Wellness + Wisdom Episode 406
TEDx Speaker and the Founder of ManTalks, Connor Beaton, shares his own journey of coming back from rock bottom, the healing power of shadow work, how men can begin the process of fathering their inner child, and why the war of the sexes is officially over.
Discover why pain has its own intelligence and what it can teach us when we are present to its guiding wisdom.
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Listen To Episode 406 As Connor Beaton Uncovers:
[1:30] Coming Back From Rock Bottom
- Get a discount for Man Talks Shadow Work Program with the code ‘WELLNESSFORCE'
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What ManTalks is and their mission to support men especially with their mental health.
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Unpacking the hardships Connor has faced and how he has grown since hitting his rock bottom moment.
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How the mask and the illusion he had built around himself started to crumble and impact those around him.
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His past destructive behavior patterns and how he worked to overcome and be anew.
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So-called “rules” that men learn including “You don't talk about what it's like to be a man” especially if it doesn't fit into the typical male role.
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Breaking down how our pain as its own intelligence and why men are taught not to observe that and it is crippling them.
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The fact that Connor couldn't cope with the pain that he felt inside that led to fights, dangerous behavior, and infidelity because that's what he thought a man should do to stuff it down.
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Why we shouldn't suppress our feelings and pain but explore and express them to help us heal.
[15:00] Pain Has Its Own Wisdom
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How embracing the emotional pain during his 10-Day Vision Quest allowed Josh to heal past wounds he had carried for decades.
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The fact that our body is always trying to communicate with us at all times.
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Connor's experience really tuning into his pain for the first time and see what it was doing to those that he loved the most.
- What steps men can take to begin unpacking and exploring their emotions and pain.
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Why we are obsessed and relient on this need to be special and this need to grow but it denies us the experience of falling apart and healing.
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The fear Connor had that his life would dismantle should he allow himself to feel his pain and listen to his grief.
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Questions to begin asking yourself including, ‘What have you been denying about in your life?'
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What it means to go “into the cave” and experience the dark night of the soul that will ultimately lead you on your Hero's Journey.
[30:30] Shadow Work & Self Healing
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Breaking down the keys to shadow work and begin the self healing process.
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How to pay attention to how you react and why that response is so important to understanding your shadow and where you go when you are unconscious.
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The benefits of keeping a journal of what you react to, how you reacted, and what narrative runs through your mind when the shadow self comes out.
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Unpacking the differences between responding from the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems and applying that to your fight, fight, or freeze response.
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Exploring capital “T” and lower case “t” trauma for men especially if they have experienced sexual trauma, physical abuse, or a family member with a mental health illness.
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Why men who have been abused either have a “fawn” response where they freeze or they people please because it is safer for them.
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Unpacking the co-dependent saying “Happy wife, happy life” and how it keeps people back from doing the real inner work.
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Why we, and especially men, over rely on our intellectual understanding of things but struggle with intuition and emotions in relationships.
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Conner's decision to not call it therapy but training because men are missing skill sets that they actually need in order to have fully functional relationships, careers, health, romantic relationships, and self fulfillment.
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What past narratives Connor had to unlearn so that he could learn new trainings such as the arts of self discipline.
[44:30] How To Begin The Shadow Work
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Exploring the law of reciprocity and how it relates to things happening for us instead of to us.
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Why he believes that in some way karma is what we attract because we believe we deserve it.
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How our pain unconsciously attracts what we don't want in life and that's why we should be paying attention to what it's telling us.
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Why the shadow work is not a golden bullet for automic healing but it is an important part of the process.
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The importance of easing into doing the shadow work by first realizing what areas of your life you are avoiding.
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A shadow work game Connor would play with himself by catching himself whenever he lied to others and then autocorrect that behavior real time.
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What he believes shadow work is in 2021 and why so many people are abusing the word and practice.
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How Carl Jung came up with the concept of the shadow self and shadow work.
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Connor's own experience with shadow work and working with parts of himself that he was hiding from others.
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How Connor helps people with addiction and the 12- step process.
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Why he believes that addiction is often an attachment dysfunction.
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How spirituality comes into place with the process of healing from addiction.
[57:30] The War Of The Sexes Is Over
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The different programs that are available at ManTalks to help you with the healing process.
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What the ManTalks group, The Alliance, is about and why it's a safe space for men to have challenge based relationships to help them grow.
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Why we need to stop focusing on bringing a matriarchy or a patriarchy into power and instead create a humanity arch together to lead from a place of wholeness and not wounding.
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Breaking down the actual etymology of the word, “patriarchy,” why it doesn't mean putting men on a pedestal, and how it applies to our world in 2021.
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Why a lot of the work that we do as men is to learn how to father ourselves.
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How ManTalks and The Alliance help men tend to and father themselves but also integrate and initiate themselves through the obstacles they're facing into more sovereign, self led men who can bring their gifts into the world.
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Why there is no more “war of the sexes” and we can work together as one in society while honoring our core differences and similarities.
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The spiritual courage to surrender to change and allow ourselves to evolve and mature.
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Power Quotes From The Show
'How do you face your shadow self? Begin with the things that you have been neglecting about who you are or begin with the parts that you have been rejecting of what your life actually looks like.' - @ConnorBeatonClick To TweetWhat Inner Work Really Looks Like
“Let go of your need to find any kind of golden gun or silver bullet. When men enter this work, they think, ‘Okay, I'm going to work on my shadow; I'm going to do shadow work,' or ‘I'm going to go to therapy, I'm going to get a therapist.' They do so almost always from the place of: I just want that one ultimate equation that's going to liberate me so I can get away from this. They want to make it as pragmatic as possible but you know, you're entering into territory that may not work like that and you have have to consider that. Consider that what got you into the dysfunction that you have been in may not be the path that is going to get you out of it. That perhaps, you're going to have to learn a very different, equally valuable lesson when you begin the real inner work.” – Connor Beaton
Facing Your Shadow
“Carl Jung's work focused on facing the shadow; facing the parts of you that you have been rejecting and hiding and avoiding. Start there to begin your inner work journey and ask, ‘What have I been rejecting about myself? What have I been avoiding? What have I been denying about myself and lying about in my life?' Start there by working on those aspects because when we do, we begin to reveal that parts of ourselves that we have hidden from the people that we love and then we wonder why we don't feel like they really know us….
…So, begin with the things that you have been neglecting about who you are or begin with the parts that you have been rejecting of what your life actually looks like. For some men this is very challenging because it means that they have to come into contact with the truth that maybe they're not as happy and things aren't as perfect as they had been selling to the world for years.” – Connor Beaton
How To Father Your Inner Child
Links From Today's Show
About Connor Beaton
Connor Beaton,the founder of ManTalks. He was raised to believe that being a man meant you had to follow certain rules. The most notable one is like the first rule of Fight Club: don’t talk about it. For most of his life, he believed all men had the same rule. Shut up and deal with it. Man up.
Over the next few years, he learned to take his trauma, shame, and denial—all the shadowy parts of himself—and integrate them. He spent thousands of hours learning and training. He consulted psychologists, historians, neurologists, and authors. Connor trained for years under mentors and leaders in Jungian psychology, somatic therapy, and holotropic breathwork. He even apprenticed under a disciple of Carl Jung himself.
In 2014, Connor founded ManTalks as a grassroots movement to further the cause: giving men the tools and training to create a truly self-led life.
