From Confrontation to Clarity: Understanding Self-Care and Boundaries

0:00I mean, self-care can mean being brutally honest with yourself as well. The word that landed was confrontation, but really stood out as the wrong kind of energy. Depression is a huge thing for everyone, not just for men, but in particular. We can't let go of what we haven't felt. That's what decompression means to me. Holding space is an important thing to do, and that could look like doing nothing. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the TPM Show. My name's Tim Matthews. I am your host, and I'm joined by two incredible men, Wildcard and Jigsaw. I have to do something different. We have a little bit less time today, so I'm going to do a rapid fire with some posts from the community. I'm going to take a couple of minutes,

1:06and you're going to tell me what both of you guys would do. If this is somebody's first episode, first time listening to the TPM show, let's just give them a little bit of context as to who you both are. 30 seconds, high level view, and what bright to TPM. How long have you been in the movement? And then I think I'll give some context, and then we can go into this, so. Okay, my name is Lawrence Davis. I am ex-military. I was married for 33 years. I've divorced now, found TPM about four and a half years ago, changed my life, turned myself around, and yeah, I've been in the movement for four years, and they've been the most incredible years I've ever had. And I'm all trail. I'm the worst also, found TPM six years ago,

2:08went through deactivation, went through the reset, went through the brotherhood. And I smile because it's changed my world. Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay, so first one, let me just check this, just screen it, and make sure. It is what I, okay, so did something I rarely do. Confronted my wife about disrespect towards me, and not involving me in a curfew deviation for our eldest daughter. I told her I was upset that it was disrespectful to me. I also pointed out that she feels and complains that she's doing all the work with the kids, but on a simple thing like where we set a curfew, and the daughter text asking for an extension, and the mother grants it without asking or using me as the basis to deny it,

3:12that she's choosing to do it alone, so that the wife's saying, hey, you're not involved in the parenting, and he's saying, well, look, this is an example where you're not involving me, and you're doing it on your own. I told her it undermined my authority as the head of the house, interesting. And as a dad, she apologized and acknowledged she had made a mistake. We'll see if anything changes. I should perspective on that real high level. We're going to move on to quite a few more. Okay, I would say the energy of that confronting, it sounds confrontational, she may have capitulated now because of the confrontation. I think potentially a way of dealing with that is to set that boundary yourself and say it's not about her, not about her what she's done, but it's about what you're willing to accept. So rather than confrontation, boundary-setting conversations sit down. I wasn't happy with this. I feel like this is doing this

4:13to me, this is making me feel certain. There's a lot of blame in this. Otherwise, projection and blame onto the lady. The word that landed was confrontation. That really stood out as the wrong kind of energy. A boundary is not delivered with that kind of essence. It's more of a conversation about behavior that's not going to be tolerated in that present moment. But a boundary is not about controlling the other person. It's about saying what you're willing to accept in your life. For me, I'm wondering where the curiosity is. Where's the curiosity is to why the wife did what she did? I'm sure there's many reasons. Obviously, we look, we're just having a brief snapshot into somebody's life, right, and casting our own assessment. By no means, do we know the full picture? It's just what somebody's posted in the app that we have in the community. I see this often with guys. Obviously, guys that previously haven't had boundaries

5:17and struggle to make them. It's a really big, it can be a really big deal for them to start speaking up for themselves. And inevitably, in the beginning, the fumble, right? And that's okay. I think, I think communicating that, hey, look, Lane, Lane, your wife know that you are learning to set boundaries. I think it's going to, it's important how you let her know, obviously, it's important. But Lane, I know you're probably going to get it wrong at times. And you're probably going to fumble, but this is a really important step for you that you need to take for you and the family. It might get a little bit messy and just asking for some grace. When it does get messy, because if you have been somebody that hasn't set boundaries and all of a sudden you start setting them, it's kind of abrasive as well. What the hell's going on? This is what's inspired this change. Okay, next one. One second. Oh, no, not that one. This is exciting. What do we get to do? Yeah, yeah, yeah, just give me a minute here. There's a lot of pictures and a lot of

6:21wins from the man. We want challenges. We don't want wins and success, guys. Stop, stop doing well. No, more wins and success. Okay, we'll go with this one. Having the best week ever, the wife and I got all of our financial stuff straightened out. Kids are finally smiling again and enjoying life. God's a new place. I should be getting the keys for tomorrow. Getting ready for my fight next week. Oh, wow. Feeling good about things. Let's talk about listening on the finances there, because this was an issue that one of the guys recently went through in who graduated the essential blueprint. He had done really well, but realized throughout the past five to 10 years, he very much abdicated his role within leading the finances. As a result, left all of the financial decisions up to his wife. And in his words, what he did was he would say, whatever works best,

7:21whatever works best, whatever works best. And he also abdicated all the decisions within the household to her as well. Now she's like, you handle it, you take care of it. And as he's doing so, he's realizing, holy crap, this is quite a mess. I've made some pretty tough decisions. Not tough. I've made some pretty rubbish financial decisions. So he now has to write the ship. That involves coming up with a plan. That involves creating agreements. That involves boundaries. And that involves facing a lot of tests. What advice would you give that guy in his particular situation right now? Yeah, there's a polarity that's got to come back his way as well, isn't there? Jesus, I feel for that guy. And it's good that he's taking, what is he taking responsibility?

8:30He is, yeah, he's hard for him because he's just some shame that's come up. He's like, how did I get this far? His wife is kind of not disengaged, but the way that he was being or whatever's best, she's been the same way. And he's scared of making a wrong step. So he's wanting to get her permission and her really permission and approval, not so much buy-in. Yeah. So he's not saying, hey, this is where I think we should, what I think we should do. And here's why. Are you good with that? Because again, you can lead, right? It's a joint thing, but he has to set the direction and be confident. And if she challenges him in that moment or asks questions, which is understandable, and he needs to obviously have ways in which he can answer, well, I'm thinking that because of this. And she may say, well, no, I disagree, near it. Well, well, I hear you. And this is what I'm thinking and why. And I believe this is the best direction. You know, can you just trust me with this? Hey guys, I just want to share

9:35something with you. I'm sure we can both agree that in order to fix something, you need to know what's broken. And not only in the, you know, it's broken, but a step-by-step methodology on how you can fix it. That's the easiest way to do it, right? Otherwise, you're going to be toiling with things. That's why I created a free training. A training that only shows you how you got to where you are, where your relationship is missing that love, respect, admiration, and even intimacy that it used to have. To how you get it back, how do you retain that where your wife's looking at you the same way she used to look at you when she said, I do. You know, I don't know about you, but for me, when my wife looks at me like, I'm her man, that I feel like I can conquer the world. And I want that for you. Simply go over to thepowerfulman.com forward slash scales. That's thepowerfulman.com forward slash scales. And I have a free video training for you. You can just click play and see if this resonates for you. Now back to the podcast. I think one of the important things in financial

10:38discussions or having to take on anything back over from your partner. There's a couple of things. First thing is I would say that you get to do it. You don't got to do it. And that was one of the biggest mindset shifts for me in TPM was was learning to recognize the opportunity. So yes, you're down, you're down a dark path. Yes, there's some things that have gone wrong. But now you get the opportunity to put them right. And I think that way when you come into a discussion about fighting finances or whatever it is, you're in a better place. You're in a more positive play. We get to change this now. This has gone down too far. We need to get we we not need to but we get to amend this and look how it will be in five years or we'll look where we'll be in a couple of months or whatever. So I think that's the first thing. And the second thing is that to look in other places in the relationship where she may be carrying stuff that you should be carrying and be able to go actually, you know what? I could take that off you or we can share that

11:42because if you've done that in one element of your life, you've done it in others. And when she has to be the one that turns around and says, I'm exhausted with this. It's too much. It's already too late. She's already exhausted and tired with that. And that's just another flick of mud onto the glass or you know, another another thing that you're going to have to deal with later on down the line. So have a look around all the other territories, the other aspects of your life and see where else she's carrying more than she needs to or she should. I love that. I love it. Well, these guys are crushing it. I'm looking through for smart challenges and you've got these guys, you're posting images of their ARS, images of them playing in the snow with the dog, well, with only shorts on. So it's the age is only a number and mine is unlisted. Guys posting their weekly reviews with the coil scores, the chat of intentional living that is. And they're just absolutely crushing it on in all five territories. Guys posting pictures of them on the ARS with their kids with his son. Another guy just destroying his personal best in the row machine.

12:50These guys are on fire and it's not like all they do want to do is share the highlights either. The guys come into here and really share when things are tough as well. But for the most part, they're doing really well, which is awesome. Are you fully decompressing? What if depression on a Franco means decompression? What if depression meant that you were pushing down your emotions? Wouldn't that mean that you're allowing yourself to feel and unpacking your emotions at the end? Yeah, I mean to decompression. What if decompression meant you were pushing down your emotions? Wouldn't that mean you were allowing yourself to feel and unpacking your emotions at the end of the day would stop depression in its tracks and maybe it doesn't mean depression? Yeah. Are you sitting with yourself in stillness and allowing a space for your emotions to bubble up? We can't let go of what we haven't felt. That's what decompression means to me. Franco out.

13:50Yeah, I read that on the app. And it's a good one. Are you fully decompressed? Because decompression is, in my view, simply just reflection of the day and how, you know, and if you do it daily or after a particularly stressful period or whatever. To tell a listener's what decompression means because some of them might not know. Yeah, obviously we do the alpha decompression, right? It's about reflecting and looking back and letting go, dropping, dropping things. So throughout the day or the week, I mean, I try and do it daily myself, but not always successful. It's not always time to do that. But I think try and make time for decompressing. And what that means to me is that just letting go of the day, reflecting, choosing some wins. What went well today? How did I feel about that? Recognizing that, allowing myself to recognize the things that went well, allowing myself to feel the things that didn't go so well and looking forward then to, you know,

14:58the following period in the next day or whatever. For me, that allows me to, so I used to do it when I was at home, I would do that on the way back. I'd listen to some music or whatever, and I'd decompress or go for a walk or, and that enabled me to come back into the house as myself, rather than carry in the work with me. But I think Franco's post there, it talks more about, you know, decompression as a tool for ensuring that you don't start to get depressed. Depression is a huge thing for everyone, not just for men, but in particular. I work in the construction industry and two construction workers a day take their own lives in the UK. Two men a day. It's the leading cause of death for certain age groups between 20 and 40 years old. Well, next question. I'm looking for you to try, I'm in jigsaw. So I've haste the buzzer first.

15:58I was going to go decompression. Sorry, I stole your thumb. What does self-care truly mean to you? Being present with myself, finding space, whether that's a walk, whether that's a cold plunge sauna, journaling, just allowing whatever, it's kind of like decompression, but just allowing whatever needs to internally move the space to do that. That's what I see self-care. I don't think it matters what we do. Yeah, I like that. I like it. It's definitely a huge element of self-care, right? Being present with your experience. What about you? Yeah, I think self-care for me is about recognising where I am and putting language around that. I think the biggest thing that's helped me to care for myself and understand who I am is

16:59learning the language of self-care and learning the rhythms and routines. So having grace with myself I think is important when I don't always get things right or I'm out of routine or I'm travelling. And you know, those things, like I said, doesn't really matter what they are, but they're a moment in time which is for you carved out of a busy day or carved out of a busy week and doing something that that fills you up. I love that. I love that. Yeah, that is compassion, self-compassion comes to mind within self-care. Self-love? Yeah, self-love. I mean, the can also be, self-care can mean being brutally honest with yourself as well. That itself is self-love, right? Right. It's been real, taking radical responsibility. It's not this where I was about the fluffy side, if you will. This one's quite a long post, so I'll pick it to be my best to pick out

18:05the various bits. Mark Haynesworth conducted a class yesterday on presence, which I was half present for. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I feel like at a situation this morning that calls me to have a huge break through and really understanding what presence is about. A situation, roughhouse in the morning, a wife had a late night, got up to make lunches for the girls running behind, snapped at her, and her daughter snapped at a wife. That ungrateful energy lit the fuse. By the time I got back from taking the dogs out, the house was a storm cloud. Daughter stormed out. A wife wasn't talking to him. Instead of him trying to fix it, he was able to sit with it. Instead of him going into dear, like dad fix it mode and trying to smooth out the issue between him and his daughter, sorry, his daughter and his wife, he was able to be present with it and see what was going on and provide validation and presence. Doesn't say there's necessarily a challenge

19:11there, but you want it to celebrate the win. I think that's huge, especially when there's a challenge between the kid and the parent. Speak to that for a moment and then we'll sign the episode off. Well, sometimes doing nothing is actually doing something. I love that. I think holding space is an important thing to do and that could look like doing nothing. But I think we're often, we've got to do this. We've got to do that. Something, something, something. There's always something. The next thing, but just your presence is enough and sometimes that can create a feeling of safety for other people around you. Holding space. I think swooping in and trying to fix it is why you do in that. Is that because you don't want to sit in somebody else's discomfort and make you too uncomfortable? Is it that you want to look like the hero? Is it because you care? I don't know, but I tell you what, people tend to like

20:13it a lot less than we think they do. I think we think they like it a lot more when they don't. They don't want to be meddled with. The women in our lives are more than capable of handling their own challenges. I think as men, we often try and swoop in and try and fix it and we don't need to. We check on their problems and life would be a lot easier if we let them, if we saw how capable they were and let them deal with it. It goes better what you said earlier about curiosity as well. Being cute, what's going on? Just observing, being the observer. I love it. So guys, slightly different episode just now, but I thoughtfully took a lot of value from it. I think some of those snippets, they definitely speak to a lot of what we hear with the men. So like Doug always likes to say the moment of insight, take massive action. We'll see you next time on the TPM show.