Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Reclaimed and Unashamed podcast, where we are helping men to rewire their brains and overcome the shame that often surrounds unwanted pornography use. I'm your host, colton Thomas, and today I'm interviewing Dr Eddie Caparucci. We've had Dr Eddie on the show before, but today we're going to talk more specifically about one of his books why Men Struggle to Love, and some things that we have to look forward to that are coming up in this episode are the topic of why is it that so many men seem to struggle to experience deeper intimacy and really understand their emotions? Right, there's this concept of having high emotional intelligence or high emotional IQ, and it seems like a lot of men are, to be honest, afraid of their emotions. Emotions are powerful and when we don't understand them, we tend to be very avoidant, very dismissive. We have a difficult time resolving conflicts with people that we love and, as a result, we turn in these moments where we don't want to confront our emotions. We turn to things like pornography and other unwanted habits and behaviors, and today we're going to talk with Dr Eddie about why that is, and we're also going to talk about some possible solutions, as well as blind spots, because the difficult thing about blind spots is that you can't really see your own blind spots, and so often men who struggle to love and who are struggling with pornography don't really even see or understand the reasons why they're struggling, and so my hope and my prayer is that this episode will help you a lot in that, gaining new insights and understanding into your situation. And now we're going to get into it.

Speaker 1: 1:41

Here's my conversation with Dr Eddie Caparucci. All right, well, dr Eddie, welcome back to the Reclaimed and Unashamed podcast. I'm so excited to have you here again, and, man, last time we just had such a rich conversation. We talked about your book, some Going Deeper. Then you've got a more recent book that's come out too, called why Men Struggle to Love, and so, anyways, I've been reading your material, struggle to love, and so, anyways, I've been reading your material. I've gotten certified now in your course, which is exciting. I just really wanted to have you back as a mentor and as a friend and just someone who's been helping me a lot in my own professional growth and career here. So thanks so much for your time this morning.

Speaker 2: 2:19

Well, thanks for having me back on. I so much enjoyed the last time we were here, plus our other conversations that we have so always excited to sit and talk with you.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 1: 2:32

As I thought about our last podcast and conversation together, something that has surfaced now in my work that I've really been wanting to ask you about and I know this is related to your book why Men Struggle to Love but it's that I keep coming across men who are struggling with pornography, who are struggling with sex addiction, who really just want to feel wanted, want to feel desired, and they're either in a relationship where they're not feeling, you know, maybe sexually wanted or sexually desired very much, and that could be for a variety of reasons, right.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Or they're single and they're kind of lonely and they're not feeling wanted or desired there either. And one of the only ways it seems that they know that they might be able to turn to, to get any feeling that like, hey, I'm wanted or this is, you know, I'm pleasing somebody else or I'm feeling connected right now, like one of the only things that they feel they can turn to, that they can trust and kind of know, almost expect with certainty, they're going to get some kind of that, that feeling is sex and pornography, right. And so we've got a lot of men who, I think, have habitually turned to using those things to get this feeling of connection that they're after right Of being one and desired. I'd just love for you to start off our episode by speaking into that that many men feel, you know, emotional connection through physical intimacy what they confuse.

Speaker 2: 4:08

They confuse emotional intimacy or physical intimacy. You know, god designed us to have relationships based on emotional connection emotional intimacy, then we're supposed to sprinkle in the physical intimacy. Then we're supposed to sprinkle in the physical intimacy. Men who are emotionally undeveloped and in my practice I've seen over the years the guys who come in that I work with, who struggle with addiction nine out of 10 also are emotionally undeveloped. And what they do? They have the model upside down they build the foundation of a relationship on physical intimacy and they sprinkle the emotional in a little bit, what little bit they know to do in order to try to build it. You know, the idea is that again we go back to the emotionally undeveloped man.

Speaker 2: 5:00

What happened there and this is what the idea of what was the driver for writing this book was seeing that so many men they could learn how to stop the pornography, how to stop acting out. They were able to manage that and deal with that behavior a lot through my inner child model. However, they were still struggling in their relationships because they don't know how to emotionally connect and engage. So therefore this was causing a lot of problems between them and their spouse or their partner. And the problem all originates when we were younger, where there's no adult there to help us. To. One, deal with emotional distress or discomfort. And two, teaches us about emotion, teaches us how to connect.

Speaker 2: 5:56

So if you don't know how to really emotionally bond, and now you've come across pornography, and now you come across pornography, let's say, maybe at the age of 13, 14 or such, then all of a sudden it's like, oh, that bonding. Look at those two. Look at them, they're bonding, they're connecting. That comes from the neurotransmitters that are being activated in the brain. We cross the wires and we look at that and say that connection, the physical stuff. That's the way you connect. And so, therefore, for a man, it becomes this idea that I never feel more loved than when somebody is being physical with me or sexually engaging with me. And let me show you how much I love you by how I can make you feel sexually, how I can get you excited and bring you to a certain level. And that is what will bond us and connect us. And that's the problem. It is a problem with many men who struggle with addiction.

Speaker 1: 7:10

Yeah, and I can see that you know clearly as well just in the work that I've done so far. And I just to add to that, I think that sex also becomes for so many men their real only source of excitement or arousal in their lives as well, and so it feelings that life is, I don't know exciting or that you have something to look forward to. You just don't get that kind of energy, that kind of rush from other things in your life If you haven't, you know carefully created a life that you wake up and look forward to living, if that makes sense life that you wake up and look forward to living, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 7:46

You're touching on two of the 14, what I call blind spots, and the blind spots are the issues that men have that prevent them from building and developing secure relationships, and what you're talking about is one of them lack of contentment. This is it, this is all life is, and so therefore they, they struggle. The other is they have. Many of them have limited interest in passion. They just don't have that, so therefore, they don't feel that sense of um adrenaline often, unless it's doing something from a physical standpoint such as having sex or engaging in pornography.

Speaker 2: 8:31

That's where they get the high level of stimulation as they move forward in their life. But it's not enough and all it does it just continues to reinforce the message that for them, it becomes this idea that I need this, I need porn, I need sex in order to feel alive yeah and, again, that's not all men who struggle with it, but it is a good segment and that's.

Speaker 2: 9:01

That's just a fallacy. It it's not true, but it's all that they believe. Because, again, and the word that appears so often in the book why Men Struggle to Love is we're oblivious. We're oblivious to what we're really supposed and what they can bring. We're oblivious to the fact that God designed us to be complete creatures, not just physical creatures, but also to be emotionally engaging. And, most important, we're oblivious to the fact that emotional intimacy and connection is so much more powerful than physical intimacy.

Speaker 1: 9:44

Yeah, and could you speak more into that? And you mentioned blind spots. I think you said 14. I know we won't be able to cover all those, but that's really, man, that's so important for guys to realize. I think that there's not just I don't know. Sometimes there's a tendency to oversimplify what the problem could be for men, but the further we examine it, the further we see that, depending on your own unique individual story, you could be dealing with one of 14 or more different blind spots, and that's why it's so important to educate yourself and get a holistic kind of view of what's going on. And so, anyways, I just want to point that out really quick. But then I want to come back. You just said something really important that there's so much more power in emotional intimacy. Could you speak into that and why that is and why? But also why do so many men fail to see that?

Speaker 2: 10:35

well, the fact of the matter is our emotions are very powerful. The reason most men don't see that is because at some point in their life they either shut down or they dullened some of their emotions, and they did it as a coping strategy to protect themselves from the emotional distress or discomfort that they were feeling at the time when they were younger. Because there's nobody there and I mean an adult is not there to help them go through. And how do I deal with this emotional discomfort? So and sometimes it's the parents that are causing the emotional discomfort or distress. So therefore I need to protect myself as a child. How do I do that? I'm going to shut off these feelings, because if I continue to feel them, I'm going to become either very highly anxious or I'm going to start to get depressed. So that's the coping strategy. And then we just take that coping strategy into the rest of our life and we don't develop what we need from an emotional IQ to be able to engage in very healthy relationships.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Our relationships are rather unhealthy and we're not providing those who we bring into our world our partner, our spouse we're not providing them what they're really looking for and what they need and then they start to get upset by it, because now they're feeling very unfulfilled. I can't tell you how many spouses I've talked to that have said you know what all he wants every time he comes near me. You know, come near me to hug me, but when he's hugging me he'll go and grab my cheeks or, you know, grab my breast or start to rub against me and it's like I just wanted a hug, I didn't want to be groped, and you know that's when he'll come. He'll come to me and hold me when he wants to be sexual and after a while they start to feel used and they just start to push away. They start to pull away from their partner, and now that leaves the guy feeling even more rejected. And so now he's up the ante and now he's doing more porn or acting out in a different way.

Speaker 1: 13:06

Yeah, it can be a tough cycle to break out of when you're continue to head more and more that direction, like you said, where your wife's feeling more and more disconnected or your partner or spouse is feeling more and more used. It's kind of pushing you away further and then more and more towards pornography and then, of course, with the dopamine and the way we know the brain works works, you're getting kind of more and more hooked and desensitized to other you know forms of connection and so anyways, yeah, that's, that's a tough cycle to be in.

Speaker 2: 13:32

Yeah, well, also, if I can add, with the emotionally undeveloped man. When the wife start to express her disappointment, that feel like it's all the only time you want to touch me, when you want to be sexual, instead of seeing her pain and trying to adapt to that and understand it and fix it. Instead, the emotionally undeveloped guy is going to get upset. You're going to get defensive. I don't know what you're talking about. Look, how can I I don't know what you're talking about. Look, how can I help it? You know what? You're just a very attractive and sexual woman. I want to be. You know, I want to engage with you that way. What's the big deal? Why can't you just approve? Why are you just? You know, and it's all about me. That's what it comes down. That's what the emotionally undeveloped man become. They don't want to, but that's what they become. It's all about my comfort.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Yeah, I think that's an important point to acknowledge. So you know, I read a quote recently from a book that I read. You might have heard this book Emotionally Healthy Spiritually. I've heard this book Emotionally Healthy Spiritually, and one of the quotes from the book is that it's impossible to be spiritually healthy while being emotionally unhealthy. And I think that the same is true when it comes to trying to overcome porn. It's impossible to overcome your pornography, or whatever addiction it is, while being emotionally unhealthy, or at least it's just to make it extremely difficult for you you touched on another blind spot.

Speaker 2: 15:08

Okay, that that is the struggle to connect with god or to connect with your higher spiritual power and and it is true, because a lot of that is emotionally based it is emotionally based, and having that strong emotional desire to want to know and to get closer to your spiritual practices or to God is very important. Without that, there is no relationship. Without a relationship it goes back to the point that you know the book said there. Then the spirituality is not what it should be.

Speaker 1: 16:00

Yeah, you know, as you're talking about the, I guess, the harmful side effects, so to speak, or the direct effects, of having a low emotional IQ. I think one struggle that a lot of men have, like you said, is that they start to use their wives as sort of a masturbatory tool, almost for their own physical needs, right that?

Speaker 2: 16:22

is about it.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Yeah, and that might sound kind of like a harsh way to put it, but I think that's really what we're looking at, and I think for a lot of men that's where the struggle is in their relationship. And if you're single out there and you hope to be in a relationship someday and you're struggling a lot with porn, then this probably will eventually become something that you'll have to work through. And so I think the point is we need so desperately to expand what you're calling our emotional IQ and to learn how to really connect and feel desired and wanted, apart from just that physical piece. And so I think that this conversation has to move towards. You know, how does one begin to do that? How does one, especially if you've spent years you're an adult man now and you spent years kind of feeling emotionally unhealthy or just this low emotional IQ? Like, where do you start? Where do you begin to kind of pick up the pieces, so to speak?

Speaker 2: 17:15

I want to go back there to what you just said for a moment the fact of, in a sense, that we're just using our wives for sexual pleasure. Most of the guys listening now who are dealing with a low emotion, like you, they'd be looking at and thinking of what we're talking about. They'd say that's crazy. They don't know what I'm doing. No, they're not In their mind, they're connecting, they think they're bonding, but the bonding that they're doing is very limited and it's not in the area that should be predominant from a bonding standpoint, and that's our emotion, and so, therefore, they need to be able to learn how to shift that. So how do we do that? Well, there are many aspects. Like I said, there are 14 blind spots that I've identified. Most men, they average anywhere between like six and nine that they'll have, and in the book, if I describe what the blind spots are, what I've also done is I put antidotes for each one. What do you do to combat? So let's stay with the low emotional IQ. A low emotional IQ usually takes on three aspects. One I can tell you if I'm angry, sad, lonely, happy, afraid, but I can't drill down to tell you what my real emotion is. So therefore, you see the anger, you see the sadness, but they can't really tell you what's going on emotionally. They don't have words to identify the feeling. And this again happened when we were younger, where a parent does not teach a child. This is what the word is for what you're feeling. So, for example, a child, let's say a four-year-old, whose older sibling is going to a birthday party, and this kid's having a tantrum, you know, because he wants to go. He wants to go and and the parent mother comes and goes. You know, if you don't knock it off, you know you're going to go to your room and you know you're going to stay there for the rest of the day. Stop it, stop acting this way. She's taught him nothing, put him nothing, except don't feel anything. What the parent who's going to teach their kid to be emotional and develop is going to do is okay, honey, honey, what's wrong? She knows what's wrong. What's wrong? I want to go. I want to go. Yes, you want to go to the party? Yeah, I want to go to the party. Yes, you know what I understand. You want to go to the party. The party is for older party. Yeah, I want to go to the party. Yes, you know what I understand. You want to go to the party. The party is for older kids. Wait, wait, okay, now don't go down the pathway of there'll be more parties for you, there'll be all that. No, that's not it. You know what? What you're feeling right now is disappointed. Now, I don't expect the kid to remember that or to say the word back to you, but you're feeling disappointed. All of us get disappointed. There's many things that I would like to do that I can't do and I get disappointed by that. That's what you're going through right now, and I know it doesn't make you feel any better, but you want to go to that party. And I know it doesn't make you feel any better, but you want to go to that party. But you know what? Maybe you and I can do something together. You're teaching and most parents don't do that.

Speaker 2: 20:45

I don't have words. So number one is I can't really drill down. The other second part is maybe I can drill down. Most cases I can't, but maybe, even if I could, I don't know how to express my feelings. I don't know how to be.

Speaker 2: 21:04

Oh, here's the ugly word vulnerable. Ugh, vulnerable makes us cringe at men. I don't want to be vulnerable. That's weak. You know that's not what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to be strong. You keep it in, rub a little dirt on the wound and get back in there. Don't be vulnerable. They weren't taught how to be vulnerable. They weren't taught that. Oh you know what, by being vulnerable and you're doing with somebody who is healthy, oh my God, you feel amazed After. When somebody validates you. It's an amazing feeling to have and many of us don't know what that is, because we haven't taken the risk. That's what it is is a risk because that person healthy. We may have done it.

Speaker 2: 21:52

We learned at a young age that if I try to be vulnerable with someone, it got shut down, it got minimized. It was, you know, maybe met with you know contempt, or with you know this sense of shame. Why are you feeling that way? That's stupid. I would never. So don't share, I don't share, so don't share, I don't share.

Speaker 2: 22:23

And then, finally, the third part of a low emotional IQ is the idea that when other people try to be emotionally vulnerable with me, it causes my anxiety to increase and I can't handle it. I don't know what to do with these feelings. So what do we do? The joke about men oh, fix it. Oh, I got a solution for you. I know what you can do, and in some cases we don't go that way. What we'll do is we'll minimize it. It's not a big deal. It's like we're doing the same thing somebody did to us when we were younger. Or we'll withdraw and say look, you know, I just don't have time to deal with it. You have to figure it out on your own. So without that base of emotion the emotional I do we can't engage fully with people that we do it on a 10 000 foot level. But in doing that we're missing out on all of the benefit that emotion can bring to it.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Yes, emotion can cause a lot of pain. There's no doubt about it. They cause pain, but it's during that pain that we grow. It's learning to sit with that pain, which is another blind spot the inability to sit with emotional discomfort, not being able to do that which is running, and that is the biggest reason for your addiction.

Speaker 2: 23:46

Right now, you can't sit with your emotional distress. You couldn't do pain of a child. I learned. You know what. I won't think about it. That's my solution, that was my coping strategy. And how do I do that I distract myself. Too much food, too much sugar, too much television, too many video games. Keep going right down the list, right, right, anything, but sitting with that pain. Well, you take that into your adolescent, teen world, adult world, and all you do is you trade out the behavior and somewhere along the line, porn game like, oh my gosh, the mother of all distractions, right, and then maybe into something else as you go along. That's the problem when it comes to pornography. It's not about sex, it's about the fact I can't sit with emotional discomfort, and that's why we have to teach men to do that.

Speaker 1: 24:48

Yeah, so true, and taking that even a step further for some men, turning to pornography might not only just be a distraction from not wanting to sit with their emotions or being vulnerable, but it also pornography through the specific types of pornography they're looking at could even be a way of sort of working out, trying to work out meeting some of the emotional needs that they have, right.

Speaker 2: 25:15

I will say this okay, and I've heard this so often, I'm sure you've heard it too, um, and it's still. I understand it, but because I've never experienced it it's hard for me to grasp. But men have told me that watching porn they get a sense of connection, that that person desires them, wants them, and that to them is more thrilling than anything else. Now again I understand what that is, because they believe physical intimacy is the way that you bond, picking it up from porn. As I said, I still haven't been able to kind of wrap my head around it, but I would imagine if a woman's looking right at a camera and she's engaged in a sexual thing and she's got this look of desire on her face that you could go into fantasy to be able to say, oh, that that means she's desiring or wanting, or I'm, you know, the one net who will please her that way and connect with her.

Speaker 1: 26:27

Yeah, I think there's a lot of men that kind of place themselves vicariously in the shoes of people in the videos they're watching and they they're trying to meet their emotional needs in a deeper sense that way. I just think the fact that there's a lot of men who, for them, the most graphic parts about pornography might actually not be the part that turns them on the most, the part that arouses them or excites them the most, where they're getting the most high feeling is actually more from some other part of the video, and you have to ask yourself why, why isn't the climax of sex itself? Why wouldn't that be the most arousing part for you? Why would it be something else instead?

Speaker 2: 27:08

Well, now you're also going back to dopamine. Okay, where does dopamine really work in the process? And it's not so much at that heightened, true time arousal. It is about the anticipation. That's true if what's neck, what neck, what coming, that's where that dopamine really has a stronghold on you. So, therefore, it's always that again that it's like the gambler. Okay with the, the thing isn't winning and losing. It's what. The next card, the next card, is it going to be that card I need? Okay, that's what they're really focused on, their attention.

Speaker 2: 27:48

That's where the dopamine is beefy at work so, therefore, it's always that's what you've know, with the fact that, like the hunt sometimes needs to be more invigorating than the actual act itself.

Speaker 1: 28:01

Yeah, Right yeah, right with that I think that's a good point that you brought up there too. I just think. I think the point is just to be curious, to be curious about what is it from the pornographic content you're watching that's really stimulating you and how could that be related to these underlying emotional needs in this low iq that you're?

Speaker 2: 28:20

talking. You're talking about the inner child model again right, you're back you're back to the why question. Why do I think, feel and do what I do? And understanding that, what did it do? It empowers you. Yes, I got power.

Speaker 2: 28:37

I understand why that is so tempting yeah so now I can start coming up with the strategy to be able to desensitize myself from it. But I go back to the word again oblivious, I believe. I just do it. That's what happens. I do it, I've always done it, and that's what. If you don't understand why you will, that's where you'll stay. You'll stay in that place where nothing ever changes, and what we're looking for is to change everything. Okay, not just get rid of the bad behavior, but also to learn how to bring our heart more into the process, how to turn our prefrontal cortex on fully versus like a dimming bulb that goes on and off. No, let's turn the thing on bright and so that we can really think things through. We're not guided by those immature, childlike emotions. Instead, we're guided by rational thinking. We are different creatures, we're different people, and that's what the whole real aspect of recovery should be about.

Speaker 1: 29:54

Yeah, and just so you guys know, the prefrontal cortex is a part of our brain responsible for that rational decision making right, and what happens is when we get these strong urges we can hit like fight, flight or freeze. If we have not matured to a certain extent, we're not able to think rationally in moments of temptation. But as we mature, as we gain an awareness, like you're talking about, about our emotions and our past, we understand that. Why, question then you might be surprised that this more rational thinking emerges even in time, even in the midst of temptation. But you know that takes time, right it does take time it takes.

Speaker 2: 30:33

And it all starts with my number one rule Slow everything down If you don't. Because we don't, we have our head down and we're running through life. We have to add our head up and observing all around us. How am I doing? How am I doing mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually? What are the needs and wants of other people? What are the pain points that my partner is going through? These are not things that we normally focus on. We're focused on the things that are important to us, the things that interest us, the things that are troubling us, the things that bring us pleasure. That's where we are. It's me, me, me. There is no place in the recovery process for just me. It is not about me. It has to be that way. And that's difficult because we've made it about us. Why? Because when we were younger, nobody made it about us. Oh, maybe they taught you how to play baseball, maybe they taught you how to play the guitar, maybe they taught you about church and things like that, but when it comes to emotional growth, they weren't there.

Speaker 1: 31:47

Yeah, good thoughts, dr Eddie. So I have another question, and that is I also work with a lot of guys who have been trying to recover from porn for a long time and they've spent money in other programs. They've worked with therapists already, and so I think that there's a lot of men out there who do have some degree of awareness that they need to grow an emotional IQ. I think, at some point, though, men are still kind of latched on to pornography, because you said something earlier in the episode they think that they need it and I think to some degree, this comes down to almost like a faith decision. You have to believe that life would be better without pornography and with a deeper emotional IQ and connection without pornography and with a deeper emotional IQ and connection, like.

Speaker 1: 32:39

If you don't believe that that's possible, you know, then why would you go through all this discomfort of being vulnerable and asking all these hard questions? And, like you said, why would you slow things down when you got all these things to do? And you know just, maybe in the moment it makes sense to you, you got to get a lot of work done, you got to make more money, I mean, like in order to do these radical changes like you're talking about. I mean it kind of starts with just believing that this is possible. I mean, what word would you have the men who are who kind of realize that the stuff we're talking about is true but who still just quite haven't like been able to feel any real changes, like they're still just kind of feel stuck and hopeless.

Speaker 2: 33:15

Well, and I understand that we do feel stuck, but I'll also say that probably what's lacking, because the emotionally undeveloped man also is not very disciplined. You may be disciplined in certain things, it could be very disciplined work, or maybe a workout routine, work or maybe a workout routine but when it comes to the things that need to be done from a self-care perspective, when it comes to the things that need to be done from a relationship perspective, they are not disciplined. And that's where we need to start. And you begin with the idea of what do you want from life, what do you want in your life? Let's go even deeper. What about your legacy? What is your legacy going to be? What do you want people to say, you know, at your funeral? What do you want that eulogy to sound like? And look at that, and there's even an exercise where you sit and you write out what is that eulogy that I do? But then, with that understanding, what do I want? Now it's like, all right, let me go tackle it. Let me go tackle it. And again, it's not going to be easy, but let's take it from an emotion standpoint, one.

Speaker 2: 34:31

There are groups called there's actually an emotions anonymous. Okay, they have them online. They have my phone, they have all different. You may be looking to something like that. There are other ones also that are out there. You know, maybe what you do is you start to prepare yourself, looking watching things like movies, watching television, reading novels, but taking your time not just. Okay, here's the story. But but what's that emotion? Wait, stop, stop, let me put it on pause. That character, what are they feeling right now? What do I? I think they're feeling there's something that's called an emotion wheel. Go online right, type in emotion wheel on Google and look at images and they'll come up. Or, better yet, go to Amazon and type it in and buy one. It costs like six bucks, okay, and you have it. It'll show you all the different emotions and sit there with it and look at what, what is it, and figure out what those emotions are. And then, what about me? When have I ever, maybe, felt something like that? It takes a lot of self-reflection.

Speaker 1: 35:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:41

A lot of self-reflection. It is hard work, but it is so worthwhile. Hard work, but it is so worthwhile. Yeah, and again, it comes down to the idea of commitment. Are you going to be committed to making change, and not just the change of oh, I'm no longer doing that, but the change of my heart, that I am being more outwardly spoken, I am being more mindful, I'm being less compulsive, I am not being as beautiful. So those are some of the things they have to do. That's why I go back to what I said before it's like changing everything, you change everything.

Speaker 1: 36:20

Yeah, yeah. What I'm hearing you say is you have to be willing to become a student of your emotions and make a lifelong commitment to that. And this is kind of where to the spiritual and faith-based side comes in for me as a Christian, that I really believe that if you make that commitment in your heart, that you want to make it not just about you, like you were saying, like you want to deny that part of yourself in order to expand your emotional IQ and connect more with the people in your life that you love and connect more with God, I think God will come in and he will help you to do that. He will come in and he'll help you, because it does seem like an overwhelming and impossible task at times, to be honest, and I think that that's where that faith comes in, that like there's power there in that spiritual aspect that he's promised.

Speaker 2: 37:10

I think it's important for men to also understand. You're never going to be perfect at this, you're not, you're not, I mean. I mean, if you're on this end of the spectrum, ok, you're not going over to this end of the spectrum, all right, you're going to go here, that's about it. Maybe 30 percent, 40 percent more, but wow, how different that looks like. And then it's the rest of your life just moving gradually, but you're not going to wind up over there. This is almost like you are going back and you're putting yourself on the pathway of sanctification. Okay, for those of you understand what that is, that this is my pursuit to be more spiritually connected, to be more christ-like. Okay, from a christian perspective, growing it's about growth, it's all about growth. See, when you cut off those emotions, there's a part of you to stop growing. It's very sad. It's sad that we stopped. Well, guess what?

Speaker 2: 38:07

you can start again yeah you can begin once again and again. This book, why men struggle to love, is a good starting point for that yeah, that's a tremendous resource.

Speaker 1: 38:19

Um, I definitely want guys to check out your book. You know, it makes me think about how, for example, takes. Take like someone who decides they want to be a bodybuilder, they want to study their body, and I mean we're talking about an intense amount of calculations, getting very precise about your caloric intake, as well as what types of food you eat and the types of workouts you're doing and when. Think about how much intentionality that takes, how much discipline, you know. Also, think about someone who's a mountain climber and you're going to plan an expedition to climb one of the world's highest peaks.

Speaker 1: 38:52

Here's the thing, though there's a lot of men who want to kind of tackle the journey of the body or make these accomplishments, tackle the journey of summiting that high, high mountain, but how many of us have decided to turn that journey inward, to tackle the journey of emotional IQ and knowledge and self-awareness? Right, there's an inward journey that's just as great, honestly, probably just as challenging, and, you know, we don't need to be necessarily, like metaphorically speaking, bodybuilders from an emotional standpoint either. But, like you said, what if we could just increase this ability we have emotionally by 10, 20, 30 percent? How much would that change our lives?

Speaker 2: 39:31

oh, it'd be huge. It would be huge what it would do to change our life. Because, again, what we're going to feel is we're going to feel a sensation, we're going to feel emotion we've never felt before. We're going to feel a sense of joy in our lives. Okay, not just happiness, which is based on circumstance. We're gonna feel joy because, as I said before, emotional intimacy is much more powerful than physical intimacy yeah, that's.

Speaker 2: 40:02

That's where we should be aiming for to grow, we need to learn to grow. One of the biggest problems we have be aiming for to grow. We need to learn to grow. One of the biggest problems we have in being able to commit ourselves to this is fear. Fear that I'm not going to get it right, fear that I'm not going to be able to do it well, fear that people are still going to you know, trash my emotion. I understand, I get it. I'm not telling you not to be afraid. What I'm saying, though, is hold on to those fears and move on despite them. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to your loved ones, that you can learn to be an emotional being and move away from being an unemotionally developed man.

Speaker 1: 40:48

Yeah, that's really well said and I don't want guys to get confused either, because we're talking about don't make it all about yourself, and I think there's part of it's just like denying yourself, realizing that life is so much more than just about you. But we're saying that like in the best way possible, because life, when it's not just about you, can actually be so much better. And we're not trying to downplay your fears. If you're listening out there like it's not that you know we're saying we don't care about like whatever it is you're feeling or fearing or going through, because the things that you're feeling, they are important. But you just can't make those things only about you and kind of turn everything inward, like like Dr Eddie saying there's a balanced way to go about this, where you know you are in attunement with yourself but you're also living in attunement with others and you're not just thinking about yourself. We're not really talking about like total self-denial in the sense that, like you know what you're feeling, what you're fearing doesn't matter. That's not what we're saying at all.

Speaker 2: 41:45

Agreed, fully, fully agreed. What you feel is what you feel and but unfortunately for many of us, again in that stage of being emotionally undeveloped, we try not to feel anything and accept those core emotions that I talked about. And it's so important that we go deeper.

Speaker 1: 42:03

Yeah, awesome. Well, man, I've loved this interview again today. This was just another grand slam. I feel like conversation for guys listening. I know this is going to add so much value, so thank you so much for bringing your expertise into this interview. Dr Eddie and I know you said it in our last podcast how guys can find your work and check out your book but would you just tell us again if guys want to look at your work and what you're doing, where can they find you?

Speaker 2: 42:30

Right? Well, all my books are available at Amazon exclusively, so just type in Caparucci and you will find them there. If you have a question or concern about something, you can reach out to me personally. I respond to everybody at edcappa E-D-C-A-P-P-A at gmailcom and I'll be happy to answer your question, and that's where you guys can connect with me.

Speaker 1: 42:57

Awesome and thanks so much for sharing and I'll be sure to link to your stuff again in the show notes of the podcast so you guys can find that link there. For anyone that's having a hard time spelling Caparrucci so cool, well, thanks again. So much, dr Eddie. Hope that you have a wonderful day and a wonderful week, and I know at some point I'm going to come back and sick the hounds on you to get another podcast episode, but I know you're also incredibly busy, so again, just thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 2: 43:22

You're welcome. God bless you.

Speaker 1: 43:24

Yeah, god bless you. Yeah, god bless you as well. All right, man, that was a great episode with Dr Eddie. So many actionable steps and takeaways from that.

Speaker 1: 43:32

If I had to choose one, I think it would be to increase your emotional capacity, your ability to understand your emotions, and a simple way to do that could be to get one of those emotional color wheels that Dr Eddie mentioned and I love to use this in therapy as well. But get one of these color wheels and from time to time, when you're feeling something, find on the wheel an emotion that best describes how you're feeling. And you know it might be difficult at first to get in the habit of it and it also might be difficult to look at those words and choose one. But that will help you expand your vocabulary for what you're feeling and try to pick words that maybe are different than just the basics. Typically the way the wheel works is that the most basic ones you know happy, angry, sad those are all in the middle and then it branches out to more and more descriptive emotions. So if you can try grabbing that color wheel from time to time, finding an emotion that you can sort of identify with, that you think describes what you're feeling and then try to go take that even a step further and explain to someone whether it's your spouse, partner, if you're in a relationship or a close friend why you're feeling that way, and just get in the habit of identifying your emotions and expressing them, and I think that could do a lot for you over time. It's one of those things where you aren't going to be able to quantify the amount that that's making a difference in the short term and it's kind of hard to quantify.

Speaker 1: 45:14

But in the long term, becoming more well-versed in your own emotions and describing them and explaining them is going to be huge for helping you to process them and handle them appropriately, rather than stuffing things down and saying, ah, this is too hard, I don't even know exactly what I'm feeling, so I'm not going to lean into this conflict. I'm not going to lean into these anxious thoughts or these depressive thoughts that I'm having. Instead, I'm just going to push it all away and just keep living my life without really understanding or tapping into my emotions, which is a tempting strategy just to push it off day after day and say I'll deal with this later, I'll deal with this tomorrow. But the truth is, for a lot of us.

Speaker 1: 45:55

If we're not managing emotions well and we know it deep down, then that is going to lead us towards destructive and unwanted behaviors like pornography. So that would be my action step for you guys and then write down those emotions, track them over time, right, get some data for yourself to look at what kind of moods you're in and how you're feeling and what you're feeling over a period of time. That kind of stuff can all be super useful. And, of course, I'd love for you to check out our community and check out our program, where you can work with me and we can dive even deeper into emotional intelligence and helping you work on these things, understanding the meaning of your desires and emotions, so that you can be better equipped to deal with sexual urges, but also just other forms of anxiety. So that's what we've got for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Again, please leave a review for the podcast or share it with somebody if you haven't done that yet, and we will see you guys in the next episode. Take care.