021 Shadow work & masculinity's attachment to religion & patriotism with Connor Beaton

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It would seem now more than perhaps ever, or certainly in recent history, we as a society, are faced with our shadow; the parts of ourselves, as individuals and a collective, that we have shamed, shunned, and hidden away into a dark corner.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When we reject or shame something it goes away into the dark, and we try to convince ourselves that it’s not here, not around, simply because we’re choosing not to see it. But that is very far from the truth. In the dark those things are gaining power, they grow.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When the parts of us in the shadow gain power they leak into our lives. And the best answer to that from the level of psychology that created it, is to shame it further and hide it even more.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">All this does is give more power to those parts of us we want to shame, which continue to act out in ineffective ways, keeping us in that cycle of shame and self-rejection.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This idea of the shadow isn’t a new one, but the actual reality of it is much older - as old as humans have been evolved creatures, yet it only seems to get stronger the more we have a world of divisive tribal ideologies and rhetoric creating more and more ‘us vs them’.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This look into the shadow is what I wanted to explore on the podcast this week with my guest Connor Beaton.</span></p> <p> </p> <h3><strong>In this Episode:</strong></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Connor is a men’s coach, the founder of Mantalks, and a great man with a wildly interesting past and wholly impressive present.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">His work is similar to mine in that he works in supporting men in exploring the parts of themselves that have been pushed into the dark corners, bringing those dark parts into the light. so that they can reclaim agency of their lives. He does a lot of focused wo