Connor Beaton - Transcript

My interview with ManTalks founder and author of the new book "Men's Work."

This is the transcript from my interview with Connor Beaton, a writer, speaker, and founder of Mantalks, a platform dedicated to offering healing and brotherhood to men around the world. 

Using a combination of Jungian psychology, somatic therapy, transformative breathwork and meditative practices, Connor has produced an effective approach to working with shadow and integrating the hidden parts of the self.

In our conversation today, we speak about fatherhood and the release of his new book Men’s Work. In particular, we focus on the relationship between men and women, including a tactical guide to navigating conflict.  He shares why the cliche of “happy wife, happy life” is a trap, and why it’s better to seek to understand than be right. 

Connor shares how infidelity and porn can lead to surprising revelations, and finally, we both respond with our own perspective on the age-old question “what might men really want?” 

This is an edited transcript for paid subscribers. You can listen to the episode for free here.

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IM: Welcome Connor to the show.

CONNOR:  Thanks so much for having me. It's nice to be here with you.

IM: I love to begin by asking my guests to share a bit of where they are in this moment geographically, spiritually, emotionally, whatever feels true to tune the listener to this moment.

CONNOR: Well I am in upstate New York, so I'll give you the geographic location first. I'm in up upstate New York and I'm near a little town called Rhinebeck. Which is a beautiful place to be if anybody has visited before, it's a really great place to be. And where I'm at, maybe energetically, I became a father, 22 months ago, which has been phenomenal. It's been really a game changer in my life. And I think energetically I'm getting some energy back since my son is sleeping through the night now . 

So that's always beneficial. Even though there's like this impending energy shift because my wife is very excited for us to start trying for our second child. Where I'm at energetically, professionally, I'm in a really exciting place. My organization has grown tremendously over the last few years. My podcast has grown a lot. I've really been sitting with, and I have this book coming out, and, and my wife has her own book coming out. 

And so we're in this very interesting time where lots of things are launching and being birthed into the world. And I think anytime that we're in that energetic orientation, it is just hot with possibilities and the unknown of just, I don't know how any of this is going to go. I don't know how the book's going to be received. I don't know how her book's going to be received. I'm in a very grounded place, a very exciting place and venturing into the unknown of how some of these things are going to be received by the world.

IM: When last we spoke, I'm glad you brought up fatherhood because that was our last conversation, which, I think was even weeks maybe after the birth of your son for your podcast. And we went into that, detailed journey for you becoming a father. The threshold and the immediate aftermath. And, myself, of course, my son now is just over four. so I'm a little further up the path than you. Just by the way. So it may go this way for you, but he sleeps, usually around three, 4:00 AM and now it's every night, 4:00 AM wake up, I want to snack dad or mom. And that seems to be the typical something now. And I just never really thought of or maybe nobody really explained to me before having a child that it's like, Hey, you will not sleep well for years. 

CONNOR: it's jarring man. That is certainly been the hardest part of fatherhood for sure. And just becoming a parent is how challenging it is to regulate yourself when you've had a sum total of five hours of sleep, which has been interrupted repeatedly, like no one tells you, how challenging that's going to be. 

So, I appreciate the heads up of like maybe at some point in the near future when three o'clock rolls around, my son's going to want a snack. I think that'll be an interesting endeavor. How do you deal with those nighttime wake up calls from your child wanting to eat at three o'clock in the morning?

IM: Well, it's the challenge of getting him to eat a full dinner. That's the challenge because I get, when we're all eating typically, he doesn't want to eat. And then all of a sudden it's, 3:00, 4:00 AM and he's like, banana or whatever it is. We haven't solved it yet. Seems to be this way for now.

CONNOR: Fair enough. The, joys and intricacies of parenting, you never know what's going to happen and every kid's different. 

IM: Well, I'm glad you to brought up this idea of being deeply affected by things like lack of sleep, dysregulation, because in relationship, and this is what I think we're going to focus much of our conversation on, relationship can be that much more difficult to navigate when you're not firing on all cylinders, , basically. 

And that's one of the most surprising things too around, when your things are good and you're, well slept. And all your skills seem to be at the ready. It's like, okay. Argument, let's do this. Whereas when everything is on fumes, it's just wild even to be able to notice, how ridiculous honestly, myself can become, like just really losing the center of capacity. And so it's so important recognizing how much of that vitality is necessary in a way to show up, to show up better. And having the skills is just not enough when you're not also be able to maintain and take care of yourself to have that capacity.

CONNOR: I agree entirely. There's a reason why after a child appears, I think it's generally like two years after a child appears within a marriage that we see some of the highest divorce rates, because there's an immense amount of pressure that's put on the relationship, on the individuals within the relationship, but then subsequently on the relationship itself. And I always like to talk about the relationship as a kind of third entity. 

We often take it for granted, but I like this notion that there's you, there's your partner, and then there's the relationship itself. And the relationship needs certain things, certain types of nourishment and, and sustenance in order to survive. And when you have a child, those things get really taxed and the cracks in the armor of the relationship will really become chasms, they can become these big gaping holes within the armor or within the body of the relationship, depending on what analogy we want to use. 

And that it's important for us to recognize that. And like my wife and I, we created a little bit of a system because I was just miserable at night. I hated having my sleep interrupted, and she was okay. And, the reason for that was because my wife has this, Very, I want to say wonderful. But it's one of the things that I'm jealous of. She has this really wonderful ability to just fall asleep and fall back asleep at a drop of a hat. We have this running joke that she just can't go horizontal after 7:00 PM on the couch because she'll just fall asleep. Whereas I don't do that. It takes me a little bit more time to wind down. 

And so what was happening in the beginning was, I would wake up at three o'clock in the morning or two or whatever it was, and I would take another 30, 45 minutes to fall back asleep, and then my son wake back up again, 30 minutes later, and so we had to really talk about how do we create systems and agreements between the two of us to support one another to get through this period. And I think that's one of the things that really served us and supported us in becoming not only as parents, but it really has served us and supported us in our relationship period. It's been very, helpful.

IM: Well, let's take a step back then, just in case. The dads are all probably leaning in being yes, totally. And then maybe the non dadds are like, what are they talking about? Come on, get to it. So I'll take a step back for a moment and speak to the book of course, which is just about out. Actually, I've had an early copy, so I've been able to read it straight through, as well it comes out in a few weeks now. This is being recorded mid-January, so the book is coming to a bookstore everywhere near you. And so congratulations.  It's called Men's Work, which is pretty just straight to it.