Subscribe to Podcast

Subscribe on iTunes
Subscribe on Stitcher
Subscribe on Spotify

067: A Man’s Ego

Apr 11, 2017

It has been a longtime impression that a man should be stoic and suppress their emotions. This concept of men has changed in this millennial generation because most men these days are feminine male. They choose to get out of their heads and pay attention to the woman in front of them. The image of man’s ego has changed from being strong and powerful to fragile and adaptive where they embrace the feminine side of themselves, resulting in a deeper and more intimate connection with their partner.

067: A Man’s Ego

I’m loving life. I’m so excited to be here on this amazing show around the sensitive topic of a man’s ego. This is how the show happened. I was in bed with Morgan and we were talking about touch. She’s like, “Why won’t you teach men to touch anymore? You need to.” The reason I said was, “The male ego,” and so we talked about the show. We talked about the details of it. How I experienced the male ego, what’s happening and how to take care of it. How to engage with it and how to create a healthy ego for you, your partner, your friends, your father, whoever. For more shows please visit TuffLove.live.

Thanks so much for being on the show and I’m thrilled to have you all. I’m excited to see what happens about this very interesting topic. The concept of the male ego, which everyone in our audience can probably get a feel for if they’ve dealt with male ego. Our own, our fathers, our friends, etc. I’m excited to talk about the show. There’s something exciting about announcing that because on some level I am shy. I was born shy, I was raised shy. At the same, it’s a time for all of us to step up, myself included, to say that we are bad asses. We are big, bad, awesome, incredible, bad asses.

I wanted to talk about that first concept, that I am a very healthy male with a very healthy, large ego. In my non-humble opinion, my ego serves me well and the universe well because I’ve worked on it. Throughout my life, I’ve not had such a strong ego. I want to get that point across first and foremost. I had a lot of negative viewpoints about myself growing up. I was an overweight kid. I had a very low self-esteem when I started. I used a lot of techniques and tactics to look for external approval to improve my ego. There’s always been this chase to like myself on some level, not love myself just like myself or accept myself. A lot of people live in this world where they don’t even like themselves. They don’t even think that they’re bad asses. That’s the first step of this talk is if you’re in that place where you are not in total in love with yourself, if you’re not crushed on yourself of who you are, that might be something to look at. That might be something to explore because to move around in this world in a healthy manner is extremely important. If you don’t have a strong ego, when you’re looking externally, that’s where everything fucked up begins. On some level you’re looking for external sources to feel good about yourself. That is the first piece.

TL 067 | A Man’s Ego

A Man’s Ego: If you don’t have a strong ego, when you’re looking externally, that’s where everything fucked up begins.

The second piece I want to explain how this show happened. I was in bed with Morgan. We were touching, enjoying and it was a good time had by all, and then she said, “Most men don’t know how to touch. Most men don’t know how to do what you do.” She’s like, “Why don’t you teach men how to touch anymore?”For my history, for those who don’t know, I co-founded an organization called OneTaste. OneTaste taught a practice called orgasmic meditation. Orgasmic meditation is taking the most dexterous part of the human body, the index finger, and stroking the most sensitive part of a woman’s body, her clitoris, up down for fifteen minutes. When I started, I was a bumbling idiot when it came to it. I was all over the place. Through fifteen years of practice, 11,000 ‘OMs’, I’ve learned to touch. During my tenure I taught many, many thousands of people to touch, half of them men, half of them women or whatever that percentage is. I’ve taught and seen more undeliberate touch in this lifetime that I think I would to see.

I’ve seen more that cringing thing when you notice someone touching another and you’re like, “That must be awful for the other person.” It’s awful for me watching, it must be heinous for them to have that experience. I’m watching, I’m like, “Why don’t you go a little lighter? Why don’t you go a little lighter? You’re doing great. Now, okay go.” Somebody tried to slap them and I want to like, “Stop touching so hard. Slow the fuck down. What are you doing?” I have to be the man has an ego and through many experiences I had to be like, “Let me show you, and I would move their finger for them.” The point is that it had many, many experiences of watching a man touch a woman that made my soul cringe. It hurt. It hurt inside. It deeply hurt.

Back to current time. She’s like, “Why don’t you teach men to touch anymore? You should teach what the skill set you have because men need this.”The first thing that came out of my mouth was, “Do you understand a man’s ego and how challenging it is to teach a man to touch? Do you get the depth of challenge that is for me to do? Number two, the second thing is that women refuse to tell men the truth when they’re touching inappropriately.” Things like this that has caused this in deliberate touching men. That’s the second thing. When the woman doesn’t tell the man the truth, the third thing is the man thinks, “I got this handled. She’s not saying a thing,” When it should be soft and tender and the man’s ego gets reinforced by the woman. What happens is the women gets less and less interested in telling the men the truth and now we have a society of undeliberate touch happening in this world.

I will admit that the original title of this podcast is Why I Don’t Teach Men to Touch Anymore. That was the original title Morgan and I got. I figured if I did that no one would listen. I had it sugar-coated and pull the lens back into the man’s ego, which it’s about. Men are a pain in the ass and I want to admit for the record is I was one of those men. When I started my training, thank God for the patience of my teachers and the women around me, to say, “Slow the fuck down, stop pushing so hard, get out of your head and pay attention to me.” That’s what I had to go through for my transformation. For men to learn to touch, for men to learn to pay attention to a woman has a large effect that it’s possible only by his willingness to bend, mold and morph his ego to learn to pay attention. Segue into what is ego? I did a little research on ego; I thought this was interesting, I did not know this. Ego in Latin means I. The very basis of the concept of ego is that it’s I; it’s me, which made total sense.

This was coined by Freud in his reality principle. There’s a whole bunch on Wikipedia you can check out, it’s really cool. The ego, for those who don’t remember your high school biology, is the mediator between the super ego and the id. The superego is the conscious ideal person, the god-like Rob. The id is the one that’s satisfying the basic needs, the deviant Rob. The ego is the person that says, “I don’t think you should do that, or you should do that.” It’s the one holding the conversation. A strong healthy ego is one who knows when to let the super ego run the show, or when the id to run the show. That’s the history around it. In doing my research, I found that in terms of ego, gender role plays a very huge part in how healthy the ego is. The world is changing in terms of gender roles. This is a big piece of what’s happening with men’s ego, is that in the change, we don’t quite know who we are.

In writing the last chapter of my book, I went back to a podcast I did on what men want. The first thing I said was men want to know their place in the world. That’s an important piece. We want to know where we stand. We want to know what our purpose is. We want to know why the fuck to get out of bed and do the things we do. We want to know our place in the world and in this very rapidly changing world of gender roles, it gets harder and harder for us to know who we are. In response, the male ego to the average changing gender role is that we are scared, but because our gender role does not allow us to be scared, then we’re arrogant, forceful, sometimes cruel undeliberate. It’s because of the change in society. I’m not saying that there hasn’t been this all along, but it’s been my impression that it’s getting more and more intense for a man to know who they are in the world. In doing so, the ego is acting out more and more in their id, in their satisfying their own needs then in their super ego being the best version of ourselves.

Men are taught, as part of our gender roles, to be very one, stoic and two, suppress our emotions. This is changing with this generation called the millennials. There are a lot more feminine males. There’s a lot more permission for millennials to embrace their femininity, to embrace that feminine side of themselves, which causes other problems. What’s happening is because the male ego has taught to me stoic and suppress our emotions, men don’t cry thing, that we’re getting a messed up. The male ego has been described as fragile. This is a true statement.

At the same time that we’re supposed to be a strong Paul Bunyan, John Wayne powerhouses, were quite fragile. Guess who is my favorite example for a fragile male ego? He is the President of the United States. The leader of the free world. Isn’t that a scary part? The most powerful man in the world is the man with one of the most fragile egos I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life. This spooks me. This is the reason we’re thinking about Costa Rica. This is the reason I’ve got one eye on every news report that’s going on because we’re running the show. The man running a show is a man with a fragile, tender ego who, as soon as it’s poked, pushes back hard, lies and confuses.

As much as I think this should be irrelevant, it is extremely irrelevant. The man at the top has a fragile ego, it’s going to go all the way down to the bottom of the chain. To every single aspect, people growing up are going to be in the world with the Trumps. That’s an important piece for us to notice that in this ever-changing world, we’re led by a man with a fragile, conceited ego. What do we do? The first thing that has to happen is that we all have to acknowledge that this is happening. One, that the world is changing. Two, that men don’t know their place in the world. Three, that their egos are in a twist. What’s happening is that we have to open up the space for the man’s ego to be seen, held and considered. The only way to change someone is to hold them, contain them and offer them comfort and say, “You’re doing it right.” In doing it right, you can do it better and better and better.

Click To Tweet

Here’s some of the dangers of a fragile male ego. One is men won’t take a ‘no’. This happens a lot, is that men for some reason think no is a reason to increase the sensation, the intensity of the game. We’ve heard no versus no since the ‘70s. We hear this a lot in consent and rape culture and all these things. There is some part of the major danger of the male ego is that it has a lot of trouble taking a no. My modification to it is no means no, but a no can change to a maybe or a yes somewhere down the line, if you’re not an idiot, that ‘no’ will probably remain a ‘no’. If you take the no graciously, with humor and okay, then that know somewhere down the line might turn into a ‘yes’ and you might get what you want. Morgan was talking about how men, with her body, keep going even though they say no, and that disturbs the fuck out of me because it’s true and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in how people handle her and how people look at her, and it bugs me.

The first thing is a ‘no’, and ‘no’ is not a rejection of you. In the old saying from Morehouse, “They’re not rejecting you, they’re rejecting the offer.” The ability to say that, “This offer that I gave for make-out a date and experience whatever it is, it’s not what you wanted. I can come back and offer something else somewhere down the line with this.” She might say ‘yes’, but for some reason we take no as a rejection of ourselves. Every aspect of every no I’ve gotten, I’ve learned to be, “That offer was not on the mark. That offer was not pristine.”I’m talking not in personal relationships and business. I was talking to this guy in Thailand about doing some consulting work for him and I made the offer and he said no. He says, “Do you want feedback? In short your offer sucked and you didn’t do the leg work.”I could feel that knife going into my gut. I was like, “I can learn from that.” I can take his information to stand and not do that same offer again in the future. It was a valuable thing, but a lot of fragile male egos will take the no and say fuck you, rather, “What can I learn from this?”

Men’s egos also have a sense of entitlement. They think that they deserve or should. Because they are who they are in the world or they provide. They take someone out to dinner or say something nice that there’s something they should respond back. It’s not like that. We do not live in a commerce-based world. When we live in a commerce-based world but you should know not to add to the commerce-based world. If you do something nice for a person, do it for your own pleasure, not for some results. Don’t give to get, give to give. Give so you can feel that desire and power in yourself of your ability to produce. That is a powerful thing to do. Another dangerous compensation, a male ego if they’re feeling sad, weak, curious or something inept inside of them, the male ego will often compensate by being brash, rude, arrogant and taking. Watch for the danger of compensation.

The last thing is to be careful from the males tend to detach from their emotions, which will have them live inside their ego. Be careful of a man too, because I can’t feel my sadness or my fear. I’m then going to act I’m going to puff my wings up and I’m going to slap everything around, but be careful to watch that. This has been a down pessimistic podcast so far, but don’t worry. We have ways to handle the male ego. My friend, Lion, who hopefully is that 206 number is going to come on and we’re going to talk about this. Ways to handle a male you go and this is what’s been done with me, which I’m totally grateful for. Morgan is good at handling my ego and understanding what’s happening in offering a space for me to come out and find my balance again.

First and foremost, curiosity. When a man is in his ego acting deliberately or inappropriately from your viewpoint, get curious into what’s happening. What’s motivating him to be in that spot where he’s not on the mark? Get into his world a little bit, think a little bit, feel into it, wonder about it, ask some questions. What has you feeling this way? What happened today? Get curious. The greatest thing you can do is sit down and put your attention on them, so they can feel seen and heard and consider. Patience. A lot of patience. Let’s say the word against slowly so it goes into your brains. Patience, especially around things, around touching. I was an energetic bull in a China shop when I learned my orgasmic meditation practice. It was a long time, six months, to be honest, before I learned to stroke deliberately. That was a very long time hanging out with a lot of patient women. Your ability to be patient and say, “I know you’re in. You’re moving in the right direction.” That’s helpful for a man, for him to feel your ability to stay with them through some rough times. Emphasize, get into their world, and understand what he’s feeling.

TL 067 | A Man’s Ego

A Man’s Ego: Don’t give to get, give to give.

Here’s the thing that most people will not do that I talked about in the beginning of the show is tell the truth. When you lie, you fuck over a man nothing else. Most women I know are lying a lot to their men. This is the greatest crime you can do. Every single time you lie, he wants to believe it. His ego gets pumped up and he gets more into his ego. I’m not saying you have to tell the truth always in the exact moment, though I do recommend it. Morgan and I had an experience one night. She told me about it one night. It was not easy to hear. We got into one of our rare heated discussions that lasted a day, but I am so grateful that she told me the truth. I’m so grateful that she led me into her world to see how my actions didn’t quite fit. She had her stuff. I had my stuff. It doesn’t matter what the details are, the main truth is that my partner will tell me the truth is the greatest gift she gives me every single day. If you think he can’t handle it, that’s a lie you’re telling yourself. It’s not him unable to handle it; it’s you, the woman, not able to handle his ego, which you can.

Your ability to tell your partner the truth is the uber importance. It is the most important thing you can do, because then we all have a chance for us to see those parts of ourselves we can’t see to improve the parts that our partner wants and for us to become better men. If a woman is wanting to tell the truth. That truth is not easy to hear from a man, but wouldn’t you rather know the truth than question, to have that little thought in the back of your mind? It feels good, but then again, it feels a little weird. That’s the aspect I’m talking about.

Acknowledge and approve is the final step. Be willing to say, “I am so happy my man, that even though this is challenging for you, you’re willing to face it,” and that is the greatest thing you can give a man is to acknowledge him and approve of him. Remember, approving doesn’t always mean liking the behavior, but you’re still approving of the person in general, and that is the greatest gift you can give for a man to move from his ego into connection with you and the world.

Live Coaching

Let’s bring Lion. Hello, how are you?

I’m good.

Welcome to the show. How can I make this most optimal for you?

I was impressed by what you said. I was touched by it. I didn’t know what to expect.

You can talk about your ego, challenges with the ego, or we can totally go off on some other topic of some issue that you want to work on. What’s alive for you in your life? What’s the part you want to expand?

I feel pretty defensive about the subject of ego because I like my ego. I like a feeling of pride. I want them to feel.

I like my ego too. It’s amazing. Why do you feel defensive about it?

I feel picked on a lot. Not personally, but as a man, I feel picked on all the time. There’s so much stuff out there.

When a man is in his ego acting deliberately or inappropriately from your viewpoint, get curious into what’s happening. Click To Tweet

Give us one example of it. One specific thing you hear that has you feel picked on.

I open up Facebook and there’s this endless stream of ‘protect the women and be aware of the bad man and he’s everywhere’. Constant articles everywhere about how men need to do it right and how men are doing it wrong. Allison Journal, Good Men Project, any of these things. They’re talking about women and so it’s praising and like, “Explore your sexuality and be all you can be and you’re here for the desire. You’re here for everything wonderful. You’re the blessing to the world.”Whenever men it’s always in the punitive mode or the corrective mode or the military you’re going to be an authentic man.

Option number one is we could go and I could validate you with my own experience of these articles and the bias against men. Guess what that would do? That would inflate your ego. That would give you some reality, some validation from me that’s saying, “That’s fucked up. That’s not the way it should be.” That’s option number one. I’m not interested in doing that. I want to go option number two. Option number two is what about that triggers you? What about that has you feel that unqueasy feeling? Go a little deeper than the surface? What about that bugs you?

It makes me want to cry and it’s hard to think of exactly why. There’s a message that women are better than men. It’s inside the genetic code of the human being. There is a piece where women are superior to men and I hear a message of ‘you’re a drone’. The purpose of your life is to please women. It’s horrible. I feel sadness about that.

Let me give you my impression of that. Men are here, men are drone. Men are here to gratify women. Men are here for X, Y, and Z. You feel invalidated by these articles as a person.

It’s deeper than that. It feels like a reality and it feels like a harsh reminder of the reality. If some guy on the street shouted at you and said, “You’re such an idiot, you’re such a jerk.” You can shrug it off because it’s not true. It takes a little deeper. It’s not that I was invalidated. I was reminded assignments and fertile.

Some part of you believes that you’re less than women.

On account of being a man.

Because you’re a man and these articles are constant reminders of a viewpoint, a doubt and insecurity that you have that’s inside of you. We can say, “Fuck you” to all the articles if you want. That’s option number one that we were talking about. The more important thing for you to do is to look at what is that viewpoint? Why did you believe that you’re less than a woman?

It’s not me as a viewpoint that men are less than women.

Let’s stick with you though. You said this is a reality, but you create your own reality. Your viewpoints make up your reality, how you see the world, but it’s not men. It’s you. You think you’re less than women.

I think men are less than women.

But you’re a man and you’re part of the equation, right?

Yes, certainly.

We could look at the general aspect of this piece, which would have power. The more powerful thing to do is for you to look at why you think. Who taught you when you were younger that you were less than women, you are less important, you’re a drone, and you’re there to serve?

I want to take responsibility for creating a story, but I also feel the message is everywhere. You’re a kid and you want it, I want it. I wanted sexual contact a lot. I wanted girls from a young age. I was taught, “No, don’t do that. That’s wrong. You’ve got to protect her.” I don’t know. I want to take responsibility.

I hear you taking responsibility. You’re a good man. Let’s go to that part of you that was affected by your education. Let’s go to the part of you that was a young boy listening to these messages. That’s the one I want to talk to. I want to talk to him who didn’t have his needs met. I’m not saying you did it wrong in any way, shape or form , but there was some need you had when you were younger that wasn’t handled, considered or taught well. You were taught harshly. What does he want? What does that young boy want?

I don’t know what you mean by that.

Do you want a personal example?

Yes.

I loved eating when I was a kid. I loved it and sweets. They had these things called Fudge Town cookies; they were eight a package, three of the packages to a box. I loved the Fudge Town cookies. I would run and forth from the TV room to the kitchen and scarf Fudge Town cookies, and it was my desire for these Fudge Town cookies. My mom who has issues, but she has issues around body image and weight. Born from my grandmother down to her down to me, and she could seize unconsciously, ridiculously, shame me for my desire for food, Fudge Town cookies specifically. That shaming of my desire for food translated into my shaming myself from my desire for women. My entire young life leading up to I started doing personal work. I live an incredible amount of shame around desire that still affects me. The message was brought to me by my mom, that my desire for these cookies were wrong. It fucked me up.

I grew up in Santa Cruz, California. People came up to me and said, “Your sexual desire for girls is wrong.”It’s so off limit sometimes.

TL 067 | A Man’s Ego

A Man’s Ego: Your ability to tell your partner the truth is the uber importance.

I don’t think it was a person like the example with my mom with the shame for the Fudge Town cookies. I think you grew up in an environment that shamed you, so it doesn’t have to be a single person. It’s more demand the society. Everyone taught you that your desire to touch these interesting things called young girls was wrong. Part of you, which is affecting you to this day, feels shamed for your desire. All you can do is pull that part of you out. Love that young part of you and figure out what it needed and what it needs now to feel complete. What does that one young part of you want? What does it want to hear? What are the words it would like to hear?

It’s something that it wants to feel loved.

Yes, that’s what we all want. You are loved.

I was told that I was loved. I want to hear that I’m loved in my sexual self.

Can I do it for you?

Yes.

You are loved in your sexual self. You are loved in all aspects of who you are. Your desire is right. This doesn’t mean that for you to act on your desire is appropriate. I want to make that distinction so I won’t get in trouble or we won’t get in trouble. Your desire to touch, your desire to eat, and your desire for all aspects of sexuality is right. The next step is to get consent, to engage with it. Before you even go to that step of in action or looking, you have to know that your desire is right. We all do. Because you’re not a drone. You’re not here to serve women. You’re not here to do anything but to love yourself and love your desire. One of your desires may be to serve women, but you have to start with your own self and your own ego, knowing that your desire is right. How do you feel now?

I feel touched. This is a place for me to look at. I completely believe that. I feel a little fear about being set up for the drum story again. I’ve heard so much messaging that I’m here to serve women and that women are here to desire and be that I’ve got a lot of hostility for that message. OneTaste speaks against this, but reciprocity on a deep level is important to me. I am not okay with a contract in the universe where women are here to desire and Victor Branco said, “We’re not here to play as women.” That will never be okay with me as a bedrock foundation.

I totally support you in having alternative viewpoints. Teachers, books, movies, cults, cultures and religions, all we’re doing is offering viewpoints. If you have a strong enough ego structure, you can go in and say, “Yes, no, maybe.” You can have this world any way you want it, but you have to start with knowing that your desire is right and the rest are options. We’ll leave you there.

Thanks.

You have to start with your desire as right. Click To Tweet

Thanks so much. You were awesome. I want to give you some validation. I think what you’re talking about is a very common thing and a lot of people are going to get benefit from this short conversation, so thank you.

Thank you again.

Did anyone identify with that conversation? I’m sure a few of you did. Important to always remember that your desire is right. The next step to engage with that with the person is huge and you have to start with your desire as right. If you don’t, then you’re living someone else’s desire. You’re living some other viewpoint. That is where the cancer of relationship and society lives because you’re acting out of should rather than your own desire. The hard part is that we let me know these viewpoints in our head. We don’t even know where they came from and that’s where the internal work comes from. That’s where the research, the writing and the journaling, and that’s also where the therapy and ENDR comes from because then you can discover who’s pulling the strings in the back of your head. It’s a process that continues to go deeper. Your desire is right. Find someone who wants to explore that with you, and if they don’t, say thank you for that experience.

I’ll be very interested to report back next on my experience in Vegas and Hay House. If you’d like to make a donation to the show, if you’d to give me a little loving, visit Patreon.com/TuffLove I have one or two special $99 per 45 minutes coaching. That’s a special for Patreon. For more shows, visit us at TuffLove.Live or on iTunes. Give us a little shout on iTunes, a good review always helps grease the wheels of experience, expansion. Go forth. Be happy. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies to listen to Tuff Love and get some nookie. Think of us, we’ll be thinking of you. Thanks so much.

If you’d to make a donation to the show, please visit us at Patreon.com/TuffLove. We are always here to help and expand and your donations help with the processing and expansion, the social media growth of the show. Thanks so much. Go forth. Be real. Enjoy your life and we’ll see you. Thanks again.

Resources mentioned:

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join the Tuff Love Community today:

Pin It on Pinterest