This short episode reflects on the Louis Theroux manosphere documentary and what it reveals beneath the surface. Rather than judging behaviour, I explore the underlying pattern of avoidance—how we push away sensitivity and what that does to our sense of self. Drawing on my own experience, this points toward a more honest form of masculinity—and ultimately, a path of awakening through integration, not rejection.
Howdy howdy ho and welcome to fantasy fanfellas. I'm Hayden producer of the fantasy fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things sanderson and I'm steven your bookish internet goofball but you can call me the smash daddy and we are currently deep diving Brandon
Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn, but here's the catch Steven here has not read Mistborn before that's right. Hey, hey, so each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single
chip and along the way we'll do character deep dives magic explainers and Steven will even try to guess what's next spoiler alert. He'll be wrong news flash
I'm never wrong episodes come out every Wednesday and you can find fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts
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Lots of people have been talking about the latest Louis through documentary and watching it
I recognized an underlying pattern not just in them, but one I'm familiar with here and that I see
Everywhere for years. I rejected my sensitivity and I pushed it into the shadow
But what I've come to realize is if you want to wake up you have to embrace every aspect of yourself
I grew up with a
Father who was an engineer
Who always had an immaculately mode lawn. He loved building stuff great at the IY always had a clean car
but who was emotionally avoidant
And so when I tried to connect with him on a vulnerable or sensitive
level it was
Very quickly clear at least how I perceived it that that was not somewhere that it was okay to go
So that was the model of masculinity that I had
And I rejected
The softer side and pushed it into the shadow
I had the other side because I could be a goby so and so and I was good at sport and could be outwardly confident
So that was fine and in relationships as long as I was on form in that way fine
But when my insecurity or desire to be vulnerable showed up
I
Unconsciously refused to feel it. I wanted to get rid of that part of me completely
And so I'd go up into my head and
That caused me
significant issues and it came to a head in 2015. I went and I did ayahuasca abroad and
During that ceremony, I had a very direct experience of
This sensitivity in shadow coming up in a terrifying way
That was so clearly linked to me being rejected by my father and therefore abandoned
By life at large and it was terrifying
And as I integrated that over time
What I realized was that what you
And what I resisted in myself
I absolutely projected out
and
Reacted to outside so men who had that same avoidant energy as my father
Triggered something in me and I would either not like them automatically or
Frequently I'd feel insecure and act up around them wouldn't know what to do with myself
but
As I turned towards my sensitivity towards my softness and I embraced it
And I balanced those two sides the hard and the soft yin and yang
I realized that's where true strength lies because we all have those both parts within us
and as I did that
This reaction to that energy just dissolved
And so watching the Louis through documentary
I
I'm not interested in judging the behavior. I'm really interested in the pattern underneath
Because if you growing up haven't had that reflection back that the sensitive side
that we all have
Is okay
Then we reject it in ourselves and we push it into shadow and what gets pushed into shadow
can absolutely be
Attacked outside us can be belittled. I don't like that anything that
And bodies that softness and it's not just people and documentaries like that. This is so common
I notice this with people I work with with high performers with people in position of power
This rejection of sensitivity and it's not that it's not in there
Someone who is like my father
If they went and had an experience like I did in 2015
I'm sure that softness would
rear its head
And that would be a challenge for them
But as I said
If we want to wake up we have to integrate and embrace every aspect of our experience starting with our inner experience
And so you can have Lamborghini's money
Success approval, but if you're if there's an internal split if there's an internal disquire
It's for nothing
Because there will always be that that sense that something's not quite right until we embrace the entirety of our inside
which can lead to
Awakening
Which can lead to true contentment peace fulfillment
We have to stop abandoning ourselves if we're going to wake up
To who we truly are
Howdy howdy ho and welcome to fantasy fanfellas. I'm Hayden producer of the fantasy
fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things sanderson and i'm steven your bookish internet goofball
But you can call me the smash daddy and we are currently deep diving Brandon sanderson's fantasy epic
Missborn, but here's the catch
Stephen here has not read
Missborn before that's right hey hey so each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chip and along the way
We'll do character deep dives magic explainers and Stephen will even try to guess what's next spoiler alert
He'll be wrong news flash. I'm never wrong episodes come out every Wednesday and you can find fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts
Over 90 of the top 100 us accounting firms trust bill to simplify and secure bill pay that's proven financial
Infrastructure built on over a trillion dollars of secure payments visit bill.com slash proven for a special offer