Episode 96: The Importance Of Emotional Wellness For Men – Transcript

In this episode, Jennifer sits down with Owen Marcus, cofounder of Evryman, to explore how emotional vulnerability can transform men’s health, relationships, and business success. Owen shares why traditional views on masculinity often suppress emotional growth and how learning to express feelings can reduce stress, build stronger connections, and enhance leadership. He reveals practical tools to help men reconnect with their emotional physiology, model authenticity, and foster deeper human connection. If you’re a man seeking more meaningful relationships and a healthier mindset, this conversation will inspire you to drop the armor, lead with vulnerability, and create lasting emotional freedom.

Transcript

Jennifer: All right, you guys. Welcome, welcome to today’s episode of the Happy Productive Podcast. I know that you are going to love my guest as much as I love him, Mr. Owen Marcus with Everyman. Welcome, Owen, to the show.

Owen: Thank you, Jennifer. It’s my pleasure and honor to be here.

Jennifer: Oh, thank you so much. And so, you guys, I have to say, so I’ve known Owen for some time now, (and we actually do work together. And I’m so excited to have him here because the work that he does is so, so important and the way that I guess was originally introduced to Owen was through our retreat.

So, we did our retreat in Montana last year. And during the retreat, that one was just for women and I remember saying, oh, I really wish that we could do this work for men because men need what we had just experienced at our retreat for women. And through a series of people, I was introduced to Everyman and met Owen and found out that there are actually organizations out there that do so much great, amazing work for men. And men, guys, you need this.

You need to learn some of these things. You need the connection. You need the retreats. You need some of the same things that women often do for themselves. And I find that sometimes men don’t always do this work for themselves. So, Owen, would you mind just take a give everybody a little bit of your story and your journey of how you arrived here to be doing this work?

Owen: Yeah, I arrived someplace I never thought I’d ever do. I mean, I got my undergraduate degree in psych and I decided I didn’t want to be a psychologist because most of the psychologists in college are a little messed up. So I went on a little journey, literally and figuratively, and ended up in Boulder, Colorado, ended up with a roommate that had given up his law practice of eight years to become a rolfer. And I never heard of that. And it’s a kind of particular kind of body work where rolfers are releasing chronic stress in the body, particularly the fascial system. And one thing led to another. I ended up spending four years in Boulder, Colorado, learning that.

But at the same time, I got to study with all the men that were starting these new professions in somatic psychotherapy, which was to say using the body as a vehicle into dealing with their emotions, dealing with stress and trauma. So I studied with the founders of these professions and it was sort of being in the right place at the right time. And then in 1980, I moved down to Scottsdale, Arizona and one thing led to another, ended up starting an integrated medical clinic and did that for several years, and then ended up moving to Sandpoint, Idaho. And before I left Arizona, I realized that I’d healed a lot, but I hadn’t really transformed how I was doing relationships. Not that my relationships with women were terrible, but they just weren’t really satisfying for them or for me and one thing led to another, and I realized I had resistance working with men. And I called up a friend of mine and I knew he’d done some work with men.

He gave me a lead. I did their training. It was, yeah, not really what I wanted, but it got me to start my first men’s group in my clinic. Did that. It was mediocre. Ended up moving to Idaho, did a few groups. And 18 years ago, I started the Sandpoint Men’s Group based on everything I’d learned back in Boulder, back in the late seventies, and everything I’d sort of learned since then and applied in my clinic to working with men and it took off. I mean, I asked 11 guys, they all said, yes. And I thought, oh, I got to show up and do it and we did it. And we’ve been developing that work ever since.

Then six years ago, what we developed in Sandpoint ended up morphing into every man that we have now as a, you could call it emotional wellness company for men, where we teach men the skills that we often never saw other men manifesting, let alone ever had taught to us.

Jennifer: Yeah, it’s such important work because often what I have seen in my practice and working with a lot of business owners, and I work with men and I work with women, and I often find that really my male clients, they tend to really be looking for a space where they can just like be themselves, be open. They’re not going to be judged. I think that’s one of the reasons why they like the coaching process because they feel like, you know, out in the world, they’re not allowed to show their emotions.

They’re not allowed to show any, you know, signs of weakness or whatever that looks like. And so it’s so nice in that coaching space where they are able to just, you know, relax and just tell me where you’re at and it’s all okay. You’re not going to be judged. So I’d love for you to speak to this, this idea of, you know, men and their emotions and, you know, getting in touch with your emotions and learning to use your emotions is actually not a sign of weakness. I think it’s really a sign of your masculine power.

Owen: It certainly is and once men start to get it, they realize it really is. And so, as you can imagine, most men, particularly in terms of my private practice with coaching, they come to me because, like me, their relationships weren’t working where they wanted them to be. And they start doing that work and their relationships usually turn around within three months. And then without any effort, they start to see how their businesses, most of these guys are either entrepreneurs or C-level executives.

So, they start to see how they, when they develop these, not just emotional skills, but what we call emotional physiology skills, when they start to connect to their somatic experience, their body, learn how to deal with stress in an effective way, they just naturally start connecting to others and others naturally start connecting to them. So, we work with some tech companies and what they bring us into their company to do is really get these top executives and scientists working in a way that’s more effective, more collaborative and one of the things I remember one of these, the CEO of one of these companies said to me was the problem we have is these guys don’t ask for help. And I, you know, I had to laugh because you probably see this, it’s hard for guys to ask for help.

And so one of the reasons he brought us  in was to train these fellows to ask for help and be vulnerable, because that’s really what we’re talking about is being vulnerable and as you said, Jennifer, that for us, as men, we think being vulnerable is a weakness. And part of that comes from, we assume that we need to be vulnerable in the way that women are vulnerable. Some of that’s true, but some of it’s not true.

When men are being vulnerable, we’re generally doing it differently than women are doing it. And one of the problems we have as men is we haven’t seen men be authentic or vulnerable or powerful all at the same time. So, when we’re told that we should be, even by ourselves, vulnerable, we, you know, and I did this, we sort of freeze, we don’t know how to do it.

And one of the things that I’m working with some companies on now is creating these what they call spaces of psychological safety, because what we know and the research shows is, unless you feel safe, you’re not going to downregulate your stress response. And if you can’t downregulate your stress response, you’re not going to be open for connection, and other people won’t be open for connection. And so what we essentially train these guys to do is we show them how to do it, we give them experiences on how to downregulate their stress, connect to their own emotions and somatic experience, but also their creativity.

Because as you know, when we’re relaxed, we’re more creative, we’re having more fun, and people want to be around us. So what these men find is that they become better leaders, because they’re just being more spontaneous, and more open and more connected. And it’s a lot less work. So they come home at night, not stressed out, but actually juiced up.

Jennifer: Yeah, it’s so interesting. Because like, even in my limited work with men, you work with so many men. Like if I say to one of my male clients, hey, let’s talk about your emotions. They are like, nope, we’re not gonna go there. It’s almost like I’ve got to like sneak in through the back door and be like, hey, let me ask you a different question that does not have the word emotion in it.

And it’s just interesting to me the way that most men I’m generalizing, when you’re like, hey, you want to talk about your emotions, they tend to just wall up or, you know, shut that off or no, we’re not going to go there. And how do you help men to kind of overcome that or get past that, you know, that wall that goes up when it’s time to talk about how you feel?

Owen: Really good question. I cheat and I learned how to cheat years ago when I had people in my guys in my clinic. Because, you know, I’d work with, again, entrepreneurs, often, you know, lead athletes, professional athletes and Olympic athletes. So they were actually easier because they relate to performance. But what I would say to the other guys is, I’ve learned real quickly not to ask the emotional questions, at least in the beginning. I would talk about stress. You could ask the same question and contextualize it around stress and everyone will answer it.

Everyone, no one will resist it. Everyone knows that they have stress. They’re almost guys are particularly proud of the stress they have, and how they persevere and endure their stress and how they have more stress than Sam or Joe out there. So, it’s a sort of badge that we like to wear. And we like to almost brag about the stress. And so you get guys talking about the stress and then they start to talk about, well, maybe I’m not doing really well with that.

So, everything you would ask in an emotional context, you can ask around stress or physiology. And once you understand the physiology of stress, which is really pretty easy, you can get a guy opened up about how they relate to stress, what’s stressful for them, how do they take themselves out, how do they sabotage themselves? And they’ll usually start talking about that. And pretty soon they’ll start using emotional words on their own.

Jennifer: Yeah. Oh, I love this so much. We trick them into doing what they (10:43) need to do for themselves.

Owen: And then what happens is they start using those tricks on their friends.

Jennifer: I know, right? Which is actually a good thing because guys, there’s so many men in positions of power in this world. And you want them to be good, honorable, responsible human beings, right? Because they’re just in these positions and so we want our men to be in their masculine power, to be in touch with their emotions, but not like a woman.

I get that. Where in their own way and their own space, that’s where really that power comes from. So, when you see a man who crosses over and starts to be vulnerable, starts to see some examples of men being vulnerable, and they realize that, oh, this is actually a really good thing for me. What do you see is, what are the benefits from taking down those walls and being willing to talk about these things and explore these things within themselves?

Owen: Yeah. Like what I was saying, first, their stress goes down. And second, their connection to other people goes up. First, or probably primarily with their partner, because often that’s what brings them to us. So they start connecting, and they start connecting for a few reasons. One, he or she can come at this man and he doesn’t automatically, immediately go into a stress or what I call survival response.

So, he behaves in a much more resilient way with more capacity because of the simple, more somatic skills and emotional skills we’re teaching him. And then he’s able to connect into the innate physiology that all mammals have, certainly us humans have, which is the need for connection and so we work with two basic phenomenas, which is the stress, trauma, physiology, and parallel to that, what’s called attachment theory and how we’re all hardwired as mammals, and particularly as humans, for connection. And when we don’t have connection, it’s actually stressful. But when we do have connection, the authentic connection, what we have is what the scientists call co-regulation, which means that you and I connect when we do and so I feel safe, you feel safe.

You read my face, you read my body language, my voice, my head, all these nonverbal cues. We’re hardwired to do that. And so you feel safe. And so you transmit those signals to me and I feel safe. And so we start to connect. And with that, we both downregulate our stress. So, we come into a situation and we’re hardwired to check it out.

Most of us unconscious, is this situation, is this person, is this interaction going to be safe? And if it isn’t, in some way, we’re going to go into our survival responses, which is either going to be some version of fight, flight, or freeze and we can work with that, but we’re always working with it. And so we’re not performing as well, where if we have this innate connection, all the energy that would have gone into survival goes into connection, creativity.

And one of the things I’ve learned a long time from my own experience working with thousands of clients, and then the research, was that everything from healing, to connection, to collaboration, to creativity, really happens when we’re in this relaxed state.

Jennifer: Mm-hmm

Owen: And so what guys see is that they’re there, people want to be there with them, and they become a lot more efficient or productive at work.

Jennifer: I love this so much. And the idea to continue on that concept of the connection, one of the things I would hear my husband say often was, I wish I had some closer friends. And probably in our town, years, years have gone by where he’s just like, I wish I had some closer friends.

And of course, I’m like, well, get out and make some friends, honey, which was really hard for him to do. It was very difficult. And so he actually joined Everyman, and he did your fundamentals program, which is a four-week online virtual program. And in those four weeks, it was interesting to me how I saw him change over those four weeks, where he started to get more connected.

He started to feel like there was other men out there like him. And one of the things that I know he would say is, they’re normal, right? Because he had looked at some online men’s groups, and there was a lot of crazy stuff going on out there and he did not want to be part of a group that was all about hating women, which unfortunately, there are some of those groups out there that are like, women are the problem. And that’s not what he wanted to be a part of. But I saw him over those four weeks really start to change and be like, hey, there’s other guys out there like me, it’s okay for me to share.

And then from there, he went to one of your retreats, the Melt Men’s Emotional Leadership Training, weekend retreat up in the Catskills. And I gotta tell you, Owen, I’m like any woman, send your dude to one of these retreats, because he really came back a changed person. And he was just so grateful for the connection, everything that he learned there.

It was really life changing for him. So, I’d love for you to speak to what is that also what you see with some of the other men who come into your programs? And what do they experience?

Owen: That’s pretty much what we see. And as the research supports, as we get older as guys, we tend to have less friends and now they’re saying, you know, loneliness is worse than smoking cigarettes in terms of your longevity. And in defense of your husband and me and other men, that what we really want is authentic connection. So, when we were young, in high school, college, maybe the military, we connected and we had some good friends and that was one because of our age, but because we were doing things.

But with most guys as they get older, about the only connection they have is with their peers, or maybe their competition or a work context, where it’s not a real authentic connection for most guys, or connections through their partner, you know, at home, but rarely do they have these real connections, they might have some around a particular sport, but they don’t have these connections where they can call up a guy and just talk to him or vice versa, that guy can call him and just be there. And so we don’t have that, but we’re hungry for it. But we don’t know where to go to get it.

Because we have this what they call like men code, if you hang out with a guy, you don’t you don’t talk about anything that’s authentic, vulnerable, emotional, intimate. I mean, you sit down at a bar, you run into a guy on the party, you talk about sports, maybe business.

But you’re not saying, you know, I just got to tell you that. Yeah, I’m not doing well. My wife wants to divorce me. No guy is going to say that. And I don’t blame him, he shouldn’t. And if some guy said that to another guy, the other guy is going to go like, I don’t want to hear this. This is way too much information.

Jennifer: I’m out of here. Right, right, right. Let’s talk about sports, right.

Owen: At our groups or virtual events, and certainly live events, we just say to guys, we’re changing the rules. And authenticity, vulnerability, just being yourself is how you win in these contexts. Guys just start doing it. And all it takes is one guy to have enough courage to be a little vulnerable. And then another guy is another guy is and then as you know, guys can be really competitive.

So they get competitive about how authentic or how vulnerable they can be. And by the end of the weekend, you know, we can have 50 guys in there that were most of them were like, this in the beginning, where, you know, they’re hugging guys and saying, you know, all right, let’s do this group. After this, they’re planning different things, as if, as if they’re often saying to us and to them, you know, you’re like my best friend, I’ve only known you for two days.

Jennifer: Yeah,

Owen: so we have this innate need, I mean, physical, instinctual need for this kind of connection. But we don’t have a forum for it. And one of the things that I realized for men, that’s unique for men compared to women is we need to know the rules of engagement and so we have different rules of engagement, like just show up authentically, that’s all you need to do. And once guys see that you’re not going to be shamed for being emotional, you’ll actually be honored.

Every guy opens up eventually and that’s a different rule of engagement, or that those rules don’t apply out there. You know, those rules are pretty much the opposite. So, when we have containers or situations where men can just be themselves, with, yes, a little training, but it’s more that other guys are being that way that just really sort of invites these other men to be that way. And then at the end of the weekend, they’re all deeply connected.

Jennifer: I love this so much. And so Owen, if you are okay, a female, and you’re in a relationship with a male, and you believe your man could really benefit from something like this, you know, a woman saying to a guy, Hey, you should get some help.

Or Hey, you need to talk to these people is probably going to be met with some resistance. And so if you’re if you’re a woman, and you or know a man in let’s just make it even more general, you know, a man in your life who maybe you’ve heard them say they’re lonely, they’d like to have more friends, or you see that they’re struggling, like, what’s a good way to approach them with this, where they won’t just immediately shut it down? Or you know what I’m saying?

Like, they won’t just immediately throw up the barriers like, like, if you really know somebody who could use some helps, how do you approach them in a way that will help them to receive that and hopefully then get some help or meet meet other men or benefit from something like this?

Owen: Well, that’s a good question. Because yeah, most guys and I was one of them. If we’re told to do it, we resist. Sometimes guys come to us and go, Look, I don’t do this or therapy. My wife is going to divorce me and I’d rather do this in therapy. All right. But what I would say is make it personal. So have them feel how much you care and love them. Because I know that that’s ultimately what it’s about. And so, you just say something like, you know, Joe, I see how hard it is. I see how hard you work.

You don’t have any friends, you know, and you’re really working at being a good husband and good father. And I know, you know, your father wasn’t not that good. So, you really don’t have any models. So you’re, you’re inviting them, you’re making it personal, you’re empathetic, you understand the situation. And then you make it real personal and say, Look, I am really worried. I’m really, I really care about you know, I’m and I want you to get some support.

And I know that, you know, I can’t do that for you. And as an aside, you know, your partner really shouldn’t be your sole support. But yeah, that woman or that partner starts to talk about what it would do for you, as that partner, if you’re, you know, your man got this kind of support, and yet these kinds of friends that started to deal with this and talk about it around stress rather than emotions. And I think you’re going to get more traction that way. And just say, Look, I found something I heard something about these guys, check them out. You know, people say that they’re pretty normal.

Yeah, and the way that every man set up as you know, Jennifer, we have a lot of sort of strategy, you can just check us out. In terms of the newsletter, we got some free events. And then you can do the fundamental program, which is really simple, inexpensive, easy, just four weeks for evenings and then you can come become a member, you can join a group, you can do a live training. So there’s a lot of ways that guys can step their toes into the experience. And if it feels good, continue on with it.

Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely. And I think as a resource, it’s so nice, because you said something really important that your partner shouldn’t necessarily be like your whole source of support. That puts a lot of pressure on the partner to kind of be your everything, which most people are not going to be able to live up to that, or over time, it’s going to get old and you know, the person’s going to be like, you’re going to wear them out, you’re just going to wear them out when you’re looking to them to be your only source of support.

And so I love that this is another avenue that a person can lovingly suggest to their partner as a way of finding the connection and finding the information that they need, but also maybe even understanding more of their emotions. And I think Oh, and you guys do some work around this as well, almost like training around emotions, but you do it for men, like you’re not supposed to be a woman because you’re not a as far as really helping men to understand their emotions and work with their emotions.

Owen: Yeah. And so a lot of that understanding comes from understanding that a lot of the reactionary emotions, a lot of the emotions that take us out from connection are survival emotions, you might say, or survival coping mechanisms that work. And we say to guys, look, it worked, you survived your childhood or whatever.

The problem is that there’s some diminishing returns to this behavior pattern. And you’re seeing it generally in terms of relationships. So we back it up and talk about the stress, you’re going into a stress response, and all right, you don’t probably want to do that.

Here’s something else to do. And you know, you can, we can give you the frame for that. But we get these guys to practice and the practice with other peers is really what allows it to sink in and then they come up with their own understanding on what we’re doing and their own words for and then they just, because it’s ultimately a naturalistic behavior. Once they get a little traction, it really starts to stick.  And then they start doing it naturally with people and pretty quickly, their partners start giving them positive feedback, if only because they’re not arguing with them.

Now they’re having fun with them. And as you might know, or you do know, you know, I also teach couples workshops with my partners, a couple sermons and innately, in these workshops, I’m sitting down with a guy and showing him how to communicate to his partner in a way that she gets it because I know he feels love and compassion, but he’s not communicating it. And one of the things I’ll often say is you’re using a lot of emotional words. But they’re coming across as analysis, fixing judgments, suggestions and I know you mean well, and she sort of knows that too, but she’s not feeling you.

He’s not feeling you. So let me model what it will be like to speak in a way that you’ve never seen spoken. So, she gets it. And you know, I’ll sort of channel him for a minute or two, she starts crying. He’s looking at me, he’s looking at her and go, Oh, my God, yeah, that’s what I feel.

Jennifer: Right, right.

Owen: We learn this stuff through vicarious learning, we learn it through modeling. That’s how we start learning it. But as guys or as boys, we never saw this.

Jennifer: Right, right.

Owen: But most men, once they see it and have a little experience with it, they’ll pick it up and so their ROI starts to be really significant, because it is so natural.

Jennifer: Right, because I mean, I think often as little boys, and I was never a little boy, but from what I’ve seen, and even had to stop myself from doing with my little boy, when I had a son, it was like, I don’t want him to just choke down those emotions. I don’t want him to feel like he can’t cry. I don’t want him to feel like he can’t feel these things. And I think often with men, that’s what happens is that you’re not really allowed to show your emotions.

Owen: You’re not. I mean, boys, it’s been proven are more sensitive than girls up to the age of two. And so…

Jennifer: Wow, that’s interesting.

Owen: Excuse me, our peer pressure, the culture, yeah, stress and trauma, but really, the bigger context is what trains us and then we train each other, we pick on the kid that cries. So he gets the message, oh, I can’t do that. So those feelings don’t just dissolve, they go in, or they come out sideways. But we lose this ability to really connect.

Jennifer: Yeah. And then what happens with all this feeling and all this emotion when it just goes in, and then it just stays there for years? Then what do you see? What does the man start to see then when all this stuff just keeps getting shoved down inside?

Owen: A lot of physical illnesses, and that was my clinic, and a lot of relational dysfunction, and it starts to become a self-perpetuating behavior. So as stress picks up, they go to the stress response, which does not work, so it creates more stress, and it’s a vicious cycle.

So, the kid that was, say, picked on, either he’s going to sort of become more and more, I don’t know, disconnected, or weak, or whatever he might judge himself, or more and more, maybe the bully.  But they’re all coping mechanisms that allow him to survive his youth, but really are not allowing him to win as an adult.

Jennifer: So powerful. And that’s going to manifest in relationship issues, chronic stress in the body, and that’s big, heavy stuff. And the longer it goes on, those are not things that are going to just solve themselves.

Owen: No, and there’s a lot of ways to reverse that process, but honestly, it’s going to take some work for that guy. He’s going to have to do that. Now, what we do find is once you get started, actually working with every man, or the other guys that are a part of can actually be fun, which is something else you could not explain to most guys in the beginning, they would not go. No, that’s not fun.  I’ll go do it.

But I say to these guys, like, if you’re out of shape, go into the gym doesn’t look like fun. But you go to the gym for a few weeks or maybe it’s a few months. But at some point, it’s not hard. It’s actually fun.  And that’s how, you know, this work is, as New York Times said, it’s CrossFit for the gym or for the devotions. And guys actually get into it. And one of the other benefits that they never would have imagined and you couldn’t really tell because they wouldn’t believe it, is that one of your biggest benefits is that you’re going to enjoy helping other men just being yourself, showing up authentically as a contribution for other men. And they never would have believed that.

Jennifer: Oh, I love it so much. This is such, such amazing work that you do. And oh, and I know we have men and women listening today who are going to absolutely benefit from what you’re talking about here and guys, if you’re like, hey, I want to be around some normal guys and maybe work on my emotions a little bit, don’t be scared. Oh, let me replace that. Work on your stress level a little bit.  So, work on your stress. Be around some nice, normal guys.

Definitely check out Owen and check out every man and ladies. If you’re looking for a solution to help a brother, a husband, a father, anybody, any man in your life that you feel like could benefit. I think every man is just such an amazing, powerful solution that you guys have have created. So, oh, and take just in our last couple of minutes, just take a quick minute and tell everybody where they can find you in your private coaching practice. And then also just a little bit about every man.

Owen: Well, finding me is easy. It’s Owen Marcus dot com.  So O.W.N. M.A.R.C.U.S. dot com and every man is every man dot com. And the second is missing and so, yeah, go to every man. You’ll see all our programs from the virtual to the live programs.  And, you know, I know I was one of these guys at the thought of something like this.  I said to myself and probably other guys, this is weird. I’m not going to do this. But be it courage or be it.  I was in too much discomfort or pain.

I took the risk and did it.  And what I did decades ago is not near the level of what we have now in terms of the quality, in terms of the safety and in terms of being with other men that are really like you.  And what we hear all the time is what Jennifer is saying is that guys come back to us and say, you’re normal. This is weird, you’re not telling me how to be, we’re not running around the woods naked and, you know, we’re not beating women up. We’re just being authentic.

Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. So, it’s so powerful. So, you guys, if you’re listening, definitely check them out. Owen Marcus dot com or every man e v r y m a n.  So it’s spelled a little bit differently.  But check out every man. They have so many great tools and resources.

I have gladly sent my husband to every man retreats and programs.  And, you know, the next one that comes up, I’m like, honey, you got to sign up for that.  And honestly, he loves it. He he has just really loved it.  It gives him a sense of connection. He’s learned so much. It’s been such an amazing resource.  So I’m super happy to share it with the masses today and hopefully help some other men. So, Owen, thank you. Thank you for being here with me today.  I so appreciate it.

Owen: It’s been my pleasure. Awesome. All right, you guys.  Check out every man. Check out Owen and get out there and have a happy, productive day.  Bye, y’all.

Links:

Connect with Owen: https://owenmarcus.com

Evryman: https://evryman.com

Join our Academy: www.jenniferdawnacademy.com

Connect with Jennifer: www.jenniferdawncoaching.com

Retreats: www.jenniferdawncoaching.com/our-retreats