How To Embody Healthy Masculinity With David Chambers

Welcome to the Intuitive Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Anthony Rafferty, medical doctor, PhD, Reiki, and shamanic intuitive healer. I'm here to bring you on a journey of holistic healing that explores the science of the physical body combined with mental and emotional well-being, energetic, and spiritual health. And I am very excited to be talking to David Chambers, the authentic man, today um about his journey with men's work and men's coaching. It is such a Pleasure to have you on, David. Thank you so much for joining me.

No, thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure.

Oh, I'm I'm so excited to have this chat. I was just telling David before we jumped onto the podcast that the podcast producer Becky and I are always firing David's Instagram posts back and forth to each other. We're like, "This is such an interesting topic. Oh my god, we should get this guy on the podcast to talk about the men's work that he's doing." Um, and just provide some direction for men to begin to tap into um their emotional bodies um and actually just give some tools hopefully to the men listening today to actually even just help them to either step onto the path of healing or if they're already on the path how to support them as they navigate the deeper wounds that they hold in the body. So do you know when uh when we decided we were like but let's just reach out and see if he'll come on. We were so excited when you said yes. So we've done obviously um previously we had Darragh Stewart on. He was talking about how men heal. A beautiful episode. Um, and obviously, uh, it's it's so lovely to be able to explore these topics of men's work and men's healing on a deeper level with you. So, thank you so much for being here. Will you give us a little bit of a background as to kind of what led you into the work that you're doing and just for the listeners um, the kind of work that you do do?

Yeah, my journey is in many ways very long and windy. I'll try and keep it reasonably short. Um, the My my work really started to be honest with with my own struggles with women. You know I was in my kind of early early 20s and this was the years where you know um Neil Strauss has just released a game and I picked up that book and and it kind of shifted my world and it's like well wait I can shift how my experiences I don't just have to you know be the way I am. And I found myself boot camp and workshops and then I found myself teaching some of the stuff as well. And I just want to caveat that actually because when people think of kind of PUA, they always think of these really dark and shadowy ways of being. The men I I found myself with, some I still know to this day, we were all about like how can we express ourselves more like playfully, more honestly, and like build connection in the moment when we met people, met women especi shift how I could see like, oh, I can change my experience of life like if I'm not doing very well with women. There's things I can look at about myself that can shift it. Oh, I can see that I have mindset or um thoughts about myself of not being good enough, of not being interesting or or assumptions of rejection and I can take actions to mitigate those or lessen the impact of those on me. Right? And I think that was really like a powerful couple of years in my life. And I left that industry because I did start to meet some some characters I did I I felt weren't really in the alignment with like my love of women. my desire to like build real connection. Um, and then I traveled the world a lot. Um, I worked in tech all the way through this. I, you know, I got a computer science degree and I worked in tech for many years. Uh, and then I later went on a kind of two-year trip trip around the world. Um, and learned a lot about myself because I had a relationship I was in for four years and that broke down while I was in Bolivia. And I always often tell this story. I can give such exact details about the moment that this all happened. The relationship was breaking down for probably almost a year before it actually happened, which is most of the travels we were on. And it really came down to my inability to express my needs, to express how I was feeling, to be okay with my partner's reactions to my feelings and worries and concerns and to just like be with her emotions in general. And it broke down because I just shut down over the course of, you know, literally it's probably like 8 n months. I just shut down more and more, talked less and less. We had less and less intimacy to the point where, you know, she broke things off. I was crying in a bed in a hotel in in in a town called Sukra in Bolivia. And I vowed to myself that day in that bed. I was like, I'm not going to let this happen in another relationship because it's happened before. I'm not going to allow that like my inability to like really express myself and ask for what I want, ask what I need, express the things about my partner and what they're doing that, you know, don't I don't like or I'd like to change. I I vowed that I would stop and I would change. And that kind of started me on a journey of just learning more and more about myself and I had a very clear like understanding of like I wanted to have a different experience of of of relationships especially and then it started to expand. I wanted to have a different career. I came back to London. I spent another couple of years few years in one job I really loved and one not so much. And then I I started the podcast with a friend of mine and we started to bring together all of our knowledge around self-awareness because we've done various self-development over the years, plant medicines um and so forth and we brought that knowledge into what we knew about kind of dating initially um and started the podcast and that turned into coaching and it's kind of expanded into my business now where I kind of cover everything from like masculinity to relationships to intimacy to um emotional connection and and generally like even life purpose for men.

Yeah. Oh my god, I love it. Like I'm literally taking all these little notes about the buzzwords you're saying. I'm like I just want to explore a million of these threads. But Just coming back, I absolutely want to explore masculinity with you and what that looks like, what what kind of healthy masculinity is and this buzzword of kind of toxic masculinity and how wounding it can be in in many ways. But I I I love what you were saying here with regard to forming connection and what being able to express your needs and desires looked like uh in relation to others. And obviously for us to form deep and vulnerable connections, we need to be able to openly express and communicate, you know, but what I find actually um and just starting out my own journey with a lot of this stuff many years ago was that I actually didn't know I was so disconnected from myself, if that makes sense. It's very hard to be connected to another person if you actually have no idea what your connection to your own internal world is like. And you know if you don't even know what your needs or desires are, it's very hard to express them, you know. So do you find that actually going on the journey with the men that you coach that actually uh it's a bit of a path to actually help them to identify what their internal world actually is? How do you reconnect people with themselves

and their emotions?

Yeah. And this is one of the things when we don't you don't know you don't know know if you've been missing something if you've been missing it most of your life, right? You have no idea. It's just never been there. So, like emotions are a really key thing. Like needs and wants and desires are really important. And often men when we hear those words, what we think of is like desire. We think of sexual desire and we're very clear that we have sexual desire. But there's like all these other like more nuanced desires and needs we want in relationship like the way we want to be treated, the things we want to be able to talk about and so forth. So the internal world if it's like it can feel quite barren. for a lot of men, right? We if you if you're a man, you're listening to this and you generally feel okay, fine, and good most of the time, right? And you feel like you really try and avoid feeling sad or lonely or low or angry or frustrated, right? And you go you to the point where you rationalize yourself out of those feelings or you will avoid them at all cost. You avoid doing certain things if it might lead to failure or you might avoid certain things if it might lead to rejection or sadness. Then what you've got there is there is avoid of feeling, right? You've avoidance of feeling and you're just wanting to be okay because that feels safe, you know, for us. And but that actually leads to us leaving a life that can feel quite numb, quite boring, quite uninteresting, and often leading a life that is not the one that we would really choose, but the one that we think we've been told that we should kind of live. So on the journey with men to really connect them to themselves, we I kind of just go on a journey of conversation with them, you know, really open-minded, curious conversation around um You know, usually men come to me because there's a relationship thing or they can see that they want to be in a relationship or there's been certain struggles in their lives. You know, those struggles are like breakups that come up a lot. Um, cheating is something that quite frequently men come to me. They're like, they've been cheating and they don't want to stop and they don't know why. Um, they've had relationships have broken down because they have been one for in, one for out and so forth. There's many different ways. These are the kind of like surface way in which they they manifest in our lives. So often it's it's a kind of conversation and I do bring in some sematic practices, some breath work, but it's like taking them back to like that thing happened like what was going on in your mind. Let's start with the mind because we're always really clear what's going on with our mind and we explore the thoughts that we're having and then we start to I like to give them the emotional vocabulary because most men are quite um lacking in emotional vocabulary because we just don't get taught it. You know, from a young age, boys and men like there's been a lot of studies about this and I've spoken to various people about this on my podcast. class where from a young age boys are taught out of emotion. It's a it's a socialization out of feeling. It's not they don't have the capacity for feeling. We just teach them not to. We teach them to be, you know, boys don't cry. Um be tough, be hard, be um strong. We don't teach them to be sensitive. We actually teach them being sensitive is quote unquote girly or feminine. And we teach young boys. So from a young age, we're bred into like being tough and avoiding emotion. The problem is we can't form a relation ships without the feeling and emotion. So where I take them back to is some of these emotions and that might sound kind of scary for some of you guys you're listening. But the thing is is that we take us back to some of these feelings and emotions we felt along the way with our difficult situations in life. And when we can notice why we may have reacted in certain ways, taken certain actions that aren't in alignment with who we are. Um I'll give you an example, cheating. Right? This is something that comes up quite frequently. Men come to me because they've been cheating. They want to stop and Um they we talk about what happened in the runup to the incident of them cheating, right? And often it's some level of like discontent in the relationship, some sort of struggle in the relationship, some sort of confusion, some sort of um conflict that they struggle to face with their partner. They they struggle to go, "Hey, I'm really struggling. You said this thing or this thing's happened and I feel uneasy about this. Can we have a conversation. They struggle because they get stressed. They project a story in their mind of how their partner's going to react, maybe based on past experiences. They're going to blow up. They're going to go crazy. They're going to get angry. And they think, "I'm just I don't want to deal with that. I don't want to deal with my partner's emotion." But what happens is a pressure starts to build internally. You know, the the thoughts around this issue keep whirling around, keep whirling around. The stress builds, the stress builds, and then they look for a way to release this pressure. And it doesn't always occur to them at this time. It's when we kind of go back and talk through it. And they're also looking to like release the pressure but also feel good. There's this desire to like I feel I feel rubbish. I feel stressed and I want to feel good. So that might lead to them jumping on a dating app or um texting an old flame or getting drunk at a party and doing something they they later regret because there's a desire for them to feel better and they use it as a the cheating as a way to release pressure. And this is just like one example that's come up a number of times in the last couple of years. But if they had the emotional kind of intelligence and literacy and capacity to say, "Oh, wait. I'm feeling this stress. I'm feeling this worry with my partner, I'm going to express it to them and actually like maybe they might overreact, but I can take that. I can be okay with that, right? I can believe that they can hear me and and so forth." And I seen this really transformation because I've had clients who've come to me and they've gone, "Okay, yeah, how I dealt with in the past is I was cheating." And then now they're going to their partner, they're having a conversation, their partner might have a reaction, right? Or they may even start the conversation with, "I'm really scared to have this conversation because I'm afraid of your reaction. So, I'm just asking you to like really just hear me out to the end and just know that I'm wanting to have a conversation to connect and understand each other and better and so so forth." And them had that conversation and their partner is like, "That's okay. Whatever conflict they brought up, they're like, "Oh, I didn't understand or there was a misunderstanding." They connect deeper with their partner over that thing. And instead of them going off and doing something they later regret, or shutting down, they are more deeply connected to their partner. And this is the thing, we see the surface level outcomes of of men's struggles in relationship and even with with masculinity, but underneath it is this emotional piece that we're just not always aware of. It's so interesting actually um that we're exploring this because with some of the men that come to work with me, it's almost like there's a separation of the physical act of sex and the emotion that comes with sex. And actually in the disconnection of our own emotional body from when we were younger as men go through their journey, it almost becomes like they're two entities.

And it it's in order to kind of uh to go on a journey to get one of those really deep, nourishing, fulfilling, vulnerable relationships. It's almost like allowing them to understand that actually sex and emotion can coexist together, you know, but it it's about recognizing well what does the emotion of sex look like? You know,

it's it's connection rather than disconnection and kind of this journey of being embodied rather than sex equaling a an outcome of a dopamine hit from ejaculation. And it's almost like, well, what does it look like to be embodied in your body to feel the presence of that person and the emotion and the energy exchange rather than it just being a physical act in which you get pleasure at the end, you know?

Yeah.

So, I absolutely love what you're saying there with regard to like what does it look like to have the conversation because that means you're connecting on an emotional level. Um, and it's funny then the disconnect of of when things go south and people aren't communicating leads to the physical sexual act elsewhere.

Yeah.

It's amazing like it's so it I love I love how you've explained that and just put the pieces together. Um and and it is amazing because one decision like that can literally change your entire life.

Yeah. You know, and the outcome of a relationship. And what I tend to find with some of the men that I'm working with that have um uh played away from home, the guilt then that they carry in the body reres energetic havoc. You know, are you kind of that in your work as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Because there's this, you know, there's an emotional piece there of you go and you look I admit I've I've done these things in my past. You know, the cheating is something I've done in my past. And then what happens is it's on your mind. It's there for you. You know, you go and see your partner the next time you see them and then you're feeling guilty. You're feeling shame. You feel not good enough. And again, some of these things around those pieces of shame and guilt and feeling not good enough or whatever kind of internal narratives we tell ourselves They often feed into deeper internal narratives that we've kind of carried with us for long periods of time. So then we have that guilt and shame, the internal narratives of the emotions of guilt and shame. And then it just hangs around in the body. We feel low. We feel disgusted with ourselves. And then we start to do things that kind of mirror being disgusted with ourselves. Maybe that's overeating. Maybe it's over drinking. It's some sort of numbing because we want to not have to think about what we're doing. And then we we've done we look at our partner who's a good loving person. We experience in that way, right? And we feel like we are the bad guy. Like we feel like we we feel terrible about ourselves and then we have this energy of heaviness that we carry as you talked about. Like there's an energy that we carry and it gets stuck and and it just you know I see it um in men often pour out in tears in later times in their lives like when we do breath work sessions um like it will come out and they'll be like I'm just feeling these huge amounts of of guilt or I feel like I'm releasing huge amounts of guilt and shame from these things that I've done or these things I've done or these conversations I've had or this kind of way that I reacted and it is because like you said it just gets stuck in the in the energy of the tissues in the kind of fibers of our body and

you know if you're you're just carrying that around you can carry these things around for decades and decades and not realize how those tiny ways in which your body feels um disconnected from the moment because of uh preoccupation in the mind or emotional preoccupation stops you from being really present with people. Stops you from really being with the people you know in your lives, your friends, your family, your partners, even your children, and just creates a loneliness, this little bit of feeling of like being alone and not being connected.

Oh, totally. Absolutely. And like it's quite fascinating what you're saying. A lot of the work that I do, I work as a shamanic energy healer. So when you go deep into someone's energy, you're you're retrieving all of these emotions linked to past life uh experiences and people are like, "Oh my god, I didn't realize that was still in there or that existed." And it's like, well, the energy doesn't lie to us. It will present itself if that's what we need to heal. It's like the layers of an onion. You're you're peeling back and shedding and shedding and shedding. And obviously things like breath work are so amazing to be able to tap into the energy and allow it to move. So the emotion the emotion the energy gets to start moving through the body which is amazing. amazing, you know, but it it's so crazy like this feeling of shame and guilt that you're talking about and even linked to linked to men that cheat, it's almost like the energy of guilt and shame linked to sexual behaviors like in Ireland being raised in such a a Catholic country, we all carry the Catholic guilt, you know. Um, and even I was at a christing there a couple of months ago and the priest said, you know, this baby born from sin And I was like, that child is in a very loving family. I was like, I don't presume it it was a sinful act that gave rise to that child. But it's funny that these are the old the old traditional ways in which we speak. Um, and it's so interesting because in the lineage of our history in Ireland, um, and many other nations, it's almost like shame comes intertwined in sex. And actually, nobody speaks about it. sexual education school was like non-existent when I came through school. So, it's actually it's shameful. It's like sinful to be to be having sex. So, actually to be able to even speak openly about things within relationships due to emotion and physical sexual behaviors, it's just it's so fraught with um avoidance. You know, people are avoiding the conversation.

But you mentioned avoidance a couple of times and this is one thing I would absolutely love um to explore with you because a a lot of the men that I work with, avoidance is one of the biggest things that we tune into and we talk about. It's literally single-handedly that and being present for themselves and their partners and their life. They're the two pieces of the puzzle. And I know when I was on my journey, the day I sat down, my friend, and she turned around, she's like, "You're a big avoidant, Tony." And we burst out laughing. I was like, "Oh my god, that's mad. because you're dead, right? I I was avoiding my own inner world, my own emotions. I was avoiding difficult conversations. It was showing up in all areas of my life. And on that day many years ago, I was like, that is bloody it. I'm going to start acting in a very direct way with all of these things and my life completely changed stepping into that power essentially. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on avoidance.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I work with a lot of men who would from an attachment uh childhood attachment point of view would kind of class themselves as being avoidant particularly like dismissive avoidant but I think as men there's a more kind of almost general avoidance that sits above that which is in the way that because of I'm going to talk about something called the manbox rules right and and these are kind of the rules that men grew up with western society there's a various bits of research that go that have gone on across Australia the UK and definitely parts of the United States and even uh parts of like Mexico and and South America to show there's these simple rules that boys are kind of bullied into that they have to follow. And it's things like not showing any emotion, not being weak, um not showing fear, um not talking about anything deep other than sports and cars and things like that. Um to be uh kind of have sexual prowess. Um the only emotion that's allowed is lust and anger. And there are various others. I'm being being dominant as well is an important one. So what we've learned because we've kind of been bullied into these things, right? Anything that goes against that, we want to avoid or anything that leads to a potential that we could be viewed as weak or we could viewed as like not being the sort of quote unquote the the the man we're meant to be. So it could be anything like work stuff for instance, right? You know, a lot of men will resonate with this like okay you want to race, right? So instead of going to a boss and asking that question like hey you know over the next year I'd like to get a raise. Like, what do I need to do to like move up into the next bracket? We just avoid it because, oh, if I have that, there's a little voice in our head that's like, oh, if I have that conversation, I'm going to sound needy. I'm going to sound like I'm going to sound like I'm whining. I'm complaining. I'm a man. I should never complain. So, we avoid it. Or, for instance, there may be a conversation with a friend we need to have that's like a very straight conversation. So, to, you know, maybe setting some boundaries for instance, or you they've done something we dislike and then we Again, the voice of like, oh, if I go to this person, they might tell me, they might say to me, I need to lighten up. I've been too, why am I being so stressed about this small thing. Um, you know, I'm going to have to express my emotions, my sadness or my pain or my hurt. So, what do we do? We avoid it. And we can go into relationship and exactly the same thing. But what it leads to is this kind of chronic avoidance because we're trying to appear like we're quote unquote kind of strong or the man. So, we're always avoiding these things in life to um avoid any level of pain or kind of people's perceptions of us. It's this kind of perception we're trying to this reputation we're trying to kind of protect, right? And it just leads to us living life that's really unfulfilled, really unfulfilled life, like not really going after the things that we want, whether that's um the quality of relationship, whether it's the job and the career, whether it's creating the family we want or, you know, it's I'm going to tell a really interesting one that comes up for me is avoid around my avoidance is like I'm working and I'm trying trying to do something that's difficult and then I get distracted. I get distracted with social media and all these other things and I even convince myself what I'm doing is still work. But what actually I started to notice and it really comes down to I think the crux of a lot of things for men is that when I'm doing certain pieces of work, it's difficult. It's hard. I feel stupid, right? Because I don't know how to do it. It's uncomfortable and difficult because I have to like really concentrate and it's hard and I make mistakes and I get things wrong and I'm trying to avoid those feelings. I'm wanting to avoid that feeling. You know, if we look at dating, when men are have what often is called kind of a fear of rejection, what is it? They're trying to avoid the the feelings of rejection, the uncomfortable emotions or the story of not being good enough or not being attractive. And where we we live a life of having kind of it's like a fear dictated life. We just end up avoiding everything, you know. And I've I've I've had clients who go to really far degrees where their life shrinks, their life becomes really tiny, where they don't really do very much with themselves. They don't really have many friends and all these sort of things because they don't have friends because maybe the friends will have certain judgments of them and they fear being judged. So it's this way of avoidance and obviously there's many levels to it but every one of us like everyone listening to this can look at their life and go what am I avoiding? Is there a conversation in your relationship? Is there a um a pursuit that you really want to do or a dream that you really want to have or is it something with your kids you want to do with them or you want to say to them or you want to express to them about your own life or your own pain? pain or your own experiences and it's like what is underneath the avoidance other than the story of like you don't need to it doesn't matter you can do it later cuz I can do it later is a very big avoidance story but it's like what's underneath it which is there's a feeling of uncomfortability or a story of how it's going to go wrong and how it's going to hurt you and that's often what I see is a kind of crux to uh avoidance avoidance oh my god you're speaking to my soul like I always found what I started doing and what I get my clients to do is Well, if we identify that there's facets of avoidance in their life, um I get them to write an avoidance list. So to sit down and literally in every area of their life, what are they avoiding? Conversations, needing to do their taxes, their bank statements, like what is it they're avoiding? And if they write their avoidance list, I then get them to write a direct action list. And for every single point that they've avoided, I get them to write down what the direct action would be linked to navigating the avoidance. So essentially they then have a list of actionable items that they they can start just ticking off the list. And I always find actually interestingly when I speak to a lot of the men that I work with that start their direct action list when they start doing the stuff they're like why the f*** did I avoid this for the last six months? Like the perception in my mind of how bad this would be was so much worse than the actual action or the actual conversation or the actual fallout. It's the mental and emotional turmoil we create in our heads around these things rather than the actual the thing. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it goes back to one of my spiritual mentors uh a wonderful woman and she used when I you know I've been going back to see her for probably eight or nine years and she just would say force evidence appearing real. She's like, "That's what it is. It's just false evidence in in your mind appearing as if it's real, telling you that you can't do that thing." You know, we have a propensity for um focusing on the negative and creating a negative story, right? And there's a whole evolutionary reasons behind that and staying safe and so forth. But there's very few things in our lives now that are going to kill us. You know, we live in incredibly safe environments. You know, just in the Western world, you know, there's many parts of the world where it isn't so safe, but most of us in the west world live in such safe environments. It's like un unreal. You know, if you brought people from 200 years ago and put them where they are now, they'd just be like, "My god, like I could just be so happy here." But our brains are continuously looking for things that going to cause us danger. And the biggest danger I think men often look out for in my experience is emotional danger. Is emotional and like pain that can and some of that comes from a lack of resiliency towards emotional pain. But it's that simple thing like you know what you described there, the the kind of direct action list. You know, often when people think of healing, they kind of think of like, oh, I need to do these spiritual things and I need to do some Reiki and get some crystals and blah blah blah. And, you know, in the world of men's work and the work that I do with men, what you've just done there is like it's a very very clear and direct and tangible set of actions and a list and it's incredibly healing as you've described, you know, because we see the thoughts and so forth in mind, but it's actually the sort of thing that, you know, you could take into your company and ask the your employees to do you know the listeners because it is it's very clear it's very direct it's like how can I get into integrity with myself how can I do the things I say I want to do you know but in fact there's just so many layers that that touches is a surface level just doing the actions there's seeing the emotional level of like oh I used to have all these emotions about this and that's not real they're seeing our own capacity and growth they're seeing like the kind of spiritual lesson that you know life isn't what I always think it's going to be you know and it's this it's I love these sort of tangible really clear kind of task that just like hit on so many levels of of a man's being because it means that this kind of healing work. It isn't necessarily this kind of woowoo um kind of in the sky going to retreats and everyone's wearing white. It's these things you can sit down with a journal at home, you know? It's it's the sort of thing you can talk to your your mate down the pub and go, "Mate, you know those things you just keep avoiding? You have he'll be like, "Yeah, I've got some of those things. I've my I'm just doing them and I feel great. I feel great for doing it. I feel good. I feel confident. Like you get it. It's tangible. Every man listening to this knows that feeling of like being accomplished. And it's like that's what we that's what the this work is about doing, you know? It's not always It's also letting go of what the idea of what men think healing is as well.

Yeah. I love that. Wouldn't it be such an amazing place to get to if the fella sitting around having a point in the pub were all comparing their direct action lists? And it's so interesting hearing you speak about um the journey with spirituality like definitely I think um I know when I trained up in my Reaiki journey it was all about the light and I was like oh my god I had reconnected with the light and I was thinking to myself geez this is brilliant I'm just going to stay in this space surely this is just the best place to be ever and when I started the shamanic journey I tell you that dragged me down through the mud and the shadow was, oh my god, I tell you, s*** was burning down around me. Like, it was mad. But that was the most transformative journey was to be within the shadow of our being to retrieve those gifts and the wisdom that that resided in the dark and sticky parts of ourselves. To integrate the lessons and the versions of ourselves that we ostracize and put into the shadow in the first place

for being the ones that hold the shame or the act that happened linked to guilt or grief. or whatever those things were. And actually, when we bring them forward and just give them a bit of love, there's space for there's space for all of our personalities. Yeah. You know, I would love to hear more. You mentioned a spiritual mentor. What has spirituality um contributed to your journey with healing?

I'd love to hear.

Yeah.

And do you bring your your men on a journey with spiritual awareness or what how do you weave it in?

Yeah. I think for me, it's funny actually. I've just relisted to a book that I would say really changed my life. A friend of mine, she gave it to me when I was 21 years old. It's a book called Conversations with God and she gave it to me on my 21st birthday university. I was having a tough time and that book really shifted my I grew up in a a Pentecostal church. You know, when you think of like black people singing and dancing in church, that's the church that I was at. And um so I really was against church organized religion. So at 21 I got this book and I devoured this book in three days. I hadn't read a book whole book since I was probably about 12 years old before then, right? Cuz this book opened my eyes to like what is God? What is spirit? What is soul? And it resonated so deeply with me be because it didn't it wasn't in alignment with the the church that I had grown up with the kind of fire and brimstone and you've done this you're going to burn in hell fire forever and people in the world they're going to all going to go to hell. It really was a you know for the listeners of this book it's it's a really beautiful book and many ways the title doesn't do it justice because conversations with God would put a lot of people off and trust me I was really put off when I handed this book but it was a magical read and I I try and read it every few years but so I see that like I'm a I'm a body I'm a a consciousness right and I'm a soul that's having an experience and there's something part of me that goes beyond this body in this life I'm going to have now this years that you know I'm 40 years old I've been on this plan for 40 years And I live probably to, you know, hopefully, you know, 80, 90 years old, right? And I go, my soul goes beyond that. This body, it's more connected to things. You know, I've I've had enough experiences in my life where I've had these kind of synchronicities occur or, you know, things that I've dreamt about them come true. You know, I have this deja vu thing that kind of comes true um quite sometimes. And I just see that we are more than just this experience of this body. I don't just die, you know, I'm part of a bigger web of existence, you know. can go into the kind of physics of it. It's like we're all connected energetically. There is we can see the edges of our bodies, but there's an energy that connects us all because there's my hand and then there's the air here and then the air is connected to my plants on over there and you know energy holds an imprint. So I just I just really like for me I started to see that and it also creates a little bit of solace because sometimes we get really low and depressed because we're like oh my god like what have I done? I've done this thing and I've ruined my life and what kind of brings me solace is that part of the reason I'm here is to kind of is to have this experience of being me to learn or remember depending on the way you want to view it remember who I really am and what I've come here to do and some of that experience is just to have the experience of living to just like live like I've we are born into these bodies to experience this life this thing that we call life that's out here that we can sample beautiful things and we can experience these amazing things things and we can love very deeply and we can feel all these. And when I remind myself of that, like it allows me to kind of step back from the fear of worrying because I also know that whatever happens, everything's going to be okay. We're all moving in the direction the the direction that we are going, right? It's it's a kind of unstoppable force that we are part of, you know? So, I think for me, and I do weave that into into my work in ways that my clients don't always notice actually. Because I might talk about things like um a simple phrase I often say to people is like do you believe that everything's going to be okay? Like if you just step outside of this problem or issue that you're in now, do you believe that everything's going to be okay? And they're often so like yeah, yeah, actually yeah. Do you believe in your capacity to that everything's going to be okay? Yeah. It might seem really bad right now, but I'm sure you've had experiences in the past that have been really bad. And they're like, yeah, this thing happened. happened and like actually it turned out to be and I love when they said it's actually that turned out to be a blessing in disguise and I'm like you see perspective you can't see your whole life timeline right now you know you might be on this earth to do one thing that occurs when you're 60 years old and everything that's happening to you now is just gearing you to have the capacity to do um that one thing that could really change people's lives or the world or whatever it may be or just impact the person who then goes on to change the world so I think that you know we can believe in spirits and we can believe in all sorts of bits and pieces and connections to land and all these things, but I think it's coming back to like that this isn't it. This isn't it. This this experience of me being David isn't all there is. And it's very easy to forget that. And I think I I bring that back into my clients as often as a way to just settle their nervous system. They're like, "Oh yeah, I'm fussing about this date. Oh, and actually it's not that big deal in the grand scheme of my life and my existence and like the grand scheme of the world and what's happening. Ah, that's okay. I can enjoy this. I can smile. Yeah. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. Oh, yeah. That's brilliant. It's brilliant. I just I love um I love just weaving this concept and the belief that we're an eternal soul living this human existence essentially. And here to learn these beautiful lessons and to actually have the human experience. as well, you know, and the human experience isn't easy, but actually it's filled with a lot of really beautiful magic as we go on our journey as well. And sometimes we get so bogged down in in the in aspects of the human journey and the the pain that we're not not feeling, we're avoiding. Um that we actually miss the magic a lot of the time that exists in the world around us in every little micro moment.

Uh of the interactions that we can have with people. I was at this conference on um last Sunday. It was for uh Bridg's Day. It was a Bridg's Day celebration here. It was all about justice in the world and sustainability and peace and how we can weave that together as a nation and globally. It was just so it was deeply moving and really beautiful um experience. But I connected with this lady. I'd say we spoke for four minutes and The connection was so profound and touching that I was like, "Oh my god, I'll probably never see this lady again." But actually, that was one of the most magical chats we had about her husband who had passed away and just the gifts and the wisdom that came through both of us in honoring him and actually just speaking about her pain and the journey and the joy that she'd experienced in her lifetime with him. And it was literally just a micro moment of a couple of minutes, but it was deeply profound. You know, and our ability when we actually connect heart to heart to have these micro moments of beautiful heart-c centered connection with people. It's it's there. It's around us everywhere really, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. You you know what's I love that you're kind of talking about our our journey here in this in this beautiful life, but what are your kind of thoughts with regard to like a divine purpose here? Um and you know, this kind of awakening of this deeper uh sense of belonging and the path of what we can contribute to our ourselves, the people around us, the world, you know.

Yeah. I feel I feel like each person has some level of divine purpose and we might not necessarily realize that in this lifetime, right? You know, we we we can think of some great thinkers, you know, the Einsteins, the Carl Youngungs of the world and you can see that they fell into like really deeply into their divine purpose. You know, you can think of artists and especially artists because artists are very rarely acknowledged in their lifetimes, right? And the same with scientists to be honest, many of them very few scientists are like really acknowledged for their work in their lifetime, right? It usually comes afterwards. But these people found something that was so deeply like they were so deeply passionate about that they put so much energy into and they didn't even require any real acknowledgement because they were just so on the path of the thing that was right for them. So I I feel like because I've come kind of full circle where you know I did that coaching way back in my early 20s and I didn't want to coach anybody again. I wasn't interested in being a coach. I really wasn't. And I'm back here coaching and when I look at my life and you know you're talking about people's pain like I grew up and my dad was very absent. My dad's very absent person um in my life and I wouldn't be the man I am today without my father. Right. I wouldn't be the man I am today without the fact that my mom got remarried when I was about 8 years old and the guy that she she married really just wanted a passport and it didn't treat her particularly well, right? And and wasn't really interested in me or my older sister and kind of connecting with us because it meant that I had to go on a journey of being very angry with men, right? Very disillusioned with who men are and then having because of that having a big void in myself and then having to look at like what is a man? What's a good man. What does it mean to be a good man? Oh, I've been I've not been a good man in these areas at these times and I which has led to the work that I do now and I I share with with people and I wouldn't have never I would have never done this journey if I had a kind of role model father who I've just you know looked at and seen as really great. So I see it as you know often our purpose our divine p purpose may shift over time. It may be seasons of our lives that we do certain things or the divine purpose we have right now is giving us up to the the things thing that we need to do. And for some people, it might just be, as I said, it might be raising their children in a particular way, which breaks through all this generational trauma, generational curses that have been carrying all the way through because maybe they go on and do something magnificent or they join something that's really magnificent, you know. Um it it's you just don't know. But you if you don't lean into life, you don't lean into the things that bring you kind of passion and enjoyment or move towards the people that bring you passion, enjoyment, then you're just continually going to feel like life is meaningless. And that that's a big problem for a lot of men. There's a real crisis of meaning, a crisis of meaning. And why is that? Because so many men are so lost to themselves, but are also looking at the kind of outside world, you know, the the fast cars, the Instagram, the the influencers as that is what I should be doing instead of learning to kind of find their own way and find their own path of like what's meaningful for them and allowing that to kind of unfold. Um, and often they they live in a very materialistic way of being and then that can just lead to a kind of empty soul. So I think it's really important for us to and you know there's no no um kind of shade on those people because I I've also done that journey and part of sometimes for I think every man has to sometimes go on the journey of emptiness you know and realize how empty it feels you know parts of aspects of life to come back around and choose something different. But I do definitely feel like we have meaning and purpose in our lives. Um, and I know that sometimes when people hear that, they're like, "Oh, but I don't know what my purpose is." And I'm like, "Well, that's that's your purpose right now." You know, that's why I work with men. It's like, "Oh, you don't know what your purpose is." Okay, your purpose is to find out and try a bunch of things. You know, try a bunch of things and keep trying and keep but don't try kind of downheartedly of like, "Oh, I hope this is the next thing." He's like, "I'm just doing this thing and do the thing wholeheartedly and see where it kind of leads to and where it gets to.

Yeah, I love that cuz you know I see so many people come to me they're like I want to touch base with my destiny with my what is my destiny my path and you know from my shamanic perspective I can bring them on a journey to meet their future self and kind of for them to give them gifts and words of wisdom but a lot of the the time it's actually it's about healing the wounds to allow their heart to radiate as authentically as possible And then they just attract the energy that's in alignment with their soul's purpose. And once they're kind of on the path, it might not might not become very apparent initially. And actually, even if you're many steps in on the path, it still might be blurry because we can't necessarily predict the future. And the thing is I I always say to people like if you have a view of the future, if you're standing at point A and you're trying to tell the universe, I want to get to point C. What if the The universe wants you to bring bring you to point Zed.

You're limiting the capacity of the universe to step in and support you by having by having limiting views about just how bloody brilliant your life can get, you know. Um, so I really love what you're speaking into there with regard to the path of the destiny. It's about just putting your foot forward, trying something, and then you'll know, does this feel good or does this not feel good? Does it feel in alignment or not feel in alignment? And if it feels in alignment, you keep following it and see what opportunities arise. And if it doesn't, then there's an opportunity to take a different step.

Yeah. Exactly.

I love that. I love that. And I just really wanted to talk to you um before we finish up just about we mentioned at the very beginning this journey with masculinity. What does masculinity look like? What does healed masculine energy look like? You know, um and you kind of talked about kind of this healthy view of self. What do you find when you bring men on a journey to get to the point in which they actually they're doing things that honor themselves and others? What what does it look like in the world? You know,

yeah, I think I just start with like, you know, there's, you know, when we think of masculinity often just the word is quite triggering for people. It brings up connotations and they're usually negative. When we think of masculinity, usually negative connotations, you know, you all the things have happened in history and even things are happening now. So, I kind of often branched them out. into two places is like immature masculinity which often will be what we would call kind of toxic masculinity and I see this kind of mature masculinity. So you know the immature masculinity can be things like avoidance, lying filled with fear and hate um suppression of the feminine you know anything we deem as feminine uh bullying um subjugation uh oppressiveness you know and these words sound really big but actually when we we look at this these traits Like we could be doing those things in the tiny little ways in our conversations with our partner, with our friends, you know, trying to dominate all these things. And in essence, it's kind of rooted in fear. It's rooted in fear and lack. Um, when we move into a kind of more mature masculinity, there's this kind of what I call interdependence. I don't call interdependence. It's a word interdependence. You know, instead of being independent, oh, I'm independent. I can do everything myself, which is kind of an immature masculine thing to be in. Is interdependence. I can rely on other people. Other people can around me. And I think that's a really important part is because um how are amazing businesses built? How are amazing organizations built? Right? All these men that us men often look up to who run huge businesses or created wonderful organizations, what they've done if they've created uh interdependent organisms where people rely on other people and that's how we become great. And mature masculinity includes things like you know boundaries and responsibility and mental clarity. and mental fortitude and emotional resilience, emotional intelligence, things like that to me as well. So, a whole bunch of other things. So, I guess what that looks like in the world isn't a perfect man actually because we're never going to always be mature masculine men or mature masculine women. It's it's a kind of genderless thing for me. We some of this immaturity is just part of who we are. When I say part of who we are, it's been part of us for many years. You know, there's like, you know, little childish parts of me or childish thoughts of that live within me. me that still come up to the surface and get expressed. And the the art I see in this being in this maturess is being able to have the kind of mental uh presence and awareness to notice it when it's happening or soon after it's happened. You know, it might be I get defensive and I I might say something to my partner's quite mean. In an ideal world, I'll notice the desire to say that thing and then I won't say it. But in a less than ideal world, because we're all human beings, I might say the thing and it's going back and go, "Hey, I said something to you yesterday and I I I actually quite regret that. I'm really sorry for how I said that to you, the context I said it to you and how that, you know, left you feeling X, Y, and Zed. And then that's responsibility. It doesn't mean we have to be perfect. So I think how it looks in the world is, you know, obviously men have to connect to how they feel. And again, I have to caveat that because I think a lot of men hear those words and they think, oh, if I'm going to have to connect how I feel, I'm going to be crying all the time. I'm going to be sad all the time and blah blah blah. Well, actually, you're not. You're not going to feel that way all the time. And there is space for you to express your feelings most of the time. It won't be every moment of the day because not every feeling needs to be to be expressed. Some feelings you just notice them and you carry on. And sometimes there's a time where you have to like notice you're having a feeling though. Right now is not the moment to express this and it might come a few hours later or so forth. But it's a kind of integrated piece where we can be in leadership. Um we're able to like feel the people we're leading. So, it's not leadership for like selfish reasons. It's leadership for a greater good. Um, there's a selflessness to it as well. There's a deeper connection and a reverence for the feminine. I think it's a really important piece is a reverence for the feminine. So, anything that we deem as feminine, you know, maybe that's mother earth, that's plants, that's uh experience, that's um women, anything we deem as experience, we have a reverence for. Not a desire to suppress and oppress, but actually a desire to uplift. And to me, that's by directional. The same for femininity, kind of mature femininity, is this desire to raise up the the kind of the masculine. And I think we we're seeing more and more examples of that in men in the world. The only problem I see is that those men aren't so media worthy. If I'm really bluntly, they don't get clicks in in on on websites and so forth. It's much better to for media agencies and and so forth to profit from pushing and narrative that is really negative of men and about men and masculinity, right? Andrew Tate is a prime example. You know, I would love to see how many times the GQ have mentioned Andrew Tate is probably on a yearly basis. How many articles did they run about healthy masculinity like like really pushing forward this the men in the world who are doing great work? That's a whole separate thing. But I think that there's there's a desire from a lot of men to bring through a healthier version of masculinity, not just um for women, but also for themselves because we can see for ourselves how this kind of immature masculinity that we've kind of been raised on, this manbox we've been raised on hurts us, you know, hurts us ourselves in in us becoming the people want to be in the relationships we want to have. So, I think there's a big drive and a big desire from men to shift that and it will never feel like it's happening fast enough as well. I think that's something I always say to people is like social change is really slow, like really painfully slow. Um, because you're trying to change social norms and social ideas. So, it takes time, but I definitely seeing more and more interest in the conversation of masculinity. Like I'm having I'm I'm running talks inside companies in corporate organizations talking about masculinity and positive masculinity and healthy masculinity and how we can bring that through. So, so yeah, it's coming through. It's just going to be slow and we can each do our own work on this like you know the these little ways in which we're being dominant, the little ways we're oppressive to people. Um the little ways we bully people and all these things and even and then how we do that to ourselves. How do we bully ourselves? How do we avoid feelings and emotions? How do we um avoid kind of um mental clarity? And this is where we kind of do the selfwork of ourselves and how that impacts the people in our lives we love and our communities.

Oh yeah, I absolutely love that. Like it it just it resonates so deeply definitely with a lot of the work that I see here in the practice and generally this collective rise in the energy of the divine feminine and the work that women are doing internally and their ability to be able to express themselves after years and decades of suppression. Um, and the thing is as that kind of energy of the feminine rises, it's almost like, well, now it's kind of turning to the masculine to be like, are you going to rise with us here? Are we rising collectively together? And that can be deeply scary. you know, for like you say, in the genderless presence of masculine energy, whether it's within a man or a woman, it's it can be deeply threatening, you know, to be like, "Oh, God, I'm being I'm being called out here that I have to to rise to look at my internal wounds." And it is quite amazing because uh some of the men that step through the door, it's so interesting. I was I was reading about this because we'd organized like men's retreats that didn't go ahead. We just didn't get the numbers for for men and uh I I was talking to some of the men's coaches around Ireland and and it's tricky to find men stepping in to do the work but there's collectively increasing pressure from the feminine aspect of the world around us that are like it's time it's time you know and you know what I was reading about this and um it was quite fascinating because with the women who come in they sit down and immediately they're like this is my life story and these are all the things that have contributed to my wounding. How do we navigate this? Whereas with the men, it's a slow and steady journey. You have to get to know them. They have to build trust with you before you'll go there, you know? Um, so I tend to find I always I'm very proud of the men that come through the door and they're willing to actually go there. I'm like, yes. You know, every single step that you take, every session that you come in for will change your life and the lives of the people around you. You know, I is there just as we're finishing, is there any even just one tool or one step that you'd recommend for anybody listening to this that's like, "Oh my god, maybe I'm ready to take the next step." What would that look like? How do people just take the first step? Like do people reach reach out to you? Where do you find that it's a good place to start?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, if anyone's heard me talk and they want to reach out to me, you can find me on on Instagram, the authentic manor. probably the best place to get me. But I think a really good place to start is is asking yourself like what do what would I really love my life to be like? Like what would I really love my life to be like? How would I want my relationship to be? Put aside what you think is possible, right? Because often that is really coated in like our own limiting beliefs and our own limits when we place ourselves like what would you love your life to be like? And you know you sometimes we this and everyone's going to go, "Oh, I want to have like a huge eight-bedroom house. I want to drive five Ferraris." I find most men don't say that to me, right? Most men say to me, I'm like, "What do you want your life to be like?" They're like, "Well, I want to have a really beautiful relationship where we have fun together. We have great intimacy. I where my kids feel safe and they're provided for and, you know, I want to do a job that I really love and all those sorts of things." It's like that starts to be the life you want. And then you ask yourself, what's getting in the way? What's getting in the way? Right? what's getting in the way and who can you turn to to start to help you move through that stuff, right? Because it's it's simply if that's the stuff getting in your way, right? There's people in the world, there's wonderful healers in the world like yourself who can support you in moving through that stuff, right? And there you have it. You have a start of an action plan, you know, a start of an action plan of like, okay, well, you know, actually, my relationship isn't the way I am because yeah, we sometimes we bicker and we argue a lot. Okay. So, what do you want to do? Maybe you need a relationship therapist. Oh, that feels uncomfortable because you have some connotation about that. But what do you really want? How important is that to you? You know, is there some personal stuff you need to clear through? Is there some energy work you need to do? And it's it's like being willing to stand up for what you really want. You know, really standing up for what's really really matters to you because that really is what the great men of history have always done, you know. And you don't have to be one of the greatest men in history But you can be the greatest man in your life. And it's just like identifying that and and moving towards what you want because getting help is hard, trust me, is one of my my my most difficult things I face on a on a monthly basis. Getting support and help. But doing so has radically changed my life, my relationships, um to a point where, you know, it's it's unthinkable. You know, in many ways. I had a friend of mine, a good friend, uh I'll just finish up with this We've known each other for 25 years and you know I had a little baby about 7 months ago and he said to me one day we're sitting down on the bench with my baby strapped to me in a sling and he's like he's like Dave imagine like 20 years ago we would have never thought we'd be sitting here and we just laughed and I said yeah because 20 years ago I didn't believe relationships could work. I didn't believe I could ever be in a committed relationship that could could work that could have good communication. I didn't believe I could have children. not just do all the things that my father did. I didn't believe that I could find a career and a path and job that I really loved. And here I am, you know, and it's because I I kept leaning into what do I want and what's in my way.

Yes. Oh, I love it. And congratulations on the baby. And it's so amazing like when I actually even think back to where I was at even like three or four years ago and now to be here running this practice that has like a waiting list out by like out the door. And to think that this has been built based on that type of work that you talk about for you to be sitting there with your friend and that beautiful little soul that you brought into the world. Like the thing is change can be profound and so amazing. And like I say, like we can limit just how great life can be. But stepping onto the path and actually just taking the first step to make the changes. That's that's the most courageous thing that you can do for yourself, I think. And like I think the tools that we talked about, your avoidance list and your direct action list

and kind of identifying um kind of where you want your life to be and what's standing in the way. They sound like kind of really wise tools that have come out from our amazing chat today for men to start going on the the journey. of kind of the authentic nature of their soul.

I love it. Oh, David, thank you so much. What an absolutely beautiful, beautiful conversation. I'm so grateful.

No, my pleasure, man. It's a pleasure having me. I really enjoy it today.

Thank you so much. And um like we touched on during the podcast, um beautiful Becky will create some show notes in which we'll be able to to link um you in with David to see what he does and his social media, which is really amazing um for for points um to get the the thought processes worring in the brain and um obviously you'll be able to directly connect with David um through his website as well. We'll link in. So, thank you so much David. I'm so beyond grateful for everything for the time and the chats and um hopefully we'll talk to you again soon.

Oh, I hope so.