Why the Man in Your Life is Afraid to Open Up to You (Connor Beaton)

Wellness + Wisdom Podcast

Josh Trent

Education, Self-improvement

4.8 • 913 Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are men taught to be strong at the cost of being whole, and is that inner fracture driving disconnection, addiction, and despair?

Josh Trent welcomes Connor Beaton to the Wellness + Wisdom Podcast, episode 801, to break down the myth of modern masculinity, why suppression masquerades as strength, how porn, stress, and emotional avoidance become coping mechanisms, why men need initiation and mentorship to move from numbness to mastery, how shadow work and confrontation build real confidence, and why emotional leadership is the foundation of healthy relationships and fatherhood.

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In This Episode, Connor Beaton Uncovers:

[01:15] The Myth of Masculinity

Why men develop strength through suppression.
How men cut themselves off from emotional information and who they truly are.
Why it's so common for men to lack emotional mastery.
How men are finally being forced to face their emotions.
Why numbness is not the same as emptiness.

Resources:

[07:00] How Men Cope with Emotions

What coping mechanisms men use to deal with their emotions.
How many men live in a constant state of stress.
Why porn can serve as a relaxation tool.
How men often assume that their emotions are too much too handle.

Resources:

754 Dr. Steven Young | How to Use Your Mind to Change Reality Beyond Limitations

[12:00] Men's Initiation

What led Connor to hit rock bottom
How being held by a mentor saved his life.
Why healing and growth start with confession.
How Connor spent 2 years helping his mentor and learning wisdom from him.
Why men need to talk about their pain.
The importance of an initiation experience for men.

Resources:

The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell

[20:50] The Purpose of Rite of Passage

Why we lack apprenticeship with an elder.
How elders show us how immature we are.
Why initiation can come through mentorship.
The purpose of initiation.
How young men don't understand how to contribute to their community or society.
Why most suicide notes from men contain the word "useless."

Resources:

What might interrupt men's suicide? Results from an online survey of men

[27:35] Women Are Men's Mirror

How women mirror men's shadows.
Why women are often the catalyst for men to start their healing journey.
Why there is so much anger between the genders.
How social media can fuel our negative beliefs.
Why men develop a sense of identity from hierarchy and competence.
How women gain a sense of identity from networking.

[35:00] Vulnerability Is Not Enough

The threats men face when they open up and become vulnerable.
Why men need to work on their emotional mastery.
How women want men who have emotional mastery.

Resources:

756 Alison Armstrong | Top Secrets Women Have Never Known About Men (Until Now)

[39:55] Don't Become Your Emotions

How vulnerability can be transactional and why it's toxic.
Why men need to understand what's happening inside of them.
How men are used to immediately reacting to their emotions.
Why most men experience life in a very intense way.

[51:05] Do All Wounds Come from The Mother?

Why all wounds originate from the mother.
How motherhood is a challenging job.
What Connor has learned through his son.
How he helps his son co-regulate his nervous system.
Why he felt jealous of his son.

Resources:

It Didn't Start with You by Mark Wolynn

[59:35] Where The Work Begins

How we can stop judging our emotions.
Why men are terrified of sitting with their emotions.
The importance of slowing down and observing what's happening inside of us.

[01:04:10] Bring Light to Your Shadow

How our shadow manifests in our lives.
Why we avoid looking at our shadows.
How nice guys need to connect with their anger.
Why the ego only wants to focus on problems.
How bringing truth forward creates trust with our partner.

[01:10:30] Change Requires Confrontation

Why men need to do the hard things they don't want to do.
How avoiding the hard stuff weakens men.
Why men don't feel confident enough to confront their shadows and emotions.
How women benefit from men knowing themselves better.
Why we should choose a partner with whom we can navigate conflicts.

"Men wake up stressed, they go to work stressed, they interact with their kids stressed, they interact with their partner stressed. And there's no relief from this sympathetic orientation. It's like the rev limiter on your car that's always right about to redline. And that's how a lot of men in our society work." — Connor Beaton

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We as men are taught to develop strength.
0:02.0	And so it's the main tool that most men develop a sense of self and identities through suppression.
0:08.0	When you do that, you're going to cut yourself off from a vast amount of emotional data and information,
0:15.0	a good amount of truth about who you actually are.
0:18.0	And what you're going to show the world is a kind of hollowed out
0:21.8	or one-dimensional version. Numbness is not an emptiness of void of emotions. So when men say,
0:28.2	oh, I'm numb, oh, I don't feel anything. What they're really saying is, I'm so inundated with
0:32.7	emotions. And no one's actually taught me how to deal with those emotions. Both man or woman, there's inherently
0:38.5	a mother wound that sparks the deepening of inner work. Everything that you experience in the first
0:45.0	18 months of your life is coming through the portal of the mother. I had this moment, the child in me
0:51.5	was jealous of my son. I'm actually sad. Like, I'm joyful that I'm getting to give him all
0:56.9	of this. But there's a part of me that's deeply sad that my son is getting the thing that I longed for
1:02.8	as a kid. Love is everything and truth is how it speaks. You're essentially just sharing
1:07.9	truth, which is love, because truth is light.
1:26.7	What do you think it really means right now for men to feel strong on the outside, but soft and broken and disheveled in the middle?
1:31.1	Why is that really the beacon that most men get to pay attention to now?
1:33.7	Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I wrote about in my book is this notion that we as men are taught to develop strength through suppression.
1:38.8	And so it's the main tool that most men develop a sense of self and identities through suppression. And when you do that,
1:46.2	you're cutting yourself off from important information and truth about who you actually are.
1:54.0	And so you have to kind of develop this performative persona, right? I mean, this is kind of like
1:59.2	in a modern culture right now. Have you seen
2:01.5	like the performative males? Have you seen this? I'm sure I have. There's like a whole bunch of
	...

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