Laugh At Pain | Being the Man Training – Session 5

Our subject today is laugh at [clears throat] pain. And there's all kinds of ways we'll talk about that we'll we'll practice that. But one of the ways that you know I speak a lot about is is cold exposure. Cold exposure. So, for example, if you're watching this session from now on and for the rest of your life, when you finish a shower, you can take it as hot as you want, but when you finish a shower, you turn it on cold. Now, obviously, it's going to be much better in the winter when it's really cold. Uh, summertime, cold water out of a shower is not that impressive. So, you want to focus, I mean, you really want to get it done in the winter where it really does the job. Um, and I know there's people listening to this right now are thinking the opposite. Yeah, maybe in the summer, but the winter, no, no, no. But that's exactly what you want to be doing. So, cold exposure just a great example of this. It's it's painful. Uh, every part of your body is wants to resist it, but if you just if you [clears throat] just do it, you grow. A lot of the pain that comes our way in life is inevitable. like there's nothing we can do about it. But we do have the opportunity to choose it. Meaning to choose what it is that you know that that we're going to suffer, if you will. So it's like it's like choosing to like volunteering for pain is the is, you know, to to make it something that you can opt into as opposed to just pain that that comes your way. And when things come that are painful, so you you've developed some muscles for it, like you know you know how to face it. Um a lot of people have because they've been avoiding pain for so long. So when they're when they're actually navigating life, they they're like turning away from pain a lot of times. And and that's also like you don't it's not going to give you true north. You know your relationship to pain if it's not something that you're that you're moving towards then it's going to it's going to take you off you're going to be off course basically in your life if pain is something that you're just built to avoid. Um and then the the next is is to be brave in the face of pain is to use that courage. Um if you did possibly you you remember that there's a distinction between >> [clears throat and snorts] >> um not being afraid versus um courage. See, when you see someone who's facing, you know, difficulty in life, you think, wow, you know, for example, you see this guy, he's going to jump his his motorcycle over the Grand Canyon, and you're thinking, how is he not afraid? And the answer is he's probably terribly afraid, but he's using courage to do it. And so courage is really the the if meaning if someone wasn't afraid they wouldn't need courage. And so courage is really the the the it's the muscle we're using where by acting courageous every time you can. So then when things get serious you'll really be courageous. Now laughing at pain the pulling back pulling back whenever um let's go to the cold plunge for example when someone is first time ever in cold plunge. So there's five things he needs to know and let's let's talk about all five. Um, number one is that, sorry, let me do that again. There are four things he needs to know getting into a cold plunge. Number one is that he's got to say, "I got this." So, everybody don't unmute your mic, but just say, "I got this." Okay? when when you are going into something that's going to hurt in some way, whether it's a phone call, conversation, uh an ice bath, you just immediately go into I got this. I got this. And say it right now, I got this. And you keep that in mind like I got this. Now, the second thing is that you get forward motion. You got to move forward. And what happens is the human being hits the brakes when he sees the pain coming or sees resistance or he sees something that's going to be uncomfortable. People hit the brakes and and you'll see like anyone getting into cold water, they're getting into hot water. You know, in we have very hot mikvas. My mikvah this morning was 114°. So it's it's like beyond hot. And what you'll see is first of all um you get these people. You can always see that the the warm pool has a bunch of people in it and then you see this perfectly clear because very few people can get in 114 degrees. You see perfectly clear water and there's no one in it. So someone who's never been in our mikvah before and and usually they're from America so they don't even understand that a three pool system. So you just see them like so excited to get this like nice clean pool. They get in there and you we know like everyone all the men who use that hot water know that guy's not going. He goes in. You see his face go freezes. He tightens. His face cringes. And what we're talking about right now is he stops. And that's what we do. We stop when we get into a painful situation. We just like we freeze. And and so the second thing is you got to keep going. You get momentum and you're not stopping. You keep moving in. You see the same thing when I'm getting someone into an ice bath into a cold plunge. You'll see that he'll hit that. If I don't say anything, he hits the water and stops. And then he goes another step and stops. Then he goes another step and then he realized how badly it hurts. And then he just gets out. But he never got a chance to to expose himself to the pain. So the next is number three. So first is I got this. Number two is you keep that forward momentum. Number three is that you breathe. You breathe while you're doing it. Because another thing that happens with with painful things is people uh hold their breath and the and so and so the that holding the breath is another form of stopping meaning okay your body is still going but you're like you're you're not breathing anymore so you got to keep your breath going and uh I was just in a cold plunge in New York and someone there's someone there who can do 25 30 minutes and which he said it doesn't really make a difference after you know me meaning for him perfect is 15 minutes and this is like crazy any other person would go into hypothermia but that's what he can do so I was in there and he was actually training me while I was in there and and he and he heard me going like this and he's like I hear your breath I'm like, "Yeah, I'm doing deep breathing." He's like, "Really relax, like let go. I don't want to hear your breath. Like, really let go." And I also had my my hands out of the water. And he didn't like that either. I said, "Yeah, but I don't want to freeze my hands. I can stand longer." He says, "Yeah, but that's making your shoulders go up." He said, "Just let go." And I put my hands in and [clears throat] I slowed my breath and I silenced my breath so he wouldn't hear it. And he was right. And I got my my record. I was I was 2 minutes in there. I know I talk a lot about cold punch, but my body does not react well to cold, which makes me the best trainer in it because because like if anyone doesn't belong in that cold water, it's me. I mean, the people I train to get in there, they go in and they stay in. I'm the one who has to jump out. Anyway, but I I got my over twominute record just now. I think I got 2:30. He said something else that was interesting. He said, "When you get out, uh, catch your breath and then go right back in and and stay in as long as you can again." Um, I only got to do that once, but um, but I'll I'll have to see next time I get to a cold plunge. [snorts] Number four of going in is inner smile. Inner smile which is you know I'll inner smile is also what you do when your wife attacks you know instead of running to shu or instead of run to the bathroom which is fly instead of fighting like cuz fight girls. So that would be ridiculous like why would you fight your your your wife? So instead, what you do is you have an inner smile. I'll show you what it looks like. Looks like this. Just like this. I can show you closer to the camera just so you get it right. So the smile is in the eyes. It's not on the mouth. It's an inner smile. You know, in yoga, the um you know, we do uh one particular thing which is called the tree. I don't know if I can show you a tree here. I'd have to go too far back for you to see what a tree looks like. But anyway, you're up on one foot. The other foot uh is on an angle sideways. I don't know. Maybe I'll go next to this tree. You'll see what I'm just doing. So, it looks like this. So it looks like that and and anyway, so when a first when a guy is doing it the first time, so they put him next to the wall so he can like lean on the wall and he gets that position, but his face is like this face is And then the yoga teacher always says right then he says um you're not going to need your face for this inner smile. And everyone laughs cuz right you don't need your face for the tree. The tree is not part of the the face isn't part of the tree. So inner small soft face. Yeah. How many times did I hear from the our yoga instructor in Israel have kosher yoga at least in so he'd say relaxed face soft face and so but if you see anyone dealing with pain they they tighten around and their face tightens around. Now there's various ways that we that we go about uh our interaction with pain. There's >> [clears throat] >> um first of all, let me just repeat those steps. That was um I've got this um forward motion breathing the whole entire time. And number four was is inner smile. So whenever we're whenever we're in in involved in facing something that is painful that but that we're choosing to do that we're choosing to do we we do those four steps but the thing is I want to talk about I want to talk about [snorts] I want to talk about the different ways that men practice pain. Different ways we practice pain. So one is sports. There's two options in sports. So for example in I do mountain biking and surfing. In surfing, so uh we're paddling the entire time. And yeah, I know everyone thinks surfing standing on the board, but that's a tiny amount of time compared to how much time we're paddling. And you know, I don't know if you've ever swam laps before, but I've surfed, you know, I could go surfing for two, three hours where I'm paddling for two or three hours. I mean, there's a different level of pain. and uh biking, you know, I'm often biking uh you know, very long halls and choosing to do a loop, which means there's no way back except to make it around the entire loop, which means I'm going to have to have stamina. I'm going to have to keep pushing through it, push through the pain, keep that forward momentum. A classic is something unique to men is is um not that women don't do it, but most women don't. And that is drinking shots. Drinking shots of whiskey or whatever, whatever, you know, drink you go for that's from, you know, hard alcohol. But a man will say to another man, you know, would you do you want a shot? And want a shot? And the and the man says, "I mean, I'm I'll do the theatrics. You want a shot?" And the man's looks at him and he he get he puts this look on his face like man time, you know? He's like, "I'll take a shot." But his [clears throat] upper lips already tight, like he's already h like he's taken the shot. He's ready for the shot. Like, but he's already his mouth's as if he put it in. So, yeah, I'll have a shot. So they bring in the shot and the and then what do they do? They pour this like burning hot liquid that's going to just basically burn your mouth. Obviously there's there's different levels of of tastiness of of of shots. But go pour a shot like that into a a child, you know, like they're they're not going to want to deal with it. They're they're gonna they won't even like you can't get I try to get my grandchildren, my little toddlers to just just to smell it and it's already like burning their eyes to smell it. They can't they can't get near the shot. And the the By the way, if you want to keep your family from having alcohol problems, first of all, you yourself only use it in moderation. And and secondly is is train your boys at young ages to that you know train them at young ages that part of being a Jew is drinking and so what happens is your son knows that this is this is part of this is part of and it's and it's never to excess except on pur like one day a year we go all the way with it but other than that we do not and anyway but you take the shot, you pour it into your mouth, and then what does everyone do? They go like this and then my father or someone else will say smooth. You'll also see people often slam it down on the table. You know, I [snorts] I made kish on on a shot of whiskey this week and put it down. I bam slammed it on the table like I I needed somewhere to put this energy of of the intensity of the shot and bam and but there's a face that you you're using all these facial muscles as the as the mouth tightens around the the shot and but all of that is saying that I am laughing at pain. Let's take a back for a few minutes just to um to Adam and Kava. Um Adam and Adam and they you know they ate the fruit and now it's punishment time. And let's look at his punishment and let's look at her punishment. Adam's punishment is he is going to now have to go out to work the thorns and thistles thorns and thistles is like is like bitter you understand like that Adam's cursed it's a curse but I don't know if he's cursed or blessed but he needs to go out and work the thorns and thistles and then it says and and you'll earn your livelihood. You'll make your living by the sweat of your brow. You'll you'll eat based on the having gone out to the bitter and you'll be sweating and it's going to be thorny and it's going to be thistly and that's what the man does. Well, let's look at what Kava's got going on. Kav says um you know I can go into I'm not going to go into right now but that she'll give birth with with pain and [clears throat] which is very connected to everything we're saying but I'm not going to focus on that and it says that that she will desire him that to him will be heruka her desire and the shall and he'll rule over you meaning he'll call the shots and you will be, you know, before him like like he's ruling the show. Now, what's really interesting is that the man who avoids the bitter, a man who avoids the pain, a man who avoids having to deal with that phone call and that phone and that office and those taxes and and those parking tickets and and a man who doesn't want to deal with that. And certainly the man who's who's got his life arranged around comfort. He's always just going for what's comfortable as opposed to what's going to um what's going to um train him to build him, you know, to to be able to laugh at pain like to to be able to be a man ultimately. So, she's [snorts] not in forget not desiring him. She didn't want to look at him. She didn't want to smell him. She's not interested in him. And when she turns 35 and older, forget about it. You definitely not interested because that's when a woman's femininity really kicks in. And if the man's not already trained before that, he's going to have a really, really hard time digging himself out, you know, while she's in full woman mode. So, we got to we we've got to um that the um let me Sorry, I just lost the clock for a second. The the her desire will not be for him if he's not doing that. And she's the one who's going to wind up calling the shots. And as we said before, the more she calls shots, more she's picking up the ma the male's jobs, she's getting more exhausted. She's getting older looking. She's getting uglier looking, which of course is a major problem with Shmeir because everyone else looks young, fresh, and and beautiful. And so, but that's because the man isn't going out to the thorns and the thistles and he's not sweating. He's not going towards the pain. And so and so when a man does that though, if a man is willing to go towards pain and what we call we laugh at pain, meaning we see that painful thing, we laugh at it, we go towards it. If a man's willing to do that, so then so then she's she's going to desire him. First of all, she's going to respect him and doesn't say that to her, but that's where respect will come from. And respect and attraction go together, right? No respect, no attraction. That's the way it is. But she'll respect him for for for facing the pain, for going into the pain. And she will desire him. And she will be bottled to him and she'll say, "Wherever my husband's going, I'm with him." Like, she's just she's just with you. She's coming with you. Now, there is some science behind the the the these practice pain things that we do. Um, you can look it up. Uh, the area of the brain is called the the anterior singulate cortex. Good luck remembering that. But it's a part of the brain that that they believe actually grows every time you opt for the bitter thing. Every time you op opt for the painful thing, it grows. And guess what? If you can grow it, which means you just keep finding yourself at painful things and laugh at it and move into it. If you can do that, so then it's it's going to cause that part of your brain to grow. And when you now have to make difficult phone calls or you got to deal with uh you know, like actual things that you're not opting for, but they're coming your way, it'll be a no-brainer. You can just go ahead and do it. you're not going to be falling apart. So, uh, let me give you your homework for this week. Your homework for the week is that for the next seven days, you know, till next Sunday, you're going to >> [clears throat] >> um, let's do two things today. One thing is you're going to find something that's that you can opt for that's painful. I don't care what it is. Could be push-ups, could be pull-ups, it could be uh it could be if for those who don't drink, it would be a shot of whiskey. If you already drink, that's not going to be a thing. But if you don't drink, definitely have a shot of whiskey. That would be a good one. But things that you opt for that are painful, including, for example, it might be cold water. So starting that cold water routine which you should do the rest of your life. So all kinds of health benefits for those the but the other thing is that you you're also going to have something in your day that's not something you're choosing but it's something you really should get done and it's the more painful of all the things. So instead of starting with something smaller there's a book actually called Eat That Frog. Like no one wants to eat that frog. That's the most difficult phone call. That's the most difficult thing you got to get done. So there there's a it says eat that frog, meaning go for the big one. And then the rest of the frogs are easy. So So that's your homework for the week. So opt for something that's totally optional and then the things that aren't optional to really do it with kavana that you're going into face. You're not it's not av you're going And you're even going to go for the biggest bite first. Go for the hardest thing first. Okay.