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Upgrade Your Emotional Operating System: Understanding and Prioritizing Men’s Mental Health - David Milan

Do you want to break free from the burden of societal expectations and improve your mental health as a man? Are you searching for a solution that can help you achieve a greater sense of self-awareness and overcome the stigma surrounding mental healt...

Do you want to break free from the burden of societal expectations and improve your mental health as a man? Are you searching for a solution that can help you achieve a greater sense of self-awareness and overcome the stigma surrounding mental health? Look no further. In this episode, our guest David Milan will share the key to unlocking improved mental well-being and a deeper understanding of oneself. Discover how challenging stigma and seeking support can lead to transformative results in your mental health journey.

"Expressing emotions is vital for mental health. Suppression is depression. It's time to break the stigma and become more self-aware." - David Milan

 

In this episode, you will be able to:

  • Unpack the intricacies of male identity and its dilemmas in a rapidly evolving society.

  • Reveal the veiled stigma attached to men's mental health and explore avenues for garnering support.

  • Unearthen the virtues of emotional evolution and its role in holistic personal development.

  • Decipher the cryptic language of feelings and emotions, easing their navigation.

  • Investigate the necessity of self-awareness and the significance of reaching out for assistance.

My special guest is David Milan

Here’s David Milan, a passionate advocate of men’s well-being and an expert in rapid response crisis intervention. His own confronting experiences with childhood trauma ignited his journey into this field. David's unique strength lies in his ability to bridge the gap between deep-seated societal expectations and the often unmet emotional needs of men. His emphasis on understanding feelings and the core self has been a beacon of enlightenment for many. David arms men with the tools they need to adapt, evolve and thrive, encouraging them to explore a realm of mental health often left uncharted.

 

Guest Contacts for David Milan:

Website

https://mymilan.com.au/

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100015565171464

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/company/your-milan/

 

 

The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 - Exploring Male Identity
00:01:10 - Meeting Needs and Evolving
00:02:19 - The Importance of Emotional Adaptation
00:03:40 - Balancing Responsibilities and Personal Growth
00:04:02 - Introduction to David Milan
00:16:03 - Random Fact: Hearing Dog Whistles
00:16:46 - Growing Up without Shoes
00:19:07 - Passion for Helping People
00:21:28 - Stigma around Men's Mental Health
00:25:09 - Emotional Evolution for Men
00:30:22 - The Influence of Early Identity
00:31:59 - Upgrading Our Operating System
00:35:09 - Taking Things Personally
00:36:59 - The Connection Between Identity and Roles
00:39:48 - Redefining Identity
00:45:15 - Understanding Feelings as States
00:46:26 - Importance of Identifying Feelings
00:48:12 - Building Resilience through Feeling
00:49:01 - Artificial Regulation of Emotions
00:52:53 - Overcoming Vulnerability through Confidence
00:58:47 - Old Habits and Patterns
00:59:23 - The Impact of Science
01:00:27 - Evolving with New Information
01:02:17 - Emotional Regulation and Self-Awareness
01:05:25 - There's Always Hope

 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] So, um, male identity is a very interesting subject. Okay. And, uh, if you wanna broach that safely, um, I, I'm more than happy to, to have a, have a look at that, that area because a lot of lads are coming to me and LEDs are coming to me and saying, David, you know, I dunno where I fit. And, uh, a lot of our young people with social media especially, uh, are really not knowing where they fit because of, of what's portrayed out there.

And so, it's a very interesting area. It's a very powerful area. And I believe that as humans we evolve not just physically, but we evolve mentally, emotionally, spiritually, culturally. And this evolution has been a very quick process in the life. A hundred years. And there's a bit of a [00:01:00] lag time for a lot of, especially a lot of older lads who are really, you know, providing and protecting and procreating.

Although there are, there are resources and there are needs, and we can provide resources, although we also have to meet needs and there's, there's, there's at least seven kinds of needs that are necessary to me. So I'm happy that that's kind of an area that, that, that we get asked a lot about. And I see a lot of clients in that particular area.

So it's up to you. I'll let you run the show. I'll just answer questions that I'm really good at that. So, identity as in, you know, where do we fit? How do men fit in the world since we're Yeah. How do we, how do we fit? And not, not in a, in politically correct way. I'm not like that. I'm about, I'm about adaption.

Right. Yeah, the scrolls are changing and yes, adaption. That's a i I see for a lot of guys. It's like, well, [00:02:00] yes, well wait. Used to was really clear cut. It was really, yeah, that's what I scroll. And it's not now it's it's not. And if you don't adapt, one of my sayings is if you don't adapt, you become extinct and extinction in relationship because as I said, I'm an intimate partner, profiler.

So extinction in relationship, intimate relationship, which is different to other relationships, it's different to attachment, it has a different kind of coding. So is is really necessary. Otherwise, we keep going out with the same person with a different face. As my coach, David Schneider says, Dr. David Schneider.

So in reality, adaption is really the key to survival. And we're talking about emotional adaption here. How do we adapt emotionally? That is the question that I could ask David. How do I level up? How do I make that leap from, from, you know, going out, working on the mines and doors, you know, gonna, [00:03:00] Bunnings dunno if you've got Bunnings over there, but you know, never heard the one hardware stores.

Right? Really big one. Big change. So like that. Anyway, I'll let you, uh, ask,

here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential growing to the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities, working, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves? Well, that's the big question In this podcast, we'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man podcast.

Welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast. Your home for all things, man, husband, and father. Big shout at Fallible Nation, our private community. You guys make these all possible and a warm welcome to our first time listeners. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. Give us a chance. My name is Brent, and today my special guest is David Milan, the behaviorist, all the way from Perth, Australia.[00:04:00]

David, welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast. Thank you, Brent. It's wonderful to be here. David, I appreciate the time difference. I know you're up early, so thank you for taking the time to film with us. Uh, it's always fun to coordinate with you guys over across the pond and figure that hying out to record good shows.

David, we'd like to start pretty light here so we have the silly trivia question of the show. Okay. So, okay. What animal has the longest tongue in relation to his body length? Is it a, an ant, eater, b, a chameleon? C a sun bear, r d a Hummingbird. Hmm. I'll go the hummingbird. All right. Now you guys know the rules.

Play along with us. Wherever you're listening, in the car or at home or whatever you're listening to us on, don't cheat. Don't go ahead and look it up. Just wait for the end of the show. Now, David, I don't do big introductions, so in your own [00:05:00] words today, who is David Milan? Who is David Milan? That's an excellent question.

Uh, it's an identity that's really my identity and that's come from a long history, uh, starting maybe even before the womb, uh, in my epigenetics and going all the way through to the person I am today as I build that identity from original encoding, which is my early life stuff, all the way through my adolescent encoding, which is my well, interesting stuff.

And now it's my adult identity. So David Milan is someone who is very passionate about helping men and, and, and ladies, anybody realize their true potential. Understand how we got here, how he actually came to be who we are, and of course, make that changes or make the changes that they want to make that are perfect and right for [00:06:00] them.

So that's who David Milan is. This, this person that has gone through a lot. I have some rules in life. One of my rules is if I haven't done it, I don't teach it. So it's all about for me. David Milana is that person who is here to yeah, share the knowledge around the world of the things that, uh, that help us make that emotional evolution, that jump into being the perfect person that we want to be, not only for ourselves, but for our partner.

We have to look after number one first. A bit like putting on the oxygen mask in the plane, although this one's not going down. Some guys say to me, Hey, Dave, I'm, you know, arranging deck chairs on the Titanic while my partner's rowing away in a life raft. Well, let's, let's change that. Let's not make that happen.

Let's level up together. Let's work together and let's get along together and have empathy and compassion for each other. So David Milan is passionate about that. Well, that's me. [00:07:00] That's it, Brent. That's, that's my introduction. Fair enough. Fair enough. I love it. I love listening to people that introduce themselves.

'cause I just don't feel like you can sum up somebody reading their accolades. Uh, I get to research all my guests before the show, and it's like, yeah, but that doesn't really tell our audience who they're right. Everybody wants to put their accolades and their best foot forward on their profiles and mm-hmm.

Yeah. David, if you could have a conversation with anybody in history past president, who would it be and why? I think I would love to have a conversation with Mahut Mahi because he was able to be what we would call non-reactive. Uh, when we train, we talk about non-reactive behavior, but he was truly non-reactive.

I mean, even when there was such violence and distress around him, uh, in an occupation of a country, he was able to be [00:08:00] empowered and, and, and emanate that that strength, but at the same time be nonviolent at the same time, be able to be, be truly who he was and that, that, that, that, that energy that emanates from him.

And his wisdom was absolutely incredible. And I mean, he used to, he used to wear a loin cloth or, or let's call a doty in India. He'd wear a doty just like everybody else, you know, he'd be bare chested and he'd be spinning on a, on a spinning wheel clothing. So he really lived what he said. You know, when he said, he said, don't eat sugar to, to a Ladd who was like five or six years old, he spent three months not eating sugar.

So that's someone I'd really love to, to, you know, to, to understand, to really get to know how you go from just saying it to doing it and doing it in a way that projects, that aura of confidence, that projects that, that, that, that energy of [00:09:00] strength. But at the same time, strength doesn't mean aggression.

Strength means being able to be true to oneself and stick by one's convictions without doing things that impose on other people's liberties and freedom. So I'd love, just talk to Mahatma Gandhi and have a great conversation around some chai tea, uh, straight off, off the, uh, straight outta the, the, the bucket there.

What's your thoughts about that? I know, I like it. I like it. I, you know, it's actually become one of my favorite questions to ask people ask, just because ask A, it's always an interesting answer, and B, it just, it helps you connect with those people. It's like, oh, okay. You know, that, that helps you see where someone's coming from and, uh, some of what they value.

And I love that question for that reason. I, I had to start asking people. It's like, okay, other than Jesus,[00:10:00]

I get it. Yeah. That, that's a good one though, right? Yeah. Well, it's a great answer, but there's so many people that just like, I feel like I have to say Jesus. Right? Oh, you get it. So, David, what is a talent you have that someone might think is silly? Well, that's, that's a really, really hard one. I, I've never thought about that.

Um, a talent that I have that someone might think is silly, well, I don't know. You've, you've stumped me. Uh, I've been called silly a few times. In fact, I've been called a lot of things a few times, although it hasn't been related to my talents. Usually it's related to, to my language or conversation when I get it incorrect.

So perhaps, uh, a talent that, that is silly is, uh, I don't know. I, I, that's a good question. I can't answer that question. I don't think any of my talents [00:11:00] are silly, so I'd have to, I have to go through my list of talents. So if you've got a couple hours, we'll just, we'll do that. Or not just tuck that away in the way, in the back of the mind, you know.

Oh, well that's a good one. That's actually stumped me in the first person. That's stumped me, um, in a long, long time. Well done. Thank you. What purchase less did you make in the last year that's had the biggest impact on your life? A hundred dollars or less, I would have to say. Uh, a very small coffee machine.

Yeah, very small. Yeah. Yeah. One of those coffee plunger things. It's made a big impact in my life because I've been able to utilize it and, you know, something that I can utilize. I, I love things I can actually use, and my wife Deborah, is, is, is always thinking about, you know, how to make life easier. [00:12:00] And one of those little plunger things was really useful.

Um, for I like that. My life. It's, it's made a big difference. Yes. Oh, French presses are nice. That's what you're talking about, I think. Yes. Ah, yes, that's right. Yes. Yes. Putting labels to names in the morning, sometimes a bit difficult. Yeah, no worries. No worries. Sarah and I are both very big coffee people and we love our French press, and I think we probably have five different ways to make coffee in the house on average.

Uh, everything from those little K-cup things to Yeah, I had a guest actually send me, it's this tiny little looks, looks like a camping pot. Oh, is that the heating ones? Yeah. No, it's a, you gotta put it on the stove. It's a percolator, but like, it's a small percolator that does maybe a, a cup of coffee, but it makes a really, the way it's designed is it makes a really, like you're supposed to water it down.

You, you pour it in the milk, like espresso shots. Yep, yep, yep. Um, and it's like, oh, okay. Because, but he makes all his with [00:13:00] milk. It is something he learned, uh, in Ireland or somewhere. He, he has a place, Sarah just corrected me. Sorry. It's a Spanish coffee kind of thing that he learned over there. Uh, and he's very passionate about, so he's like, oh, I wanna send you, send you like coffee I wanna send you.

I was like, okay, send me nothing. But thank you. So we tried that out. It's very different kind of coffee, but pretty good. But I mean, we've, we've also made like Turkish coffee around the house where we just boil it on the stove with bunch of grounds in it. Yeah. Ladle it out. Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes. We, yeah, we have a very similar coffee history and in fact, I have it right here in my cup or glass and, uh, yeah, look, it, it, it keeps my heart beating.

Literally keeps my heart beating. I dunno if I can claim it literally does, but, uh, I'm sure. Well, and at this point, I, I'm, my wife likes to joke about being caffeinated for [00:14:00] everybody else's protection. I, I drink coffee because I'm, it makes me nicer to everybody else, so, wow. That, that's another, that's another, that's another quality of coffee that I hadn't thought.

I mean, I'm pretty a D H D technically for real, so. Mm-hmm. You know, this stuff. Oh, good. Me up. Slow me down. I, I actually had, uh, one of the jobs I had. I worked the night shift lead and I would come in and the guy I was taking over from who ran swing shift before me, he, I'd be like, Hey, you wanna, you know, do the handoff conversation we have.

He's like, go get your coffee first. It's gonna be a long night. Just go get your coffee first. We'll, we'll talk while you get coffee. That's it. That's it. It's a great conversation starter too. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Alright. I'm having a sip. David. Whatcha most proud of? Proud of? Mm-hmm. Uh, my 26 year [00:15:00] relationship with my partner.

That, that's been an interesting journey and I'm very proud of the fact that, yeah, we've managed to work a lot of things out. Congratulations. I would've to say that. Yeah, it's, our anniversary is actually yesterday. Wow. Congratulations. Yeah. Normally don't celebrate. We haven't, honestly, I think we celebrated one.

Oh. So now it's two. So went out yesterday for lunch. It's like, just cool. We're celebrating anniversary. This is amazing. And it was really nice, so thank you. It's very important. Yep. Sarah and I just celebrated our 23rd anniversary and back in April and that I, I'm likely to forget birthdays and holidays, but my anniversary's like the one thing, like, no, we're, we're gonna go do something.

It may be coffee, a coffee date, but, uh, that's, that's the [00:16:00] one I try and make sure I do. Hmm. Now what is one just random fact about you that people don't know? Like for me, I can hear dog whistles. Wow. It's impressive. Right? Holy. Just random's. Like, but they, they're actually like, it's, oh man, the cringe in my spine.

I had someone blowing old dog whistle next to me once and they're like, what's wrong with you? I'm like, blowing in that thing. You can't hear that. Oh yeah. No, I can and it hurts. Please stop. So random facts, that's really interesting. Uh, yeah. Well I'm now stuck on dog whistles. I'll have to get off that for a sec.

Uh, one something that people don't know about me. Mm-hmm. Oh wow. It's interesting 'cause when you see lots of people, usually they know a lot about you, but, uh, what they don't know possibly people don't know that, that I [00:17:00] grew up for some of my life in Malaysia as a young Ladd, and we grew up without a lot of the time.

We grew up without shoes. So I went to school without shoes. Or if they put shoes on you, you took 'em off. And one day I was running through, uh, like a little village, it's called a camp on. And um, I was running and I ran over glass, broken glass. I didn't cut my feet. And so I, I used to go everywhere without shoes in Malaysia for about three years and as much as I could anyway, because that's what you did.

So that's something people dunno, they don't dunno. A a about my early, my early life, uh, necessarily. And uh, yeah, I can't eat dog whistles, but I used to be able to run over broken glass. I'm gonna try that again. I dunno if it's gonna go well, push my luck on that one. No, I don't think so. It's not fun if you're wrong.

Yeah. Oh, I did. I ran over, ran over, like literally all this like broken. I just ran over it. [00:18:00] And I remember thinking at the time, wow, that's cool. Oh well you're a kid, you keep running, right? It's like, oh. Yes. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing. No worries. What is something that everybody should know about you before we dig into the meat of the show?

Everyone should know about me. Well, I'm passionate about, about helping people. You know, I'm passionate about helping people reach that, that potential. And I developed behavioral profiles in order to do that, or intimate behavior profiles over years in order to help people really identify their perfect and right person for them.

So they weren't going out with, you know, the same person with a different face, which is often what I get told David. The same person with a different face. Yes. That's your behavioral map. So, yeah. That, that's something I, I really think they should know that I'm passionate about that, passionate about helping people in relationship, [00:19:00] uh, to, to reach the potential that they wanna reach, whatever that might be.

That's really important to me. Okay. Okay guys, we've been getting to know David A. Little bit. Uh, in this first part of the show and the next part of the show, we're gonna dive into the Sigma around men's mental health. Mm-hmm. We're gonna roll to our sponsor and we'll be right back with more from David Milan, how well do you sleep at night?

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Sleep tomorrow. [00:20:00] Now let's go on to the show. Guys. Welcome back. In the first part of the show, we spent some time just getting to know David A. Little bit and seeing who he is and what he is about. In this part of the show, we're gonna talk about the stigma around men's mental health. If you've been a longtime fan of the show, you know, I try and bring on mental health professionals on a somewhat regular basis because this is something that I believe very passionately is not talked about in the Society of Men.

We don't talk about men taking care of themselves. We certainly don't talk about their mental health, and it's a very prevalent issue, especially in the world of men. A lot of men struggle with mental health in one form or another, and it can look like that's the scary thing, is it's not like one thing.

It can look and manifest in so many different ways, and a lot of men don't even know they're struggling with depression or a number of other things. And so I like to have these conversations and, and David's going to share with us today as we go through this and help hopefully, [00:21:00] you know, if one person hears this conversation and helps them move past that next hurdle, then that's, that's the greatest thing that can come out of this show is I love having this conversation.

'cause other people don't wanna, and we need to be having this conversation guys. So David, how does the stigma surrounding men's mental health contribute to underreporting and a lack of people, especially men seeking help for mental health? I think that's, that's from my experience. Uh, just to give you a very quick background, um, I do a lot of what we call on onsite on-call rapid response, uh, crisis intervention.

So I'm the lad that they put on a plane at short notice and fly outside or mine site or, you know, to, to a place that's fairly remote. And, and mostly staffed by males and the [00:22:00] underreporting of mental health. I, I believe it's, it's really around often the role that, that a man believes or perceives that he has.

And, you know, I'm what, 56 years old? So technically my role that I was taught was to be a provider, a protector, a procreator, and in my life, and I'm very honest about my early life, over early life childhood trauma. So in my life, my male role models weren't necessarily flash. So I learned early on that there's certain things that I do and I don't do, and one of those things that I was taught was, you, you, you keep it all inside.

Suppression is depression. Just know that there's a difference between feelings and emotion. Feelings of what [00:23:00] you get in the body. Emotion is the energy and motion of the feeling, and that's the stuff that accumulates. When that accumulates, we've gotta express that, that that emotion. Now, often when we express that emotion, it might be a little too late 'cause it might come out as aggression, for example.

So if we, we, we suppressing these things then our nervous system. It starts to not go too well. We start to have not so flash thoughts, not having flash feelings. And often as men, we're not aware of what we're feeling anyway. I mean, I'm a hying so technically, you know, identifying a feeling for me, I've got a range of five that I know of.

And identifying a feeling for me is, is quite difficult. And as a survivor of trauma complex childhood trauma, having awareness of my feelings was a really big thing when I started to, to, to learn how to do that. [00:24:00] And so there's the stigma around mental health is often two part A. We're, we're not, we're not necessarily encouraged to express, we're encouraged to do certain things, but b, also becoming aware of how we're actually feeling.

'cause nowadays in neuroscience, it's all about the fields. The physiology dictates the neurology. In other words, the body dictates how we experience the world because we're encoded from the top of the head to the soles of the feet. So it's not just a head thing. Now, often I have lads will come into me and they say, David, I'm a logical man.

I don't believe in feelings. I'm gonna say, well, it's all about the fields, bro. It's all about the fields. Uh oh. No, no. I wasn't taught that. I was taught that I had to do A, B, C, and D. That's cool. I get that. That's fine. Although, how's that working for you, bro? So mental [00:25:00] health has that component of what we were taught.

What what? There's an expectation, a societal expectation. And that expectation has now changed. It's changed dramatically. Like seriously. It's like if, if, and I work in nature. Okay. So I'm biologically correct and often not politically correct. Just know that. Please, if you are offended, uh, just talk to Brent about that.

You know, he'll send, you're on the wrong show if you're offended. We'll, we'll, we'll, yeah, we'll have a few discussions and probably won't go anywhere. But you know how it's, so at the end of the day, you know, we've got genetics right now. Genetics is slow evolution. You know, we've got this thing called epigenetics and it's kind of fast evolution and it's actually about incorporating the experiences of our ancestors and it's more about the feelings, about the experiences, about things.

And that's encoded into us. So we've got this very quick evolution that's going on at the moment where males are expected to level up emotionally and literally, I call it [00:26:00] leveling up. It's emotional evolution. Lets, and that evolution is, he is really noticed now much more than it was in the past. In the past.

You know, I'm a soldier, I'm ex-military. Man. Honestly, my lifespan would've been pretty short. Think about it, a hundred years ago, 200 years ago. Ex-military, very short lifespan, you know, good time, not a long time. So basically, I don't have to do much evolving really. I've just gotta do my function, whatever that is.

Genetically, yeah, nowadays our function's changing. Our identity's changing. So I have a couch in my office as you do, and, uh, lads will come in off the mines or whatever, and they'll say, David, you know, my divorce papers got slipped across the table this morning. I didn't know it was coming. I'm devastated.

So I definitely having a feeling, it's not a pleasant feeling. It's in the body too, having this feeling. And they're having some thoughts. They're not pleasant either, trust me, because our rates of suicide are a lot higher and a lot of that, that stuff may even [00:27:00] be unreported. Yeah. So there's Paul ad sitting there.

He's probably about 40 odd years old. Most of these men that, that, that are in this boat are about in their forties. And I'll say, Hey, buddy. Uh, so just tell me a bit about the relationship. What, what, what have you, what have you done? You know, what, what's been, what have you been doing? He goes, I'll all say, well, I went out and earned the dollars.

I put a big rock on her finger, you know, big diamond and fixed all the doors. Pretty good door fixer. And I've done all of these things I've protected and I've provided awesome. And I procreated, I'm a pretty good dad too. I put kids on the PlayStation, you know, and I watched them watch 'em play, uh, connected parenting.

Where, where, where is that one? Yeah, that's cool. And I talk like this in my office. Honestly, this is how I am. What you're seeing now is what you get in my office is how I'm, so, I was like, okay, that's cool. Uh, what about, uh, did you meet her emotional needs by any chance? And this is no word of a lie. They look at me and they go, what are they?

And they [00:28:00] go, bro, she was rowing away in the life raft a year ago or two years ago. Or, you're arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Of your relationship. So let's, let's change that. Let's make some changes because we are capable, we're capable of adaption, we're really good at that. Humans are good at that.

So we can adapt to this environment, this new environment, this new identities that we are now expected to have. And I'm gonna say this, she doesn't need you. She can do everything. She doesn't need us anymore. And I know it's hard to hear, but hey, she can do all the things we can do. So what is our role?

What does our role become? You know, in the old days, you know, I might've, I might've done A, B, C, and D and that was necessary because society was, was, was doing, you know, was expecting that. But nowadays, society says, you know what? Everyone can do everything. And if we are [00:29:00] not catching up with that process, We can become what I call obsolete.

I mean, this poor Ladd sitting there saying, well, David, I'm becoming extinct. Why is that? Well, it's not 'cause you're not a good Ladd. It's not 'cause you didn't try. It's because things are moving very rapidly. And to catch up with that, to stay in that old groove of that record, I was a DJ once, you know, nightclub dj and you've got these records, vinyl, those, you know, old plasticy things, you put the needle on and it goes around and around and around and gets to the end of the end of the, you know, the, the lp.

And if we stay in the same groove, doing the same thing on the same day, expecting a different result, we ain't gonna make it. So now it's about getting in touch with the fields. It's about getting in touch with who we really are inside. Who's the deepest part of who you truly are? Who's asked you that lately?

Hey bro. Tell me about the deepest part of who you truly are. Ah, I'm [00:30:00] a, I'm a minor. That's cool, but is that the deep part of who you truly are? Who are you? Look inside, let's do it. Let's do some drills, some, some state change drills. Let's do some stuff. Let's get in there and have a look. And getting down to that core, that core identity, and building from that core identity.

You know, we build from the core identity. Now our core, were created when we're young between the age of zero three. Guys, you are a blank slate. I hate to tell you, you had 60% roughly genetics. That's that's pre-coded. Yeah. So this is another real shock. Your earliest identity's, not your own man, your earliest identity is what is installed into you by others.

In other words, I call it core impressions. The impressions that your nervous system got about how people thought of you, how they experienced you. So if they're having a bad relationship, mom and dad aren't doing too well, guess what? You are absorbing that and you are making that about you. It's really weird, right?

We literally absorb all that stuff. There's no such thing as arguing. [00:31:00] Oh, I don't argue in front of the kids. We go into a separate room. Guess what? Sunshine, they still pick it up energetically. So, and they know because they got these nervous that a wife for safety, right? So at the end of the day, that early identity we take on as our own identity.

It's called a default mode setting. And literally we re, we revert back to that early identity when we get to stress. So that's why we kind of find when we're regulated emotionally, we're going along okay. And then something happens and suddenly we're fine. We're a five year old and rather than talking to our, our, our wife, we're talking to our mom because there's things we probably should have told her.

We're telling our wife and she's suddenly become that. It's called emotional refraction. Look up Dr. Paul Eckman, you'll see it. Right? And literally we, we have to start to evolve past there. So these early identities will have to start to become encoded our new identities. And to [00:32:00] do that, it takes getting in touch with, with the feelings, getting in touch with, not that they're doing it to us, but, but really we are feeling that because we've got this old program running, I look at everything is in computer terminology actually.

So you got this old encoded program running. It's like Microsoft Doss, sorry, my offended you Microsoft, I think Bill will be okay with that, right? Because we're plugging your bill. It's cool. So at the end of the day, we've got this Doss program running and now we're expected to be running the latest Windows 11 or the Apple, Mac, whatever, or Linx.

I forget about that. But at the end of the day, we are meant to be running new programs and we're trying to install these things really quick. And our poor old operating systems are bit slow. So what we wanna be doing is we wanna be upgrading that operating system. We've gotta get that latest update and that latest update is about the field and really understanding who we are as men.

What your income, Brent? Oh no, I, I, I, I got hung up on, uh, translating. [00:33:00] So for our audience, because I, I have, as a podcaster, one of the, I love talking to people, right? It's one of my favorite things about this job, and I've gotten to work with you and a lot of your native countrymen over the last couple years.

Uh, also grew up with some friends who had moved over from Australia. There there are some light slight language barriers. So for our audience, explain flash. Yeah. Not the flash on the television show. Right. Flash. I, I understand what you're saying, but I'm like, oh, someone's gonna be like, what is, I don't think that means what he thinks it does.

That that's great. That's meaning definitely. Yes. We do have ascribe different meanings to different things because meaning is what creates our world. Yeah. Language creates meaning. Flash means good. So it's not, so flash means it's not so good. I mean, if [00:34:00] I'm, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm stuck in my own way of seeing the world tunnel vision and I think what I'm doing is what I'm supposed to be doing, then there's no reason I'm gonna challenge that until someone else challenges it, either verbally and if they challenge it verbally, and I, I, I, I, I shut down or I, you know, I, I, I, I don't respond in a way that perhaps they need me to respond.

It's not so good. And that's not so flash because at that point there, there's, there's gotta be some, some change and, and the reality is that we take everything personally. Don't ever think that we don't, the unconscious part of our nervous system, which has no filters, It takes everything personally, because when we were little, everything was about us because whatever was happening and external to us was being, we were absorbing that.

So it was about us. [00:35:00] So in reality, everything is actually about you. So you know, we're all the biggest narcissists in the world because it is all about us and it's all about everybody. And so if I'm doing that behavior that's the same behavior, it's not so flash, it's not so good because the other person's experiencing that in probably not the best way, I'm gonna call it unpleasant.

And eventually they're gonna say, you know what? Sunshine, uh, I'm not doing this anymore. And there's these barriers, these emotional walls that are created in our nervous system. And our nervous system is just encoded from the top of the head to the feet. So the. Is the nervous system. Think about Dr.

VanDerKolk. The body holds the score. The whole body is the nervous system. And so therefore, anything under your awareness is what I'm gonna call your nervous system unconscious. You're not aware of it. It's operating automatically. And if I'm in that autopilot [00:36:00] and I stay in that autopilot, and my feelings are my nervous system's way of telling me there's something to look at, either it's good pleasure or bad pain, it's that simple.

So if it's painful, yet, I'm not noticing that it's not so flash because the feeling helps me make the changes that are necessary to evolve, right? Mm-hmm. So that's why it's so important to recognize your feelings, because that's nature's way of saying, Hey, evolution is necessary here. We either evolve or we become extinct.

Now, if I stay on the same, not so flash pathway, there's a chance that extinction isn't gonna look like you're gonna die. Although in some cases it can 'cause a broken heart can actually kind of like kill you. Extinction is going to look like the, you're going to lose something that's important to you.

Oh yeah. [00:37:00] Your relationship, your kids, your job. Things are really, you know, you kind of make your identity outta, it's, you don't say when, when, when I say, Hey, what do you do for a living? You don't say, I do lawyering, or I do doctoring, or I do mechanicing. You say, I'm, I am. I am a lawyer, I'm a mechanic, I'm a doctor.

These are identity statements. So clearly the identity is connected to your work in that point. I am a father. Wow. Identity's connected to that. I'm a husband, you know. These are identity statements, meaning that your identity is created also out of that occupation or that role. Now, that's what's important because if that role changes, your identity changes, men are more likely to take a a redundancy or a sacking way worse than ladies.

Often when I speak to [00:38:00] my ladies and say, Hey, and they go, oh, lost me job. Oh, that's terrible. I'll get another one. My lad's sitting there and it's the end of the world. He's lost his job, he's lost his identity or part of it. So he is not feeling very flash or good, and therefore we have to start looking at, okay, how do we change that feeling state and then that cognitive state.

So that's the longest answer to flash I've ever. People, people underestimate the power of the I Am statements. Uh, one of my first interviews, I was talking to a guy and he asked me a question. I said, oh no, I'm great in the moment. And he's like, that's the best answer ever. He said, that statement right there, I am great in the moment.

I actually made a t-shirt. One of my first T-shirt designs was, I'm great in the moment, right? I'm not, I'm not huge into mantras, but that became, I remember the first time as I was making the break from working in the IT sector into podcasting, right? I've been [00:39:00] working a computer job and was doing this on the side, and the first time somebody asked me like, oh, what do you do for a living?

And without thinking, right? I was like, signing a receipt or something. I was like, oh, I'm a podcaster. And like for half a minute, like my heart popped in my throat because I realized, I just said out loud for the first time. Instead of going, oh, I'm an IT guy. I went, I'm a podcaster. I wasn't making any money.

I was still working a full-time job, 40, 50 hours a week. But I caught that statement coming outta my own mouth and went, wait, we just redefined my identity, how I feel about You did. Yeah. Who I'm, and I think we underestimate that often. David, let me ask you this question right? Times keep changing and there is a, but there's a lot of, say one thing, do one thing in the world, right?

We tell men all the time, you need to get [00:40:00] more in touch with the feels. You need to connect more, be more emotional and more vulnerable, right? Mm-hmm. And that's what we hear from a lot of women who are, you know, push the toxic masculinity concept. That's what we hear from, uh, a lot of like the younger generation of like zals and stuff coming up.

It's like, oh man, I saw. You gotta be vulnerable. You gotta be in touch with your, for some of us, you know, I'm, I'm 43. That's like, yeah, okay, sure. Mm, I get it. I get it. Right. We get this mixed messaging because we say this on one hand and say, we want men to be more emotional. We want men to be more vulnerable.

We be in touch with your feelings. Mm-hmm. But then we reinforce the old stereotype stigma of bottle up, suck it up. Be a man. Yep. Yep. Right. How, how is that complicating the situation of mental health? [00:41:00] Hugely. Because really what you've got is the great paradox for blokes. You've got the old way and the emerging new way.

So what I'm gonna say is that, that word vulnerability, let's kick it out. Let's get rid of that word. I don't use vulnerability 'cause we ain't vulnerable. Right? Vulnerability is a weakness. Technically. You've got 17 emotional drivers or 17 human weaknesses. Have a look at Dr. Chase uses stuff about human weaknesses.

Bottom line is that we are not vulnerable. Emotional feelings helps us be resilient. That's how it works. The more pain I feel, the more resilient I become. Anyone will tell you someone has post-traumatic stress as opposed to post-traumatic growth. How did they get to post-traumatic growth? They became resilient to the feeling, the painful feeling, rather than going, uh uh uh, [00:42:00] and that, that, if we're just listening, I was just drinking alcohol, taking drugs, and generally eating food.

Right? If you're seeing me, you might, you might notice that. Rather than killing the pain or artificially regulating the feeling, what we have to do is feel how we feel. You gotta feel it to heal it. So you gotta do three things, right? You gotta name it to tame it. You gotta notice it. You gotta go. You know what?

There's a feeling of anxiety in my body right now. I'm not anxious. It's a feeling of anxiety. You separate the feeling from you. 'cause you are not a vulnerable person. You're a strong person. You weren't born vulnerable. Technically. You were born as a package and that package is developing and adding bits and pieces to it.

So at the end of the day, it's like a meno set. I suppose for us older lads, at the end of the day, we've gotta get rid of this concept of vulnerability. [00:43:00] Feelings make you strong. Ger The Russians will tell you that with red gold. Yeah. Feelings. That's the book. Feelings make you stronger. So the more that I can feel it, the more that I can heal it.

As long as it's not overwhelming. That's the, that's the tipping point, right? So people are saying, okay, I've gotta be more emotional. You can't be more emotional. You're as emotional as you are. You know? You feel what you feel. You can't be more than that, what we have to do, that's, it's a choice, it's a challenge.

What I like people to do is get in touch with what's in there already. Just notice it. And when you're feeling pain, the same part of the brain that processes physical pain, processes, emotional pain. So technically when we're in emotional pain, we're actually kind of in physical pain. And so the nervous system saying, Hey, we've got an issue, will Robinson [00:44:00] you a danger?

Danger, will Robinson, there's a problem right now, Houston, we've got a problem, right? And we're going, oh my God, let's shut down the receiver. Let's turn off all the machines and just pretend it's not there. That's cool because the nervous system goes, okay, if you're not gonna deal with it today, guess what?

I'm gonna accumulate it. I'm gonna suppress, I'm gonna put it somewhere so that later on you can do it. It's called processing. We're a system. It's an in, in, in, out kind of system. Yeah. Input in, input out. So technically there's sensory data going in. It triggers something in the system. There's a future prediction that it's gonna happen.

It's actually called an error code not going there. It's a long story and literally now the system alerts you with a feeling that there's something to look at. So a feeling really just says, Hey, I have something to look at. It's what we do with a feeling that's important, [00:45:00] is it not? So I can either look at that feeling and go, okay, this is a feeling of pain.

Pain tells me that there's something that I've gotta change, so therefore I'm going to acknowledge that feeling. When you acknowledge feelings, guess what? They go away. Yeah, it's cool. So if we acknowledge the feeling and feelings change, they're states, they're literal states. So when I do some state change drills with someone to make 'em really happy, I go, wow, I really feel happy.

I'll suddenly go, now be sad. And I guarantee you a hundred percent of the time, they cannot just be sad. Because a feeling is a state, you can only have one feeling at a time if you slowed it down just like a film, you know the old film, 27 frames a second, I think. So you've got one frame, two frames, and you move it quickly.

It makes a motion picture. Now imagine a feeling as one frame. So that's my happy frame, and slowly that frame [00:46:00] becomes my sad frame. Now I can change that again by. Putting in a happy frame. Unfortunately, things go so quickly that we, we feel that, that, that it's always that way. So, you know, if I'm sad, I can't be happy.

The bottom line is it's gonna take time, approximately seven to 15 minutes roughly for that feeling to change normal. And it always changes. This two will pass. So identifying the feeling is really critical. Once we know the feeling, we feel it to heal it, we acknowledge it, we don't get involved in that 'cause it's just a feeling.

We acknowledge it. Now when we acknowledge that feeling like physical pain, if you stub your toe right now, you go ouch. You probably swear like I do and I swear a lot. Normally it's just a fact. So I stub my toe and I swear, ouch. Releases some of the tension neurologically. It actually helps with pain relief.

I swear [00:47:00] I look at my toe, it's not broken and it's not bleeding. So guess what? I'm gonna ignore it. Now, isn't it interesting that when we get an emotional feeling, we don't ignore it, we wallow in it? Oh my God, I'm, oh my God, I'm feeling this terrible feeling. I'm gonna focus on that and I'm gonna try and think it away.

Well, I'm gonna tell you a fact. You can't problem solve logically and emotion. A feeling feelings cannot be logically fixed. They have to be felt because they're part of a system. And this system is just, it's a signal. So we have to feel it and then work out what we're gonna do about it. And so this is what it's about.

It's about get, vulnerability doesn't really exist because feelings don't make us vulnerable. They make us stronger. If we go through that process, this is my process from my stuff. We, first of all, we name it to Tam, which is Dr. [00:48:00] Daniel Siegel. Actually, I got that offhand. Thanks, Dr. Dan. Second one is, we've gotta feel it to heal it.

To reveal it. That's Dr. Schneider. And the third one I put this one in is rewire to recover. So every time that we feel that feeling, we gain a bit of resilience called a window of tolerance. You can look it up online, you'll see it in all the trauma literature, a window tolerance. And every time we feel that feeling and acknowledge that feeling, we grow more tolerance, like physical pain.

So if I keep stubbing my tail, eventually I'm gonna get a big callous on there and I'm not gonna feel it, right? Well, it's the same with emotional pain. The more that I feel it and I become resilient to it, the less impact it has, the less impact it has, the more tolerance I've got, and the more resilience I've got, so I can take on greater tasks.

Now if we do the opposite, We artificially regulate the feeling like technically take the painkiller because all things that make you feel better are [00:49:00] technically painkillers. So I do a lot of dating work and I take lads out and I show them how to connect with people in a good way. And when they're socially anxious, as was very socially anxious males, first thing we get to, it's not a bar.

We get to that place and they will wanna talk to somebody. It can be anybody, and I want to have a chat. But they're really super nervous. So they have basically having a panic attack in some ways. So as soon as they feel the feeling of fear, where do they want to go? They wanna go straight to the not a bar.

To the bar, and they want to grab the artificial regulator of emotion called tequila. It's not alcohol. Okay? It's not, alright. So they grab the, they want to grab this thing and they wanna get it into the system because the system says, As soon as we feel pain, we kill it. We extinguish it, we get rid of it.

What's the quickest way to do that? Well, these things are very powerful regulators. Now, alcohol is actually [00:50:00] anesthetic technically. Look at the old guys. You know, they, they use it as a anesthetic. It's very good at that. Unfortunately, I've done a lot of f d work. I was a presenter in fetal alcohol syndrome, and it kind of really does dissolve stuff.

It's really not good for you. So at the end of the day, they wanna kill that pain immediately. Now, the thing is, when they kill the pain, immediately they get what we call a correction code in their brain. In other words, they get some kind of thing that says, Hey, you dealt with the feeling, but you didn't deal with the anxiety.

The anxiety is a future prediction that I'm gonna get rejected or I'm gonna get judged. So that's not dealt with by using the regulator. Now, in the first instance, the brain is tricked. The body is tricked into thinking that it's fixed, so therefore we feel better. And that's not a good thing. So it's a good thing if we, we sit in that anxiety, we do [00:51:00] some grounding drills, which helps us get back in the body.

We get back in the body and then the, all they've gotta do is get their little feet and go like that and walk up to that person and say hello, whatever. Now it's in that point that they've built the tolerance because they've leaned into the pain, they've pushed themselves through the pain. Now when you push yourself through that pain and you're not overwhelmed, that emotional feeling, how are you gonna feel at the end of that?

Well, the, that'll come back and I'll go, how did you do? How did you go of your conversation? And he'll go, first thing often he'll say, oh, it was terrible, right? And I go, isn't it interesting that you were feeling this anxiety? You didn't go to the naughty bar and grab the knotty tequila? You literally pushed yourself through that, that fear, and you got there.

Have you done that before? No. Is that a win? Yes. How do you feel about that? I feel awesome. Exactly, because although you haven't noticed [00:52:00] all the little things that are going on, those little wins are huge because what you're doing is you're programming your nervous system to manage that feeling. Now, the more you do that, it's a numbers game.

The more you do it, it's called myelination. Literally, you're just adding laser glial cells to your, to your, to your neural pathways. The more you do it, the better you get. There's no such thing as confidence, guys. There's only doing that thing over and over and over and over again till you get good at it.

So it's no different with your feelings. You've gotta do it over and over and over again. Be have tolerance, acknowledgement, tolerance, move through it. Then you get good at it. It's just like playing the guitar. Yeah. How many times does it take to become a Jimmy Hendrix? Well, a lot. How many times does it take to become emotionally regulated?

Guess what? A lot. So that's really, really important, is getting through that process. That's what gets rid of this concept of vulnerability because when you've got confidence, how can you be vulnerable? I can't be [00:53:00] anxious if I'm confident those two states don't exist together. It's either anxious or confident.

And to be confident, I've gotta move through that feeling. I've gotta acknowledge it, move through the feeling, do that thing that's painful, cognitively and emotionally. And then once I've done that, more times, probably a hundred or more, I'm gonna start to feel better and I'm gonna go, wow, that wasn't a problem.

And it's the same with everything. So this juxtaposition, 'cause I haven't forgot your first question, Brent. This juxtaposition. Between what we're expected to be genetically, biologically and in, in, in an old, in the old way. And what we need to be in a new way is not about feeling more, it's not about being an emotional mix.

It's not about all of that. It's about feeling, getting in touch with what's actually inside us. Acknowledging that [00:54:00] and becoming more emotionally regulated because when we're more emotionally regulated, we can use more real estate up here in our logical thinking mind to solve more problems. When we're not regulated, we go back to our childhood learning.

And so if, you know, if I'm looking at my wife, for example, and she looks angry and that's triggering my childhood stuff, which is, well, let's face it, rather than saying, Hey babe, I've noticed you're looking a little bit upset right now. Would you like a cup of tea? Rather than saying that, I go, oh, what have I done wrong this time?

Because I'm not emotionally regulated and I'm triggered. And so now I'm in my, my young brain, I call it my five-year-old brain where, where I don't have those filters, where I don't have that, that, that prefrontal functioning. To be able to, to notice that, realize that's not mom, that's my wife, and regulate those feelings.

Now how do I get there? I've gotta practice. You know? I've gotta actually practice [00:55:00] the skill. It's a skill. I've gotta keep doing it until I succeed at being more regulated. If I just go to the therapist and go, yeah, I wanna, I wanna be a better person. Yeah, that's cool. You gotta do A, B, C, and D. Yeah, yeah.

No, no. I want you to fix it. I. Wave a magic wand. Take a magic pill, artificial regulator, why not? And fix it. Well, it ain't gonna work that way. Every time you have a failure, you're actually moving forward. 'cause there's no such thing as failure either. Failure is when you totally give up. Now most people, most blokes, they don't totally give up.

I mean, when you're on a job site and you muck it up and your boss comes up and gets pretty technical term upset with you, I'd usually use the S word. I dunno how friendly our show is. You are gonna go, you know what? Well, self-esteem lowers a little bit. You know, this happens. That happens. Get a bit angry.

Maybe Dad wasn't such a great bloke, but you know what? I'm gonna fix that and I'm gonna make a good job [00:56:00] of it. And you'll do that. Why not deal with your relationship? It's the same thing. It's no difference. So at the end of the day, when we get challenged with a feeling, why not? Level up, why not go, you know what, I'm gonna tolerate that feeling, feel that feeling, and I'll work out how do I approach this differently?

And I've gotta do that a thousand times maybe to, to really start to do it better because we don't clear the frontal real estate up without having a a, a fair amount of emotional regulation. What is emotional regulation? It's really being able to manage that feeling. Feelings are, are a signal, so they have to be managed.

Like anything, they're, they're not something you fix. You don't fix feelings, my God, you manage them. You don't get over stuff technically. People come and go, oh, David, the people tell me to get over it. And I say, well, that's not true. You don't get over things. You learn to manage them. This, this nervous system doesn't forget nothing.

It's the biggest hoarder in the [00:57:00] universe. It hoards everything. It remembers everything. Unless you've actually got physical injury that that makes you forget, believe it or not, you remember everything. It's stored in your whole system in unconscious and subconscious regions. Unconscious is like a big warehouse where everything gets stored, neurologically and sensory data.

And the subconscious is the patterns and habits of behavior that, that, that, that activate a lot. Programs just like a computer. You've got the CMOs and then your basic operating system, and then you've got your, your, your operating system. You've got a huge hard drive. I e body hard drive, right? Operating system.

Conscious mind, but then you've got all these programs running underneath to make this podcast work. There's pride. Dunno how many you're technical dudes. Yeah. I don't know. Let's say there's a thousand programs running underneath to make this podcast work. Well, that's your subconscious, that's all your habits of thought, feeling and behavior that are all under the [00:58:00] surface.

They're just constantly running and then suddenly there's a trigger bang and it goes, oh, select that habit, select that response. And up it comes and out here it comes out of the mouth. And when it comes out of the mouth, we know what's going on inside the system. And it's not pleasant normally, unless you're making a cup of tea for your, your Mrs.

Mrs Means wife. Yeah. Australian lingo. We are very colloquial. Yeah. And we, everything's got a kind of, yeah, we stretch it all out. So at the end of the day, if I allow that automatic programming to keep running my life, I'm gonna end up in that place where I'm looking at at at, at the social media and everyone's being more emo and I'm going, my God, I'm not really fitting in.

Well, it's probably because my old habits and patterns are running my life. Now. That might be vulnerability. Why not change that? Let's change old habits and patterns of thought, feeling, behavior, and let's move [00:59:00] towards making some different habits. How do we make different habits? We practice them. And so we can do this.

We don't have to be more of anything. We don't have to be greater at anything. We just have to be better at what we do now. And all that's happened is awareness with science. Awareness has changed. Okay. Really it's science. Let's blame science. It's great. Best scapegoat ever. Science. Yeah. So let's say that nowadays with an F M R I scan, I can see in real time how aggression affects my kid.

Neurology. I go, oh my God, you should have seen it. When we first saw this stuff, all that parenting stuff we used to talk about, 'cause I was one of those guys, behavioral guy that, you know, we sit down, we do this, we do that, rah rah, rah, and suddenly we get these pictures of how a kid reacts to our old style of doing things and we go, oh my God, we're damaging.

Our kids therapists like me were literally like, like [01:00:00] that question you asked me where I couldn't answer it. Mm-hmm. That's how it was when I first saw that, that science. I'm like, oh golly. For the last 10 years or so I've been teaching the wrong thing. Uh oh. Now I've gotta teach the right thing because this science is telling me that.

But not only that, I've gotta do it myself. I've gotta repair the relationship with my own kid or. So this is what it's about. It's about taking on the challenge. It's not a problem, it's just a challenge. Taking on the challenge of, of evolving with this new information that helps us recognize better what's going on inside us so that we can be better people.

Because we do have a role and our role is actually never gonna change in genetics. Hate to tell you, genetics isn't gonna, we still are protectors, we still are providers who off fighting wars right now in some countries overseas not going there. I'm [01:01:00] Polish, right? But at the end of the day, on the front lines, that's who's fighting these wars, right?

So at the end of the day, we still have roles in things, you know, we still have things we're really, really good at. We're good at everything and so is everybody else. But we still have things we do well and we can make those roles better. By understanding more about ourselves. We can be, when you are emotionally regulated, man, you can think straight.

You need to think straight. We need to manage the feelings, not to suppress them, not to get rid of them, but to manage them and not become more emotional, but manage what we've got in there. Like I said, I've only got five feelings that I recognize. Generally happy. Actually, that's not really one that's just come on recently.

So probably sad, depressed, angry, and anxious and confused. That was my range of feelings, honestly. I mean, on Lexi time, honestly. So I wouldn't even know when I was feeling [01:02:00] what I was feeling. My wife would say, Hey David, you're angry. I'm go, what? I'm not angry. Yeah, yeah. How do you know that? Well, I can see it.

I can read it, I can feel it, and later on I've gonna blow up and they're like, wow, I must've been angry. But it's kind of after the fact. 'cause now you've gotta repair that. So it took me, and I do everything I teach you, I do myself. It took me ages to recognize what was inside and be able to go, you know what, ooh, there's a feeling of anger in the body right now.

Best be regulated in that puppy because it's only gonna lead to something down the track that I don't want. And that's what it will self-awareness does for us. It enables us to, to, to get insight. So yes, everything that's going on today is definitely confusing and it's difficult, although we can rise to the challenge.

We're males, after all, we rise to the challenge, right? We rise a lot, roll lot, lot. So we are rising to the challenge. Yeah. And we are becoming more aware with more awareness. We have more choice. With more [01:03:00] choice, we can be what we want to be because awareness gives us choice. If you're not aware, you're gonna go, oh, you made me angry.

Well, actually no they didn't. Your emotional regulation, your old habits and all that lot, that's what created that problem. So, Let's become more aware. Let's rise to the choice and let's be the men we're meant to be. Alright, Brian. I think that's a plenty explanation. David, where's the best place for people to find you?

Uh, on our website, my milan.com au. Just connect to our website. That'll be fine. Um, and you'll get, you'll usually get Deb and, uh, she, she will organize anything that you really need for us to do. We do a lot of things, uh, remotely, so there's no problem, uh, distance, there's no issue. We can, we can do all of that.

Of course, we'll have all of David's links in the show note in the description, whether you're on YouTube or listening on the podcast. We'll have every way so you can connect with David and dig in even more. David's [01:04:00] got a lot of great information guys, and it's a big brave world these days. You can reach anything.

It's awesome. I love fact we can reach across the pond this way. Yeah, I do too. Yeah. So if, if David. Said something is resonating with you. You know what? It doesn't matter if you live in the US or in Europe or in Australia. You can connect with David, which is of awesome things about technology these days.

David, what is, oh, silly question, right? What animal has the longest tongue in relationship to his body? You guessed Hummingbird. The answer is a million. Really? A million. I never would've guessed that. The longest tongue in relationship to his body length. David, what is the last thing you want people to hear today before we wrap this up?

Last thing I wanna hear, I wanna wanna say today is that there's always hope. [01:05:00] You know, a lot of times I hear that there's no hope because we, when we, when we get distressed, we kind of get, we get tunnel vision, we get stuck in a rutt, and that's fair. We get stuck in a rutt. There is always hope. And that, that's all all I wanna say.

There's always something we can learn, something we can do, someone we can connect with or not, that can give us the next piece of that puzzle. And it's a big jigsaw, you know? It's a huge jigsaw. There's a lot of stuff going on in the world today. It's very quick paced and sometimes we feel like we're being left behind.

I know. I've definitely felt like that. It was only when I was driving down the highway and I realized, oh my golly, it's actually about me and I need to work on me. This was quite a few years ago that I, that I started to realize that I had to make steps to change things. Before that. I just, you know, I was like, that's you, it's you, it's you, it's this, it's my work, it's whatever.

So there's always hope. There's always someone out there that has [01:06:00] another piece of that puzzle. Yeah. And rather than doing unpleasant things, reach out to anyone. It doesn't have to be me. It can be Brent. Reach out, have a yarn. Literally just have a yarn. You'll be a surprise. What'll happen? Okay, that's fine guys.

The behaviorist, David Milan, Perth, Australia. Check out what David's got going on. Connect with somebody and if you are struggling or you feel like you're struggling, if you, by the time you actually feel like you're struggling, you already are okay. By the time you realize that feeling and acknowledge that feeling, you already probably need to get some help.

Okay? There's nothing that's emasculating about it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's okay to ask for help. That's one of the reasons we have the fallible nation community. That's one of the reasons that David works with men every day. We are meant to be pack animals or tribe people. We're made to be stronger together.

So please, [01:07:00] if you are struggling, seek tribe, seek families, seek help, and don't think you have to go through it alone. See how many times I can hit my mic here. Man podcast, be better tomorrow because what you do today, we'll see you on the next one. This has been the Fallible Man Podcast. Your home for everything, man, husband, and father.

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David Profile Photo

David

Behaviorist

After serving in the Army, David re-trained as a Social Worker in 2003 and started work as a prison Drug and alcohol counselor. Many of David’s skills were then developed within various mental health and other social work roles within the State Government Health service 2004-2010. David also gained experience with indigenous families working in remote Australia.
After entering full-time private practice in 2010, David specialized in training groups and supporting individual clients in emotional/mental wellbeing, communication and unique knowledge and skills for self-improvement and relationship growth.