In this episode, Alex Charfen uncovers:

[01:15] Man’s Power Comes from Containment

• How the masculine shadow within us holds the treasure we are seeking.
• What growing up surrounded by women taught Alex.
• How women are able to support each other even when they don’t like each other.
• Why being a safe person brings more peace into our lives than any external success.
• What helped Alex shift from a warrior to a safe man.
• Why men’s power comes from containment of themselves and their partners’ emotions.
• How expressing emotion was never safe for most men growing up, and when they did, it only made things worse.
• Why emotional suppression is the most exhausting way to live.

Resources:

• Alex Charfen
• The Brotherhood Society
• 589 | Alex Charfen | The Freedom Life: How To Program Yourself For Success In Mind, Body, Spirit + Soul

[06:25] Men and Women Are Not Equal

• Why men and women are not equal.
• The framework for understanding masculine difference.
• How men represent a threat to women.
• Why women repair differently after conflict.
• What makes women close off and distance themselves from their men.

[27:30] Business Success ≠ Life Success

• How entrepreneurs can build massive business success and still leave their relationships in ruins.
• Why the momentum in the business often dictates the momentum in the relationship.
• How we turn money into judgment.
• Why slowing down and building clear priorities is where the pattern finally breaks.

[31:05] The New Masculine Paradigm

• What made Alex choose to grow instead of allowing his partner to leave him.
• Why ayahuasca helped him stop objectifying women.
• How plant medicine ceremonies made Alex suffer.
• Why the two-year journey of healing that followed allowed him to have the capacity to step into a safe masculine container.
• How a difficult conversation with his wife made him feel like he was going to die.
• Why men don’t have to fix their partners’ issues.

Resources:

• 624 | Teal Swan | Ancestral Healing: Multidimensional Genetics, Conscious Parenting + The Impossible Task of Single Mothers

[32:55] The Myth: Men Have to Hustle to Be Successful

• The false belief that struggle and hustle are required for success in health, wealth, and relationships.
• Why taking any philosophy to its extreme produces its most broken and challenged individuals.
• How Alex ran at extreme hustle for years from the fear of lack of success.
• Why his business became his life instead of facilitating his life.
• How he finds himself in prioritizing his partner.

[38:45] The Fix-It Trap

• Why men go deeper into distraction when a woman brings emotional truth into the room.
• The three default patterns: fix it, withdraw, or react emotionally.
• When you try to fix your wife, you turn her into a project.
• Whatever is felt and not said is still felt in the space.
• How emotions were never safe to express for Josh when growing up, so he suppressed them.
• Why women don’t thrive when they can’t express their emotions.

Resources:

• The Karpman Drama Triangle
• Kylie Ryan

[47:40] The Weight Women Carry

• Why men pay for the sins of their fathers and every man in a woman’s past.
• How ancestral wounds are not punishment, but an opportunity to understand the feminine more deeply.
• Why women panic when they’re alone in dark, public spaces.
• How men can transform resentment into responsibility.
• Why nervous system dysregulation causes autoimmune disease.

Resources:

• 538 | John Wineland | A New Masculine Paradigm: Leading With Love, Living Your Truth + Healing The World

[50:30] This Belief Keeps You Stuck

• Why we benefit from others believing in our limitations.
• How women cannot create safety with a partner that is unsafe.
• Why women can’t stop men from being reactive.
• How therapists don’t understand the true dynamic between men and women.
• Why Alex’s surgery as a baby created a profound abandonment wound that drove patterns in his life for decades.
• How bringing the abandonment wound into containment practice cracked open the healing he had been avoiding.

[01:03:00] How Do You Know You’ve Done Enough?

• Why most men feel like they’re doing everything right and their woman is still not happy.
• What creates resistance to admitting the truth.
• How many people use spiritual language to avoid full responsibility and excuse their behavior.
• Why we can’t measure containment, but we can see the results in our partner.
• How Alex is helping men become who they truly are.

[01:09:25] Contained Emotions

• How Alex’s wife holds the emotional weight he carries now.
• Why he no longer projects his emotions onto his wife.
• The difference between weaponized and contained emotions.
• Why security is not about money.
• How attachment theory is about detachment.

[01:13:25] Women’s Work In A Relationship

• How the results of providing containment are mirrored through the woman.
• As his containment grew over time, what Katie brought forward in return changed entirely.
• The importance of hearing and embodying what our partner says.
• Why most polarity teachings are bastardized.
• How creating containment allows a man to dominate himself.

[01:19:55] When Spiritual Language Becomes a Weapon

• Why Tantra’s real teaching is about profound energetic exchange between masculine and feminine presence.
• How spirituality can be used to justify almost anything.
• What creates an addictive behavior.
• How men have been conditioned to operate transactionally in relationships.

Resources:

• Gary Wilson: Your Brain on Porn
• 048 | Nir Eyal: Breaking Bad Habits, Technology Addiction, & Emotional Triggers

[01:30:10) Boundaries 101 (That Nobody Talks About]

• How men need to release the idea that the woman is supposed to do the work as well.
• Why Alex’s wife’s patterns with the children were rooted in her deeply unsafe childhood.
• The reason why boundaries cannot be set during rupture.
• How to set a real boundary from stillness, with love, in a moment of connection.

[01:36:00] Resentment, Acceptance, and the Red Pill Poison

• Why Josh struggled with resentment towards the amount of work he has to do as a man.
• How the red pill is poison to men and so is fifth-wave feminism to women.
• Why anything that makes us feel righteous is pointing us in the wrong direction.
• How AI-powered social media feeds can mentally manipulate a man’s perception of his relationship.

Resources:

• David Hawkins: Power vs. Force

[01:40:00] Why Women Test Men

• Why feminine testing is not manipulation, but a search for safety.
• When a woman begins to feel safe, things can paradoxically get harder before they get better.
• How feeling unsafe can become familiar.
• Why we dissociate as children and carry it into adulthood.
• How women require reinforcement of safety in a relationship.
• The most efficient intervention to get a woman back to safety.
• What men need to understand about women’s nervous system.
• How Jesus created safety everywhere he went and acted in ways no man had acted before.
• Why Christianity is distorted.
• How the most powerful things never come through dogma.

[01:52:10] Shame Is Not the Enemy

• How only honorable men feel shame.
• Why impostors do not think they have imposter syndrome.
• How we can create momentum from stillness.
• When a loop keeps returning, it is an emotion you have not yet been willing to fully feel.
• The practice that allows Alex to get out of the shame spiral.
• Why stillness creates space for men to feel all emotions.

Resources:

• 512 | Alison Armstrong: Unconscious Emasculation, What Women Don’t Understand About Men + How To Get The Love You Want

[02:01:20] Journey to Joy

• If joy is the matriarch of all emotions, she will not enter unless all of her children are welcome, including shame, fear, grief, and rage.
• Why energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transmuted.
• How masculine containment is the most healing force there is and heals both men and women.
• Why finding a safe community is where the real transformation happens.

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All Resources From This Episode

• Alex Charfen
• The Brotherhood Society
• 589 | Alex Charfen | The Freedom Life: How To Program Yourself For Success In Mind, Body, Spirit + Soul
• 624 | Teal Swan | Ancestral Healing: Multidimensional Genetics, Conscious Parenting + The Impossible Task of Single Mothers
• The Karpman Drama Triangle
• Kylie Ryan
• 538 | John Wineland | A New Masculine Paradigm: Leading With Love, Living Your Truth + Healing The World
• Gary Wilson: Your Brain on Porn
• 048 | Nir Eyal: Breaking Bad Habits, Technology Addiction, & Emotional Triggers
• David Hawkins: Power vs. Force
• 512 | Alison Armstrong: Unconscious Emasculation, What Women Don’t Understand About Men + How To Get The Love You Want