Jason Lange - Rewriting The Man Box: Vulnerability, Brotherhood, And Real Change

We trace Jason Lange’s path from a disconnected childhood to leading transformational men’s groups, unpacking the “ManBox,” interoception, and shadow work. The talk shows how language, brotherhood, and responsibility restore energy, deepen love, and create real resilience.

• Jason’s upbringing and early disconnection
• Coping patterns and the first men’s group
• Rewriting the man box and invulnerability
• What defines manhood in culture
• Interoception and naming emotions
• How language builds safety in relationships
• Mental health as proactive training
• Tension, energy drain, and the body
• Brotherhood, shame reduction, and risk-taking
• Shadow work and unconscious rules
• Guidance for women: receive, don’t fix; appreciate effort
• Who fits which group and when to refer out
• Practical first steps to build a male community
• Jason’s ongoing edge: presence with family
• Biggest win: building a healing family

Evolutionary.men/talk is. where you can find Jason, his work with men's groups, and more! 

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Chapters

• 0:55 Meet Jason Lang
• 1:26 Childhood Roots And Disconnection
• 2:58 Loneliness, Coping, And A Turning Point
• 3:30 Discovering Men’s Groups
• 4:23 Building Community In LA
• 5:15 The Man Box And Invulnerability
• 6:27 What Makes A Man: Culture’s Metrics
• 7:26 Preparing For Vulnerability Before It Hits
• 9:21 The Real Work Inside Men’s Groups
• 10:37 Naming Sensations And Emotions
• 11:42 Why Language Creates Safety In Relationships
• 12:37 Mental Health: From Stigma To Skill
• 13:49 Tension, Energy, And The Body
• 15:23 Brotherhood That Reduces Shame
• 16:12 Shadow Work Explained
• 16:59 Finding Jason And His Work
• 19:34 Seeing The Unseen With Trusted Men
• 19:51 Jason’s Ongoing Personal Edge
• 20:37 Biggest Win: Family And Healing
• 21:21 What Women Need To Hear
• 23:24 Who Fits Which Group
• 24:36 Final Message To Men And How To Start
• 28:57 Closing And Contact Info

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Welcome back to one-on-one with Mr. U. Of course, I'm your host, Mr. U in studio with us, evolutionary guide and men's embodiment coach, Jason Lang, is here with us. Good morning, Jason. How are you, man?

SPEAKER_01: 0:48

I'm doing great. So good to be here with you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:50

Same here, brother. Same here. Glad to have you on here. This is a conversation that love having. I love I love talking about men's stuff. We got a podcast that does that. As a matter of fact, I'll drop the uh QR code for men's podcast in the upper right-hand corner in a few minutes. The one that's right there, right now is not the one, so hold on for a little bit. But while we're doing that, Jason, I'll have all of our guests come in and share about their upbringing in their childhood. Kind of tell us what it was like for you coming up and how you got to where you are now. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17

Yeah, definitely woven right into my story. Uh white guy raised in the Midwest of the United States, outside of um Chicago and um lower middle class. So had all my basic kind of security needs met in a lot of ways. But as I got older, discovered the one thing my family didn't know how to create, give, was connection, both physical and emotional. So grew up in a household where we all kind of just lived in the same house and nothing was ever talked about, and there was no connection. And, you know, as a kid, uh I just made do. But as uh in my case, I'm heterosexual. I hit my teenage years, started to get interested in women, and discovered, oh shit, it's really uncomfortable for me. Like I would get really tense in my body, get really clammy, didn't know how to talk to women, and frankly, didn't really know how to um talk at all about my inner experience and was feeling very lonely and often depressed. And got lucky and met some good uh men in my life, but noticed even how they related to each other was different in that they would horse play, they'd wrestle, they were kind of like physical with each other, and I just didn't have any wiring around touch and around emotional connection, and that led me to some um pretty challenging places. I was single for you know until I was 26, is when I finally like found a way to start connecting with women. Okay, and like a lot of men, I coped with food, video games, porn, masturbation. And it was in the pain of that, not knowing how to create healthy relationships and connection and just feel good in my body that I got launched into transformation and growth. And the the thing that really changed the trajectory of my life was in 20 when I was 26, I found my first men's group and started to sit in deep community and circle with um men who were a little more grown than me in these different areas. And I got hooked, man. I just I got into it, uh, became a huge part of my life. And eventually moved to LA for a long time and was in a group there that I helped start. And I was just talking about it everywhere. Like, oh my God, I'm in this group. It's helping me move forward my career, my relationships, my health. And men started asking me, like, hey, can I come? And we met in a little room, like a therapist's office, and there was just no more room to do it. So I was like, no. But then I got inspired where I was like, okay, well, I'll start leading groups out of my living room in the middle of LA. I would just post them on meetup.com, had all kinds of different men from all kinds of different backgrounds coming in and realized there was a huge need, and it was something I really enjoyed doing with men is helping create community for them in the ways that I had been lucky to find it. And then I went off and got all kinds of training, and now it's kind of all I do every day is lead men, create, create groups for men to help them um thrive in the ways they want.

SPEAKER_00: 4:32

I love it, man. I love it. I think we're gonna push out some more of that story in a little bit. What's the biggest challenge that you see in the following men in society and men groups?

SPEAKER_01: 4:43

Yeah, I mean, men in society, I think it's this huge issue we're working through as men around rewriting the narrative of what masculinity and men are allowed and supposed to be. In that there's this idea you've probably heard of, maybe talked about on the show, of the man box, which is this literal box of being we're supposed to be in as men. And we either check off the attributes that make us so-called men, or we don't. And it's actually this very narrow range of being. That one way I heard it that summarized it better than anything else is to be a man means to be invulnerable, right? To be invulnerable means you're tough, you never show weakness, you never show vulnerability, you never ask for help. Um, some of the massive things we get kind of hammered into us in our culture, right? Here here in the States, right? It's the I say it's the kind of myth of the Marlboro man, right? This kind of rugged cowboy doesn't need anybody, he's tough as nails, he never shows that he's hurting inside. Um, and while there's a romantic ideal to that, turns out that guy's usually drinking himself to death, right? Like there's a very real physical consequences to how we're taught to be as men. And it's one of those wild things, right? I came across this study um last year that they had done where they interviewed both men and women about the following two questions. What marks the transition from a girl into a woman, and what marks the transition from a boy into a man? And I'm not saying this is right, but both men and women, when it came to girl to woman, guess what they named? Mostly physical attributes. Oh, she started her cycle, her body has developed. She's a woman now, right? With men and boys, it was totally different. It wasn't based on our physiology in terms of maturity. It was how's he handling his life? How's he showing up in his community? Is he a man of his integrity? Does he have a sense of direction? And so it was more about the internal state that makes great. You could be a fully grown man, but still be considered a boy, right? Failure to launch. We hear that kind of stuff all the time. And so there's different pressures on men. And the biggest one that, you know, I'm really tackling head on is you got to do everything alone, and other men are a threat in competition. And what it causes men to do is hold things inside. And when we hold things inside and it gets uncomfortable, we do what I did. We turn to things outside of us, substances, drugs, relationships, to try to make ourselves feel better, but never actually get to the root cause. So rewriting that narrative that, hey, it's actually okay to be vulnerable as a man. And the you know, biggest, biggest way I often push back against this is uh, you know, guys who are are on the kind of tough brigade. It's just the the very real, honest truth that a lot of guys don't want to deal with, that at some point, I don't care if it's illness, accident, or old age, as a man, your body is gonna fail you and you will not be able to just push through. And that moment of vulnerability is when men suddenly have to fall back to what relationships have I created in my life? And it's coming for every guy. I don't care how tough he is right now, there will be a moment physically you won't be able to just push through. And what I'm teaching guys is start preparing for that now. Because even if it's not a you know big accident or something, sometimes we all just get knocked on our butts for a little while, right? Lose a job, or we get a little sick, or something happens with one of our kids. And you can rely on other men when you know how to cultivate these connections to help you navigate that. Yeah, makes sense. That'd be the first one. And then what was the second question again?

SPEAKER_00: 8:54

Well, that was a long answer. That's why you came up with the second question. But the second question is what's the biggest challenge you see in men's groups?

SPEAKER_01: 9:02

Yeah, um, honestly, biggest challenge I see is most of us men are not trained how to actually be in our bodies and connect to our emotions. And so, right, there's an actual word for this interoception. So, proprioception, most people know, right? It's tracking how your body moves through space, right? Uh, good athletes and stuff, they have high proprioception. There's another side of that though, there's the internal component, which is interoception. What's happening inside my body? Just being able to track that and then name that. And most of us men, it's not necessarily our fault. We are not taught how to do that, right? When we're young boys, we're told stop crying, be tough, get up, you'll be fine, sit still in school. All these messages that basically say whatever's happening in your body, ignore it. Just override it with your mind. And so, for a lot of guys, when I first see them get into group, I quite literally often have to teach them okay, what is a physical sensation in your body? And what's an emotion? Can you name them? They're separate things. Often emotions start as physical sensations, but these simple capacities that once we have them, the beauty of it is it allows us to communicate our experience, feel more understood, and get more of what we want. But when we don't have the language for it, this is the other thing, you know, for a good 15 years of my life, man, someone asked me how I was doing. I I had a range of three good, fine, and okay. Yeah, it's like it. I was like, I'm fine, I'm not feeling good. Right? Not a whole lot of nuance. Now I'm much more able to share what's going on. It's like actually, yeah, I'm feeling a lot of heat in my shoulders and part of my hands feel really tense. Like I'm I'm angry, right? I could say stuff like that to my wife now, which paradoxically actually makes her feel a lot more safe because she's like, Oh, he knows what he's feeling. So I don't have to be tracking what he's feeling because he can name it. Skill and capacity for us guys to get a handle on our inner world. And why we do that? So we can get more of what we want in our outer world.

SPEAKER_00: 11:17

Love it. So, what do you think is and mental health is a big thing for for me and for us, really? We discuss it a lot on our roundtable podcast because it's something that you can't ignore. We've been ignoring it for a long time with disastrous consequences in most cases. Where do you think the mental health struggle is for men mostly? I guess I guess I'd say in your assessment.

SPEAKER_01: 11:43

Totally. What I see is um we're taught to keep it all inside, right? Keep it all inside, right? One of the uh I'm a coach, right? And I mostly lead men's groups, but a lot of times when guys start working with me for the first time in their lives, they get open to, oh, maybe I could go to therapy, maybe I could talk to someone about what's happening inside me. And I joke because there's still a pretty hardcore belief that only men, uh men who go to therapy are men who are broken. And what I like to say is, you know, let's just think about the gym. Do you only go to the gym when you have an injury? No, you go to the gym when you want to get healthier, it can be a proactive thing. And doing the same thing for our inner health, our mental health, is a big part of that, of just learning to communicate what's inside. And this stuff has really tangible um impact on our life, right? The in the work I do when we think about our inner landscape, particularly emotions, whether that's grief, fear, anger, shame, different things that so many men carry, so many humans carry. When we don't want to feel something, guess how we do it? We tense up our bodies and we shoot up into our heads. So imagine I come up to a five-year-old boy and he's crying, and I yell at him, stop crying. How does he do that? Holds his breath, tightens up, locks the emotion in. Turns out we all do that, and over time we accumulate these tensions in our body that guess what? Take energy, they take metabolic resource, they take our life force as men. So as we get older as men, right? I see it all the time, and guys hit 35 and above, suddenly, energy management, fatigue, injury, back stuff, autoimmune disorders, these things start to stack up. And while they're not always solely created by emotional repression, they're often deeply linked to them. So learning how to process, how to share, how to come from come forward vulnerably with other men, lo and behold, when we learn to do that, that's also what creates the most connection. And all men I know, once they get the feeling, oh my God, I got men at my back, they take bigger risks in life, they try more things, they're not afraid of making a mistake or failing because it's like, hey, I have somewhere to be to be caught, so to speak, by my brothers. And it's rewriting that narrative, though, that it's okay to talk about this stuff. You don't have to be perfect. All the guys you see on social media you think have it all figured out, they have their own challenges too. They only post the good stuff. And when guys start to sit in circle and they realize, oh my God, this guy I had projected all over was like had it all together with the job and the wife, and he's struggling too. It actually relaxes us guys. It's like, ah, I'm not alone in this. Now we can be real, we could talk about this real stuff. And it's a lot to push against, though, because a lot of guys, again, I work with guys in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who will share things in a circle they've been holding on to for 30 years of their life and never told anyone. This is like intense stuff that keep it inside and they think it disqualifies them from life or love or whatever that might be. And when they finally share it, their deepest thing, their biggest fear, the greatest shame. And other men are like, Yeah, right on, man. And I still like you. It totally liberates their nervous systems.

SPEAKER_00: 15:30

I love it. I love it. So we don't have a whole lot of time left. I want to make sure everybody can find you. People are watching and they're not listening, or they're listening and not watching. So that's you. Evolutionary.men forward slash talker. We can find Jason. You did information about his men's group, and if you want to be a part of what you're doing, or even hire him as a coach, evolutionary.men forward slash talk, where you can find him. All right, so you mentioned something about shadow work, Jason. What exactly is shadow work?

SPEAKER_01: 15:58

Yeah, shadow work is the process of just making conscious the unconscious processes, beliefs, and systems that run us. So a lot of times, shadow is formed when we're young, something happens to us, it's adverse, we want to protect ourselves from it, and we create these rules or processes to help us avoid that in the future. And so, shadow work really shows up in terms of a lot of times guys will come to me and there's this thing or things they do they know they don't want to be doing because it doesn't help their life, and yet they keep doing it. Shadow work is the process of figuring that out. Why do I get so explosively angry when my partner doesn't text me back? Or why um do I always say yes to everything they ask for at work, right? You know, who there's so many different ways. Yeah, but it's basically the process of figuring out what are the beliefs and rules and often unfelt emotions in my nervous system that are running my life without me even really being aware of it. So another way to put this is when we have extremely large reactions or amounts of reactivity to things that don't necessarily always warrant it, right? When we explode in anger or grief or fear, whatever that might be, shadow work helps us get to the root of that so we can be more conscious and make conscious choices in our life rather than just unconsciously responding. And it's a deep process because a lot of this stuff starts in childhood, and a lot of men bury it so deep they forget that, oh my God, I've been living my life my whole way because of this thing my dad or friend or caregiver said to me when I was eight years old, whatever that might be. And once we see it, it's like seeing the matrix of wow, I can see that fueled all of my relationships, and I don't want to do that anymore. And that's where, you know, another piece of work comes in. But getting clear about that shadow, which one of the reasons I do it in group is, you know, if if I'm standing here and you're like, hey man, do you see that big shadow behind you? And I'm like, what do you mean? What shadow? Right? It's much harder to see our own shadows, but when we're in trusted community, people can point it out. It's like, hey man, every time you talk about that, notice your energy completely drops. And you're like, what do you mean? And then we start to see, wow, yeah, actually, I I have quite a bit repressed around there. And we can start to change it.

SPEAKER_00: 19:22

Makes sense. The biggest mountain that you're still working on as a man.

SPEAKER_01: 19:27

Yeah, for me, um would be just being present and showing up for my wife without getting stuck in the loop of all the things I think I need to be doing in order to create and lead my family. Or sometimes I'll get so busy because I want to take care of my family. Guess what? I want to actually be present for my family in the very interactions they need the most. And that's one of the biggest things I work with men on is what it means to actually be present in our relationships and not just always be thinking about the next thing we need to fix or win or do better or do right, which has again noble intentions, but it often means we miss the moments that matter the most.

SPEAKER_00: 20:15

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01: 20:16

What's the biggest uh challenge you've overcome as a man?

SPEAKER_00: 20:18

What's your biggest win?

SPEAKER_01: 20:20

Yeah, I would say um creating an incredible family. So, yeah, like I said, I was a very late bloomer man. Uh, I didn't get connected to women until my late 20s and felt like it was an impossible goal, and then totally changed, attracted an amazing, spirited, beautiful wife, and have created two beautiful kids, and in the process of fathering, have started to heal a lot of the wounds I experienced uh from not having with my family.

SPEAKER_00: 20:50

Love that last few questions of the show for the women that are listening. Because I do have a lot of women listeners and they stick with us. What do you want them to hear about men and their struggles? Now, I'm I'm before you answer this. All people who are listening for the first time, perhaps, we talk about our men's round table podcast, it's just a safe space for men. We don't have women on it, but many of you message me afterwards. Or if if I know your husband, you're texting me how you want him on the show, and you think it's so great and everything. I love that. But we're gonna talk, we're talking right now about men's struggle. So kind of just understand that this this gentleman is gonna be talking to you about what he believes men are struggling with and what you may need to hear. So take that in the stride. But go ahead, Jason, answer that question for me.

SPEAKER_01: 21:38

Yeah, I think uh for for any ladies listening out there in terms of what's going on with men, it is we are pushing back against a culture that teaches us not to feel and keep it all inside. And oftentimes our partners want to feel us and want to know what's going on inside. And a real challenge I have seen with a lot of men is they finally take the risk and share a little bit of what's going inside, and then their girlfriend, their wife, doesn't know what to do with it. Oh my God, you're scared you're gonna lose your job. And then they finally stretched and been vulnerable, and then their partners actually kind of don't know how to handle it, and it ends up being a double wound for the men. And here's the thing: just like with the feminine, we don't need to be fixed as men. We just need to be acknowledged. Wow, I really hear that's scary for you. Totally hear that. How can I support you? Right? To just receive it. Just because we have a vulnerable emotion doesn't mean, right, we're gonna be uh completely collapsing or falling apart. Um, if you ask us and you tell us you want to feel us more when we come forward with it, don't dismiss it, don't make it small, just acknowledge it and appreciate it. And the other thing almost every man I know yearns for more of more from his relational partner, his woman, is just appreciation. Even if we can't yet fully show up in the ways you want, to acknowledge our effort is often the healing balm so many men need. Like I see how hard you're trying. I see that we've been talking about communicating more, and I know it's hard for you, but I can tell you're really trying, and I appreciate that. Or I can tell you're trying to do things differently at work, or whatever that might be. That little bit of appreciation goes so far for the masculine because oftentimes we're walking through life, we have these huge goals, and in our our own mind, we're like, I'm failing everything, I'm trying, failing, failing, failing, and I'm getting criticized by my wife, or whatever. So a little bit of appreciation just goes so far. Absolutely. Hey, yeah, you know, maybe you're not where you want to be yet, but I see you're trying, and I love you for it.

SPEAKER_00: 23:57

I love it. All right, next to last question. Is there ever a scenario where somebody comes to you, I guess, for a consideration to join your group, and you have to send them to a different group group that it's not a fit. If there's a scenario where that's ever happened, what's that look like for you watching and may fall in that category?

SPEAKER_01: 24:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. I work with most men, but you got to be committed and you got to be willing to take responsibility for your life and your pain, whatever that might be. If a man hasn't fully taken responsibility yet, it's probably not the right fit. And then, really, the only other place I would sometimes redirect guys is if they're still in the acute phase of some kind of addiction recovery. I would point them more to an addiction recovery group. And then once they've stabilized there a bit, then they can kind of come in for the more nuanced work I do.

SPEAKER_00: 24:47

That makes sense. All right, final question for the episode. Everybody that comes through gets asked this question. It's called the CMV question, career mission, and vocation. It's not to diminish the great work you've done, could be done plenty of great work, Jason. Just to temporarily erase it for a moment. Ask you a philosophical question, if you will. What is Jason Lane doing right now? It's not anything from your former career, anything you've done vocationally in the past, not even a hobby you've done, none of that. What is Jason Lang most likely doing today outside of those areas? What do you think he's doing?

SPEAKER_01: 25:19

Yeah, I could tell you 100%. Um film. I love creating uh I love film. I love the world of media production and filmmaking and storytelling. And I I I would love to be in that world too. I just get so lit up by it. I love watching them, I love talking about them and uh I dabble a bit and making them. And so, yeah, man, I'd be making films.

SPEAKER_00: 25:40

Is there any chance that can be a possibility for you? Still seem like it's a hot fire for you. No chance.

SPEAKER_01: 25:46

Uh yeah, not at this phase in life right now, as I got all my energy on my kids and growing the men's work thing. But uh, you know, one of the fun things about these days uh is the tools are easier than ever. So sometimes, you know, play around on the side. It's good fun.

SPEAKER_00: 26:00

No worries, good stuff, man. Great to have you in here, brother. Take the next two minutes, if you don't mind, do two things for me. Let everybody can find your work, where they can find you, and of course, just give a shout-out to the men that are watching and listening today. Maybe say something encouraging or something for them. Greg.

SPEAKER_01: 26:18

Yeah, if you if you like my message, what I'm up to, you can just head over to evolutionary.men. And on there you can see writings, podcasts, programs I run. I have men's groups around dating and relationship, men's groups around shadow work, men's groups for guys that just want to experience that. And um, even if you don't work with me, so my mission is every man should be in a men's group, reach out, and I'm very plugged in now, and I will help you try to find resources in your area that are right for you. Sometimes guys just don't know where to get started. So shoot me an email and I'll point you in the right direction. And yeah, for guys listening, uh, you know, simple thing I say is um you don't have to do it all alone, right? When we get into the community with other men, things get better. They don't get easier, but they get better. We're able to handle the bigger stresses of life much more efficiently when we're in community. We're meant to do this as men, and we've been taught otherwise, but this is how we survived for a long time, right? Small groups of people really committed to each other. And what I've seen is it transforms men's careers. They make more money, they get promotions, their relationships get better, and their health gets better just by getting in a community with other men. So even if you don't join a group, grab that buddy, you get a sense there's some deep connection with, sit down with them, turn and actually face them. Don't just be watching the screen and say, hey, what's going on in your life? Were you in pain? What do you want? Let's get real. And that alone can totally change your life as a man.

SPEAKER_00: 27:56

I love it. Thank you for your time on this man. Evolutionary guide and embodiment coach, Jason Lang. Thanks for joining us, brother. We appreciate this. If you're interested in reaching out to him, you know how to do it. Evolutionary.men slash forward slash talk. If you want to reach out to me or ask any question about myself, any any of the shows on our brand, or anything from a coaching aspect, or about the men's round table podcast. My landing page is in the upper right hand corner. Grab that. You can reach out to me. I'm available on all social media as well. But thanks again for watching and listening. That's Jason. I'm Mr. U. We're out here. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to one-on-one with Mr. U.S.