“Emotional fitness is your best armor against all of life’s challenges!”
“Hey Dad, it’s Christian. How are you? Dad? Are you there?” Silence. Then mumbles – three sentences of random words with no meaning.
My dad’s 8500 miles away in my native Denmark. I live with my family in California, so I don’t get to see him very often.
And since Parkinson’s and Dementia started eating his mind, I can no longer talk to my dad. This morning, as I tried to talk to him on the phone, I realized I’ve had my last conversation with my dad, and there won’t be another one.
I feel deep sadness. I feel shame that I’m not there to help my mom, like my other siblings. And I feel powerless to change the situation.
There is a silver lining, though. Today, I know how to feel all these feelings. I know what to do with them.
If this had happened 15 years ago, I would have had zero ability to deal productively with how I felt. My “emotional fitness” was non-existent back then.
I used to do what most men still do in the face of difficult, emotionally challenging situations: Shut it down. Tell myself to “stop being a wuss”, and to “be a man”, because “there’s nothing you can do anyway”. Then roll up my sleeves and get back to work.
I literally didn’t know what to do with any of my emotions. I had so much anger and rage inside because my life wasn’t working out the way I wanted it to. That nasty voice in the back of my head would tell me I was a fuckup and a nobody, making me even angrier.
I pushed it all down. When I got drunk, I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and I’d rage at innocent friends or do stupid shit I’d regret the day after.
Now, in my life as a coach, and someone who devotes a lot of time for volunteer men’s work, I see this in almost every man I talk to.
Here are some of the most common ways lack of emotional fitness shows up for men:

• Intimate relationships. Maybe your wife or partner picks at you, or won’t have sex with you. It hurts, you feel the anger building, but you don’t say anything. Or you stew on it and it comes out sideways. Effectively, you don’t express what’s going on inside you. You don’t speak your truth. And your relationship is stressed.
• Work. Say, your boss gives you a hard time for something that wasn’t your fault. You feel a mix of fear and anger but what do you do? Can’t yell at the boss, right?
• Family relationships. Perhaps like me, your folks are getting older, or maybe you have lost them already. Your heart is bleeding and there’s a lot of emotion cooking in you. But you heroically put your game face on and pretend everything’s fine.
• Health and stress. You feel mounting stress every day. You know it’s not good for your health and wellbeing, but you don’t know what to do about it.
• Addictions and addictive behavior. You use tobacco, alcohol, porn, gambling, food, excessive phone or computer gaming, and browsing, TV/Netflix binging, etc.

Can you relate to any of these?
Let’s take addictions and addictive behavior as a potent example of what happens when we don’t have strong emotional fitness.
What is addiction? It’s a conditioned, habitual, unconscious response to … FEELING BAD!
Think about it. When do you reach for the next cigarette, drink, porn video, or computer game? When an intensely unpleasant feeling creeps up on you, typically anxiety or fear, you quickly drown it out with your addiction of choice, so you won’t have to feel the bad feeling. 
On a personal note about addictions, I started smoking and drinking when I was 12. I didn’t manage to quit until I was 30, but when I finally did, it was super easy. Why? I realized that every time I lit another cigarette, it was to sedate the anxiety I carried around with me. When I figured out that I could deal with my anxiety in a different way, I quit on the spot, from one day to the next. I haven’t wanted a cigarette or a drink since! Emotional fitness literally saved my life!
Let’s take another example that I see over and over again. Men’s relationships with women.
Based on ten years experience coaching and working with men, I can tell you the #1 reason men’s relationships fall apart:
Low or absent emotional fitness.
Why do couples argue? Because they don’t know how to deal productively when they get angry, sad, scared, or hurt. Why do they split up or divorce? Because they feel bad and don’t know what to do about it.
Why do millions of women around the world complain about their men being absent, insensitive, or angry all the time? Because these women don’t have a clear sense of how their men actually feel. They just watch us turn to stone while we say, “I’m fine!”
When you feel bad, it works like this: You encounter a situation. You make a conclusion about what it means, often a negative conclusion. This conclusion creates a bad feeling. From the bad feeling, you take an action. When you repeat this cycle many times, it becomes an unconscious habit.
As a formula, it looks like this:
Situation => Conclusion => Feeling => Action
What’s great about your emotions is that they’re simply useful information. They’re data points that allow you to change course when you’re headed for an iceberg. Your emotions tell you what you’ve been thinking or concluding about any given situation. Working the formula above, whenever you feel angry, fearful, or shameful, you can know you made a conclusion about a certain situation that’s making you feel this way.
And once you realize that your bad feeling is preceded by your conclusion, you can change your conclusion to produce a different action. That is the difference between a man who unconsciously re-acts in a kneejerk fashion every time he feels angry or ashamed, and one who consciously deals with his feelings and deliberately chooses an appropriate action.
A man who feels and acts consciously is more powerful, reliable, and worthy of respect than one who re-acts unconsciously. A man who doesn’t know his own emotional landscape and hence re-acts unconsciously to random situations, is a man who scares his partner, disconnects from his family, and lacks deep intimacy.
So how do you start practicing emotional fitness? With these three steps.

1. Whenever you feel something strongly, and you’re about to take an action you might not really want to take (like lighting a cig, yelling at your partner, kicking the cat), pause for a second and tell yourself, “I’m feeling really ___ right now”.
2. Then actually feel that feeling. Just stand there for a second and notice the sensations in your body. Like getting familiar with a new machine at the gym. Feel it out.
3. Consciously choose what to do about it, if anything. Often, just by feeling the feeling for ten seconds, it will pass right through, and you won’t even want the cigarette or need to kick the cat. You’ll just take a breath, and move on in a good way.

It’s a simple workout that will build your strength tremendously over time.
Tony Robbins hit the nail on the head: “Emotional fitness is your best armor against all of life’s challenges. If you’re emotionally fit, there’s nothing that can throw you off course because you’ve cultivated the inner-strength to block difficulties from infiltrating your mission and affecting your purpose.” *
 
Developing emotional fitness is mandatory for any man who takes himself seriously. The only question is when you start.
How about now?
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* http://www.tonyrobbinsfirewalk.com/emotional-fitness/
Men, if you want to learn more about Emotional Fitness, we’re partnering with Dr. Robert Glover, author of the best-selling book ‘No More Mr.  Nice Guy’, to put on a mens-only workshop on September 23rd, 2017. Click here for more information & tickets.
About Christian Pedersen:
Christian Pedersen is a relationship specialist, Certified Life Coach, and founder of Power and Heart Coaching for men. He’s author of the #1 Amazon Bestseller, When You Love Your Woman.
Together with his wife, Sonika, he’s the co-founder of LoveWorks at LoveWorksforYou.com. Christian and Sonika produce and lead mind-altering live trainings like Give Yourself to Love and The Masculine-Feminine Energy Dance. They offer potent inspiration and better relationship strategies to men and women, singles and couples, on love, relationship, communication, intimacy, sex, dating, and personal transformation.
Christian particularly enjoys coaching men on how to embody both the masculine power and heart with their women and how to get everything they ever dreamed of with her. Find Christian’s men’s coaching at www.powerandheartcoaching.com, and his and Sonika’s relationship work at www.loveworksforyou.com.

Learn How to Get Over Someone With These 5 Modern Day Break-Up Survival Tips

In our hyper-connected society, breaking up with a romantic partner is harder than ever. This can make it difficult to move on. Many of us, myself included, have wondered how to get over someone in this hyper-connected world.
If breakups weren’t hard enough to begin with, our modern culture makes them infinitely more difficult. Our brains are story-making machines; one trigger can activate unconscious neurological pathways and have us reliving a past moment or fantasizing about what could have been.
But ‘what could have been’ isn’t reality. If it was, you wouldn’t have broken up. Instead of living in the past, we must step into the present after a breakup.
Use these five tips to survive a breakup in our hyperconnected, attention-seeking society, and empower yourself to get back on your feet while becoming more self-aware and grounded in your sense of self.

Tip 1: The Confusing Web of Social Media

We begin with the elephant in the breakup room: social media. Most of us have followed our past partners on Facebook or Instagram, to have shared photos, hearted photos, and shared stories with them and the world. But to know how to get over someone starts here.
After a breakup we wonder if we should unfollow her on social media? Do I keep her as a friend? Ignore her posts? Do I interact with her posts as if nothing happened? Humans have never had to deal with this phenomenon before… and it’s confusing. After a breakup we are supposed to move on, but his is the first time in human history where we get bombarded with photos and stories of ex-partners. It is murky water to navigate.
Every time we see a post or a little reminder of an ex, we can’t help but project ourselves out of the present moment into a fantasy (good or bad) about this person.
In my experience, it’s best to take a hiatus from social media altogether post breakup.
As yourself this question: Why do you need social media at that moment?
Is it to distract yourself from what you’re feeling? To get attention from others? To get attention from your ex? Or, to try and find another partner in hopes of instantly bypassing your pain?
Instead of wasting hours (daily) in this social web of confusion, go on a social media fast. Take a 30-day break and do the things that nourish you and make you feel alive with all the time you gain.
For me, there is nothing more nourishing than connecting to nature, exhausting my body with physical activity, connecting with good friends, and reading a book that I love. These activities are especially important during a break-up. Additionally, I like to reflect on who I was before I ever met this person, the things I did just for myself, and focus on growing into the best version of myself.

Tip #2: Focus on Things That Bring Humor and Joy Into Your Life Rather Than Things that Bring You Down

If you want to know how to get over someone, there are some key activities that you must focus on.
Music — Most of us listen to music, and have shared a special song or two with a partner, whether in the car, at home, or during intimate moments. Songs can carry distinct memories of certain places and times.
Following a break-up, immediately stop listening to ‘your songs’ and avoid listening to depressing break-up songs.
Most modern music is about love, but they are not describing real love. Artists sing about lost love, clingy love, and needy love. These songs will only deepen your pain, reinforce your story, and lead to more misery.
Seek out new music, upbeat music, and music with positive or no lyrics. Listen to the music that sets the tone for the mood that you want to be in.
Movies — Much like music, certain movie genres come with stereotypical messages attached to them. These messages can trigger our hurt, longing, or pain.
Personally, I’m a fan of romantic comedies. But when going through a breakup, these films do nothing but make me more miserable. Why would I subject myself to the typical funny guy, who works hard to win the girl, and then lives happily ever after?
This isn’t reality. Life doesn’t work this way. Instead of watching movies, get out of the house, get together with friends for dinner, see a comedy or improv show, go to a theme park. Find something that lights you up, that makes you laugh, that brings real joy to your life instead of projecting yourself into a false film or television reality.

Tip #3: Don’t Make the Break-Up the Focal Point of Your Life

We all need support during and post breakup. Hopefully you have a few close friends or family members that you can openly and honestly share yourself with, receiving the support you need. Community is one of the most important when figuring out how to get over someone.
If you don’t have these people in your life, find a support group, coach, or counselor to share yourself with. Talking to trusted advisors has been crucial in my process of getting over a past partners.
But, what’s hasn’t been helpful was talking about my breakup with everyone I see.
If we make our break-ups the focal point of conversations, we not only sound like a broken record but it holds us back from getting over our ex. It’s like getting a deep cut and every time a scab starts to form immediately picking it off… that shit ain’t never gonna heal.
Again, talk to trusted friend, family member, or advisor about what you’re going through, but don’t ruminate on the breakup or your past partner. They are now a part of your past — leave them there.
Move forward with your life, ask your friends how they are doing and how you can support them. The best way to get what I need is by giving exactly that to someone else… givers gain.
I don’t know how this works but it does.

Tip #4: Get the Stories Out of Your Head

Our brains are story-making machines. We obsess and don’t naturally know how to get over someone, and it’s easy to get caught up in delusional stories about our break-ups or past partners. We can make up meaning about the most trivial events and weave a story that supports our narrative.
But these stories aren’t real. They’re fabrications of our imagination and don’t help us get over a past partner. But how do we shut off the noise in our head?
Take out a journal or notebook and transfer them from your head to paper — write down all those stories and leave them there to die.
And if you’re feeling hurt, wronged, or angry write a letter to your ex (that you’ll never send) expressing your pain, anger, frustration. The more we can give these parts of ourselves a voice, the better we’ll feel.
If you repress these feelings it will lead to some future issues or outburst. Repression isn’t how to get over someone. So, find a healthy way to get the emotions and stories out, whether journaling, writing angry letters, or beating your bed with a tennis racquet. Just get it out.

Tip #5: Make Space for a New Chapter to Begin

During a break-up, I find it easy to become lethargic, reclusive, and unmotivated. It’s okay to visit this state, but remaining there is not how to get over someone. I seem to avoid doing the little things like cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, taking the dog out, hitting the gym, or grabbing coffee with a friend.
I’ve come to understand that when a relationship ends, it’s a great opportunity to clean up the physical and mental clutter from our lives and start a new chapter written on a clean page.
First, clean house — it is common for us to have accumulated gifts or objects that remind us of our ex. GET THEM OUT OF YOUR SPACE! If you don’t want to trash them, put them in a box and hide them away somewhere out of sight.
This is a great time to purge. Go through items in your house and get rid of things you don’t need or use. Freshen up your space with a deep-cleaning and rearrangement of the furniture. You’ll be surprised how light you will feel in your clutter free, clean, newly arranged space.
Second, reinvent your look – go through all of your clothes and purge anything that you don’t like, doesn’t fit, or that you simply don’t need. Give these items to friends or people in need, and you might be surprised to see how good it feels to give things away.
If you haven’t worn something in the past year, you don’t need it. Less is more. Most of us tend to wear the same favorite items weekly.
Once the purge is complete, take a look at what’s left. Do you like the way you look? Do you want to shift your style up a bit, or are there a couple things that you want?
A breakup is a great time to reinvent your look. After the purge, I like to go to one of my favorite places to shop and buy a new outfit or two. I think about how I want to present myself to the world and focus on how I feel in my new threads.
I buy only things that I can wear day in and day out and that I look and feel my best in. This might finally be the time for a fresh haircut or an entirely new cut. (Maybe get a second opinion before doing something totally crazy.)
Lastly, get out of the house – now that your place and look are fresh, go interact with the world. It’s too easy to sit at home and dwell on our situation, but this keeps us trapped in the past.
Get out of the house as much as possible, unless you’re having people over, or really need alone time to reflect and recharge. Just go ahead and jump at most opportunities to be social and live life, whether it’s catching-up with a friend for coffee, a weekend hiking excursion, or an invite to a concert with a band you’ve never heard of.
I get out and do things that move my energy and thoughts toward new horizons. When humans are hurting, we crave connection, and we will never have that sitting at home alone (especially if you’re sitting there on social media).
Breakups are tough. Knowing how to get over someone isn’t natural, so be easy on yourself. Don’t judge yourself for feeling what you feel. It takes each of us different amounts of time to get over someone that we love.
But don’t get caught up in the web of your stories and illusions. Small consistent actions towards what you want for your life are going to help you move forward and get over your ex. Soon you’ll find that you are an expert at how to get over someone, so you can move on and enjoy dating or even a new relationship again.

Check Out More Of Our Relationship Content for Modern Men:

Dr. Robert Glover: Nice Guy Syndrome (Podcast)
Robert Augustus Masters: Outgrowing Porn, Finding Purpose, and Managing Anger (Podcast)
Jordan Gray: Performance Based Sex (Podcast)
Giordana Toccaceli: How Masculine Men Protect Women’s Feminine Energy (Blog)
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Michael Muscari is the director of the ManTalks Mastermind program and founder of NanoNutra, an innovative supplement company specializing in liposomal technology.

Michael is a lifestyle architect, serial entrepreneur, biohacker, and purpose seeker. He credits much of his success to a deep personal commitment to living a life of purpose.

Seeing the benefits of living with purpose, Mike now does detailed purpose training both within the ManTalks community and externally. To contact Michael about the ManTalks Mastermind or his purpose training, email [email protected].

Every second person seems to be a coach these days. And many of them are running what they believe to be a mastermind group. What is a mastermind group? It’s not therapy, and I’ll tell you why.

Many people join and even launch different types of groups without ever asking the question, “What is a mastermind group?” So you end up finding gurus and coaches who say things like:
“Let me tell you what to do.”
“I know exactly how to solve your problems, just follow these steps.”
“Listen to me, and you will soon be problem free.”
Have you been hearing this a lot? This is the dialogue of a coach-heavy society. Everyone is a coach, everyone has the answers, everyone has it figured out.
If you think about it, it’s actually a bit fucked up. Many of these pseudo-coaches are looking for every opportunity to tell you how to fix your problems, yet rarely do they deliver any sort of demonstrable results.
Even worse, these people try to hijack or infiltrate masterminds to work out the kinks in their own coaching on unsuspecting members. This can derail any group, and turn it from a performance based growth mastermind to an informal, unmoderated, and unstructured therapy session.
(Disclaimer: There are a lot of GREAT coaches. I’m not belittling the entire profession. I just think a lot of people jump into coaching without any mastery of the craft or special ability for it.)
Let me be clear, and I will repeat this ad nauseum, there is nothing wrong with therapy. In fact. I encourage it for many. What is bad is informal therapy without a professional, or therapy groups masquerading as performance groups or masterminds.
True therapy requires a true professional. Dealing with trauma is not suited to part-time tinkering. If you need therapy, or are unsure (find out if you have coverage) and get in there. Worst case scenario you waste a little time, best case scenario it has a positive impact in your life, well worth the risk.
Therapy isn’t the goal or purpose of a mastermind. The goal is growth in your personal life and in your business. The purpose is to have a higher impact, cultivate better performance, and improve self-awareness.
Unfortunately, a lot of people are rushing into the mastermind space and not knowing the  or attend a mastermind end up creating pseudo-therapy situations.
Below are the three top reasons why a mastermind group should never be treated as a therapy group.

Expecting a Mastermind to Help You Heal From Trauma Will Only Lead to Disappointment

Emotional trauma shares many similarities to physical trauma. It involves a healing process with distinct stages along the recovery. The process of healing emotional trauma often begins in a therapy session, with the urge to “get better”. The individual might not know exactly what the problem is but they know that what they are doing isn’t working. Simply put, they are in pain and are seeking help to get better.
Beginning to unpack trauma and unweave the layers of pain can take a lifetime of work. This healing process is akin to surgery and requires a trained professional who knows what to do and when.
When an individual first begins to explore their trauma it can be an incredibly painful and stressful time. I do not recommended trying to treat yourself. While possible, it is much safer and efficient to do it under the watchful eyes of a professional.
When people join a mastermind looking to use it as a space to deal with their trauma, it usually fails on two fronts. First, the group will be unable to support or help the individual because the group is not prepared or trained to deal with such trauma and the individual will take advantage of the group who didn’t sign up to act in the capacity of untrained therapist.
Well-intentioned masterminds can become side-tracked by catharsis (or what is called catharsis but is basically just dumping all your issues on the group.) Letting go of that pain that you were holding onto can feel amazing, much like a huge weight coming off your chest. This practice of catharsis can be used properly at a specific place and time, but groups without trained therapists who tackle trauma often end up stuck in catharsis. The members keep hitting that catharsis button over and over without moving through the other stages of recovery.
Discussing struggles and pains inside a mastermind is inevitable, and I encourage it. You need ot know you can talk about anything with your mastermind brothers. But it shouldn’t be the only place you are doing it and it shouldn’t be the only thing you are doing. If your mastermind group gets stuck in catharsis, it means it’s failing.
A mastermind is built around using the gifts, perspectives and knowledge of the other individuals to help increase your own performance, impact and confidence. A well-planned and organized men’s mastermind is about solving personal and professional challenges, as you build a life around your true purpose.

Catharsis Isn’t the Same as Healing (It’s Only One Stage)

Catharsis for those who don’t know is “the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.”
The discussion around catharsis and its use is beyond the scope of this article, but what is important to recognize is how easy it is to get caught up in the feeling of relief that catharsis can bring and mistake it for actual progress.
Don’t get me wrong, if you have never told someone about a trauma, an important first step is often to share that with a trusted individual. But that process needs to be done in a supervised setting with a therapist trained to help individual progress.
Without expert guidance, people often get addicted to the relief they feel about sharing their pain, they confuse this with a feeling of healing and remain stuck in a cycle of catharsis. It’s like scratching a wound to relieve an itch but in the end scratching it so often it never heals.
I’ve seen it dozens of times, but one example is Beau (not his real name). He was a typical hard-driving entrepreneur. He worked insanely hard, made plenty of money, then one day there was a regulatory change in his industry that caused him to lose most of his income. He had a lot of debt, and his business went up in smoke.
In search of support, he joined a pseudo-mastermind type group where members ostensibly about professional growth. But in the end it was mostly catharsis without ever making any concrete plans or steps. Beau had never experienced catharsis and the experience seemed like personal change to him. Beau would go to the meetings, dump his trauma, and feel rejuvenated from the pleasant cathartic rush.
Weeks, months, and eventually years went by with nothing actually changing in his life. This group wasn’t led by a professional therapist. So catharsis was as far as the healing went. And since the group never supported achieving goals, planning, or action-taking it didn’t make a difference for Beau externally either.
An expert therapist will support you through catharsis, but then he/she will also lead you through the next steps towards healing. They won’t let you get stuck in catharsis like Beau did.
And a mastermind group will know its own mandate and support you where it’s capable.

Part of Any Good Mastermind Must be Achieving Goals

A mastermind that has no structure towards achieving goals is a clear sign that the group will fail in its mission and will likely become accidental (and bad) therapy.
True masterminding is about harnessing the combined insight of the group (the Master Mind), which is far more powerful than any individual could be. The purpose of this is so that each member can benefit, not only internally but also in external impact.
The group as a whole is more powerful than the sum of its parts. When the group unknowingly or accidentally shifts to a group therapy session, the connection between group insights and the benefits derived from them is broken. This leaves the mastermind void of the greatest potential benefit it could provide.
An example of masterminding-gone-wrong happened with my friend, Don. He joined a mastermind group that became derailed by group-therapy style sessions.
Don initially joined the group with a clear goal of growing his business dramatically. Yet after three years in the group he hadn’t grown his business at all and spent the whole time doing pseudo-therapy.
Because of this he didn’t make any progress on his trauma, which stemmed from family issues as a child. Meanwhile, he made no progress on growing his business.
When Don left the group, he started focusing on his business and more than doubled it within two years. Then he hired an actual therapist and began making progress on his trauma, too.
All the time and ‘therapy’ of the pseudo-mastermind made no difference. It turned out to be a massive waste of time and money for Don.

Be Aware Of What You’re Signing Up For

The reason I’m sharing these stories and warning you is that I don’t want to see any more men end up like Beau or Don. Both of these men went into their pseudo-mastermind looking for something different than what was delivered. They didn’t even realize it.
I want you spend your two precious resources (time and money) to get actual results. Key to this is knowing the difference between therapy groups and masterminds. Only join the one that’s right for you.
If you do choose a therapy group, only do it with a licensed and qualified professional.
If you decide that a mastermind is the right fit for you, make sure it’s not a group therapy masquerading as a mastermind. Do this by asking to see the structure of the mastermind, the goals and purpose of the mastermind, and ask to speak to members who’ve been through it.
Any high-quality men’s mastermind will create tangible results for its members. I’ve seen hundreds of men benefit greatly from excellent masterminds, myself included.
Check out some of my other articles about masterminding:
How to Find a Mastermind Group (The Complete Guide)
5 Signs That It’s Time To Join a Men’s Mastermind
And, if you’re ready to learn more about the ManTalks Mastermind, check out both of our Masterminds:
ManTalks Mastermind
Performance Mastermind
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Connor Beaton is the founder of ManTalks, an international organization focused on men’s health, wellness, success, and fulfillment. Connor is also an international speaker, podcast host, CEO, and leader of ManTalks mission to build a global brotherhood. Before founding ManTalks, Connor had a brief career as an opera singer and worked at Apple, leading high-performance sales and operations teams. Since founding ManTalks, Connor has spoken on stage at TEDx, taken ManTalks to over a dozen cities internationally and has been featured on platforms like Forbes, Influencive, HeForShe, The Good Men Project, UN Women, CBC, CBS, and the National Post. 
Zander Robertson is the ManTalks CMO and master of online content. Prior to joining ManTalks, Zander had an illustrious career ghostwriting books behind-the-scenes for business and personal development leaders across North America. Zander is at his best when learning something new every day and applying it. These days he’s geeking out on psychology, philosophy, SEO, digital marketing, and Blockchain technology. Zander has written over 20 books [he lost count] and plans to write more in the future. Why did he join ManTalks? After building his own band-of-brothers, he saw the need and importance of building this space for men. It’s all about the vision, baby.