Should You Join A Men’s Group

Kevin Anthony 0:12
Welcome to the Love Lab Podcast, a safe place to get real about sex. Whether you’re a man, woman single or couple, this is the show for you. Because well, sex matters. We are your hosts Kevin Anthony and Céline Remy.

Kevin Anthony 0:27
Alright, welcome back to the love lab podcast. This is Episode 85. And it’s titled, “Should you join a men’s group- Kevin’s recent experiences”? Okay, this can be a juicy one, because this one’s coming from real-life experiences that happen. Of course, all our shows actually come from real-life experiences, but these are somewhat comical.

Céline Remy 0:51
We’ve been talking about this all weekend long, and we’re like we’ve got a show. Like ready, we couldn’t wait to get to our mix and share all of that with you. But before we get into that, let’s shout out to our sponsor power and mastery. So if you want to join the secret club of men who are great in bed, and trust me you do, then check out power and mastery, the most complete sexual mastery training for men. You can find more about it at power and mastery.com.

Kevin Anthony 1:22
All right. So first, we’re going to talk a little bit about the benefits of joining men’s group some of the downsides of joining a men’s group and what is a men’s group even really, you know. Then we’re going to talk about my recent experiences with being invited to two separate men’s groups. And I think you’re going to find it pretty entertaining because we shared it. So you’re going to want to stick around to hear that part for sure.

Kevin Anthony 1:49
Okay, so what’s a men’s group? Well, a men’s group is, like the name implies, a group where a bunch of men gets together, supposedly to support each other. What that looks like, it can vary a lot. I do want to say that, you know, these particular men’s groups are here in California. So those of you who are listening outside of California, well, keep that in mind that your experience might be a little different. And hopefully, so

Céline Remy 2:21
well, and one thing to bring is that there is a lot of different type of men’s group that have some religious affiliation, political affiliation, and things like that. This is none of those. This is a bunch of men who are just on a self-exploration path that is getting together with the intention of bonding as brothers and hopefully be better human beings and better men for their, for their women for the world and for anyone who knows them.

Kevin Anthony 2:51
Absolutely. So with that said, let’s talk about some of the benefits of joining a men’s group. All right, okay, so the first one on the list is It’s a safe space to share emotions that might not be appropriate to share with your woman. Now, this is an interesting one. Okay, we’re starting off right from the beginning with one that needs some clarification. One of the biggest complaints that women have is that men don’t share their emotions with them. Mm-hmm.

Céline Remy 3:16
Right. And then if only if I like, I just want him to open up more I want him to share his feelings with me. I get like know what’s going on. I want him to share and then go around, then beg him and beg him to share your feelings with me.

Kevin Anthony 3:32
Right? That’s not what we’re talking about here. When we say safe space to share your emotions, that might not be appropriate to share with your own because here’s the thing. And so then you can give your opinion after I say this, women do want you to share your emotions men. Absolutely.

Kevin Anthony 3:49
Especially if a woman hasn’t been with somebody that’s a little bit more evolved than she’s used to the sort of the old paradigm of the macho asshole masculine who suppresses all his emotions and feelings and does never share them. So yes, she does want that. But what she doesn’t want is for you to get all wishy-washy and dump all your insecurities on her

Céline Remy 4:10
Pour so much of your feelings out. This is from a true story where she finally got her husband to open up. He started to share and share everything, his insecurities, his drawers, and she couldn’t get him to stop talking. Now fast forward a few weeks or months, she went back to the therapist, and she was like, how do I get him to stop like she was no longer attracted to him. So what we sometimes think as women that we want so much and I’ve been in those relationships with what I would call more of a softy man.

Céline Remy 4:48
It was so attractive at first to finally have a man who was willing to give me appreciation who could understand my feelings, which would sit with me for hours while holding my hand staring in my eyes and, and be compassionate. Empathic around my emotions and then could go into his emotions. It was literally like having a girlfriend. And that’s what happens, you starting to have a girlfriend and that erodes the polarity, the attraction, the passion in your relationship.

Céline Remy 5:15
I’m not saying you can’t have deep discussions and sharing emotions when you partner with your husband with your boyfriend. You have to do it in a certain way that doesn’t erode and take things away that it enhances. And this is why having a men’s group to share your emotion. So you know, the place where you’re like, it’s really hard to be a man, like I’m fucking stressed, I have to bring home some money.

Céline Remy 5:37
And at the same time, I have to help with the household chores and raising the kids and I’m like, overly stressed. And these are the times where you go in the men’s group to share those things. That’s the place for that.

Kevin Anthony 5:51
Yeah. And so again, the woman wants you to share your emotions, and she wants to hear that you love her and she wants to hear that when you’re happy. And even some Sometimes when you’re sad, which he doesn’t really want to hear is how insecure you are about whether or not you can earn enough money to pay the bills. Like that’s not helping the relationship at all. And it but it’s true, and it’s a valid thing, especially if you’re the sole supporter of the family.

Kevin Anthony 6:14
It’s very stressful. So it’s not that it’s not a valid emotion. It’s just that dumping that on your woman is not the appropriate place. And so a men’s group can be a place where you can go share that stuff with other guys who are going through similar things. Okay, enough on that one. Number two, a place to get support from other men who understand the challenges of being a man in today’s world. Well, being a man today, while it actually is no different than being a man in the old days, in reality, that’s not the message that society is giving us now society is telling us we’re supposed to be something else.

Kevin Anthony 6:53
And it can be quite challenging for a lot of guys to figure out who was what they’re supposed to be because it’s like they got their gut feeling telling them they’re supposed to be this way. They’ve got their fathers and grandfathers setting an example one way. And then they’ve got movies and TV and news and all this other stuff, telling them that they’re supposed to be a different way. And it can be challenging.

Céline Remy 7:13
Yeah. And then you’ve got messages in the media as of like toxic masculinity. And it’s like, how could being a man be toxic? Like there’s like so many mixed messages that are so confusing? Because if you read that as a man, and you’re like, well, I am competitive or, you know, I do like those things. So does it make me inherently bad or toxic? No. So then you have these inner conflicts because there is so much information.

Céline Remy 7:41
And I think it’s a beautiful discussion to be able to have like, what does it mean right now to be a man What does and that’s one of the benefits we had later on to work around redefining masculinity and what it looks like for you your own unique flavors.

Céline Remy 8:00
By the way, this is not something that’s solely happening to men. This is something that I see happening to women a lot. And that’s one of the main things that I share with women around like finding who they are in this world as women, I feel like independently of your gender, the expression of who you are people are utterly confused right now about how to show up how just how to be a good human being and how to relate.

Céline Remy 8:25
And so creating these meetings with people will help you, especially with other men to be like, Yes, okay, this is normal. I’m normal. This is a behavior that is acceptable. This is not. And so that’s a beautiful thing if you can have that support.

Kevin Anthony 8:43
Yeah. And if you’re in a good men’s group, it will really help you see the messages that are just bullshitting. And what the reality actually is. Mm-hmm.

Céline Remy 8:53
So benefit number three is that it becomes. It is a place to bond with men in ways that replenish your testosterone supplies? Oh, yeah.

Kevin Anthony 9:04
Well, it’s supposed to be. And, you know, we talk a lot about John Gray on the show, just because we like his work. And we’ve read a bunch of his books, and they really resonate with us. They really resonate with our own personal experiences in life. One of the things that John talks about is that for women when they want to de-stress, they need to do things that produce oxytocin, and there are certain things that women can do and, you know, women’s gatherings or, you know, there are different things that they can do that will help them do that.

Kevin Anthony 9:38
Well, the same for men only. What we need is to rebuild our testosterone and there are certain things that we can do to help us rebuild the testosterone. We were just talking about this yesterday with some friends about the inverse relationship between stress which produces cortisol and testosterone levels. So the higher your stress levels get, the more cortisol you produce. Which then prohibits and blocks your body from being able to produce more testosterone.

Céline Remy 10:05
And then the more you spend time bonding and doing activities with other people and touching and being in your feeling, you will start to raise your oxytocin level whether or not you’re a man or a woman. But what happens is in a woman, when your oxytocin levels rise, so does your estrogen. And then your stress level lowers, and you feel more balanced and better. And it’s easier for you to have orgasms and feel pleasure. But if you’re a man and you getting a burst of oxytocin, it also raises the estrogen level, but then it will, it will inhibit your production of testosterone.

Kevin Anthony 10:41
So it actually works the opposite way for mass. And so the idea is and we’re going to get to this too when we talk about how a lot of these men’s circles are implemented because they’re really following a female pattern, a lot of them. But anyway, the point is, is that it should be a place where you can build testosterone supply, so any men’s group really worth anything as far as helping you be a better man is the kind of group that’s going to include activities are going to help you do that build more testosterone.

Céline Remy 11:10
Right? So our benefit number four is that it’s a place to pass on wisdom from the older generations to the younger ones. And God knows how needed that is in this world. We live in a society where we park the old like away, and we don’t want to see the elders. And we used to absolutely, like, venerate, like appreciate our elders and appreciate the wisdom they had to bring. And this is an art that has been lost.

Céline Remy 11:40
And I can only imagine for the older people that it’s such a painful state to be in because you’ve learned so much from your life experience that I’m not even old yet and I already feel like I’ve got so much that I can bring to the younger generation from my own life experience. I can only see like if I fast forward 30 years down the road. How much I would really like, I want to share this with you please don’t make the mistakes I made.

Céline Remy 12:04
Let me give you the shortcuts. And in a men’s group where you have balance, you will have older people, younger people, people in the middle, then you get to benefit from all the different stages of life.

Kevin Anthony 12:16
Yeah, and you know, that’s something that’s actually lacking and all the men’s groups that I’ve seen around where we are, they’re all roughly the same age group. It varies maybe from about the late 30s, up into about 50. And that’s the only age range and, you know, while that’s a somewhat decent age range, it’s really missing a lot because you don’t have the really young people.

Kevin Anthony 12:40
And you don’t have the older people that have had tons of experience. Yeah, if I were going to do a men’s group myself, I want some people in their 60s and 70s in that group, at least, I would invite a couple of our neighbors who were in their 80s because they got some serious wisdom, like to

Céline Remy 12:57
talk to them and we like they’ve got it Yeah. And it’s good to have younger people to like people in their 20s. Because there is something about the youth, that energy that we do lose as we get older. And it’s nice to be reminded about that spark that, that, that place to be in life where you’re not afraid when you’re not like holding back because of your life experiences. You’re like, I can do anything. I’m invincible.

Kevin Anthony 13:22
Yeah, that and actually, in the men’s group that I was in this past weekend, there was somebody in there who was young enough to be my son. And, and I could really see, he’s like, he was like a blank slate. There was just so much he didn’t know. You know, and so he could benefit so much from being in groups of people who are significantly older than he is.

Céline Remy 13:47
See, we have another benefit here about if it’s a good men’s group, of course, is that it’s a place to learn new man or man these skills.

Kevin Anthony 13:58
Yeah, exactly. New Man skills, right? Because the way that a man’s gonna handle a situation and the way that a woman is going to handle it can often be very different, not necessarily, but they certainly can be. And the way that a man needs to manage his emotions maybe is different than the way a woman would need to manage them away the man needs to manage his hormones is different than a woman would manage, as we just talked about, right?

Kevin Anthony 14:22
So this is a place where you could get advice that you can implement as a man to help you not sort of generic advice or not, like, here’s what worked for me, but, you know, I’m a 60-year-old menopausal woman, you know, it’s like, okay, that, that, that doesn’t help me so much, you know, right. So this is a place where you can get stuff that’s more specific, maybe to you.

Céline Remy 14:45
Mm-hmm. And then our last, our last benefit to the men’s group is that it is a place to have accountability, where you are held accountable for your actions. And that’s his Think the most, like, the most important trait you can get from a men’s group. Men need to call each other on their shit. That’s it, you know, on where they fall short. And men have a way to do that. You know, like, as women, we will have to think we tend to do this like more subtly and make like insinuations like you should get the clues of what I’m trying to tell you guys.

Céline Remy 15:23
I kind of like saying, hey, you being a dick. And you know, as sometimes painful as it can be to hear that. That’s what a dude needs. That’s what you need sometimes to like shake yourself up and be like you right? Like, I need to listen to my brothers here. And but like, I need to be showing up better.

Kevin Anthony 15:39
Yeah, and we’re going to talk about that a little bit more as we move into the downsides of joining a men’s group because what you just talked about is severely lacking in men’s groups. Okay, let’s just jump right into the downsides number one, they can turn into pitch fests. Yeah, yep. So you have to be careful that they don’t just become a bunch of men sitting around crying together about how awful their life is. That’s not helpful, that’s not going to rebuild any testosterone. And that’s not really helping anybody step up into being a bigger better, man.

Céline Remy 16:13
No, absolutely. And by the way, it really doesn’t matter about your gender. I think any circle that just is crying into being a victim is not serving anyone. You’re not empowering yourself. That’s a very good point. Number two, one of the downsides of joining a men’s group, especially if it’s not around really well is that you may be getting really bad advice if you don’t have the right people in your group.

Kevin Anthony 16:35
Yeah, just because you got a group of 10 or 15, or 20, or even 30 men. Who are these people? You know, it’s kind of like doing a business mastermind, right? If you were going to do a business mastermind, would you mastermind with people that don’t have a business have never run a business? No, of course not. What kind of value are you going to get out of that? They don’t know anything. Right.

Kevin Anthony 16:58
So if you have a men’s group Full of men that haven’t really done much work and don’t really know anything. Well, how is that going to benefit? Now obviously, if everybody knew everything, you wouldn’t have a need for a men’s group, but you should have a varying level. There should be some people in there that have really figured some stuff out. Mm-hmm.

Céline Remy 17:15
Yes. Again, that’s one of our downside to is sitting around and talking about your emotions does not replenish your testosterone supplies.

Kevin Anthony 17:24
Yeah. And so that’s, we were just talking about that, right. And here’s one of my biggest complaints with men’s groups that I see. I’ve been to a lot of men’s groups, you’ve been to women’s groups. I’ve been to a lot of coed groups, right, where it’s both men and women. Even in the co-ed groups, I find that the women tend to sort of create the container. That’s sort of their job like they often will open the container, close the container, sort of manage it as it goes along. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think that’s great. And they bring beautiful energy to it.

Kevin Anthony 18:05
But when it comes to a man’s group, what you don’t want to do is you don’t want to take the template that women use in groups and move it over and just follow the same template for men. And that’s what I see a lot of people doing. They do the same thing like the, the men’s group that I went to recently, the whole thing was opened up and run exactly the way a woman would do it. If you were going to tell a woman here go create a woman’s evening, they would have structured it just like that they would have done the same opening and everything.

Kevin Anthony 18:36
And again, it’s not that it’s bad. It’s there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not like somehow the way a woman was doing it isn’t good. No, no, it’s it’s actually amazing for women.

Céline Remy 18:50
And it’s amazing sometimes doing co-ed when we are leading and showing you like hey, this is how we do it and we invite the masculine in there and then the masculine gets to experience it and bring it Energy. But I think it’s really important to have things slightly different unless they really resonate with you. But one of the thing that and I wasn’t there, but what you told me is some of the men who are present even said, this is how the women do it. So let’s do it this way

Kevin Anthony 19:15
that actually did. That was one thing that was said during one of the practices. Somebody said, Oh, the women do this all the time. We’re gonna we’re doing our version and it was like, yeah.

Kevin Anthony 19:30
So again, it’s not it’s not like one is wrong, and one is right. It’s just that the whole idea of a man’s group is we’re supposed to nurture each other as men. So what I would love to see in a manage group is a structure that fits the man and healthy masculinity better than just recreating what the women have already done.

Céline Remy 19:50
And it’s a good place to start with what you’ve seen done and then you need to add your own thing. So no, the downside is that the group can become an echo chamber like not enough radical honesty and tough love.

Kevin Anthony 20:01
right? So here’s, this is great. I love this. And actually one person in the men’s group sort of, he wasn’t quite sure how to express what he wanted to say. But basically what he wanted to say was that he wanted more radical honesty in tough love. His suggestion was, hey, what I would love to see in future groups is, you know, as we share that the rest of us men call him on his shit. Right? Tell him when he’s not stepping up, like really give him some radical honesty. And I think that’s something and I don’t know if this happens in women’s groups or not, I would say probably not so much, at least not in the same way.

Kevin Anthony 20:39
But this is something that I think could work really well in a men’s group because that’s the way we kind of relate to each other is when we grow up that way, people calling us on our shit, you know, saying, Dude, come on, step it up. You know, you’re over here complaining about your wife, but look at the way you’re acting. You’re not stepping up You’re not being a man, if you step up and support her, watch how she reacts to you, right? Like, we need more of that we don’t need. Oh yeah, well, maybe if she just did this and, you know, like, No, it’s just like, dude, you’re being an asshole. Stop it.

Céline Remy 21:16
Yeah, but the thing The difference is that when you do that to a guy, usually He’s like, Oh, it hurts. And then he moves on and he’s not like he’s he takes it to heart. And if he’s a good man, he’s gonna make changes and see different results. If you say that to a woman, she’s gonna be thinking about it for about the next three to 30 years of her life. And so you can’t do it this approach, you know, we have to be more subtle and we have to be more compassionate and take like, slowly get there unless they really say like, give it to me, like straight, but if not, it’s a very different approach.

Kevin Anthony 21:52
And as men we’re generally direct and we appreciate when people are direct with us. Honestly, if we can’t handle as long Is the as long as the radical honesty in tough love is true, right? So it’s not a projection onto you as long as it’s true fact evidence based and delivered in a way that’s intended to help and not hurt. Right? As long as you do it that way. If you’re a man, you should be able to take that. And if you can’t, you got a lot more work to do. Mm hmm.

Céline Remy 22:23
So let’s get to our last downside before we get into your experience because I’m really excited about that. The last downside is that those circles can become women’s circles run by man.

Kevin Anthony 22:36
Yeah, and we sort of spoke to this a little bit already. But yeah, what you don’t want to do is take the template that works really well for women, and then apply it to men. I mean, like, perfect example, something that works really great for women is for them to break out into dyads and have dialogue with each other. I’m not saying it doesn’t work for men, because I’m sure there are some men that They’re gonna listen to this and they’re gonna say, but I love that one.

Kevin Anthony 23:03
That was awesome. I got a great piece of something. I’m not saying that it doesn’t work, but it’s not it’s not the way we would normally or tend to do things it would. There are other practices I think that would be more beneficial for men than that.

Céline Remy 23:20
Alright, so I’m really excited to be diving into your experience but before you tell us of your experiences and we get a good laugh, I have a question for you. Are you longing for more connection, deeper intimacy and red hot passion in your relationship? If you are a committed couple who loves each other but has lost the spark and has fallen into a boring routine, we have a special invite for you. How exciting.

Céline Remy 23:47
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Kevin Anthony 24:09
All right. Okay, so I’ve alluded to this multiple times throughout this episode that I did go to men’s group recently. But before I talk about what that group was actually, like, I want to first say that for some reason, I was invited to two separate men’s groups, like in the same week, basically. However, neither time was I actually honestly told when I was being invited to. And this is, this is, to me, this blows my mind.

Kevin Anthony 24:43
So in the first one, I get a call from a friend who’s more of an acquaintance like I know him from the community, but I haven’t really connected with him. I don’t know a whole lot about him. And he just reached out and said, Hey, you know, I want to get a group of guys together at my place. Place on such and such a day, kind of a men’s group thing, you know, and we’d love to have you there, I think it’d be really valuable. We’re going to meet for a couple of weeks just to see how it goes. And then we’ll people can decide whether or not they want to continue on.

Kevin Anthony 25:16
And I was like, Wow, cool. That’s cool. I appreciated that. You know, and I know that multiple people in the group, at least a few of the names that were mentioned, to me were entrepreneurial types. I thought this could be a great opportunity for me to go spend some time with some people that I kind of know, but I’d like to get to know better that also operate in the entrepreneurial space. And, you know, we could trade ideas, we can support each other in our ventures.

Kevin Anthony 25:42
So I was kind of excited about that. Several hours before the first group is supposed to meet. I get an email with these men’s group rules. I’m like, oh, okay, so far I’m under the impression This is just an informal thing that a friend of mines getting some of his buddies together that he wants to spend time with. But All right, I’ll read the rules. So I start reading the rules, and they have all kinds of stuff in there about financial penalties. If you don’t show up, and you don’t get in approved absence, and membership fees, you actually have to pay a membership fee to be part of the group.

Kevin Anthony 26:29
And you know, I was told we would be meeting every other week for a number of weeks and turns out there’s also a weekend involved commitment in here to that was not mentioned to me at all. So I read all of this and right away, I’m like, Okay, this is not cool, because I was not told anything about any of this. So I reached out to the person who invited me and I say, Hey, I just read these rules. What’s the deal here? What what’s going on basically, the respect I got back was, well, he wasn’t supposed to send that out ahead of time we were going to talk about that tonight.

Kevin Anthony 27:06
Basically, it’s following a certain person who’s created this men’s circle format. And they were going to pitch everybody that night, joining this paid men’s group. And right away, I was like, Nope, not doing it had nothing to do with the money whatsoever. It’s not even a lot of money. It’s the fact that it was not said honestly, to me what I was getting involved in. You invited me as a friend over to something under false pretense, basically.

Kevin Anthony 27:39
And that’s when I was like, No, and here’s here’s one of the biggest problems I have with it. It’s supposed to be a men’s group. A men’s group, as we’ve already defined in this show is supposed to help us be better men. But the group right from the start started without integrity. What are we supposed to help each other within a man’s world Group fucking integrity. Or as South Park would say “Tegrity”. But that’s the whole thing, right?

Céline Remy 28:09
Absolutely. And the funny part was the second group that you got invited to and actually one to you were told that it was going to be a housewarming party with a meeting. Oh, this

Kevin Anthony 28:19
is this is great. Yes, I was told it was going to be a housewarming party for another friend who just moved into a new place. And it was he for his house forming he wanted to do a men’s group evening. So I think that I’m just coming to hang out again with some dudes, check out my bros new place, you know. And what’s funny is, is in the opening circle, it started to become pretty apparent that this was more than just some dudes getting together to hang out and they asked people to sell you know what your intentions for the men’s group or and as it people are going around the group.

Kevin Anthony 28:59
It’s pretty obvious that most not all of them, but a lot of them were aware that this is the whole intention was actually to start a men’s group. So it comes to me and I’m like, wow, you know, my friend here said he was having a house warming it was gonna be a men’s gathering and you know, I haven’t seen him in a number of years and I thought it’d be cool, you know, reconnect get to know him a little better. At the end of the event. One of the people running it says to me, men’s group, where did you get that idea? No

Céline Remy 29:29
housewarming party. So yeah, sorry,

Kevin Anthony 29:31
Your housewarming party. Where did you get that idea? And then the person whose house it was chimed in, he said, well, then you tried to kind of play it off. He was like, well, it was kind of like the original idea. It’s what I had originally written on the invitation. But then I changed it got changed. And I’m like, No, No, it didn’t. Actually, what you did was, you told me it was a house warming just so that I would come and then you tried to wrote me into an iron Going men’s group. It’s like what? What are these things Colts people trying to write me into cults? Or as they say in Europe a sect. I mean, it was kind of ridiculous.

Céline Remy 30:14
So from the start, neither of these groups had the integrity and the honesty that’s required for the group to be really useful. So I get it that this was not the best experience. What I’d love for you to share a little bit without any you know, it’s all anonymous. And there are benefits to having men’s group as we stated before when they are run properly, they can be a beautiful container of growth, support, and brotherhood.

Céline Remy 30:40
Now your experience of this particular group the way it was ran because you did sit through the whole thing. And what I’m curious is like, what was it like for you like what did you see in there? That was like, that’s not the men’s group I want to be yet

Kevin Anthony 30:57
Well, the first thing is is that this one Absolutely was, it was a women’s circle with men in it. And even the men running it. I mean, they started the entire thing out by saying, All right, let’s just sit here and feel that we’re being supported by the feminine and, and Mother Earth and they went straight into feminine, like boom, right from the start

Céline Remy 31:23
Did they call in and also father sky or like something else? The opposite of it or the masculine warrior or whatever else?

Kevin Anthony 31:29
Well, no. So I don’t know if I want it. I don’t know how many details I want to say. But I guess it’s nobody knows who or what but so they did call in the directions but it typically the way that’s done is you call in the four corners and then you call in you know, mother or father sky, right? There’s only called in the four corners. That’s it. It didn’t have any above or below at all. Nor were the corners released at the end, but that’s a whole nother thing. So but from my perspective, was like the tradition is beautiful, you know, the calling in the corners and all that.

Kevin Anthony 32:08
And it’s not necessarily masculine or feminine. Because in you know, in Native American ceremonies, there’s plenty of masculine men who would open a circle that way. So there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. But I started to notice at that point that this was going to be formatted this whole thing was going to be very much formatted like a women’s circle. And it absolutely was pretty much from beginning to end, even a lot of the exercises and things we did, they were all about getting us into our heart space, and it was just all very, very feminine practices, all but one, basically.

Kevin Anthony 32:49
So my experience was okay. I feel like I’m literally at an event that’s being run by a woman. What I was hoping for was one that was being run by some men. So I didn’t feel that I didn’t have that experience. And again, several of the male facilitators really were intentionally taking it into the realm of the feminine, like asking men to envision their feminine side and what she looks like and what she’s wearing and all that. And before anybody gives me any crap about, you know, oh, you know, men shouldn’t be embracing their feminine look, if you’ve listened to this show at all, there’s one thing that you know for sure, because we talked about masculine and feminine a lot.

Kevin Anthony 33:38
Yes, we all have masculine and feminine energies in our bodies. And for pretty much all of us. One is more dominant than the other. Now they can be reversed and they’re not necessarily tied to your physical gender, but you tend to be one or the other. My idea of A men’s group was that this was going to be a group of men that were one physically men, like biologically men and two that are predominantly masculine. And yet, all of these practices were taking us into our feminine side.

Kevin Anthony 34:17
Now, as I told them in the group, there’s a lot of value in men getting in touch with their feminine side, especially men who have never done that who’ve been more in the macho asshole aspect that we talked about. But that wasn’t an issue in this group. This group was very well acquainted with their feminine In fact, too much so because a lot of them aren’t really stepping up and being the men that they could be and that they should be.

Kevin Anthony 34:43
So I’d thought in that particular instance, that it would have been much more beneficial to do some stuff that got these guys into a healthy masculine and dragging them into their feminine was not giving them value it at that time.

Céline Remy 34:56
So I want to do some full disclosure that during our wedding Kevin cried in front of everyone and I didn’t. I held back my tears I had a little bit but so when you’re listening and you’re thinking, Wow, he’s just talking about being a masculine man, and he’s not sensitive. He’s actually a sensitive man who’s masculine too. And I really wanted to say that because just because you are a man doesn’t mean you can’t feel emotions have emotion, display your emotions, and it doesn’t make you weak. You just don’t dwell in them the same way, right? So I want you to hear that.

Céline Remy 35:26
And then the second part that I want you to hear is that it’s okay to explore your feminine part, but it should be at least 50-50 or at like more at 80-20 at masculine 20 feminine if you are into a men’s group in that particular event for that particular setting. And what I want people to really take away from today’s show, because I know we threw a lot at you is that men’s group, and are really a great place for men to explore the masculinity, but we need men we need masculine men in this world, we need to reclaim what it means to be a manly man who’s got a heart.

Céline Remy 36:06
And this we can be shaming or ignoring the masculine taking it down saying that was bad. So we never going to acknowledge this. And now we’re only going to be into our heart space in the flow and feminine. We need a balance between these two. And the more we going to push away that masculine, the less balanced we’re going to be. And if you look around in the world, women are craving strong man. We don’t want controlling natural assholes who tell us what to do. But we want men who can who has got us who are the container for us.

Céline Remy 36:42
We want men who can take the lead, but also listen to our intuition. We want that perfect balance of like that strength, yet with heart, but we don’t want you to be so much in your heart. Sometimes we may think we do but in the long term, that’s not where it is. Feeling. So if you only taking one thing away from this entire podcast is that we love man, we want you to be a man. And maybe you can redefine a little bit about like what you mask and it really looks like but let’s not push away the masculine let’s embrace what makes you masculine, what makes you a man and that also embraces the feminine qualities in everyone.

Céline Remy 37:25
And I think this is the same for whoever your woman or man, whatever your gender is, you need to embrace both of the qualities within yourself. This world is out of balance. And the more we’re going to push away one of them we’re saying this gender is bad that gender is bad, we need to become something else or one of the 37 other genders. The least peace and harmony we will have in this world. So let’s go back to our senses. Let’s go back to some good sense of direction and let’s go back to what we already and celebrate both of them.

Kevin Anthony 38:02
So well said, you pretty much said everything I wanted to end the show with. Thank you.

Céline Remy 38:09
You’re welcome.

Kevin Anthony 38:12
Well, so there you have it and to just do a quick summary closing, whether or not you want to join a men’s group, it’s totally up to you. There are definitely things that you could get value from. And there are definitely some things that could potentially go wrong or in the wrong direction. So I’m not telling you whether or not you should, it’s up to you, I would just simply suggest that a lot of the things that we’ve talked about, you look for if you get invited to a men’s group, look for a lot of those things.

Kevin Anthony 38:44
Find out what kind of a men’s group this is and find out whether or not it’s really going to support you, being a better man. As Celine said, so well, we live in a world of duality, and one of the ways that duality shows up is masculine and feminine. It creates polarity. That is what makes life so amazing. And so worth living. If you try to take that out, it really pretty much just ruins everything. So don’t fall for it. Don’t get sucked into it, don’t get sucked into being told that it’s all just the same. It’s not the same.

Kevin Anthony 39:24
We are different. And the differences are what make us both amazing and beautiful, and give that spark of polarity in our lives. So there you have it. That’s all the time we have for this episode, and we will see you next week. We hope you liked this episode of the love lab podcast. If you enjoyed this show, leave a comment and share it with your friends.

Céline Remy 39:52
And if you want more we have an entire digital library with the best sex tips and Relationship Advice at kevinanthonycoaching.com That’s CELINEREMY.com So join us in the sex vault to continue this adventure.

Kevin Anthony 40:08
Thanks for listening

Céline Remy 40:10
and remember, you’re amazing