For some people, perhaps you, learning to healthily express your anger is the key to a seismic shift in the way you move in the world.

For individuals

Do you find yourself struggling to know what you want, feel, and need in situations? Deferring to others to make decisions? Emotionally reactive, full of self-doubt, and high in anxiety? How about great difficulty saying no and setting boundaries? Afraid of conflict? Either you flock to relationships with very decisive figures who are always in charge and you’re following, or you avoid relationships all together because you don’t know how to not lose yourself in one? Like you have a paranoia that someone will bulldoze right over you. Maybe, too, you don’t know what you’re meant to do in this life because you’ve always looked to others to define that? You lack confidence, you often feel “weak”, and you feel embarrassed about it all? Perhaps you have an angry side that comes out a few times a year in violently (verbal or physical) explosive ways, so you stuff it deep down and suppress it the rest of the year, only to have it still lurking and fearing it? Or your pots and pans are the only things that truly know your anger when you’re banging them around your kitchen? Poor guys (hello, passive aggression).

For couples

Or maybe you are a couple that prides themselves on not fighting at all. You think this is a flex, but it’s unfortunately not :( You rush to repair quickly and are not able to tolerate being upset with each other. You have a great deal of trouble not taking on your partner’s emotions when they are upset so you need to either get away from that or rush to fix it? The first thing to vanish in couples that don’t fight is…passion. Yes, sex. If you’re a couple that doesn’t fight, you likely are not having much sex or not great sex. Because passion, desire, and eroticism need space, difference, and mystery. As Esther Perel says, fire needs air to burn. You can’t smother it in sameness.

If you saw yourself in any of the above, you likely struggle with low differentiation. This concept comes from Murray Bowen and essentially means a well differentiated person can maintain a distinct sense of self (thoughts/feelings/desires) while in a group setting, whether amongst family, friends, work, or in partnership. Low differentiation most frequently is the result of low differentiation in your childhood home growing up. Maybe you saw one parent always people-pleasing the other parent who was “in charge” and self-absorbed, so you learned to survive that system by modeling after the pleasing parent. Maybe you had a very domineering parent that did not allow for anyone to stand up for themselves or have their own thoughts/emotions (this person also struggles with low-differentiation, they cannot tolerate others having a different view from them. It’s just the flip side of the same coin). Perhaps you saw a lot of very violent anger from a parent growing up and learned to completely stuff yours. Or maybe you had a parent who was constantly breaking down, fragile, and you felt guilty anytime you made any fuss whatsoever, so you became “good” and “nice”. Bottom line: there was never any space for you or anyone to be “different”. So you became undifferentiated and “good” or “nice”.

The key emotion needed to differentiate if you are “good/nice”? Anger.

Terry Real has a saying, “I want the mighty to melt and the weak to stand up.” I don’t like that he calls folks weak, but there is some truth to it. If you think that you’re going to become differentiated without using your anger, you’re wrong. You’re going to need to fight like hell, even if it’s just against your urges to submit to the sameness and keep the peace. And it’s going to be a scary process. The only emotion I know that can get you through all of that is anger. Anger is the language of our boundaries and it is a healthy response to injustice. But not aggressive anger, not passive-aggressive anger, no - assertive anger. In essence this: “No I don’t like that, I like this. Thank you.” That is someone expressing their difference and individuality, respectfully. Now, imagine if you said that to said domineering parent or said “fragile” parent, or even to a waiter? What emotion(s) would you feel then? Seriously…think about it.

The key blockers of that differentiation for folks that are “good/nice”? Fear and guilt.

Fear that you will be punished, rejected, abandoned, bulldozed, etc. Guilt that you expressed needs at all because historically that meant you were a burden and that if anything bad happened it must have been your fault! Guilt that you wanted space to breath when the predominant culture was one of enmeshment.

Many people come into my office understandably defended around any talk of their parents. They have heard that therapy is about bad-mouthing parents and cutting them off. No. Okay maybe in some cases cut off is appropriate, but in most cases it’s just about differentiating enough to keep your family IN your life. The distance at which I can love you and me at the same time.

They see almost everything in their childhood as their fault. “I deserved it”. This is a survival strategy of children, they will always internalize things as their fault because to view their parents as truly unsafe would be too great a threat to their survival. So they internalize it as their fault to survive that time. Adaptive then, maladaptive now. But to repeat, no, it wasn’t your fault. You were a child. Children don’t deserve neglect. Children don’t deserve abuse. Sorry. You deserved a well differentiated and mature parent. They didn’t have the tools. So now you need to learn them. It’s not so much about blaming as it is about seeing things clearly and honestly. Energy is supposed to flow from parents to children, not the other way around.

My wish for you is that you give yourself the gift of discovering your authentic self. Anger is imperative for that. Strap in and let it fuel some of your journey! And if i’m speaking to the pleaser part of you, well, it would be a real act of service to all of your relationships if you did this. :) When you grow it gives others permission to grow. Lead the way, please.

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This article is specifically for you avoidant-leaning humans who may feel relationally outmatched by your partners in terms of skill in talking about emotions and needs. It absolutely sucks to feel incompetent in this department. On top of that, your partner is likely mad at you for your incompetence. Which may leave you feeling trapped, ashamed, and like you’d be better off alone - saving everyone the trouble, including yourself.

I’m sorry, because I can’t let you off that easy. Nor would you (or your partner) want me to. As someone who has made it to the other side and become highly competent relationally, I promise you life gets immeasurably better with skills. On the other side of your vulnerability is your freedom. The “oh shit I actually needed to get more vulnerable in order to feel more freedom?” kind of aha that will leave you truly humbled and delighted by that paradoxical trickster we call life. Yes. In most cases, the more skilled you are at sharing vulnerably and taking space healthily, the more your (often anxiously attached or disorganized) partner will feel safely connected to you and loosen their grip, resulting in more freedom for you ✨. Not only that, but if you learn these phrases you’ll feel more free in ALL of your relationships, markedly changing your life.

1. “The story I make up”

“The story I make up is that I’m not allowed to have my own time and space”

“The story I make up is that you’re trying to control me”

“The story I make up is that if I share my emotions you’ll think I’m weak”

The reality is that avoidant-leaning humans make up A LOT of stories, sometimes stories about the future 20 years from now which are absolutely impossible to predict. These are stories your brain is telling you in hopes of protecting you, often based on real past experiences that hurt you.

Anytime you have an assumption (aka story), just use this phrase. The beauty of it is that instead of coming out like an accusation “you are trying to control me!”, which will almost certainly cause defensiveness, you take responsibility for the story you’re making up. It’s a game changer.

2. “I feel X”

I remember the first time a therapist asked me what I felt and I looked back at him like a deer in headlights not quite sure what he meant. “I’m fine. What do you mean?” I’m sure I said something like that, only underneath was A LOT. Studies show that avoidant children actually experience at least as much anxiety as their anxiously attached counterparts, they just hide it because they learned early on that they’d be rejected if they showed emotions.

The 5 challenging emotions I teach avoidant leaning folks and men in my practice are Anger, Shame, Sadness, Fear, and Guilt. The go to emotion avoidants feel the most is shame, whether they know it or not. This is the emotion of the freeze response. Avoidants generally also tend to not be skilled in communicating their anger. So it either comes out passive-aggressively or not at all.

Anyhow, those stories you’re telling yourself are likely making you feel one or more of these emotions. So you can pair these first two phrases together like this:

3.“I need/want X”

If you grew up in a home with domineering parents where you were to be seen and not heard, or you grew up with parents who were similarly dissociated from their own needs or wants (e.g. “we don’t have needs in this house, we just do responsible things!”), it’s likely that you have very few clues as to what you need or want in life, in relationship, or in the moment. This may leave you “going with the flow”, always feeling subjugated to what others want to do, or simply avoiding human interaction so that you can go at your own pace without influence from those people who always seem to know what they want and demand it from you!

All of those options sound not great, eh? One really great question for tuning into what you need or want is “does this give me energy or does this deplete me?” Energy you want, depletion you don’t. I took that from a book called Designing Your Life, which is also great for career planning and discovering your life’s purpose.

In order to get what you want in life - and relationships - you need to know what you need or want. Annoying, I know 😏

So to layer in these first 3 phrases:

I recognize this whole sentence may sound like the most mortifying or corny thing on the planet to say. And…relationships require scary, corny, and deep. But I promise you that if you’re able to get comfortable with this stuff, your confidence will go through the damn roof.

Oh, and to land the plane. If that need/desire is met, you will in turn feel more connected and less judged by your partner. You’ll feel released from your fear and shame, resulting in feeling more free. All of that will give you more energy. Relationships go from something to avoid to something that gives you energy. Bam! Yes please. Let’s go.

All of these can be found in the feedback wheel, here.

4.“You’re right”

Accountability is the antidote to defensiveness. While all attachment styles can be defensive, it’s a go-to for avoidants. To run, hide, and put out a stiff arm. I wish it worked, but it only makes things worse. So, even if it feels wildly unfair that your partner is “criticizing” you, I want you to focus on what you can control: any grain of truth in what they’re saying. Then rather than defend every point, pick the one grain of truth to say they are right about. Then ✨ watch their anger dissipate, their grip loosen, and their shoulders relax. This has the power to melt your aggressor. It validates that they have a point. You don’t have to agree with everything they said. In fact, you can disagree with five out of the six things they said, but start with what you agree with and you’ll be in MUCH better shape. For example, “You’re right that I can be defensive and I also am working on that. I agree. I don’t agree with the other things you said, but I agree with that.” That’s an entry point to agreement, repair, collaboration. That’s turning towards intimacy. And it will help you feel less helpless, afraid, defensive, and on the run. Own it.

5.“I love you and I need a minute to regulate”

Remember when I said that shame was one of the go-to emotions for avoidants? And that it’s the language of the freeze response? What this looks like in practice is you shutting down and turning into a stone mid conversation. The Gottman’s call this stonewalling. Sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it’s completely involuntary. Ever notice that if this happens, you actually have trouble thinking and producing sentences? This is actually the blood leaving your brain to prepare for death: the freeze response. You are flooded and you need a damn break. Typically an anxious-leaning partner will read this like an abandonment and not receive it well. Thus, it is best that you pre-establish up front that in fights you both are allowed to take time outs and follow these guidelines. The person asking for a time out needs to propose the time to finish the conversation, too. You don’t just get to weaponize time outs and unilaterally end every argument without coming back to it.

6.“I can’t control you, nor do I want to, but if you continue to do that I’m going to do this”

Terry Real summarizes avoidant recovery as simply, “learning to negotiate”. All of the above equips you with the tools to understand what you are actually negotiating for (emotions/needs/wants) and how to effectively speak to them. Due to your upbringing of either being entirely flattened by overbearing/abusive caregivers or modeling after completely walled off caregivers, avoidants tend to be terrible at setting boundaries. They know only two modes: 1.) you have complete control over me and my only mode of protection is running 2.) I will never let you in or be in relationships with others (aka walls).

You need something in the middle. Something that says “this is the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” Aka, boundaries. The most simple form of a boundary according to me is two letters: NO. Many folks need to start there, attune to what their yeses and their nos are (remember the question “does this give me energy or deplete me?” this question helps with that, too). But beyond a simple no is negotiation and boundary setting.

Negotiation

I can’t give you this, but I can give you that.

I’m not going to go to 4 family events with you this week, but I’d love to go to two.

Boundary setting

A real boundary involves a need or a request AND a consequence if that need or request is not met.

To wrap all of this up. Say you used our phrase from before:

Say you used that phrase and your partner maybe agreed at first, but then you noticed they smirked, laughed at, or mocked your emotions after you shared them. That is where a boundary becomes useful. Something like this, “I can’t control you nor do I want to. But if you mock me when I share my emotions, our conversation will be over.”

And that consequence can ladder up to greater degrees of severity. E.g. I’ll take some extended distance. I won’t share emotionally with you. I won’t spend time with you. These are all perfectly reasonable boundaries for someone mocking you.

These are relationship skills. We all need them. And the point is greater connection, greater safety, greater freedom for all.

With love and respect,

Patch

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Two things that stood out to me that I think we must learn from: 1.) how clear, simple, and repeatable the meaning was that they were providing for young boys and 2.) that they were offering love (even if disingenuous). Those of us advocating for a “healthier” masculinity have done a great job of telling men what they should not be, but not the best job at offering them a clear alternative. That leaves a giant vacuum that the Manosphere happily fills and will continue to fill until it has a compelling competitor. The results, I think we can see, are devastating.

Ripe for manipulation

Before getting into the above, I want to address why this is so appealing to young boys from my perspective. Two things my wife said on repeat while watching with me were 1.) “I’m so glad you’re not like this” and 2.) “why is this attractive to young boys?” The truth is, I was *kind of* like this in some ways as a tween and teen, but had many protective factors that didn’t let me slip fully into it. But yes, my friend group was notorious for being hypermasculine, so I’ve got some lived experience. This is precisely the time that young boys are socialized into hypermasculine values on the playground, through music, TV, movies, families, and today on social media. In Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development, adolescence (12-18 y/o) is marked by the basic conflict of Identity vs. Role Confusion, with a virtue of fidelity. This is a stage in which boys are learning what it means to be a “man”, who to be loyal to, and what their guiding principles will be. Enter: the Manosphere, monetizing vulnerable lost boys in search of love and community. As a therapist it is clear to me that many of these influencers appear trapped in the emotional maturity of an adolescent, which I suspect is where much of their trauma occurred.

Moreover, these kids consuming the content are helpless from a brain development standpoint - the same reasons that children can’t be tried as adults or legally consent. The irony that these men so righteously “protect” the world from pedophiles, while actively preying on small boys (and girls). There is a moment when HS says, “I never want 13 year olds watching my stuff”. Yeah right. While those kids may not have the most buying power, they are the most easily manipulated and they are watching your content, only to be very loyal consumers later on once fully indoctrinated. Their amygdalas (what controls emotions and fight/flight/freeze) are firing well and with a whole lot of hormones thanks to puberty, but their prefrontal cortex (what controls decision-making, future planning, judgement, impulse control) is not. They don’t have nearly the critical thinking skills or the experience to determine if what they’re consuming is terrible or not. But they are highly emotional, and the Manosphere armed with exceptionally addictive algorithms are targeting their greatest fears (e.g. being dominated, discarded), shame (e.g. having no value, seen as weak, not belonging), sadness (e.g. loneliness), and anger (e.g. “you’re entitled to more and women are to blame”). Pair that with an absent or abusive father, or a troubled relationship with the women in your life, and you’re toast.

In many indigenous cultures, this is the exact time that boys would be (and are) initiated into manhood. They’re given a role of service within the community so that they can be positive contributing members of their society. They feel purpose, belonging, meaning, and love. It’s almost as if this was entirely functional, and what he have now is…savage? A mentor of mine, Dan Doty, has dedicated his life to this work, and many more folks are emerging to fill this void. Father Richard Rohr wrote a book on this, Adam’s Return, that is superb.

It is very clear to me that if there is a sweet spot of where preventative work can be done, it is to be done in adolescence, meeting them where they’re at in their classrooms and third spaces. Ashanti Branch, Dr. Brendan, and Mr. Jason Wilson are some men I know of doing this very necessary work.

Moving on to what I mean about providing a clear alternative to the Manosphere.

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What does “mature masculinity”* look like?

I have been loath to prescribe what a version of “mature masculinity” might look for so many reasons. First and most importantly, this is part of what is problematic about ManBox culture, it says there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to be a man, and any deviation from the “right” way means you should be ashamed and you’re a loser - it’s binary and inhumane. Saying “mature masculinity” is the “best” can be grandiose - creating the same hierarchy problem. Second, everyone is wildly different in their gender expression and one way will absolutely never work for everyone. Third, I am a therapist who is not supposed to be biased one way or the other (but I am). Fourth, it’s grandiose to think I have all the answers (I don’t).

That said, I’m going to take the leap because I think more of it is needed. I asked Claude to help me summarize qualities of mature masculinity from some of the most popular books and thinkers on the topic that I know of (I’ve read each book) . 1.) “Iron John” by Robert Bly 2.) “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” by Moore & Gilette 3.) “Adam’s Return” by Richard Rohr and 4.) “From the Core” by John Wineland. My favorite by far was Adam’s Return by Richard Rohr. Okay, without further ado.

1. Initiated He has passed through fire — loss, failure, grief, humiliation — and let it change him. He hasn’t bypassed suffering or stayed comfortable. Something in him has died and something truer has emerged.

2. Grounded He lives from his core, not his head or his defended shell. He can feel what’s happening inside him, regulate under pressure, and show up with presence rather than performance.

3. Purpose He knows what he’s for. His life has direction — a mission, a calling, a commitment — and that orientation gives him the spine to say no, stay the course, and resist distraction or collapse.

4. Regulated He can be met with chaos, pain, anger, or intensity — from a partner, a situation, a group — and remain open and stable rather than shutting down, escalating, or abandoning the moment.

5. Integrated He has looked at his rage, his hunger, his wounds, his dark impulses, his shadow — and claimed them. He doesn’t project them outward as cruelty or bury them as numbness. The wild energy is integrated, not suppressed or unleashed.

6. Service His life is not ultimately about him. Whether framed spiritually, archetypally, or relationally — he serves. He has been dethroned from the center of his own universe and is oriented toward contribution, legacy, or the sacred.

7. Connected He is in relationship with other men — not just socially, but in genuine witnessing, accountability, and transmission. He has been mentored and mentors others. He doesn’t do the work alone.

8. Open He can disclose, soften, grieve, and be seen in his vulnerability — not as collapse, but as courage. His openness comes from a grounded place, not a desperate one. Strength and tenderness are not opposites for him.

The through-line: mature masculinity is the integration of power and depth — strength in service, presence without armor, and a self that has been forged rather than merely maintained.

I look at these and see a clear map of qualities, values, and behaviors. I find it quite useful and enjoyed evaluating myself against it. Men, like everyone, need a map. And as long as we live in a capitalistic performance-driven culture, they want to know how they are performing. They could use a new report card that’s not based solely in domination-based Patriarchy of the past, nor erasure. Now, one could argue that the above qualities could apply equally to women or non-binary folks, and they could be right. One could also argue that this isn’t much different from the 8 Cs of Self Energy, and they could also be right. Maturity is maturity.

My main addition to the above points is a big one and it draws from a Terry Real quote: “men are not raised to be intimate, they’re raised to be competitive performers.” Lest the above come across as a better performance script (albeit very necessary), I want to be clear that relational skills and relational health must become central to modern mature masculinity - and society in general. We’re still living in a loneliness epidemic and traditional patriarchy is a setup for it, while healthy relationships are the greatest predictor of happiness across the lifespan. This is why I am a relationship therapist for men and couples.

With love and respect,

Patch

*“Mature masculinity” is also often called “healthy masculinity” “positive masculinity”, and/or “integrated masculinity.”

If you haven’t been dissociating from the news of the Epstein files (which I certainly have at times), you know that what is in the files is dark as f*ck. The more you fully engage and read, the more disbelief, horror, and rage you may feel. And when you see almost nothing by way of justice happening in the United States as compared to the rest of the world, you may feel helpless. The most palpable emotion amongst women I’ve observed has been rage, very understandably. And a hypervigilant lack of trust. The most common behavior amongst men I’ve observed has been avoidance, for various reasons. My hope in writing this is to provide some action for those men who feel called to take it. Action is not only the antidote to anxiety, avoidance and helplessness, but more importantly it’s the most crucial element of repair that I see missing in our culture, from men, re: violence towards women.

But first, to the women who may be reading, I am sorry. I am sorry many of you are being forcefully re-traumatized by this news. That you have to feel it viscerally in your bodies in the form of nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, disgust, lack of safety, and all the aforementioned emotions. I’m sorry that it feels like you’re feeling this mostly alone, with many men demonstrating their apparent complicity through silence or lack of action. I’ve heard the call: you want men to stand up, say something, but more importantly, do something. This is what I hear from my female friends, colleagues, clients and loved ones. There have been so many articulate expressions of this pain recently, but one piece of writing I really loved was this one by Celeste Davis and I think it will resonate. It also cites other brilliant pieces written by women.

Now to the men: I know what many of you are feeling because I work with you, I am a man, and we’ve both likely been steeped in similar conditioning. What I see in the majority is avoidance. A “moving on let’s get back to work” kind of attitude, which is how a large majority of men have been socialized to deal with emotions generally. Additionally, those of us who are not survivors are not being forced to re-experience this in our bodies, if we even had any connection to our bodies in the first place (many men do not due to our conditioning). We have the privilege to ignore what most women cannot. There’s also a cohort, though, who is engaging further, but more quietly. They are feeling a lot of fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, confusion and helplessness. Folks are flashing back to #metoo. “Oh my god, women are really angry at men. They really HATE men. Are they coming after me? Let me compulsively check every past interaction I’ve had with women to validate whether I am or am not a part of the problem or THE problem. Men ARE terrible. I am bad and I hate myself. F*ck BAD men. What do I do?” Ugh. So…hypervigilant fear, compulsive checking, and hiding (flight). Shut down and shame (freeze). Full on rage + some projection (fight). And confusion/helplessness (more freeze). Therapy Jeff had a good take on this.

All of these emotions are valid and make sense. It’s a scary time. And yet “feeling bad” ain’t helping anybody. What’s really missing is ownership, accountability, and action. We men are afraid to own our part in this collective shadow of patriarchy and so we’re either stuck in fear OR are instead projecting by calling for the heads of those at the top without looking in the mirror, at ourselves, our friend group, family, or community - because then we would have to do something. If you’ve read more takes that you liked, please share them in the comments.

I personally find myself experiencing the full range. A part of me is horrified and disgusted by the severity, scope, and magnitude of it all - it’s haunting. A part of me feels helpless and sad that near nothing in the form of justice is happening. A part of me is also thrown back to childhood where an authority figure is raging, I’m frozen, and my sister is pissed that I can’t move (I’m 8). I don’t blame her, she needed backup. Another part of me feels guilty and ashamed of a past hypermasculine version of me that very much participated in a culture of objectification, discard, and plenty of locker room talk. AND I’ve integrated and healed enough to know that a raging, shaming, projection-filled tirade that will only push men further into the shadows and completely neutralize my effectiveness in being a part of the solution. I’ve tried this in the past and it does not work at all. Because that is a very real danger. #metoo did a great job of educating the culture on consent, sexual assault, and rampant abuses of power. In my opinion it moved our culture in the right direction, no question. And at the same time, it also sent many men further into the shadows only to act only more deviously (e.g. Epstein). “Justice” only goes so far in terms of repairing the wound, not to mention the underlying causes.

So, the fork in the road for men I see right now is a.) be so afraid of the anger in the air that you disown any responsibility and further push this all back into the shadows OR b.) have the courage to own your inherent part in it, take action, and integrate this all in order to heal both individually and collectively.

I choose path B. Walk with me…even if it is scary and uncomfortable AF.

ACTION 1: hold space for the women in your life right now

It’s not too late to bring this up, trust me. May even be better timing now that it’s somewhat out of the news cycle. Do ask for consent to talk about it, first, though. Not necessarily a conversation you can have in line at Trader Joes. This will help you actually feel the pain that’s coursing through our culture right now. Try to remain curious and not take their anger personally or get defensive. Of course, women are feeling a full range. From those that I know, many have also been avoiding and dissociating, some have been having nightmares and flashbacks, and some others are absolutely revolted and enraged by men everywhere, and don’t feel they can trust us. Can you blame them? I personally think it’s completely understandable.

ACTION 2: Educate yourself on the root of this violence

Patriarchy is at its core, a violent system. That may sound hyperbolic, but let me explain. One of the very first thing boys are taught, around middle school at the latest (if it hasn’t begun earlier at home), is to bully each other into submission to the conditioning that real men are superior to girls and superior to gay men. This isn’t new news to any man. To be those things is shameful, wrong, disgusting. P***, F***, B***. I still personally feel the sting of those in my body, and I hurled them plenty. Hate speech contemptuously brands misogyny and homophobia into young boys, whether they like it or not, or face social exclusion - threatening their belonging, the most important thing for a human nervous system. Hate speech already is violence, but even further, it is at this point that they begin to “kill” the parts of themselves that may appear “girly” or “gay” - e.g. emotions, playfulness, sensitivity. bell hooks says it best - “The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.” Starting here, many men learn to numb themselves, which enables them to disconnect from the pain of inflicting harm on themselves and others - because they can’t feel it. They are numb. This historically prepared men masterfully for war, sports, and business (all arena’s where sexual violence occurs at a higher rate, unsurprisingly). Anesthetized and with the enemy clearly targeted - the feminine within and without - violence becomes an inevitability (on a spectrum, of course). Nobody explains this better than bell hooks in The Will To Change, in my opinion. But another great piece is Masculinities, by Raewyn Connell. All of Terry Real’s books are a great introduction, too, but particularly I Don’t Want To Talk About It and US.

Artist: Sako Asko

ACTION 3: Unpack your conditioning in therapy or with a trusted coach

This is a perfect time to start. I’ve been processing these events with many of my clients and the range of emotions being felt by men is humanizing to say the least. My friend Dr. Audra put together this incredible list of therapists for men across the country, which she’s turning into a website. I have networks in CA and NY that I can tap, so if you’re interested please reach out. The number of men engaged in mental health treatment is increasing yearly and higher than ever before. I have a theory that this increase was in part driven by #metoo and a global call for men to seek help. This is a stat I find encouraging despite the darkness being revealed right now. Men’s therapy groups are another amazing place to unpack this stuff. I’m starting one in Cobble Hill March 18th, but also have leads for others in CA and NY. Reach out.

ACTION 4: consent education

As I mentioned #metoo brought major awareness to consent and the vacuum of understanding around it in our culture. Before that, men and women alike were receiving their education from shows like Mad Men, Sex & The City, Californication, and Entourage. Our abysmal sex ed classes certainly didn’t teach it. Here is a good definition of consent and some instructions on how to engage in conversations. Some other accounts that are helpful are: Comprehensive Consent, Teach Us Consent, and Stories Of Consent.

ACTION 5: repair where you can

Maybe you have done direct harm to women in your life. Whether it was name-calling, mistreatment, objectification, ghosting, or actual boundary violations. Sometimes repair is possible. Here is a repair framework that may help, but first be sure to get consent to initiate that repair. And get very clear that this repair is for the other person first. Any benefits to you (e.g. guilt relief) should be secondary. You have to detach from the outcome, you may not get the result you wanted, but it’s better to try than not try at all.

ACTION 6: challenge yourself and the men in your life to step up
This is a big and important lift. To do this well is to do it with loving firmness versus shaming. Shaming in my experience will get you nowhere fast. Starting with yourself, with compassion, make an inventory of how you may be participating in objectification or misogynistic culture. Examples could include: excessive porn usage, staring at women, laughing at locker room talk w/ friends, engaging in f*ckboy behavior, and more. I see these as symptoms of addiction, lack of intimacy, and loneliness. You can get sober. A harm reduction approach is one I suggest. Then with your boys: are you having hard conversations with your friends, family, and communities if they are engaging in problematic behavior? I’d bet you have at least one friend or family member that comes to mind. The feedback wheel is my favorite resource on the planet and works for this. My friend Johnny Cole also made a great video about the men’s hockey team modeling what some of this challenging can look like. From experience, this is a scary job, often a thankless job, but it’s one that bolsters your integrity. It’s worth it.

ACTION 7: vote

Vote for people you think are least likely to perpetuate these systems. I know this is getting harder and harder to distinguish, as it’s clear that the Epstein files didn’t discriminate across party lines. But do your best.

Hope this helps.

With love and respect,
Patch

Have you ever found yourself thinking in binaries about people? Things like good vs. evil, good person vs. bad person, winner vs. loser, right vs. wrong, better vs. worse? “No way, couldn’t be me!” Well then I’ll go first, I certainly have and still do sometimes! And if you’re still skeptical, spend 5 minutes on social media.

My point here is that this kind of thinking is wildly pervasive and conditioned into us from birth to varying degrees systematically, whether it be through organized religion (good vs. evil), politics (good guy vs. bad guy), capitalist frameworks (winner vs. loser), social structures (haves vs. have nots), and/or family systems. Likewise, it’s wired into our psychobiology as humans to scan for threat, and we will always create an “other” to defend against psychologically and physically, whether that be a country, a race, a gender, our romantic partner, or parts of ourselves that we disown. To name what this is psychologically, when you position yourself above to look down upon the “other”, this is grandiosity and this is contempt, the ultimate distancing behavior. It is the #1 relationship killer, and it is the foundation of all abuse. The laddering down goes like this: “we are different” → “ you are beneath me” → “you are not human” → “now I can justify any kind of violence towards you”. But just because this is human nature, doesn’t mean we don’t need to fight the tide. The stakes are high. Civil war high in a macro sense. And divorce high in a micro sense.

The most obvious example of this is in our current politics. I’m going to use an example of emotional violence that we’ve now normalized as a culture, because it pops up often in romantic relationships: name-calling. Name-calling dehumanizes, and it is coming directly from the father figure of the “free” world. That’s verbal abuse folks. And we are the children in this collective “home” being taught what’s okay and what’s not okay. Then folks on the left (e.g. Gavin Newsom) respond in kind. It’s delicious to watch (finally someone is standing up to the bully!), yet it also races us to the gutter. Contempt on a national scale is the new normal and to a certain degree it has always been there. We consume it daily and hurl it at each other righteously. If you’re a leftist ask yourself this: have you ever called someone a “monster”, “evil”, “trash”, “idiot”, “disgusting”, or as I recently read from something a fellow therapist I respect reposted calling MAGA “Magats”. Yikes. If that’s you, I’m sure you’ve felt or feel justified. And yet, “they did it first” is an excuse that children make to justify their actions, not mature adults. We’re all better than this. No matter what “side” you’re on.

Grandiosity and contempt are also very importantly, conditioned into men through patriarchal masculinity from a young age. Core to the value system is hierarchy, where straight men are at the top “looking down on” women and gay men. If you’re a man reading this and don’t agree, ask yourself what slurs were hurled around the playground starting at age 8 or so. B***, P****, F*****. It’s pointed outwards towards “them”, but also inwards towards any part of us that feels “weak” or “feminine” or joyous, playful, and silly…god forbid. That’s contempt boys, and it’s the water we’ve been swimming in all our lives. It’s a goddamn tragedy if you ask me.

The more meta manifestation of this I see everywhere now is men who have rejected patriarchal masculinity, yet still are using its primary weapons of contempt and grandiosity to communicate this shaming rejection (e.g. “you’re an ‘idiot’ ‘evil’ or ‘wrong’ if you don’t see things the way I do.” “You’re not on my level.” “You’re beneath me.”). Newsflash: this is a terrible recruitment strategy and it lost the Democratic party the last election. It reminds me of this meme:

The reality is that these more “woke” men, which I have absolutely been in the past and still am sometimes, are still working through their own internalized misandry and contempt. They’re still in the anger stage of their healing, which is very important, but nonetheless unintegrated. I personally find myself in a stage where my grandiosity is subtly thinking I’m more evolved than the above cohort of men (clearly not). You get the point, this shit is pernicious and you need to check it constantly.

Likewise, many women who identify as feminists, but maybe have not done their own shadow work often adopt hypermasculine traits, using contempt and grandiosity to communicate their message. Eye rolls, mocking, “men are trash”, “men are dumb”, etc. This is contemptuous, dehumanizing, and antithetical to the definition of feminism because it is power over (e.g. not equal). As the brilliant intersectional poet Audrey Lorde said with respect to systemic racism and sexism, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Her book of poems + essays tackled different questions but the thesis is what I’m applying here - that using contempt and grandiosity (the tools of dominance-based-power-over-patriarchy) to heal our broken system and create a new one is futile - it just creates the same movie with different protagonists.

The Gottmans (the biggest name in couples therapy) talk about contempt as the #1 most dangerous behavior in a marriage, a flashing red light that divorce is imminent if not addressed. And if you’re the recipient of this contempt, you’re more likely to catch infectious diseases. Meaning it’s not just emotionally harmful, it is physically harmful. Meaning - it is violence. Couples therapist Terry Real, whose entire model is based on bringing people down from their grandiosity (contempt pointed outwards) and up from their shame (contempt pointed inwards) into healthy self-esteem, posits that this is a function of our highly narcissistic culture, it’s the dis-ease that we all must root out of our relationships because it kills them. It is toxic.

He also brilliantly observes that traditional psychotherapy has historically been good at bringing people up from their shame, but quite terrible at bringing people down from their grandiosity. So what does one do if they’re struggling with grandiosity?

The first step of course is awareness. Do you hear yourself in any of the above? Can you see that maybe you’ve been a part of this contemptuous cycle, either in the culture at large or in any of your most important relationships? I know when I realized this years ago it was very hard to stomach, so I’ve got a lot of compassion for you if you’re in this part of the process. Especially, if you are struggling with the cognitive dissonance of seeing yourself as “one of the good guys”. Some really great books if you’re interested in learning more are The Will To Change by Bell Hooks or US by Terry Real (really any of his books).

Beyond this, creating a culture of appreciation is one of the best ways to combat contempt and grandiosity in your relationships, in your business, and in your household. Think a gratitude practice but for your relationships. This takes work but it really works. Then if you want to ratchet things up there are two other tools I love: mirror work and picture work.

Mirror work forces us to get honest about what’s really beneath grandiosity, which is insecurity. People who have healthy self-esteem don’t need to make themselves big and others small. So the next time you’re feeling high and mighty, take yourself to a mirror and whittle yourself down lovingly. “Well you are no walk in the park either, Larry. Is it really about your partner being ‘socially inept’ or is that you have a lot of wounding around social life and you want them to rescue from your childhood wounds?” Some version of this modified to your situation.

Picture work has to do with whatever grandiose behavior is causing your marriage/relationship the most trouble. Then identify who you learned this from. Find a photo of them and the next time you’re about to let it rip, take a time out, go to another room and break out that picture. Then say directly out loud to that picture, “right now it’s more important for me to be - insert toxic behavior -, just like you, than it is for me to be loving and close with my partner.” This one tends to stop folks in their tracks and highlight that they’re not a victim to their behavior, they are choosing violence.

If you’re looking for outside specialist support with exactly this issue, find someone trained in Terry Real’s model Relational Life Therapy. I’m currently getting certified in the model and it is excellent. I work on these issues daily with men individually, but also with couples. And yes…it’s not just men that are grandiose! We’ve all been raised in the same culture.

Take action today. Stop the violence within yourself and towards others.

***Disclaimer: if you believe you’re in an abusive relationship, please visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline or call 800-799-7233.

By way of background, I’m trained in RLT, Gottman, and PACT. My work with couples is direct, no BS, and action-oriented. All of these tools and models follow that ethos.

1. Time Out

This is often the first tool I will use as it’s the most straightforward and doesn’t require you to have access to your prefrontal cortex to implement (translation to english: you can use it when you’re completely losing your sh*t, and that’s exactly when you want to use it). For years I ran anger management groups for court-ordered individuals and this was the #1 tool I taught. It’s a gangster tool that works for gangsters. It’s an eject chord that is unilateral and doesn’t need permission, but there is tact you want to use (e.g. setting a time to come back to the conversation) that’s spelled out in this guide.

2. 4 horsemen

This is a diagnostic tool I use up front. I love educating on these four behaviors that lead to divorce because they are a.) very simple to understand and b.) certainly get your attention. Also because the Gottman’s have so much research supporting that my more intellectual clients love. Most people can see their go-to moves quite quickly. And there are relatively simple antidotes. When I say simple, I mean simple to understand, not necessarily simple to put into practice. I talk about this tool in more detail here.

3. Relationship grid

Everyone loves a personality test, right? Well, this is kinda like one but in the context of relationships. I love this because it builds on attachment science AND the Gottman’s contempt by also bringing in the grandiosity (contempt of others) and shame spectrum (contempt of oneself). This is the genius of Terry Real. He often says traditional psychotherapy has historically done a great job of helping people stand up for themselves, but not a great job of helping those who are pathologically “above” others. I said earlier that in RLT we take sides, and it’s typically (but not always) by calling the folks who live in the “one up, contemptuous” quadrants into more connection and love by stepping down of their high horses. Equally important though, we want those who live in the one-down positions to stand up for themselves more. As Terry puts it “we want the mighty to melt, and the weak to stand up.” You can take a quiz to see where you fall here, if you don’t already know right away ;)

4. Anger types

To this day I can’t find who originated this graph. If you know, please let me know. But I absolutely love it, and go into detail in this post. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but Avoidantly attached folks tend to be experts at either passivity or passive aggression when in conflict, while anxiously attached folks tend to be more aggressive in conflict. This also tracks with the Relationship Grid. Again, this absolutely has exceptions, but you get the idea. The only winning strategy here for all is Assertiveness, which is covered in the next tool.

5. Feedback wheel

Again, thank you Terry for this one. This is essentially the book Non-violent Communication in four easy steps. Otherwise known as assertive communication. Otherwise known as win-win communication. While this is an advanced tool that you can only use effectively when in your parasympathetic nervous system/wise mind/prefrontal cortex (e.g. after trauma work), I think it’s the most important tool I’ve learned in all of my years of individual and couples therapy. Master this, and you are way ahead of most of the planet on relationship skills. You learn to a.) take accountability for the many stories you might be telling yourself (e.g. assumptions) b.) identify your vulnerable emotions underneath your anger (fear, sadness, shame, guilt) and c.) ask for what you actually need. I typically ask clients to do this on their own first as an emotional regulation tool, then start using it with other people. IT IS A GAMECHANGER. I talk about it in more detail here.

6. AVA repair

To my knowledge, I made this acronym up based on standard repair frameworks. But essentially, if you’ve f*cked up and need to apologize and repair something, you want to follow these steps. First, you want to take Accountability and Apologize. Fall on your sword in great detail regarding everything that you did that was messed up, paired with a genuine apologize. Second, you want to Validate your partner’s experience of this f*ckup. You want to put yourself in their shoes and detail out precisely why this might have been so difficult for them based on your relationship history and their trauma history - important that you try to imagine what emotions they experienced. Lastly and most importantly, although the most often done poorly, is Action. You need to detail what exactly you’re going to do to correct the behavior and re-earn that person’s trust. Then you need to do those things. As Terry Real often says, “it’s impossible to forgive a behavior that’s still going on.” Again, Accountability + Apology, Validation, Action.

7. Weekly couples check-In

I f*ckin love this tool. It’s so damn simple and goes SUCH a long way for building intimacy. That’s in large part because it’s got appreciation baked in. It’s so easy to forget in our mistake obsessed culture the things that we appreciate about our partner and what’s actually going well. Appreciation is also the antidote to contempt. It’s the antidote to grandiosity. It is what brings us closer. The Gottman’s talk about building a culture of appreciation in your relationship and creating a 5 to 1 ratio of appreciation to complaint/criticism. If that sounds ridiculous it just points out how much work you may have to do, but also how much work we have to do as a society. Lastly, this tools systematizes and operationalizes healthy habits, helping you stay on track. It’s so worth the 30 minutes to an hour.

While I absolutely recommend you work through these tools with a couples therapist, using them poorly is better than not at all. So have at it.

With appreciation,

Patch

I became a relationship therapist for men and couples precisely because I colossally sucked at relationships for most of my life. And I was conditioned to suck at them by patriarchal masculinity.

Men are conditioned from a young age to feminize and devalue relationships. “Relationships are something women focus on, I focus on performing in sports, school/work, making money. That’s the priority. That is what I will be evaluated on.”

Men are conditioned from a young age that breadth is more important than depth, especially sexually. Vulnerability is required for depth of relationship and vulnerability is feminized as well, deemed weak. So men are encouraged to focus on surface level sexual conquest, for which they are celebrated by their homies well into their 30s and even 40s. This on repeat creates disconnection from the body and a habit of discard.

Men are conditioned to be lone wolves. The same rule of depth/vulnerability applies to male friendships, depth is the exception not the rule. 1 in 5 men say they have no close friends. That’s because the conditioning says “to be reliant/dependent/connected is weak, if you’re a real strong man you can and should be able to do it alone.”

Men are conditioned to numb their emotions. Emotions are the glue that hold relationships together. Without genuine emotional expression, even conflict, relationships fall apart. They are also the glue that hold a person together. If you’re numb to your own emotions, it’s very hard to connect with yourself, and even harder to connect with others.

Men are conditioned towards avoidant attachment, which inherently devalues relationships. Sxs of avoidant attachment: emotional numbness, addiction to alone time, obsession with performance, auto-regulation vs. co-regulation.

Men are conditioned to dominate, be aggressive, and compete. This helps them thrive in “killer” business environments and war and sports, but is terrible for intimate relationships. It makes you unsafe.

Men are conditioned to believe they are better than others (I.e. grandiosity). Better than gay folks, better than women, better than this guy, better than that guy. It creates a “greater than, less than” binary in which men are constantly comparing themselves to others in fear that they may appear less than. This is called contempt. It leads not only to contempt of others, but contempt of themselves if parts of them feel “less than”. It’s also the most destructive relational pattern in the book, the greatest predictor of divorce there is.

Does all of this mean that men are broken and a lost cause. F*ck no. Men are exquisitely deep & relational beings at their core, but some conditioning out there is stupid as f*ck. I became a therapist to combat it.

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Don’t worry, i’m not going to start preaching. What i’m sharing is firmly rooted in messy humanity, with just the right amount of magic. Getting married absolutely helped me more firmly believe in power(s) greater than myself. Something else was present on that weekend that was much bigger than me.

What a relief.

See one might say I like control. For as long as I can remember I had been absolutely terrified of commitment. I had made up stories that relationships meant complete loss of freedom, subjugation of one’s needs, and a constant mirror/reminder as to why I wasn’t enough. Those stories had me picking partners, bosses, and friends that reinforced this narrative for roughly the first three decades of my life, until I started therapy and men’s work. Then began a pendulum swing period of my own single grandiosity, making up stories about how nobody else was enough, didn’t check my boxes, and that we’d never work for x y and z reason (read: protective distancing behavior). Just two sides of the same control coin, having gone from one down to one up, but still driven by fear and shame of not being enough.

Then came Diana, my wife. Our first date was a sober dance party at the House of Yes in Brooklyn. It felt free, equal, expansive, peaceful and playful - all at once. It felt like we’d known each other for millennia, and we laughed a lot. This was just as I was changing careers from advertising to become a therapist, shedding a career my conditioning pointed me towards for a career my soul pointed me towards. Unsurprisingly in retrospect, if you’re familiar with The Pattern (an uncannily accurate Astrology app), it said we were “Soul Mates”. But fear not astrology haters, I discounted and resisted this for some time, still buying into a pop psychology narrative that if you have any doubts whatsoever “it’s a no” - it has to be a “fuck yes” from the start. For me until that time, I had only ever felt a “fuck yes” for people who severely triggered my “not enough” wound. Hello, trauma and insecure attachment. Those relationships were explosive, high and low, full of conflict and power struggle, and very certainly not helping either person reach their highest Self whatsoever. This relationship was different and my fears and wounds had me doubting the safety I felt. Thank the Universe we worked through it.

Enter years of parts work therapy, men’s work, couples work, psychedelics, coaching, tantra, dancing, making magic, traveling the world, fighting and repairing, great friends and family, and growth alongside my unbelievable soul-partner. Hello, relationship school. Through each next level of commitment (moving across country, moving in together, getting engaged, and then marriage), I doubted, resisted, and then felt immense relief, safety, assuredness, and greater confidence. A turning point I’ll remember forever was a mentor saying to me with total warm and loving firmness, “Patch, when are you going to grow up?” (Okay, Diana may have said this to me a few memorable times, too.) It might sound harsh, but it’s precisely what I needed, he made the implicit explicit and I felt healthy disgust and incongruence. I was someone who viewed myself as obsessed with growth and integrity, yet was refusing to grow and living out of alignment. This moment rewired my neural pathway and I proposed later that year. Ironically, after proposing I felt much less afraid and much more safe. It felt totally right and the doubts mostly faded.

Similarly and on a parallel path, I doubted my career transition to therapy with the same levels of intense resistance. In my experiences, and what I’ve seen now as a therapist, doubt certainly is not always a sign that something is wrong. Sometimes it’s a sign that it’s very right. The two best decisions of my life I doubted the most: becoming a therapist and getting married to Diana. And yet neither were about the decision itself. At their core, the doubt was about if I was worthy of them. Worthy of holding sacred space, worthy of loving and being loved by an incredible human.

As some of the best thinkers have said:

“Where your fear is, there is your task” - Carl Jung

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasures you seek” - Joseph Campbell

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” - Marcus Aurelius

I was actually afraid of parts of me healing and growing. I was afraid of joy, fulfillment, contentment, acceptance. It was not familiar.

Then came the wedding. The cliches that protective parts of me tried their best to preemptively dismiss and devalue came true, it was unequivocally the best weekend of my life. The weather forecast was predicting torrential downpour for months, yet the entire weekend’s weather was absolutely perfect. Everyone danced their hearts out all weekend and vibes were HIGH. Di and I were exquisitely present and rooted. Our friends and family, from completely different cultures, got along great. I fell even deeper in love with Diana listening to her friend’s speeches about her, reading our vows to each other, and watching her in what can only be described as complete majesty. My four-year-old nephew, who has been head-over-heels in love with Diana since day one, at one point turned to his dad with his jaw on the floor and said in Portuguese “Daddy, it’s a real princess!” The whole weekend was one big fat “YES, it’s gonna be great!” from the universe, “God”, and from our entire community. It was definitely bigger than us and simultaneously so very much us. It was magical. I am smiling as I write this. Guh!

It may sound absolutely crazy, but I found greater connection to “God” through, with, and in Diana. And I now see that “God” and Love are essentially the same thing. I can’t wait to keep letting them in, repeatedly admitting my own powerlessness, and surrendering to the uncontrollable nature of both. What a blessing. What a relief.

If you’re reading this and thinking, damn that’s me. Maybe this is your sign to lean in. Take a leap. Believe in Love. Believe in the Universe, “God”, whatever. You deserve it.

If you’re an avoidant in your late 20s, 30s, or even 40s, the love of your life might not look or feel like a “fuck yes” at first. Why is that?

Because you’ve built a lifetime of armor around your heart, shielding you from the wisdom it carries. Love for you will have to be a patient process of peeling back the layers of fear that protect you in the form of: unrelenting standards, criticism, doubt, avoidance, disgust, and walls. These processes are called “deactivation”.

Your avoidance was an adaptation to an upbringing most often of neglect, but also of abuse and enmeshment. You learned that the safest place for you was alone. People couldn’t be trusted to show up for you or be interested in you for you, there was always an ulterior self-centered motive.

This leads to you seeking out unavailable partners that recreate this familiar dynamic and feel like a “fuck yes”. Although, this rarely ends well. These partners are the most likely to break your heart and create more walls. Partners that do not recreate this dynamic will feel unfamiliar, and like a “no”. These partners will feel “boring” to you at first and you will feel less “spark”. They can also become the love of your life.

The f*cked up tragedy is that avoidants will filter potential mates through the exact value lens they were filtered through as kids: “what matters is performance, appearance, money, power, beauty, and intelligence.” If these values sound like those of our society, they are, and our society is avoidant AF. Yes, a potentially healthy mate can have many of these things, but if this is your primary criteria it’s dangerously superficial… It’s all head and no heart. And it’s the worst compass you can use for love, for others and for yourself.

A great filter: “what does the youngest part of me think of this person?” The part of you that was open-hearted, before parental and societal conditioning got to you. They have the answer <3