Most men would consider themselves to be honest, but what about when it comes to feelings?

Talking about feelings isn't common among men - and it's not something we're naturally good at either - but it is a requirement for maturity (despite what socio-cultural norms have taught us to believe about masculinity).

In this episode, psychologist and author Dr Ron Johnson joins me to share from his 50+ years of experience with men in psychological analysis and therapeutic contexts.

Ron outlines the role honesty with feelings plays in a man's maturity, how that honesty relates to a man's success, why men need to expect and accept that failure will be part of the maturation process when it comes to using feeling-based words, and how maturing in this area leads to a deeper, more satisfying life.

If you find this episode helpful, check out Ron's latest book entitled 'Balls: Men Finding Courage with Words, Work, Wine [Addictions], and Women' through his practice's website: midlandspsychological.com/books.

Find Dr Ron Johnson Here:

Website: midlandspsychological.com

Facebook: Facebook.com/midlandspsychological

Instagram: Instagram.com/midlandspsychological

YouTube: YouTube.com/@midlandspsychological

Find The Akkeri Here:

Website: TheAkkeri.com

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Men are not by nature words people. They are action people. That's the difficulty that we have in a lot of our interactions with people, particularly with women.

Men actually use more words than women. It's not a matter of the quantity of words, it's the quality, it's the essence of words. Do I actually succeed in telling you how I feel?

To have courage is to trust my heart, to trust my feelings, and again, that includes emotion. But it's much, much more than just emotion is who I am as a person.

You are listening to the Akkeri Podcast, a show about men and masculinities, the challenges that modern men face and how to chart a better way forward. I'm your host, Matt Howlett, mental health coach and founder of the Akkeri. In this episode, my guest is psychologist and author Dr. Ron Johnson.

Ron and his wife Dr. Deb Brock recently released their book Balls Men Finding Courage with Words, Work, Wine and Women.

So we are doing a four part series to see what it looks like for men to find courage in those four areas. This first episode is a deep dive into what it means to find courage with words.

You'll learn why man's experience with feeling based words is directly tied to his success, what it truly means to be honest as a man, the difference between a job and a profession, the role that our ability with words plays in finding that profession, and how Ron once wanted to go to space and how his spaceship building efforts ultimately led him to psychology. I hope this conversation inspires and equips you to make change in your own life.

And if this resonates with you, I'd encourage you to check out their book Balls through their website, midlandpsychological.com but for now, here's the conversation with Dr. Ron Johnson. So Ron, your. Your book Balls Men Finding Courage with Words, Work, Wine and Women. It was just recently released.

The first topic there, Men Finding Courage with Words. Can you give me a brief overview of what that actually means? What does it mean to find courage with words?

Let me first respond to that and say that quite simply, men are not by nature words people. They are action people.

So right off the bat, that's the difficulty that we have in a lot of our interactions with people, particularly with women, because when we express ourselves, we don't primarily want to say what we're doing, we want to do something. So the phenomenon here is if I'm going to tell you something that I think or something that I feel or something that I did, I want you to see it.

I don't want you to hear it.

Right.

So that's. That's really the bottom line here.

And that sounds just crazy because it's like, okay, men speak and they're good at words and they're intelligent, whatever. It's not a matter of speaking in intelligence, right? Yeah, really a matter of knowing how I feel and then being able to translate that into words.

That's very difficult for every man.

Right. So what is the main challenge, then, with putting what I feel as a man into words?

The challenge is I'm speaking a foreign language. The. The language of words rather than the language of. Of action.

I very often, if I'm talking to a woman about how she's dealing with a man, I say, don't listen to what he says. Look at what he does.

The challenge here is words are, in this western society of ours, so basic, and it's, I have to get better at words, but always I'm speaking a foreign language.

So how does that play out? Like, what are the. I guess, struggles. What are the challenges? Like, what does the man present?

The challenges that the man has, like when he's sitting down with you in the office or when he's doing a video call like we're doing now, what is it that you see? Like, does the man always recognize that that is part of the challenge?

He recognizes it inside, but he doesn't recognize it outside. He struggles with saying something and always feels somewhat insecure.

In this very moment, I feel somewhat insecure about saying how I really feel, trying to answer your question. And that's going on with a man all the time. So every time he opens his mouth, there's a kind of an inner voice that says, this is not accurate.

This is not who you are. This you're not doing very well. So there's this kind of insecur about speaking, particularly about my feelings with words.

Do you see that as being more nature, more nurture, even? Mix of both.

A mixture of both, but mostly nature. And again, you know, to say men are not words by nature is not to say they can't speak, nor should they speak.

In fact, the data is this men actually use more words than women. It's not a matter of the quantity of words. It's the quality. It's the essence of words. Do I actually succeed in telling you how I feel?

So what does that look like for a man? Just on a personal level? Like, forget the relationship context. Does that cause, you know, internal struggle?

Like, for example, you know, one of the things that we've talked about before and just in, you know, personal conversations is men being stuck in positions that they don't like, jobs that they don't like? Would that be. Would those two be related? You'd see them as related.

The matter of words is related to everything that I do in life. It's related to my relationships, it's related to my love, it's related to work, it's related to play. It's related to everything that I do.

With few exceptions, words are a part of who I am and how I express myself. So, yes, it affects everything else.

Can you say more than yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here's the difficulty as I speak to you right now in this moment, Matt, I am struggling to re. Reach inside of myself and figuratively say, what am I really feeling? What do I think? What's important here? And how can I translate that into words?

It's always approximate. Now, it's approximate for women as well, but for men, because their nature is not to speak, but to do. The.

The difficulty here is I would like to just show you what this means to. To do something. I'd like to just show you how I feel, I tell you. Give you an example.

Yeah.

I was talking with a couple the other day, and the woman was speaking about how she felt. And I say, well, into the man now, how. How can you. How do you. How do you frame feelings? And he says, I think of them as color and form.

Color and form.

That's interesting.

And his wife looked at him and like, what are you talking about? Words are feelings. And I said, jen, no, feelings are not words. Words are an expression of feeling. Action is an expression of feeling.

Color and form is an expression of feeling. It really taught me something very important. And I know you're a musician.

I would say when you're playing by yourself or performing, you are translating your feelings into this phenomenon. Yes. You know, you're using an instrument or your voice or something, but still it's coming out and it's a wonderful way of expressing.

I would ask you, do you express your feelings best when you're speaking or when you're doing music or when you're listening?

Yeah. I mean, that would depend on the medium. That depends on the instrument, like what I'm more comfortable with. Right.

So that goes directly to your point about men speaking a foreign language, you know, finding feeling based words to be a foreign language. Because my first instrument was the drums.

And that is a very, I would say, passionate instrument anyways, because it's very physical, it's very aggressive. At least it can be. Right. So I can. I'm having, you know, kind of memories come back to me right now.

Different times that I played when I did feel, you know, that I was expressing myself through that instrument. Now the. I would have the same intensity of expression through vocals and acoustic guitar when I do both at the same time.

But again, that's because I've done that a lot as well. But the first instrument was. Was drums. So. Yeah, definitely. But earlier on in life it was probably more musical than words.

Now, you know, I've grown in that area a little bit and I do feel far more confident and comfortable with feeling based words. But it wasn't always like that. It was a struggle.

Isn't that interesting? Because now a part of your profession is. Is words podcast. Right. So you're doing words.

But when I tell you, when you said drums, what do I think of Africa? That's where life began. I think of Africa. And what was the first expression of feelings? Words. Drums. Exactly, drums. And it's not just Africa.

It's also other, what we might dare call primitive societies. That would be South America, Native Americans, so called Indians.

Sure.

Then we have the difficulty with words that haven't been said. I as a man have to engage the business of words. I have to find words in this very conversation. I have to find words that do justice in my writing.

And when I'm writing, it has to be reviewed. It makes sense to me, but it doesn't make sense to somebody else.

Right.

So the trouble is, I mean here with words, the best words, people with feelings are musicians and artists of other sorts and poets. I mean, we have poetic license, don't we? What does that mean? Means that I can use the word ain't or I can swear or something when I'm writing a poem.

Yeah, well, that's what makes those folks speaking feelings. Then I might be in trouble because I say something that offends, right?

Yeah. I mean if you are speaking to a person or a group of people, the. The risk for offense definitely increases.

But with poetic license, you know, whether you're writing a song, where you're writing poetry, there's a bit more grace. I suppose that mediums is different. It's not viewed the same. People don't take the same level of offense.

Exactly. Deb and I have this little moment at the end of the day and the moment is when we see the sun failing.

And I remember a poem, a poet said he worked all day long to find phraseology that would describe the end of the day. And he Came up with waning dusk. Two words. I mean, here's a poet that spends all day long trying to find what. How he can describe the end of the day.

Waning dusk.

Yeah.

Now, that may not translate to everybody else, but when I heard that and when we. We say that to each other, it's like, yeah, this is a feeling. This is not about the sun.

Yeah.

It's about how I feel inside.

Yeah. Just as we're talking about it, I'm thinking of the doing that. I do like putting things together. I like to create.

You know, one of the things that comes to mind is a charcuterie board that I made for Dana as a Christmas gift. It took me several months because I couldn't dedicate, you know, days. It was, you know, pockets of time. But I was. I'm very anal. I'm very. I'm not.

I don't. I don't know if I'm a perfectionist, but I think I'm definitely close.

Let's. Let's go with quality. I like that.

Yeah. So. But that's. That, for me, was definitely an expression of what I felt. It was an expression of what I felt for her.

But even more than that, it was an expression of what I want to see in the world. And that's what you just said. It's quality. You know, I want to see something that. I want to be creative.

So I express my desire for, you know, creativity. I express that. Just enjoyment of being able to make something out of nothing, Just turn an idea into reality.

But the way that it looks, the way that it feels, you know, that all matters very much to me. And that's. That's expression of feeling.

Absolutely. Of the five senses, or we might say the six senses we have. I probably have maybe two. They would be auditory first.

That is definitely my most important sense. And olfactory and gustatory and other senses are. But Deb, I. I think she has 10 or 12. So she is very, very sensual.

So once in a while, we do this thing where I will just hold her hand, and I say, did you hear that? Well, she translated the. The kinesthetic feeling of. Of my hand on her to how she thought about it.

Yep. I get that.

You know, we will look at a sunset or something, and it's like, do you smell that? This is a kind of a funny way of looking at this whole thing. But it's. It's out of the realm of exact words, and it is poetic license.

Yeah. What do you see as the gap between men having that realization that Level of awareness, that level of.

Or the ability to recognize the importance of that. And what is the gap between them?

Struggling with words and then coming to that realization of that importance and maybe their lack of ability there and then finding growth in that, because you can't really grow in that area until you understand that the growth is actually necessary and the importance of it. So what do you see as the gap there?

Well, you run into what I think is the most important emotion that we have as people, men and women, and that is sadness.

So the task here is for a man to realize that what he did was approximate, not particularly adequate, maybe perhaps entirely wrong, and to be disappointed in what he said without despairing over it. To be disappointed is to think, I said something, I did something, but it didn't seem to work. It felt right inside of me.

But when it came out with words I didn't communicate, I offended somebody. I said something that now I don't believe anymore, but I said it at the time. And then I look back at what I said, and I think, why did I say that?

That was stupid. So instead of looking at it as stupid or wrong, it's like, oh, I'm disappointed that I, I said that. And, and that's not really quite what I meant.

I mean, just yesterday we were in another office and Deb said, well, a couple of days ago you said such and such. And I'm thinking, did I? I, I, I don't believe that now.

I mean, so then it's like I have to realize, okay, what I said at the time, I felt it was the best thing that I could do. Now I look back at what I might have said, and I didn't even remember what it was.

Right.

Think I just disappointed that now I'm. Am I different? No. My feelings are the same, but the words are different.

So at first it's, it's being able to be disappointed, but in myself without despairing and without being depressed and without being stupid. Secondly, I have to be able to realize that when I communicate, it's always approximate.

And I almost certainly will fail to adequately communicate to somebody else from time to time, and they will be disappointed in me.

Right. There's a big cultural element to this as well, though. Hey. And societal.

Oh, gosh, yes.

Yeah. In that.

I mean, I talk about this often, but I think it's, it's pretty common knowledge to, to understand that men simply aren't raised to talk about their feelings.

There is absolutely the cultural relevant. I mean, when, when you and I grew up, if we were in athletics, if we were in academics, if we were in music or whatever, we were in.

This wasn't the time to say, I'm hurt, I'm sad, I'm disapp. I. I'm not sure what I'm doing. This wasn't ever an acceptable part of being a male.

It was competition, it was success, it was occasional anger, but yes. So the cultural factor is huge.

And I'm not sure if that's Western or if it's male in general, but since I was raised in a Western society, I would say this society of ours, especially for us men, has not inculcated inside a sense of the value of words. Expressing my feelings.

Yeah, From. I mean, I've have traveled some. From what I've seen, it does seem to be a Western culture thing.

I haven't spent much time in Europe, but from the time that I have spent there and from the conversations I've had with people who have spent more time there, it's. It's an older world, like. It's like they've had more time to mature in. In a way than we have.

And I see that in the way that men specifically communicate who are. Who are from there and, well, maybe who have never left as well. And I think our culture is going in that direction. I mean, what do you see that.

Obviously you're seeing more men than I.

Am going in that direction, but I don't think we men are adequately prepared for that. We don't have a vocabulary for feelings in particular. And so we need a broad scope of.

How can I begin to enter this whole realm of telling you how I feel. Yeah, I'm reminded of. I was in Spain. Well, this would be southern Europe particularly, which is definitely more feeling oriented. I'm. I met.

I'm in a grocery store and there's a man in front of me telling a story. He's speaking in Spanish. I don't know what he's saying.

And he tells the story, starts crying, brings out his handkerchief, wipes his nose, and he keeps telling the story. And he gathers his food together and walks out. I think this would not happen in America. Well, yeah, it's like, what's wrong with this guy?

I mean, he needs to be in the hospital or something.

Yeah, right away I'm. I'm picturing that same. Yeah, right away I'm picturing that same example here and what that would be like and. And how the.

The people, at least that I know would.

Would react and how I would have reacted maybe 10 or 15 years ago and to be hon weird now when I am in situations like that because I, I sense that, I sense that, that there's something, you know, I've become deeper through the experience that I've had in life and I, I feel differently than I, than I did 10 to 15 years ago about things like that. I see, you know, depth in that response, I see beauty in that response or I see the pain in that response. What, whatever that situation is. Right.

Specifically, I think back several years ago now when I was going through a fair bit in life. This would have been about, about eight years ago now. And I was going to a Costco in, in bc.

I had recently just moved back to BC and there was a mother with her maybe seven, eight year old daughter outside of this Costco basically begging. They didn't look homeless to me. There was something about them that just told me that there was something different about their situation.

They weren't the just random homeless person begging was going to go buy cigarettes or drugs, alcohol, whatever. Right. I just felt different about it. And I, I remember going in and I could not leave without getting them. Just I wanted to get them a gift card.

And I specifically asked the store. It was actually, no, it wasn't a Costco. It was a, a President's Choice, like a Dominion type type store, a massive grocery store.

And I asked the lady of customer service, can this be used for alcohol or anything else? And it was like she knew. We just looked at each other in that moment. So I, I get them to gift card, I give it to them.

But when I got in the car and was about to leave, I, I couldn't drive away right away. I was just absolutely brokenhearted. And to me, in that moment, that was two things. It was, you know, I was separated at the time.

I was feeling somewhat lonely. I, I didn't have anywhere for the love that I had within me, that I didn't have anywhere for that to go.

And that, I don't know that feels even weird to say that, but that's the truth of that. And I felt something different with those two people there as I mentioned, but I don't really know what that was in that moment. I was overwhelmed.

Now looking back on it, I can see that through all these different challenges that I've been through, I've grown, I've become a deeper person. I can, I'm more empathetic. I can sense what other people are feeling and I can empathize.

But in that moment, man, I was just, I was just overwhelmed with what was going on there.

You have a love problem. That's what that is. When you tell me that wonderful story, I. I have become emotional. Why? Why am I emotional? Which means I'm tearful because I see it.

Okay? The words are describing it, but it's. But it's beyond the words. I see this woman, I see her daughter. You know, I see cost or whatever.

I mean, I see the picture here. Right. So what you have done here is you have painted a picture with the words. And how did you do? Edit? Not too bad.

Perfect.

Not even close. So, I mean, you could think, okay, you know, if we, after this conversation, you might think, oh, I could have said this or could have said that.

Sure, yeah.

But what you did was just fine. But it. But it was poetic. It was artistic. That's probably the better word here. And so men don't, by and large, know how to do this.

Frequently I feel myself. In fact, probably every day, I feel myself coming to tears or becoming emotional, which means some kind of combination of joy and sadness.

When I'm sitting with a man, and very often a man, the very first time will start crying as he's telling me this story, and he says, why am I crying? I don't know why I'm crying. Well, he's crying because he felt safe to just feel. And the feelings led to emotion, right?

Yeah, the lack of.

Yeah, the lack of safety like that, that is a big reason why I think men are slow at growing in this area or simply don't or don't want to, because that's dangerous.

I mean, you could be completely emasculated by the other men around you or even by some women who don't appreciate that skill, that ability, that maturity.

Exactly. Safety first. That's the most important thing in life. I have to feel safe.

My brain, not my mind, but my brain, is always safety first and pleasure second. So, yeah, if I don't feel safe with it, then if I don't feel safe with it, what's going to happen? I'm going to avoid it. I'm going to get angry.

I'm going to find some addiction. I'm going to run away from it, or I'm just going to shut down.

Right, right. So there's risk there for a man to even try to use words to explain how he feels, to talk about how he feels. What do you see as the benefits?

Like, what is it that would make men want to take that risk? Why should we take that risk?

Well, first, let me say, what does that risk mean? And how can I get a handle on it? We talk about what's called locus of control.

Am I controlled by external events or am I controlled by my internal thoughts and feelings? Ideally, you should be internally controlled. So what I say to men is, do this, speak how you feel, and then say, I'm not doing very well here.

Let me try that again. I don't think I was very successful in what I said or please forgive me, but I just need a moment here. I just need.

I need just to think about what this is or maybe sometimes, you know, my friend, in this moment, I'm so overwhelmed with what I'm feeling, I'm not able to put it in words. I'm just going to go get a cup of coffee and I'll be right back. What that does is internalize the potential external. This is not safe.

Yeah, it doesn't feel safe. But I can feel safe inside with who I am. Then I'm safe with how I feel, even though I'm not safe with the words. So I just call it for what it is.

That's the beginning. Go ahead.

Yeah, you're speaking to understanding the process of how to do that, how to grow in that area. But why would a man want to do that? Like, what does that lead to for a man? If I'm going to become better with words, what does that bring me?

What does that give me? What. What do I see as the outcome? Because I'm taking a risk, so why would I do that?

Success is the. The basic word. Success in work, success in money, success in play, success in relationships. All of them based on words to some degree or another.

And of course, particularly with women or with people in general, words are extremely important. So I find some success. What does that mean? It means I successfully communicated to you who I am. And if I do that, you will see me, you will value me.

And I need your valuing of me. I can't seek it. It's not that I have to have you as an individual person, value me, but I need people to value me.

And if they just see what I am, I'm Ron Johnson, I have a PhD or something. You're not seeing me, right? You see me when you see how I feel.

Right.

So the value there is I feel safer with who I am, and I feel safer with what I say or what I do.

Talk to me a little bit about the distinction between a job and a profession, because I really like how you make that point in balls, because I will.

I mean, it comes across as common sense to Me, you, when you say that you are, you find a, you know, a work that is productive and a positive impact on the world and deeply satisfying and hopefully, you know, financially successful as well. But in finding a profession, you are going through the process of professing yourself and finding or at least exploring areas of interest.

Can you talk to that, that point a bit?

Well, I'll talk to you about somebody that I saw yesterday morning who is in a job that he doesn't like and that he's very good at. What this guy really is, is a cop. Some years ago he was a police officer and loved it.

He talked about going to what's called here In America, Section 8 housing, which was housing for people that are in poverty in some way or another. And very often these are dangerous places. He said, I felt so safe walking into what seemed like a dangerous situation. I felt like this was who I am.

But through some chain of events, the whole cop thing, the whole police thing for him didn't work out. He got in the wrong place and this didn't fit for him, so he got out of it. And now he's working as an electrician.

And he's good at it, but he doesn't like it.

It's not a profession, so it's a job so many people are in that it reminds me of somebody who was formerly a nurse and then he got into sales with pharmaceuticals and he was making $300,000 a year and he hated his job. So what's he going to do, go back into nursing and make 40 or 50?

Well, no, because I've got the car and I've got the wife and I've got the kids and I've got to pay for all of this stuff. So men get caught in a job that they don't like. And so professing means what is inside of me.

And inside of me, of course, is this feeling thing, which is not words, but it's expressed in words in some way or another. So if I try to help men find their profession and what they. How they should be professing themselves, I have to help them know. How do you feel?

What stirs you? I'm reminded of the story that you talked about, you know, with this homeless woman or whatever in B.C. you were stirred inside.

Now, what does that say? That says that's an evidence of your profession. You ought to be doing that. You got to be using that inside feeling in some way or another, Right?

So would you say that one of the, I suppose, risks or maybe consequences of men not Finding courage with words is then to find themselves in situations that are just not a good fit, not happy, not healthy, not satisfying, whether that be relationships or work.

I can't tell you the number of people that when I probe them, they pretty much say I shouldn't have been married, or I was married prematurely, I was married because we got pregnant, or I was married because this woman was attractive, or I was married because of some reason, but I now look back and realize I shouldn't have been married.

Right.

Well, I wasn't wise enough at the time to admit to that.

Yeah. That goes back to what you said about the locus of control.

Like if a man does not understand and is guided by, in internal reactions, like, you know, his own emotions, his own thoughts, understanding himself, then he's going to end up in situations like that.

Exactly. He's going to do something because it looks right, it sounds right, it doesn't feel right.

Yeah. Guided by his circumstances, you know, rather than being proactive, I suppose he's reactive.

Yes. Right. And he's looking at the data, but he's not looking at the feelings inside.

And the feeling, this whole word of feelings which we should maybe talk about some. The time is innocuous. It doesn't have an exact definition, but it's very, very real.

That's why when we speak or when we act or when we do something, it's always a reflection of how we feel.

Yeah.

There's a, There's a story that you share in your book that I, I really enjoyed and I've known you for a little while, and I'd never heard this story before, and I'm sure there are others, but the story of Ron's spaceship, I, I'd love for you just to, to relay that, just however briefly you want to, because I think that was such a. Of you professing yourself, trying to figure out what it is that you're actually interested in. Yeah. And you're, you're cracking up laughing already.

Can you tell me a little, a little bit. Share a little bit of that story?

Well, first, let me just tell you, when you tell me that, I mean, this was. Okay, I'm 81. This was. I was probably eight or nine. So this is like 80, 70 years ago, but I can feel that moment.

And so that's, that's the first thing that happens to me. I actually feel something in it. It's. It feels joyful. Yes. My brother was much brighter than me and he got into early astronomy.

I, by the way, learned a few things. I, I Knew all the nine planets right off the bat when I was probably six or seven years old, so I was interested in that.

And they talked about space travel. And my brother was theoretical so he could look at this theory. And he read sci fi, which I didn't particularly read. And I thought, okay, I.

I can build a spaceship. So I didn't know anything about building a spaceship. I had no idea that, you know, you had this or that or whatever.

I just thought I, I could do this. And I told my mother and my dad, I'm gonna go build a spaceship. And they said, fine, go ahead and do that, Ronnie.

So I put together this spaceship out of what? Out of wood and nails. And I nail this thing together and working on it.

And I talked to my mom, she said, well, it looks like you're really coming along there, Ronnie. That's just great. It wasn't criticized. I mean, it wasn't say, you shouldn't do this. This is stupid. You can't make a spaceship.

I even asked my second grade teacher, by the way, second grade teachers didn't have first names at that time. Her name was Ms. Curran. I'm sure she has a first name. And I never knew it. And I asked Ms. Curran if she would be so kind as to be in my spaceship.

And she said, absolutely, I'd be glad to come along. I'm recruiting people. And you know, Matt, I don't know what happened to that. I don't remember what happened to it.

Yeah.

And it's not about the wood or the nails. It's about how I felt.

Yeah.

And how I was given permission to just feel and do this thing that we could say is stupid. Well, stupid if you're probably not going to get to Mars, you know, with this, but not stupid whatsoever.

Yeah.

It was a reflection of how I felt. And I. My nature, much more than my brother's, which is ideational. My nature is productive. So I'm not just going to think about this.

I'm going to do it.

Yeah. Now, some people might hear that story and think, okay, well, you know, if I'm. If I'm in a.

If I'm a parent, if I'm a guardian, if I'm an older brother or sister, whatever, you can encourage that type of exploratory, creative behavior. But it's mostly just fun. But there's a deeper meaning to that. Is there none.

There is a deeper meaning. And I could profess myself into this. Now, I'm not an astronaut, nor is. Is that my skill set.

Yeah.

But I professed myself in that moment.

And I think in this whole matter of work, somebody can profess himself in a work and actually max it out and then take some kind of a hard left or obliged left and do something else and profess himself. But he's always professing himself.

Right.

So what, what do you see as the connection between the work you're doing now and the work you have done for the, you know, you, what you would call your life's work? And that one specific example of professing yourself, I mean, is it the ability to explore and create?

Because, I mean, obviously that is what you're doing. When you work as a psychotherapist, psychologist, you are helping other people to explore and create themselves. Right.

Create new lives for themselves. I mean, I, it doesn't feel like a bit of a stretch to me at all. What do you see as the, the connection there?

Well, when you said that, I, I got this picture of how my professions have changed.

I, I was an astronaut here early when I was 7 or 8 years old, and then I was in math for a while and I was professing myself in math, and math got too complicated for me and I couldn't understand it. You know, you get to a, a class in, in college where math has no numbers, and it's like, not me.

And I professed myself in the ministry for a while, and I have professed myself for the last 50, 60 years in this activity. Now my profession is moving in a slightly different direction. The direction is I want to profess myself in my writing and in my teaching.

In other words, I want to pass what I know forward. And by the way, there are a lot of things that I don't know, but I do know a lot of things.

Yeah.

And that's what my writing is about, and that is what my psychotherapy is about, and that is what the training is about.

I frequently say to the man in front of me, listen, I, I want to teach you some of what I have learned over time, and hopefully you can learn from other people as well, because I, I will die. And so my profession now is passing it forward.

Yeah. And that was obviously one of the reasons behind Balls, the book that was just recently published in January.

How would you summarize that, that book in a couple sentences?

Well, I would summarize it with a key word, which is courage. The subtitle of the book is Men Finding Courage with Various Elements in Life.

Courage, by the way, as you might know, comes from the French word coor, which means heart. So it's to have courage is to trust my heart, to trust my feelings, and again, that includes emotion. But it's much, much more than just emotion.

It's who I am as a person. So I would say this is an example here of how can I help people, by the way, not just. Not just men, but women as well. Be courageous.

I got to tell you, my wife just sees women in her practice, and she has had several times where women say, I'd like this book. This is me. I can use this. And Deb says I should write a book called Ballsy Women. Right? What sense does that make?

So this balls thing is being who you are, communicating who you are, and making a difference in the world. That's really what this is about, right?

You talk a lot about honesty in the book as well. You see those two things as being very tied, closely tied together. Obviously, it takes courage to be honest.

Yes, it takes courage to be honest.

So I first have to be honest with myself, honest with what I feel, knowing that my feelings are not words or action, but they are deeply inside and they are perfect. I have to be honest with. I'm not sure how I'm going to say this. I'm not sure this is going to work out. Or honest.

Like, I said this, but that's not quite true, or I did this, and that's not the right thing. So I have to first be honest with myself, and then I have to be honest with other people. That's where a lot of us men fail.

The. The honesty piece. For me, as.

As I was reading it, I remember thinking a lot of men will probably see themselves as honest, you know, because they would go to. Well, I don't lie. I'm not someone who's trying to deceive anybody.

But I think what we often don't realize, and hopefully some men, some men do, is that we are deceiving ourselves. Right?

Because if we're not honest with ourselves, if we have a feeling that we try to suppress or ignore, or even if we think that we can push down the feelings that we do have and just ignore them and move forward, we're deceiving ourselves. And that's probably the worst type of deceit that we could have, because then it goes back to what we were talking about, locus of control.

You're not trusting yourself. You don't know yourself enough, and you're going to go through life and end up in situations that you don't want to be in. I know what that's like.

I've been There. Right. And that's why I talk about this.

One of the reasons why I do the podcast and work with men is I want them to understand how to avoid that amount of pain.

Because when you understand yourself, there is something so beautiful about being able to learn the different aspects of yourself that are unique and some of the reasons why people might not like you, as we've talked about often in therapy, but then you learn to appreciate yourself, and that, in turn helps you grow in confidence. Because I don't think I've ever been as confident in who I am and in what I can do than I am now.

And looking back 10, 15 years ago, I was in positions of leadership. I was on stages. I was in front of people, and people would say, well, of course he's confident. And I was, to an extent.

But I was more confident in what I was doing, not so much in who I was specifically. So whether or not I knew that I was in the right relationship or in the right position or whatever, at that point in time, I.

I probably was just going through the motions to an extent, because obviously, you know, you know, I went through a separation, divorce. I. I left the ministry, and I'm now doing something quite different in marketing, communications, and, you know, with the podcast. So.

Well, honesty is the. The key factor. And you're. You. You just said, I have learned to be honest with myself.

Yeah.

You know, man, sometimes I will say to men something like this, you know, Jack, you're a very intelligent person. You're a good person, you're an honest person, you're a faithful person.

You have made a contribution to the world, and you're not honest with your feelings. And it's remarkable the number of men that say, yes, that's exactly true.

So a man can be honest and not going to steal, not going to rob, and not going to deceit other people, but he's not yet honest with how he feels, let alone being able to say how he feels.

Yeah. I think that was the ultimate point that I was trying to make, is that I know all too well what that is like because. Well, because of my upbringing.

I'll stick to a specific example with the relationship. Because of my upbringing, I didn't want to go through divorce. I didn't want to admit to myself that I had made a mistake, that we had made a mistake.

You know, that wasn't the right relationship for either of us. We weren't a good match. Right. But we didn't have the support to know the difference and so on.

But I think There was a part of me that knew, but I didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to try and put that into words. I didn't know how. I was afraid of the outcome, so I wasn't honest.

Putting something into words, which is always the challenge. And if I can keep in mind, when I put my feelings into words, it's always approximate. Sometimes it's dead wrong.

I have to say something out loud to realized, no, that's not quite right. I need to change that. And. And to say something that's really important is going to be paradoxical.

A math teacher once said to me, one of the most important things in math is the paradox of math. You do this and do that, and they don't seem to fit together, but they work.

So yesterday I was visiting with, a couple days ago with a man who recently lost his wife. He had taken care of her for a number of years, and he said, with some help with me, he said, I'm glad she's gone. I miss her terribly.

I would give my left arm if she could be back for just one hour.

And it's such a relief that I don't have to take care of her anymore, because he was taking care of her with 24 7, and so he's feeling both of these things. I'm glad she's gone. I wish she were here. Both true.

Yeah.

That's part of the difficulty with this whole feeling thing. How can I hold those two things and realize they fit together in some way, but they fit together musically, poetically.

Yeah, that is. It is a challenge, and it doesn't happen overnight. It's. It's not easy, but I mean, that's. That's growth. That's the nature of personal growth, I find.

And you see, this whole thing is so, so related to words.

If I can get in mind that my words, especially my words about feelings are always imperfect and that I can get better, then I will come back to the word you use a moment ago. I feel confident. Yeah, I feel arrogant. I feel confident because the more confident I feel, the more humble I feel.

So there's no false humility here at 81, I realize so much of what I don't know, what I haven't learned yet and what I'm not good at, but I'm confident in what I'm doing because I can say, hey, my bad. I'm sorry. Shouldn't have done that. That was wrong.

Yeah.

And through all the exploring that you've done, including building a spaceship back at age 8 or 9, you've figured out, you know, what it is that you like, what it is that you don't like, what it is that you're good at. What is it you're not good at. Knowing those things does not make you arrogant. It makes you confident. It makes you a man who understands himself. Well.

Exactly.

Well, Ron, people can find your book at your website, Midland Psychological.com and the book is available through a couple of different online retailers, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Through the publisher as well, Whip and Stock wipf. Yes, that's correct. Okay.

Yes.

Well, Ron, thank you again for your time. The second time that you've, you've done me the pleasure of coming on the podcast. And we're gonna do a couple more over the next few weeks.

On the other, I suppose, Subtopics of Balls of Work Wine Pseudonym for Addictions and women.

Got it.

I'm looking forward to it.

All right, thanks a lot.

Thank you for listening. I hope you found some value in this episode.

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