get early access to episodes about three weeks before they are released to the help link. All of your support helps us to continue making content for you and supporting the community. Community. So we thank you in advance and we really hope to see you guys at the next event. Have a great one. Bye. Bye.
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