#15. Heal The Fathers, Heal The World – FRIDAY REFLECTIONS

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Welcome to this episode of Friday Reflections by Dad.Work! 

Every Friday I share the best of what we have been doing in the Dad.Work community, to provide perspective, new ideas, and motivation for you to continue on your journey to becoming the best man, partner, and father you can be.

This week we talk about:

  • Healing the world by healing fathers (the larger Dad.Work purpose and goal)
  • Feeling into each moment so deeply that you always act in aligned authenticity
  • Forming secure attachment with your child so they can go out, explore, and thrive in the world

Curt Storring 0:00

Welcome to the Dad.Work podcast. My name is Curt Storring, your host and founder of Dad.Work. I am feeling pretty pumped up today, this has been an excellent week of productivity and excellence and fighting mediocrity. And I'm excited to share with you a couple of ideas that have been on my mind this week, things I've posted this week, things I have been chatting about exploring myself. And we're going to go into healing the world by healing fathers, this is going to be a little bit of a discussion on what I see the purpose and the goal of Dad.Work moving forward is I think it's a much larger, grander scale than I ever thought possible. But I just know, so deeply in my core, that this works, this kind of men's work, the self work, this discovery, this healing, this growth is so impactful, it has literally changed my life, and I think honestly saved my life. And I'm beginning to see that it will be my purpose to share this so broadly, because, as we'll hear about in the next couple of minutes, I truly think we can solve almost every problem in the world. By starting with healing us as fathers, we're going to be diving into feeling into each moment so deeply that you always act in aligned authenticity. This has been huge for me, it's about developing intuition so that every time you make a decision, it just feels right, you know, it's right, whether or not it's the ideal, most efficient thing. It's never wrong, and you're never put out you're never acting in authentically. And finally, we're going to talk about a quote from the book awareness by Anthony de Mello. And this quote talks a lot about secure attachments, we're going to go into how to form a secure attachment. And what it looks like to examine in your own children whether or not they may or may not be securely attached and what to do. If not, this will be a chance for pattern interrupt, stop, take a breath, figure out how your life as a parent is going and move forward purposefully. And so with that, we'll jump right in. Not a lot of preamble because I talk a little bit at the start of this in the next minute or two about how we can connect. We are looking to move forward with podcasts. And that's it. Let's jump in. Hope you guys have a fantastic day. Thank you again, so much for listening. This has been such a joy to connect with everyone who has given me feedback and chatter with me. So here we go.

Good morning. Good afternoon, whenever and wherever you're listening to this, I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you so much for joining along with me on this ride to become better man partners and fathers. We just surpassed 2000 downloads with the Dad.Work podcast, which means we are getting over 200 Men listening to each episode, at least some of the older ones. And each episode is very quickly reaching over 100 men. And this is growing, I see the growth week over week, from 30 minute a to 70 minute day to 100 something men per day 250 men per day. And that is just fantastic. So thank you guys so much for listening. And if you're getting anything out of this podcast, please if you're on Apple podcasts, would you mind hitting pause and going to the Dad.Work podcast and scrolling down to the bottom there's a space to leave a rating and a review. If you've been getting something out of this, would you please leave a review. Whatever you think is helpful. Whatever you've gotten to this, I would love a word a sentence quick paragraph just to share with a man because I would love to reach as many men as possible. And the reason why I'd love to reach as many men as possible. Because I've been thinking about the larger impact. And the larger goal I want to have here is one thing to help men on an individual basis and help them suffer less love more apparent more confidently. That's been sort of the goal that I've set out for myself. And based on some of the feedback I mean that that goal hitting, you know, an important part of even one man's life has been hit over and over again, I've got so many wonderful pieces of feedback from men who say this is working for them. So I'm extremely grateful and that feels very gratifying. And I wonder what societal impact we can have. I wonder what world impact we're gonna have. And so I was thinking the other day that we'd love the goal of Dad.Work to be having a measurable impact on decreasing the negative outcomes related to men's mental health, including addiction, suicide, depression, anxiety, direction, lessness victim culture, environmental disconnect, and even woke is by providing the tools practices wisdoms and insights dads need to heal and grow. And I just thought imagine the work we can do if we reach more men. I know just personally I will never stop believing in this because it has changed my life so significantly So significantly, and I think I'm going to be releasing a podcast that covers my entire story a little bit more. Because I have seen my life change completely from misery, anger, frustration, thinking that my kids and family were better off without me and seriously considering what it would be like not to be on this earth anymore to being a calm, confident, excited, leader of men. It's just been such transformation. So I know that this works. And I know that it's worth it because my life has new meaning, new direction, I'm excited to get up out of bed every day, which I haven't always been. And so if we can bring this to the world, what could we do? I started thinking that I think that most of the problems that our world faces today can be solved by helping fathers heal their trauma, learn compassionate communication skills and grow into mature masculine leaders. And that's a huge statement, most of the problems this world faces like, what about this? What about that, well go back to the root cause of any problem you can think of. And I almost guarantee that behind that root cause is a boy or girl who didn't have the father that he or she needed growing up.

A man a woman who was once a young boy, a young girl, who didn't have a father to develop a secure attachment with who wasn't loved, openly, and seen and soothed by an emotionally available and intelligent father. And I'm talking about all sorts of things like even the things that many people consider evil in the world, I think, are perpetuated by people who did not have a healthy family system, particularly healthy father, or they have extreme trauma from childhood, whether that was from a father or not. And so yes, I think that most of the world's problems can be solved if we help fathers heal their trauma. When we react destructively, to feelings of discomfort, and repressed emotions, as fathers, we often start the same cycles of perceived trauma and wounding in our children, that our own fathers passed down to us. When we as fathers heal, grow and lead. Our children grow up with our baggage, they have fewer instances of perceived trauma, and they develop a more secure attachment. And when our children develop a more secure attachment, they become more resilient, more compassionate, they're more successful across a huge spectrum of outcomes. Research shows this, I've seen it with my own eyes, I've experienced it. When a child leads with this resilience, awareness, authenticity, compassion, empathy, healthy boundaries, he or she passes on the same traits to his or her own children, and to their community. And the last step to this when our world is full of these children in the communities, they will build, it becomes a more peaceful, compassionate, loving and connected place. And so if my logics right on this, we heal our world, by healing our fathers, one man at a time, you have the power to break the chain of generational trauma in your family, and to give your children a more full, rich, loving and supportive life that will literally shape the future of this planet. I truly believe that to my core, all the way down. I know it can be done, because it's been my own personal mission for the last eight plus years, just working on myself. And so if I extrapolate the work that I've done the work I see in my men's groups, the work that I see other fathers and our Dad.Work community doing, I know that we can change the world. So anything that you see that doesn't feel right in the world, anything that's not how you want or anything that is fearful, or shameful or angry, I think we can heal all of that. And that's why we're doing this work. So I wanted to share that with you because I wanted to give you a little bit more of a broad spectrum idea of what we're doing in this community in this movement, and I want you to get behind it. I would love for you to keep listening to the podcast. Leave us a review on Apple, hit follow on Spotify. Share this with any fathers in your life. Share us on social if that's your thing. And make sure you're signed up to the newsletter. If you go to dad dot work slash pod, you can sign up for the newsletter. You can also sign up for our free 14 day better man better dad email series where we'll walk through two weeks straight of emails including some of the most impactful learnings and practices on my own journey. There are almost 800 men taking part in that right now. And it's just been fantastic to hear the feedback. We've had some men say that this has changed the way they interact and parent with their children. I'm just so happy to hear that. I also want to invite you if this is the type of work that you want to be doing, to join me and other fathers to go deeper, in intentional community. And my goal for this is to create a worldwide community, something that we can plug into online and in person, to get feedback from one another, to be seen, to be heard, to be supported, to be challenged, to have a bunch of resources from experts, things that I've learned things that I've learned from other people, all in one place, so that we can continue to do this work to change and heal the world. And one of the first steps to that is a men's group. I've been in men's group for over two years now I've led men's group for about half of that time, maybe a little bit more now.

And I am creating this new container. It's an eight week container, only for fathers. And it's going to be a men's group where we will have space to be seen, heard, supported and challenged through open shares, but also be guided through a series of prompts, conversations, deep listening, practices of embodiment. And mindfulness basically, will be in a container two hours every week for eight weeks doing this kind of work with other men. And man, I gotta tell you, this has been like pouring gasoline on my self improvement fire. Being in a group of other men has been undoubtedly the best thing that I could have done for my growth and my healing. I want to invite you to join us. There's a waitlist right now, for our next eight week Dad.Work men's group for fathers. If this sounds like something you're interested in, please apply on the waitlist, you can find it at Dad dot work slash men's dash group. That's Dad dot work slash men's mn S dash group gr o up. That's the website, there's a link on there a button that you just tap, you can fill out a quick form and you will be added to the waitlist. And I will let you know as soon as we start the next group in the next four to six weeks. The next thing that I've been thinking about this week, after the sort of large existential question of who we are what we're doing is feeling into the moment so deeply that you never have to question what the right move is. I was at my men's group meeting on Monday, my co Captain Jason and I were coming back from break of 10 minute break just to get up stretch, get some water. And we were considering what we were doing to bring them in back. Sometimes we stretch sometimes we do push ups to get the body activated. Sometimes we breathe sometimes meditate. Sometimes we do nothing and get right into sharing. And, you know, we had a couple ideas I just threw out why don't we do some breathing? Wim Hof breathing or whatever it was, I suggested and I wasn't tied to it. It was just one of those things that, you know, maybe we do this. And you know, the response was like, Yeah, okay, we could do that. And I sort of sent this, you know, not full buy in from Jason. And so I started thinking about it, do I actually want to do this? And I sat with it, and I close my eyes. And I just felt into what felt right for the moment for the group for the container for me. I just went, No, I don't want to do that, actually. And, you know, this was a very inconsequential decision at the time. But afterwards, I told Jason, he said, man, what like this feels like a superpower to just feel so deeply into the moment. And just like intuitively know what's right. So my word this whole year has been intuition. And it's, it's hilarious in hindsight, just how important that decision would have been. Because I made some incredible life decisions this year, that impacted me significantly on a business front, and a life friend. And it's all come down to growing my powers of intuition. And what I take that to mean, is feeling what the right answer for me in that time is whether or not it ends up being the ideal course whether or not that's the most efficient course, I have been able to develop this ability to feel so deeply into what's happening around me and to quiet the mind and just go with the body and all the senses, that when I make a decision now, it's almost always obvious to me that it just feels right. I'm in alignment. I'm authentic, I'm not doing something I don't want to do. I do things for the right reasons. This just feels so good. It's not just a gut feeling, though. It's more than that. It's not a snap judgment. Go with your gut at any cost. It's utilizing all your faculties and senses. Taking a moment to say to that then decided. So this time it was just small. But next time, it could be how I show up for my kids in a make or break moment, it could be how I supported love my wife, the foundation upon which our entire future family were will rely. It could be the decision to close a business at great financial risk and loss to embark on a new path, which, as I mentioned a moment ago, is a real example, which I'll probably get into a little bit more in the future.

So dad's imagine the father you would be if you trained your awareness enough, to feel this deeply into each moment, mentioned the lover, you'd be mentioned the leader you'd be meditate, journal, join a community of men, do hard shit, and develop courage. All of these things will help you to develop this intuition, this ability to sense and feel into each moment so deeply that it feels like a superpower. Now, the final thing that's on my plate on my mind, this week that I want to share with you is this quote that came up, I subscribed to this tool called Read wise, R E A D, w i s e. And it's a fantastic tool that sends you an email every day, or every couple days, whatever you set it to, with a list of notes that you have taken from Kindle books, or wherever else you read, I think you can add them manually, you can scan them from a physical book, in all sorts of things. And it allows you to keep track of the most important parts of the books you've read. There's all bunch of all, there are a whole bunch of ways to use it. But the way I do it, they just get a daily email of five quotes from books I've read. And it's a fantastic way to keep me mindful of all the things I've read and to remember and to get constant reminders of things that are usually very relevant to me at the time. And one of the ones that came up today or yesterday was this quote from the book awareness by Anthony de Mello. And this is just a phenomenal read, I heard it recommended on the Tim Ferriss podcast, and I picked it up, it's short, it's sweet, and it's one of those ones you just keep reading over and over again, because it's so clear and insightful. It's called awareness again by Anthony de Mello highly recommend you pick that up, the quote goes, it's at the end of another quote, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna start it in sort of the middle here, it says, the sign of a sick child is that he's always hovering around his parents. He's interested in persons, the healthy child has no interest in persons, he is interested in things. When a child is sure of his mother's love, he forgets his mother, he goes out to explore the world. He is curious, and quote. And I really liked this because it is a easy way, it's an easy way for us to look at our own children, to see how they interact with the world. And to see whether or not they have a secure attachment with us. Because I think the thing underlying this entire quote, is secure attachment. And if you haven't read the power of showing up by Dr. Dan Siegel, if you haven't read anything about attachment styles, I highly recommend you pick that book up and do some research. And find out whether you have secure attachment yourself whether your kids are developing secure attachment, or whether you fall into one of the non secure attachment, whether that's avoidant or anxious or ambivalent, or whatever else it may be. These are extremely important to cultivate in our children. Because again, they allow the people who have secure attachment to thrive in almost every other part of their life. This is one of those things where research has been done, where you see people like Dr. Siegel talk about this. And it just impacts a child into adulthood so much that getting this right now is one of the best gifts you can give for your child.

And what that looks like, is showing up for your kid. Do you truly show up for your kid? Is he truly attached? Look to see if he's interested in people or things? Just like it says in that quote? Does your child hover around you? Is he more interested in talking to adults? Or is he lost in plays he outside exploring? Does he know that you love him so much in the core of his being? That he doesn't have to be around you to remind himself of that. The question here is for the child is Am I really attached Am I loved if I leave will that love leave too? Will I be abandoned if I go away? And so you see a child without secure attachment, clinging close because as in the quote, if he is sure of his mother's love or his father's he forgets his mother or his father, if he sure of that he forgets that because if he's not sure about that he always has to be clinging on and close by. Because the consequence of not being sure is abandonment and abandonment for a child and even into adulthood is one of the most debilitating scary things we could possibly consider. That's why exile is so bad. That's why being ostracized is so bad. That's why we go against our authenticity to fit in to social groups, because being alone feels worse. So now imagine a child who is worried? He's not sure he's not truly sure the core of his being that you're always going to be there for him. He's scared or she's scared of abandonment. So do you show up? For Do you affirm? Do you validate your child while setting healthy boundaries? An easy way to remember what it takes to develop secure attachment is through. I mentioned Dr. Siegel before, in his book, The Power of showing up he talks about the four assets. And these are safe scenes soothed and secure. Safe, your child feels protected and sheltered from harm. Seen, the child knows that you care about them and pay attention to them. In other words, they know that you don't only see them physically, but you see into their life. You empathize with them, you get what they're going through, soothed. They know you'll be there for them when they're hurting emotionally and physically. Not just when they scrape their knee, but when they need to come to you emotionally and secure. Based on the other SS. He says, the child trusts you to predictably help them feel at home in the world, then learn to help themselves feel safe, seen and soothe. So through secure attachment, we help our child develop the four S's for themselves. That is fundamental, that is vital. And the thing that this brought up for me was one, I just wanted to share it because it's a profound quote, it's a wonderful quote. And it's a very good way to stop and think and see how we're showing up as parents and to observe how does our child interact with the world. And so the point of this, it's almost like a pattern interrupt, you're going through your life, you're doing what you're doing. You're, you know, inertia is taking over, you're just showing up, you're just doing what you do. My invitation is to stop right now. Take a breath. And examine your life as a parent. Are you showing up for your child? How are you doing? What needs to change? How do you want to show up? What might that look like? Where can you see your child better? How can you get your own emotional reactions under control? So they feel safer? How can you use compassionate communication so they feel soothed? Not shamed? How do you want to show up here, this is an invitation because you can always change. You can always get better, you can always improve, you can always start again, even if you've done everything wrong. Even if you think you've done everything wrong, I've been there. It took me forever to forgive myself because I thought I screwed up so bad. But I'm here to tell you, you can start again. This is just like a meditation you get distracted, you forget to follow the breath or whatever you're doing. Well, what do you do, you start again, you notice next breath and you move on, you can always start again each moment is a new moment to start again. So examine your life as a parent, and see how you might need to change showing up how you can breathe more love and life into your child's life.

Again, if you want to learn more about this, I'd love you to join our free 14 day better man better dad email series at Dad dot work slash pod. You find it pretty much any page of our website, links and Instagram or Facebook. It's a great introduction. If you want to go deeper if you'd like a full course on becoming a better man, partner and father suffering less loving more parenting confidently learning about this sort of attachment and how you can show up as more conscious parent, check out our course conscious fatherhood dad.org/cf dad.org/c F just the letters, two letters. This is our video course self directed online ticket at any time in case you would like. And we talked a lot about this kind of stuff. I'd love to have you go through there with the other man who have already joined and taking part that's going to cover for this week. I really look forward to next week. We've got a ton of new podcasts coming out. We've been talking to a lot of fathers and other experts as guests and I'm just super pumped. This has been so much fun and the quality of conversation I'm having the depth of connection I'm making and just the feedback I'm getting from you guys listening is so good warms my heart so much makes me feel so full. And I wish I had been doing this. For my entire life. I had no idea how much fun it was to have these conversations and man does it ever feel good to be living purposefully. This is what I need to be doing. This is the message I need to be sharing. It's changed my life and I will not stop until more men, all men have the chance to do this for themselves. So I hope that whatever you get up to today, you find the time to spend with yourself. First of all, do something for yourself to fill up your cup, whether it's five minutes, meditation, an hour, the gym, reading a book, getting a massage, whatever you love to do. I hope that you find a few minutes, one on one with your child. When you come home from work, perhaps put the cell phone down, put everything down, spend 10 minutes on the floor playing cars rolling around with them reading whatever it is, show up for them. And the same thing for your partner if you have one. Show up for her as a full confident, masculine man ready to ravish her with your love. You can do it. This is your choice your life. You're the only one responsible for it. Man, I hope you'll have a good one. Come back next week. We'll have a full slate of podcast once again. Follow me on Instagram. Send me an email Curt at Dad dot work whatever you want, I will do my best to help. That's it for this episode. Thank you again so much for watching. Follow me on all the places find the links on this episode show notes and we'll see you next week

that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. It means the world to find out more about everything that we talked about in the episode today, including shownotes resources and links to subscribe leave review work with us go to dad dot work slash pod that's di d dot w o RK slash pod. type that into your browser just like a normal URL, Dad dot work slash pod. You'll find everything there. You need to become a better man, a better partner and a better father. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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