Grieving Your Past

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign Going Deeper podcast by the Gay Men's Brotherhood that showcases raw and real conversations about personal development, mental health, and sexuality from an unapologetically gay perspective. I'm your host, Michael Diorio, and joining me today is Matt Lansdel. Today we are talking about grieving our past, because grief isn't just about death. Sometimes we grieve parts of our own story. We grieve our past identities or younger versions of us, of. Of ourselves that we've outgrown or perhaps we were forced to outgrow before we were ready. Today, Matt and I are going to be sharing with you what we've had to grieve from our own past. How we know it's time to let go and how we did it. What we want you to get out of this episode is a better understanding of that invisible grief that comes along with moving forward in life and why letting go is such a sacred yet necessary part of growth. If you're new here, please subscribe to the channel on YouTube. And if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, please take this time to subscribe and leave us a review which helps us to get into the ears of the people who need us. By the way, guys, this podcast and YouTube channel are listener and viewer supported. So if you enjoy what we're creating here, you can support us by making a show, by making a donation to the show using the link in the show notes. Or if you're watching us on YouTube, go ahead and tap that thanks button to show us some love. All right, guys, we have something a little different here for you for the next couple episodes. This is episode one in a four part series about grief. Matt and I sat down to discuss podcast topics as we so often do, and we realized we never have really done a proper deep dive into grief. Grief is the emotional process of letting go of something meaningful, whether it's a person, a place, or even a version of yourself. Grief is one of those heavy emotions along with shame. But we talk about shame quite a bit here, but not so much about grief. Now, if you are looking for an episode about grieving a loved one or grieving loss in the traditional sense, we did an episode or Kellen and Addison did an episode about grief a few years back. And we'll make sure we link that in the show notes. Okay, now most people think that grief only shows up around death and dying, but there are so many other forms of grief that are not talked about enough. And so, as we like to do here on the Gaming Going Deeper podcast, we're taking the path less traveled. These next few episodes are a four part miniseries on grief. Each episode explores a different kind of loss that both Matt and I have personally experienced. Today is grieving your past. We'll also have grieving relationships, aging parents, and then finally an episode about acceptance. We want to acknowledge that these are heavier topics. So these next few episodes might be a little bit shorter than our usual episodes because we really want you to sit with them, journal about them if you need to reflect, pause when you need to, and as always, listen at whatever pace feels right for you. Open. Okay. That said, let's get into part one. Today is all about grieving your past. And this is the kind of grief that doesn't come with funerals or tangible goodbyes. This is a kind of quiet grief is how I would best describe it. For me, it often shows up as nostalgia, longing, or some kind of ache that I can't quite name. I'll give you some examples. Maybe you long for a younger version of yourself who had more time, more energy, more optimism for the future. Perhaps you miss a version of yourself that you felt was hotter and more successful and more desirable, more lovable, perhaps. Or maybe you just feel nostalgic for a time in your life when things just felt easier. I think a lot of people have that feeling these days. Or maybe you silently grieve a dream that you really thought would come true. But as time goes on, that dream starts to slip away. Sometimes grieving your past is actually about a role that you've played. Maybe you're a father or a husband or a caretaker of some kind, or maybe even in a professional role. You know, people who retire have to grieve the loss of that role they played. That's another way we can grieve the past. Grieving your past could also be grieving a certain era in your life. A relationship, a city you lived in, a home you lived in, a career that you've dedicated a life to. So there's lots of ways we can grieve our past. Sometimes we choose to leave these relationships, roles, identities. Or sometimes we just slowly age out of them. Either way, that goodbye is never easy. And that goodbye is worthy of grieving. It's worthy of our time and energy to grieve. And it comes with this quiet grief that I don't think we don't acknowledge as grief. A lot of us don't. So that's what we're talking about today. Because life doesn't stop for anybody. It requires us to enter new chapters and New eras. And that often comes with leaving something behind. And that something is often beautiful and hard to let go of. By the way, I want to say this as a caveat. Grief does not mean that we're staying stuck in the past. It means we're honoring it. Okay, so that's my little intro for us to get started. Maddie, let's get into it. Question number one. What is something in your past that you've had to grieve? [00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to. I feel like this episode is going to be a bit slower for me. I want to kind of. I want to process it and really feel into it. Good intro, by the way. Lots of great examples and stirred up some things in me. Yeah, the last few years for me have been. Have been this. Have been a lot of grief. I think I was very sped up and not able to find grief. I found all the things that's like, you know, circle grief. But all my unprocessed grief turned into depression. And depression slows you down. And I been able to meet a lot of the things that I needed to grieve so I could move on. And I think grief is a very, very important, if not the most important, part of healing. When we go into a grieving state, we're actually releasing and letting go. I see grief kind of through two lenses, though. I see it as definitely loss, the traditional sense of grief, as we' lost something. So we have to grieve that. But it can also be that maybe we never had something to lose in the first place that we really wanted. Right. So it could be this feeling of not getting, and it can be the feeling of. Of loss. And I think for me, there was a. There's a deep grief around not getting. And I think I've talked openly about my childhood on this. On this podcast, and that's what I've been grieving the last few years is, is not getting the childhood that I wanted. And I think the first five years of my life were actually very, very beautiful. And then the conflict between my parents started to erupt, and the household became very unsafe. And there was addiction issues in my family that created a deep sense of not feeling safe. And my parents were quite emotionally underdeveloped or immature at that point. They were quite young parents and like in their early 20s when they had us, which is, you know, a very young age to have kids, in my opinion. I know in their generation, that was quite the norm, but I can't even imagine having a child at 23. Like, I can't even Imagine having a child now. But so with that, I think it just. I didn't have a, you know, and then throw the gay stuff in there. I knew I was. I was gay when I was about five. I wasn't maybe able to articulate it in that exact way, but I knew something was different. So a lot of just nervous system dysfunction and I didn't have an opportunity to develop self esteem, self confidence, these sorts of things. And so I think my grief is. Is grieving the childhood that I never. Yeah. And then how that plays into my attachment style. So a lot of the, the issues that I've had in my life and what's been so painful is my struggle with relationships because of the relationships I had with my parents when I was younger. And having a disorganized attachment style has been the most painful thing to navigate. And I've had to grieved that I never had the upbringing that I needed in order to establish a secure attachment. So what would happen is I would get into a relationship and I would freak out and I would have all this hot, cold energy. So I've never been able to land safely in a relationship. So there's a lot of grief around that. There's a lot of, you know, what I would always meet though first is anger. Just a ton of anger. Anger at my parents. I had a hard time getting close to my parents for most of my life because of that. I've always kept them at a distance and. And I think there's a part of me that I've had to grieve that I've had to grieve the, the childhood that I never got and then the impact that that had on my, on my development. And then I've spent my. I don't want to say my prime years. I think my 40s are going to be my prime years, but I'll say the, the years leading up to my prime and just years that are supposed to be very fun and free. You know, I've spent them in therapist offices and, you know, doing plant medicines and just. It's all been. It's been such a focus on healing and there's a lot of anger. And then I'm also meeting now a lot of sadness around, you know, turning 40 this year and not really have. Having had the relationships that I've wanted to had have. Like my relationships have been inundated with fear, just a ton of fear. And yeah, that's, that's just a little like kind of a little snippet into the grief that I've. That I've been navigating. I feel like I've done a really good job at it. And I'm at this really cool spot in my life right now where I'm feeling, like, neutrality towards my parents. It's like just. It's almost like there. It's. There's nothing there anymore. Right. It's. I don't have any anger or animosity or anything like that. I've done the work to kind of just release that. And, yeah, I think it was. And now that I'm talking it out, I think what I was grieving is that I didn't actually get to establish a healthy relationship with my inner child. I actually felt for most of my life that I was this wounded inner child. And now that I've done a lot of deep work, I can actually see my inner child as something separate than me, which is. Which is a good spot to be in. [00:10:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that's beautiful. While. While you were speaking, I kind of. I think it highlights for me the relationship between grief and hope. [00:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:33] Speaker A: Or desire, but not desire in a sexual sense, but desire like a wanting. And as we hope, sometimes that hope hurts. And as time fades or as things change, sometimes, you know, hoping for something that is just not going to happen eventually turns into grief, which is the opposite of hope. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. [00:10:51] Speaker A: It's interesting, Matt, that you mentioned vote turning 40, because that's kind of where I was going to take my share. You know, I wanted it to be. I wanted today's episode to be something that was relatable, that I was experiencing. I've had. I've had to grieve various identities in the past. For me, as someone who loves reinvention. Yeah, Grief is always. Step one in reinvention is you got to let go and grieve that. But today I want to talk a little bit about, like, what's going on for me personally and kind of what I'm grieving. Um, and it's. Bear with me on this because it's not fully formed, but I'm 42, just a couple years older than our young Matt here. And I've lately. Maybe in the last couple of years, maybe since 40, but in a way, I'll call it grieving my youth or younger self. Not in the same way you. Not childhood Michael, but like, just 20s and 30s Michael, not in a dramatic woe is me way, because I know everyone's gonna come at me like, oh, my God, you're only 42. You have nothing to blah, blah, blah, Blah. Just chill, everyone. Now, it's not like I'm old now. I'm not considering myself old, but I'm certainly not younger. I'm not 22 or 32. And I'm. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy in my life now. But I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel a shift, a change in the air, that I kind of don't have the same clout, especially in gay circles, you know, anymore. And when I. You guys listen to this podcast, you know that I'm very much immersed in the gay community, the, the gay culture, both, you know, the gay bars and all the other aspects of it. So I think those of you who are in that world know for sure there is definitely a change as you age. When I was younger, I was probably more flirty, more magnetic, perhaps even hotter. Depends who you ask. And regardless, that carries a power in it. And this isn't just a gay thing. This is really a society thing. We as a society really, in western world, emphasize youth in general for women as well. And so I don't want to say that I would trade places with that 25 year old Michael, but in fact, I actually love 42 year old Michael more. But I still need to honor the fact that I feel a loss and I miss it and there's a longing. And I do grieve those younger versions of me. I mean, even just physically. We've talked, you, you and I, Matt, have talked about this. Our bodies don't bounce back like they used to. My energy is certainly slower and lower. And yes, the world, the gay world, responds to me a little bit differently. At the same time, I was also non stop doing mode back then. Like I was constantly on the go, going out every night of the week, whether it was to parties on weekends or dates on weekdays or hookups or literally, I was doing everything with everyone, everywhere, all at once. [00:13:40] Speaker B: Okay? [00:13:41] Speaker A: And I don't want to go back to that. I really don't. I'm not saying that I'm yearning to go back to that life. I don't want to go out that, that many times a night. I, I certainly don't want to be hooking up that much. And my values have shifted and I'm happy for that. But I want to make room for the fact that there's a version of me who really thrived in that world and did well and really, and parts of me really, really enjoyed it and loved it and felt very seen and yeah, thrived is the Best word I can think about here. It felt very carefree. When I look at my life now and I look at that version of me, very carefree, very adventurous, very outgoing. I had lots of people around me all the time. My social circle was huge. Now my social circle is very small on purpose. Not complaining about it, but it's just different. And you know, it wasn't. I have a tendency to get nostalgic in a rose colored glasses kind of way, which we'll talk about through all this, through all this month. But, you know, I have to remember that it wasn't. Obviously it wasn't all wonderful because, I mean, I've talked about that a lot too in previous episodes. There were challenges and that's. I think perhaps the. What's confusing for me about this kind of grief about grieving your past is like, it doesn't necessarily mean you want to go back because for me, where I am is very happy. But I still, I still can be happy where I am and miss or I was. Am I making any sense here, Matt? [00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. It's almost like exchanging the physical for the emotional and mental. I think that's what happens as we age is that there's the parts of us that maybe were insecure and needed to rely on our body or our. How we looked when we were younger gets replaced with having more self esteem, greater sense of being able to internally validate with our emotional mental cells, but our physical self is becoming less desirable. And I use air quot that because I, I don't subscribe to that actually, like, I've done a really good job at unsubscribing from that over the last six years since I've stopped fitness and this obsession with my body and my appearance and I've really rooted into some. Something deeper. Right. Which is the spirit and the energetics of people. And I find that I can now find all people attractive and I can see beauty in all people. And I don't just put youth or this, this one whatever, like ideology or whatever that we're supposed to subscribe to. I've kind of let go of that. [00:16:02] Speaker A: So, yeah, I, I love that. Maybe we can do an episode on that one, Dave, because I think that's important. I think a lot of guys out there do grieve their youth, but they don't know they're grieving it. [00:16:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:13] Speaker A: And so they're acting out in all kinds of ways instead of, instead of just being like, okay, I see what's happening here. Grieving something that I either I wish I had or I wish I still had. I don't have any more, whatever that is. But, you know, I see a lot of people really suffer. And maybe instead of just saying, hey, this is what I'm feeling here is grief. [00:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah. How do, how do you relate to yourself differently? Like let's say 25 year old Michael to 42 year old Michael. How do you relate to yourself differently? [00:16:40] Speaker A: So much more love now. Oh my gosh. So much more love. Respect. I'm so much more aware of who I am, what I want. You know, we've talked a lot about saying no advocating for myself. That version of me 25 was really fun because I said yes to everything. So I got a lot of experiences under my belt. Do I want to go back? No. Would I do that now? No. In fact, there was a lot of dangerous situations I put myself in that I probably am very lucky that I made myself or that I got out of. But yeah, I think it's just. If I could summarize it, it would be self love. I am so much more attuned to who I am. And if that is not matching with who you or society wants me to be, back then that would have caused a really big internal issue within me. I would have blamed that on me. But now I'm just like, okay, that's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:17:33] Speaker B: Aging is such an, it's such an important conversation. I know we've done different episodes on this and I know sometimes, like you said, like, sometimes the mature men in our community can get charged or activated when we talk about aging. But I, I do think it's important to say that we all have our own relationship with aging. And I think it's, we're, it's. It's important for us to have our, our own conversation about it. And sure, someone can compare their aging process to ours and say, well, you're young, but we are also doing the same thing and comparing our aging process with somebody younger than us. We're all doing this and we all have the birthright of being able to be in our own aging process. And yeah, it's, it brings up a lot of stuff for a lot of people, though. I think gay men tend to hold on to their youth similar to the way women do, because the, the conditioning that we've inherited is very similar to women. Right. And I think what I've tried to do is I've tried to take that conditioning and not subscribe to it. And I subscribe to the heterosexual male ideology, which is you know, I'm getting more distinguished and, you know, salt and pepper and all these sorts of things that it's like I want to actually view my aging process the way that I would view a sexy older man. You know, I think it's. And I'm, I tend to be more drawn to older men anyway, so it's easier for me to do that. But for somebody who's very drawn to younger men, I could see how that would create, you know, a, like idolizing that, like wanting to be that when you're attracted to it. But sometimes it's okay to not be the thing we're attracted to. [00:18:56] Speaker A: Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I purposefully said, I think I did. Hopefully I, I wanted to make sure that I said grieving my younger self, which is a little bit different than youth. Although for me it's similar because I'm not, as I said, I'm not little. But yeah, you could be like 80, grieving the 6 year old version of you, which is fine. That's allowed, right? Because there's. They're different, they're different people. You could be 29, graving the 19 year old version of you as well, or, you know, someone like you, Matt, who you know is craving like a childhood, like a, like a five year old version of you. And so it's really about that younger self. And as you said so nicely, we all have the right to grieve a younger version of us. It's not about youth or, or who's older than who. It's not a pissing contest here. [00:19:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's true. [00:19:40] Speaker A: All right, let's give our audience the chance to chime in here. So, audience, tell us in the comments, if you're watching us on YouTube, what aspects of your past do you grieve? Let us know. And if you're enjoying the conversation we're having here, we invite you to join our weekly events within the Gay Men's Brotherhood. We have Sharing Circles where you have a chance to share your own experiences in a larger group format. We also have our connection circles, which are smaller, more intimate breakout rooms where you can discuss the topics of this podcast with other members of the community. If you're interested in these events, please go to gaiman'sbrotherhood.com and check out the events section to RSVP. Please make sure you get on our email list so that we can email you the zoom links and access links to all of these events. All right, let's talk about how you know when it's time to let go of a past version of yourself. And how did you do it? [00:20:34] Speaker B: This was a good question. And I, I was kind of stumped on some of these questions because I feel, I feel like I'm new to grief. It feels like a new thing for me. I've always met grief with probably denial and anger and all the things that, like I said, surround grief. Can you read the question to me one more time? [00:20:51] Speaker A: How do you know when it's time to let go of a past version of yourself? And how did you do it? [00:20:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sick of my story. I'm so sick of my story. I'm sick of identifying with my wounded inner child. I'm sick of the story of my childhood and all those sorts of things. So for me, just fatigue in my own story and feeling like less attachment to my story. And I do believe that human beings, we grab onto and we create, we harvest from our story things that perpetuate our story, like pain, for example, like being in victim, these sorts of things, being the martyr. All of these things can be things that we harvest from our stories. And I think knowing, for me, knowing that I'm ready to release that is all about just releasing my attachment to my story and becoming more flexible in telling a new story or having somebody else contribute to my story, like, AKA my parents, like, they probably have a different, A different viewpoint of my childhood than I do. [00:21:55] Speaker A: Right? [00:21:56] Speaker B: I was the one experiencing it. I was putting it through all the filters of my reality and who I am and my sensitivities and, and these sorts of things. And they probably have a different experience of that. So sitting down with my parents and letting them influence my story can be also a part of my letting go and moving into this energy of reinvention. So, yeah, I just think it's, it's about becoming more, more, more connected to the energy. I guess for me it would be flexibility or humility and just letting, letting my story thicken. And then once that story feels complete, it's like, okay, well how can I create new experiences, new memories so I can start creating new stories, right? And I think that's, that's where I'm at now. It's like I want to connect with people. I want to have secure attachments so I can start telling stories of myself and the gay, other gay men of like, there are secure people out there that are wanting to relate. So I think it's, for me, it's about thickening up stories and really everything that we are as human beings, we're Meaning making machines. And we're just storytellers. That's it. We live. We have lived experience. We create stories and memories and meaning of those, and then we share them. Right. So it's just everything is recycled experiences through storytelling. And if we want to move on to a new version of ourselves, we have to be willing to let go of old stories, or at least our attachments to them, and turn them into memory and stories that we can share about a time that we had once experienced as opposed to continuing to live out that same story, make room for. For new people, new experiences so we can start to tell new stories. I think that would be the biggest thing for me. [00:23:28] Speaker A: I love that. You know who Abraham Hicks is, right? [00:23:30] Speaker B: Yes. [00:23:31] Speaker A: She has a whole bit that I used to listen to all the time about telling you story, and then that just reminded me of that, like a little rampage of telling a new story. Which is so true. [00:23:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I love Abraham, but I had to stop following her because I've been doing a ton of deep, complex trauma healing, and I don't think she's trauma informed, in my opinion. She. She's all about, like, law of attraction and tell new stories, but if you have a traumatized nervous system, you actually have to tell the stories of pain and share them. And, and, and so I think it's important. But then once you get to a certain point, I think she. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah, she. [00:24:03] Speaker B: Her teachings can be very helpful. [00:24:04] Speaker A: It's like feeling the grief. You have to acknowledge the grief. You have to say goodbye. You have to acknowledge that loss. All those sad, negative, quote unquote feelings have to be part of it first. You have to go through it before you start telling the new story. Well said. [00:24:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Or otherwise it's a bypassing. I think people can easily bypass their trauma and pretend like it's not there because they'll think new stories, but the body's still holding onto the old stories. Right. [00:24:27] Speaker A: So true. Yeah. I think a lot of men do that with grief and a lot of those. Those tougher motions, including this one. [00:24:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna answer this in the context of my last share about kind of grieving my younger self. And I. I guess I'm still in it because I'm still deciding. So it's still very. This is. This conversation is very met. I'm not quite there. So it's not like I just woke up one day and like, okay, cool, I'm gonna let go. I'm gonna grieve. Time to grieve. Like it's not how it is. It's just something that I've noticed in the last year or so that is slowly fading and it's waking me up to. I'm like, oh, that's different. You know, my body does this thing that it didn't used to do and you know, it's just these little tiny things and it's just like that little, you know, death by a thousand cuts, as they say. And it's just slowly fighting. I remember one day I was at, I was. Where was I? I was somewhere in the village here in Toronto and I looked around like, why the hell is everybody so young? Like, what am I at? Am I at some like young people's thing? I'm like, oh no, I'm just old. Like they're regular adults. I'm just now older. I'm the. When did I become the old man in the room? You know? And it's just these little things just noticing, like looking around like, wait, what, what's happening? And at first I, I resisted that. It's like my initial instinct was to cling on to that relevance, youth, whatever, whatever you want to call it. And you know, but the fact of the matter is, I don't know all the new cultural isms. This generation, you know, is very different. I'm a millennial and I'm at the top end of the millennial. And now we're where we're dealing with Gen Z and Gen Alpha and that's just how it goes. The existing generation gives way for the next and that's the way life has always been and that's the way life always is. So what I have to realize is my options are, maybe this is how I deal with it. My options are resist it. And Lord knows I'm not going to win that battle or roll with it. Like start asking myself, like, I'm getting older so let's not resist it. But what kind of man do I want to be? What kind of 42 year old man do I want to be? Take out the word gay even doesn't matter. But what kind of 52 year old man do I want to be? What kind of 62 year old man do I want to be? And start thinking in those terms rather than, rather than clinging on to the 32 year old me. Yeah, that's, that's really how I do it. Have you seen the movie Death Becomes Her? Yeah, exactly. So it's like that, like, sure, like Isabella Rossellini going to show up with a serum. I'm sure a lot of gays out there would be like, oh my God, please. But that's just not, that's just not how it works. At least not yet. So I do see a lot of gay guys resist this at any age. Right. Even guys in their 30s, guys that I coach who are younger than me say to me, oh, my best years have gone by and I'm never going to find a mate. And I want to be like, what, you're 35, you're 32, like, what's happening? So I think that is a kind of natural human instinct to think the best years have gone by. And I think the work is to switch it to the best is yet to come, regardless of the age. Even if you're 85 years old. [00:27:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. And I like, what kind of man do you want to be as you're going older and be forward thinking, in my opinion, like, what is that? What, what's the currency that you feel being this younger version? Like, what's the currency of youth for you Being younger gives me more what. [00:27:44] Speaker A: Access to, for in the gay world? Attention, for sure. [00:27:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:49] Speaker A: Eyeballs. Eyeballs and attention either even not, not just sexually, but even like as a, as a creator of this podcast and content, you know, like the youth brings eyeballs, period, in our culture. That's probably the biggest one in, in terms of the, the gay aspect, but also just health, like good health. God, that's something I, I can, I, I'm still healthy, don't get me wrong. And I, I do not take that for granted as I used to, I treat my body with so, so much more respect, knowing that this vessel is only aging. But I would say that's another thing I, I really took for granted is the energy levels and the recovery and just how much more I would say, capable my body was in those days. [00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, interesting. What about if you were to go the other direction, what currency do you think there are at 52, 62, 72. [00:28:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I mean, at least for me, my wisdom insight. I think we gain experience and with experience comes wisdom. We gather pain, and with pain comes healing and more wisdom. If you, if you so choose it to go that way, you don't have to, but for me, I do. And so I think for me, something that's really important to me as I get older, when I ask that question, what kind of man do I want to become? I don't have kids myself, but I want to be a mentor, coach, someone. Doesn't matter what you want to call me, but someone who can impart wisdom, insight into younger folks, help them. I help them go through whatever it is they're going through. Because I didn't have that for me. And I think that's really important to me. And we've talked. I did an episode about intergenerational gay relationships before and I think it's really, really important. And it's such a shame that we don't treat our elders with more respect and dignity in the western world, especially our gay elders, because we lost a lot of them. And honey, that, that, that is some very powerful, rich wisdom we have at our fingertips. And it's not going to last forever. [00:29:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And those are the things I think, just also being a seeker, being an old soul, being an empath, being all these qualities that I. That I possess, I think I tend to gravitate towards experience and depth. So a lot of the guys that I like hanging out with tend to be like older gay men. And I love it. Right. It's just, it's so nourishing connecting with people in that industry. Not saying that you can't have, you can have young soldiers, mature men, and you can have the opposite. Right. I've. I've connected with some guys that are in their 20s and they're. I'm like, whoa, like you're an old soul for sure. So ages, age is just merely a biological number. But yeah, so it's fascinating. [00:30:31] Speaker A: I want to ask you, Matt, what, What kind of man is 50 year old? Matt, what kind of man are you becoming? Because you're 40, you just turned 40, so what is the next decade bringing? [00:30:43] Speaker B: Ooh, Matt, he is. He's so confident. He's so confident and he's putting himself out there, like without any hesitation, just out there. Right. So comfortable in his own skin. He has a lot of support around him because he's healed the wounds that kept people at bay. So he's got a lot of, A lot of love and support and people cheering him on, which is why he feels courageous to be out and putting himself out there. And because he knows he has a support system to fall back on. He has love, romantic love. Yeah. A bunch of animals and a ton, a shit ton more cactus. I'm a cactus collector for those of you who don't know. [00:31:24] Speaker A: It's that Alberta. It's that Alberta. [00:31:26] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I feel like just. Yeah, just rich. I feel rich at 50. And not necessarily with money, although money is good. But rich with love and connection and. [00:31:37] Speaker A: All the things Yeah, I think that's the how what you just did. And what I just did is, you know, part of this question is how and how do you do it? I think it's really connecting to that future as like something to hold on to. Right. So if you're letting go of one vine over here, the past, here you are in the present, reaching for another vine, but with different values because it's different. Right. You said confidence. That was the first thing you said. I have to completely agree with that. I'm the every age, I'm just more confident in each age that goes by, each year that goes by. So maybe that's the how. Right? That's the how. Is this to really define what that means? What am I moving towards? [00:32:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And that's the way that we can not, we can, we can still grieve the what's, what's that way, but we, if we anticipate what's coming this way, it takes us away from the energy of something's missing. I don't have anymore. Right. If you think about how to cultivate abundance, it's about focusing on what we do have and what is possibly coming to us from a place of gratitude of what we already have. Right. And I think focusing on things like, are you already, are you healthy? I'm healthy right now. Like, my body's not deteriorating. I don't have aging issues. So I'm like, I, why would I focus on something that the culture says to focus on? Oh, you're 40. Oh my God, you're getting gray hair. You're gonna, your, your body's gonna start doing this, doing that. Well, what if I tell the opposite story? Right. What if I defy that? Because I do believe that we become our stories. Our, our cells in our body actually respond to the thoughts we think and the stories we tell. So what if I tell the stories of a 30 year old, right. Am I going to physiologically exhibit qualities of that? Probably. Right. If I tell the stories of how tired I am and how I'm aching and my lower back hurts because I'm 40, right. That's the story that I'm going to tell. That's how my cells will respond. So I do think there's some quantum physics at play here that we could play around with as we do age. [00:33:32] Speaker A: Yeah. It's that balance of, yes, yes, I may be losing some things, truly, but what am I gaining? Because for every loss there's a gain. And when we focus so much on that loss, as you're saying it just creates more despair. [00:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:44] Speaker A: I have a sub question. What do you think is a sign that maybe you're holding on too tightly to the past? And I'm not just talking about, like, the body type or whatever, just in general, like your childhood, a past version of you. [00:34:01] Speaker B: What is a sign that I'm holding too much onto the past? Yeah, it's almost like for me, it's. I'm keep attracting the same things. So a good example for me would be my childhood and the stuff that I had created this attachment style. That's what I've been really struggling with. So that I'm continuing to be attached to that and not. Not in an energy of grieving and letting go. I'm gonna keep attracting the type of men that I've been attracting my whole life. So the universe keeps sending us these patterns and these karmic lessons until we learn it. Right. So it's like, why do I keep attracting unavailable men? Right? It's like. And I'm doing an episode soon on that one, so I'm excited to share that. I think it can't remember when it comes out. Maybe June. [00:34:43] Speaker A: Okay. [00:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah, something like that. Or I guess it would already be. [00:34:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it's already been reported by now. [00:34:47] Speaker B: I always forget this time stamps. So, yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is just noticing that you keep attracting the same old. And it's like, that's when we get tired of our story because our story that we tell keeps attracting the same experiences, the same people, the same energy over and over again. So I think when we start attracting newness, new vibration, new people, that's when I think we can see that. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm actually healing now. I'm letting go of things. I'm making room for. For new energy to come into my life. [00:35:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Well said. The. The answer is in my head when I start rolling in the spiral of resistance, which in my brain sounds like, I wish it was different. And trying to control this thing that I cannot control, like, oh, why is it like this? I wish it was different. I wish I wish it like. I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish. And I'm just arguing against reality. And that's when I'm like, okay, I need to. Like, I'm banging my head against the wall. This is not. Can I produce any positive outcome for me or for anybody? So I need to accept, which we'll be talking about in a later episode, and start looking ahead. [00:35:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It's a frustrating thing. I'm Thinking about, you know, being a counselor and how. And you probably see this as well as, you know, when. When a client comes in and keeps telling the same story over and over again and they have a hard time letting go of the story, it's like, yeah, but it happens to all of us, right? And we're all in that energy, and sometimes we actually need to beat ourselves over the head with our own story a times before we're ready to let it go. So I do think that it's like, you know, if you have a friend who keeps beating their. Themselves over the head with whatever, it could be the loss of a loved one or it could be a breakup that they just can't seem to get over. Like, hold space for that. Right? Hold space for somebody to beat themselves over the head. Because that's what we need as human beings. Some of us need the hard way of learning and letting go. And what we actually might be doing is telling the story over and over again because we're harvesting something that we need, whether that's attention or connection or something from it. So sometimes beating ourselves over the head with the same story, we're actually getting something from it. It might not just be the thing that we need to heal. Right. It might not be grieving, but it might be giving ourselves ammunition to get to that next stage. So I think that's when we can just really get good at holding space for others, holding space for ourselves. It's like, eventually this story will release and a new one will be. Will be told. [00:37:08] Speaker A: Yeah. You have to make room for. For. For all of it, for all of that, for the grieving and for making room for. Hey, there is. Is it possible that there's a new day on the other side of this? The answer has to be yes, it's possible. Even if you don't see that new day or you don't know that it's there, there has to be some kind of optimism that it's possible. [00:37:26] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:37:27] Speaker A: All right, Matt, any last one last question for you. [00:37:30] Speaker B: I want to know you 10 years from now, you 52 years old. Where do you see yourself? [00:37:36] Speaker A: I always imagine my older self. Maybe not 52, but my older self as Dumbledore. Dumbledore, just this old wise sage. If I could live to be like. Like, if I was a. Like a witch or a vampire, I would so sign up for that because I would just love to be one of those people who could see the world through the lens of decades and. And centuries. I think that'd be so interesting for Me, I'm a big history buff, so that'd be cool. At any rate, to answer your question, probably more, if the trend continues, more confident, more willing to put myself out there, more willing to make mistakes, just continuing along this path. I do see myself in nature in probably less than 10 years, probably sooner than that, but I really crave it. I was recently up north for a little while, and something about that just. It feels like taking. It feels like my soul is taking a bath when I'm in nature. As much as I love the city and I've lived here for my whole life, feel I'm being called there. So I see more peace, more birds, more water. That. That's there. That's for love, you know, it's an interesting one. I'm single right now. I'm not sure I would love. I would love to have love. I just don't. It's kind of a void. Maybe I would love for there to be someone there, but I'm not sure. And definitely, I think really honoring and taking care of me, mind, body and soul. [00:38:54] Speaker B: I love that I see you and I traveling with our husbands. [00:38:57] Speaker A: Tell me where mine is, please. [00:38:59] Speaker B: All right. [00:39:00] Speaker A: Great job. Well, thank you, Matt, for joining us on our first episode of a few on this topic. Thank you to our guests. Thank you to our viewers and listeners for sticking with us on this topic. They may be heavy, but, you know, we encourage you guys to follow us along. And as I said in the beginning, you know, if you need to pause and come back to it, please do. We know that this can be a heavier topic. If you're watching us on YouTube and you enjoyed this episode, please tap on that thanks button button to show us some love. You can also subscribe to early access episodes if you're listening to us on Apple Podcasts to listen ad free and gain access to episodes before they are released wide to the public. All of your support helps us to continue making content for you and supporting our community. So we thank you so much in advance and we hope to see you guys at the next event in the gay Men's Brotherhood. Have a good one. Bye. Bye.