Raising Good Men #40

Drew Wing:

We have the opportunity to create a dialogue. What the boys and the girls understand is they're both experiencing challenges that are often based on the way we narrowly define gender and create gender stereotypes. So in talking about that, they all feel liberated in a certain way and kind of raise up and say, you know, we don't necessarily have to live this way, we don't have to perform this way because none of us really want to.

Dameron Midgette:

I'm calling it respect, which is a sense of physical contact that's that's real, that has meaning, that has my awareness behind it. And so contact that has awareness is, I think, deeply respectful. It's a meeting that feels like the best way I think that I can think of to talk about giving that respect.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Father's Day today we will be speaking with Roger Martin and Drew Wing from the Boyz II Men organization and Demeron Midget of Body Knowledge. Joining me in the studio today as every week is our co host, Genevieve Morgan. How are you Genevieve?

Genevieve Morgan:

I'm great Lisa. How are you?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm great. I love Father's Day. It's maybe one of my favorite sort of non holiday holidays.

Genevieve Morgan:

It sort of is the heralding of real summer.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, there is the summer. There's that sort of sun energy which is the very yang energy from a Chinese medicine standpoint. And of course men are young so it's a good time of year. I'm very happy today.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's great. And are you thinking of your dad today, Lisa?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think about my dad a lot. I think about both my parents, and they both had such a significant influence on my, obviously my younger years, but also my role as a physician and teacher and parent. I didn't get to talk about my mom that much during our Mother's Day show, but she provided a very strong yin influence to my dad's yang. My dad is a doctor. He's in the community. He does family medicine. He actually won Family Physician of the Year several years ago. A lot of people know him. He's Dr. Charlie. My mom provided the balance behind the scenes while I was growing up. Before she became a teacher, she raised us as 10 children sort of almost single handedly while he was on call a lot. So I'm kind of giving a shout out to my mom, even though it's Father's Day, before I go on and just talk about what an influence my dad had on me. It was really always about the way he cared for his patients that made me want to be a doctor. And even though I don't practice exactly the type of medicine that he practices, I hope that I'm practicing it in a manner that he would be proud of.

Genevieve Morgan:

Was he supportive of your pursuits?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Always was. He's at the Family Practice Residency program here at the Maine Medical center, which is where I trained, and I trained as a family doctor and then I got a master's in public health. But when I went on and did traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, he. He couldn't have been more behind me. He is always about what works for his children as individuals also, he's always about doing the best thing for patients. So when he saw that what I was doing for training was going to help patients, he was right there.

Genevieve Morgan:

And I think that's what our show is really trying to get to today, which is moving beyond what traditional gender roles and stereotypes might be inherited from our fathers and our grandfathers into what a new idea of being a father and that masculine energy could look like for men who are raising children now. Because we're at a time when everything's kind of moving beyond the envelope. And it's exciting to me that the guests that are coming on are really impacting change in our community on that level.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, tell me about your father. I know that you have two boys.

Genevieve Morgan:

I do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So there must have been some influencing on your parenting style from coming from your father.

Genevieve Morgan:

My memories of my dad, really, I would say what I got from my dad is a sense of adventure. Even now he's turning 75 and in two weeks he's heading off for the Arctic for three weeks. And he is. Has always, in his own way, modeled that for me to just take the blinders off and do what feels right. So I really honor my dad for that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have five brothers, as we've talked about before. They're all younger, and several of them were very active and kept my parents their toes. And then when I had my son, who's 18 now, he was like all of my brothers rolled into one, all five of them. And I did exactly what you did. I chased him everywhere. I remember we would go to concerts in the park, and instead of listening to the pretty music, he'd be trying to run out in the streets. This is a child that needed to be in every sport, every season, all the time. He had so much energy. He was so physical. And we actually had issues early on because the way he would interact with his environment, which I think is very common of boys, was to sort of push outward with his physicality. And he didn't mean to be rough, but he needed to understand that sort of being more pushy and more physical, that didn't really work for everybody.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, I think boys tend to, in that sense of adventure, explore with their bodies. And girls have more of a tendency, and this is obviously very wide generalization, because, as you said, everybody has both tend to explore verbally or are more comfortable exploring verbally. And so sometimes I think boys get pushed back when actually all they're really doing is exploring. And they don't need a lot of negative feedback. They just need to have better channeling.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, channeling and boundaries. And I think the best thing that we can do as parents, and specifically female parents, is just to understand what their innate natures are, understand what their personalities are like. Because, again, you're right. Every boy is different. Some are more physical, some are more cerebral. Just understand that and give children sort of the space they need, but also kind of fence off that space to make sure that it's safe, Making sure your kid doesn't run out into the road or doesn't fall into the frog pond or whatever that takes, but also give them the chance to be emotional, which we will talk to Drew and Roger, from Boys to Men about. Because there is an emotional aspect of being male that sometimes gets short shrift in our culture. And it's something that's very important as boys grow into men to learn how to access for themselves.

Genevieve Morgan:

And I think for men today who maybe grew up in a different, perhaps more stifling environment, to realize that it's never too late. To model that kind of behavior for the boys in their community. They don't even have to be fathers, right?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it's also never too late. If you grew up in an environment where you weren't sort of enabled, weren't given the chance to be physical, to have that physical energy, it's never too late. As Dameron Migett will talk to us about to learn how to work with your body in a different way. So we hope that we know that listeners will be inspired in listening to our guest today on our Father's Day show. Listen to us talk about boy energy, raising good men and we wish well, I WISH My father, Dr. Charlie, the happiest of Father's Days. I'm wishing my grandfathers who are no longer with us, but also the happiest of Father's Days.

Genevieve Morgan:

And Genevieve, yes, I wish my father a very happy Father's Day.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And happy Father's Day to all of you who are listening out there who are fathers yourselves or have father figures. And for those of you who aren't, then please give your nearest father figure a hug. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is pleased to be sponsored by the University of New England. As part of the University of New England sponsorship of our show, we offer our Wellness Innovation segment. Today's Wellness Innovation is Folic acid may reduce some Childhood Cancers Folic acid fortification of foods may reduce the incidence of the most common type of kidney cancer and a type of brain tumors in children, says a new study out of the Brown School at Washington University and the University of Minnesota. Since 1998, the U.S. food and Drug Administration has mandated fortification of foods with folic acid because earlier studies show that prenatal consumption of folic acid significantly reduces the incidence of neural tube defects in babies. This study is the largest to date to show that folic acid fortification is may also lower the incidence of certain types of childhood cancer in the United States and is published in the May 2012 issue of Pediatrics. For more information on this Wellness Innovation, visit Dr. Lisa.org for more information on the University of New England, visit une.edu.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

this morning on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we're speaking with two men who are helping us celebrate this very important weekend, Father's Day Weekend, by discussing a Very important organization, the Boyz II Men organization here in Maine. So thank you for coming in today. We have Drew Wing, who is the executive director of Boys to Men, and we have Roger Martin, who is the chairman of the board of directors for the Boyz II Men organization. Thank you.

Drew Wing:

Good morning.

Roger Martin:

Good morning.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, let's start by asking about your own children, Drew. Your children, I think, must be a

Drew Wing:

little younger, a little bit younger. I have a boy, Gus, who's seven, and a daughter, Lucy, who's 11.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Nice. And Roger, how about you?

Roger Martin:

Yes, I have two boys, Brandon, who's 22, lives right here on Congress street in Maine, and my son, Devin, who's 20 and is currently studying chemical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you're at very different ends of the spectrum.

Drew Wing:

Absolutely, yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Drew, how did being a father change you?

Drew Wing:

Being a father made me much more conscious about how I wanted to show up on a daily basis. I mean, you definitely start looking at the things that you're doing and how your children are looking at those things and what they're learning from how I am in the world. And so in some ways, it made me just, you know, think a little bit harder about how I was showing up and how I was modeling for my children.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And, Roger, would you agree? What has your experience been?

Roger Martin:

Yeah, And I guess what I would add to that with what Drew said, is around watching your boys grow up and allowing them to experience the different difficulties that they will go through, that all people will go through as they become adolescents and then young adults. With my boys, they've been through all of that cycle, and one of the things that's interesting for me now is coming out of it on the back end to be able to sit down and have conversation with them around what it was like for them to have me as a dad, and then for me to tell them what it was like to be a dad to them and to share those experiences. And I found that to be very rewarding over the last couple of years.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, give me a few examples. Tell me what they said to you. What was it like to have you as a dad?

Roger Martin:

Yeah, I think they really appreciated the support that I gave them, the ability for them to. To take chances, to take risks, and also to ask for help when they needed it and for me to be there to be able to provide that help and support. My youngest boy is very quiet and went through a time, that very difficult period in middle school where he really struggled. He was a subject of bullying and had some difficulties making it through that time. And between his older brother, my wife and myself, we really helped him through that. And today he understands that and he appreciates us for that. And it really feels good to know that I did something really well to help him move along in his life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Give me some background on the Boyz II Men organization. How long has it been in existence and what's the mission?

Drew Wing:

Yeah, so Boyz II Men has been around for about 15 years now. We started out as a community coalition and then became a full Nonprofit organization about 10 years ago now. It was started up by our founder, Lane Gregory. And the mission was we really came at it from the perspective of reducing interpersonal violence. And the reality is that the. A great majority of violence is perpetrated by boys and men in the world. So the idea was, well, if we're going to stop this violence of male to male violence and male violence against women, we really need to work with boys and men. Because the work that had been done previously, that had come out of the women's movement was not really addressing or targeting, you know, that population of where the violence was coming from. So that was the beginning. But the underlying philosophy of Boys to Men is that despite the problems that we see going on with boys, and that's not just male violence against women, but that's a decline in academic performance. It's emotional trauma. It's a number of issues that are affecting boys in a way that. That doesn't reflect how we want our boys to be and the health that we want to see for them. So we acknowledge that there's these problems going on that statistically we can look at and say, yes, this is true. But at the same time, we believe that our boys aren't broken. They weren't born into the world this way. They didn't come out wanting to be violent against themselves, against each other, to perform poorly in school, to not show up as the leaders that we really want them to be. They didn't. They weren't born that way. So we believe it's a culture. There's a cultural issue in terms of how we're defining masculinity through the media and the role modeling that boys are getting about what it needs to be a man that's really in need of repair in contrast to boys themselves.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Roger, was your experience with your son's bullying a key reason for either getting or staying involved with the Boyz II Men organization?

Roger Martin:

The organization and its mission really hit home with me in terms of my emotions and my feelings and really how I wanted my boys to Be like and how I wanted them to grow up. And I think you're right. As I thought more and more about boys to men, I thought back to that experience of my youngest son being bullied in middle school and saying to myself, boy, we need to do things to try to stop that so that young boys, as they're growing up, can really act the way that they were, that we're all meant to act, which is showing emotion, which is sharing feelings, which is building relationships with other boys and other girls and not having to play this macho, bullying kind of Persona.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So, Drew, how do you accomplish that?

Drew Wing:

So our work is designed to coming from that kind of that foundational belief that boys are not broken, but rather it's a culture that's in need of change. We view ourselves as a social change organization. So we work within three spheres of influence in the lives of boys. We work with peers, the peers of boys. We work with parents, and then we work with educators, coaches to help them think about the culture and the messaging that they're creating and the support they're giving to boys. And, you know, and we work directly with boys themselves. But it's working on those different spheres of influence is the way that we start challenging these ideas that boys can't be emotional, that they have to be tough all the time, that the one emotion that's okay to show is anger, and that masculinity is defined in terms of sexual conquest and violence and stupidity. We work within those spheres to challenge the ideas that they're sending to boys about masculinity.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And is this done through educational programming?

Drew Wing:

Yeah, we have several different programs. So with parents, we do a number of workshops, film series, book clubs throughout the year. We also have a program called Boot Camp for new Dads, which we run at Maine Medical center and Mercy Hospital two weekends a month, where we have dads who are going to be dads for the first time, participating with veteran dads who show up with their baby and they learn skills and talk about how their life is going to change when they have a new child. That program's generously supported by unum, I would add, so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And we should just jump in here. Roger, you have a position at unum. You want to just tell everybody what that is?

Roger Martin:

Sure. Thank you. I am the chief financial officer of unum's US Businesses, and I work out of here in Portland, Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it's interesting that UNUM would feel so strongly about an organization such as Boyz II Men that it would put financial support behind it. So do you want to address that?

Roger Martin:

Roger sure, absolutely. We at unum, we're very supportive of the community and also very supportive of enhancing and improving Maine's education. And if you think about one of the tenets of Boys II Men, it really is around respect and tolerance, respect and tolerance for each other. And you know, the programs that Boys to Men offer, particularly in the schools, as it relates to reducing sexism and violence in the schools, is right up that sort of enhancing and improving that education, that educational experience. And our hope is as we create young men and young women who are more respectful and have more tolerance, you know, for this environment that will help us create better leaders. It'll help us create students who will stay in Maine and want to work in in Maine and create a better workforce for the state of Maine as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell us more about the programs that are being offered.

Drew Wing:

Drew yeah, so the bootcamp for new dads and just the parenting workshops we do is one aspect of it. Another piece of the work is the program that we do with peers. So going into the schools and we have a program called RSVP which is Reducing Sexism and Violence program, and that's an intensive bystander intervention program that we deliver to high school students. We take them away on a two day retreat and then there's two follow up days at school and they learn. Value clarification, practical scenario, practical scenarios so that when they see harassment and simply incidents going on that they don't think are okay, that they know how to step in safely and either directly intervene, find help from an administrator or school teacher, or somehow interject or put themselves into a situation where they can be an effective bystander rather than just letting the situation happen. And then so that's our we have the parents, the peers, and then the educators. We have an arm of our organization called the Maine Boys Network and we do some research and we also bring research forward about what's going on with boys academically and what we can do to better support their learning and to help them do better in school. The other Piece of what we're doing there with educators and coaches this year is we'll be launching a new program called Coaching Boys into Men. And that's a program, it's a national program that actually comes to us through Futures Without Violence, another great organization. And we'll be implementing that program in high schools across the state. And the Maine Coalition for Ending Domestic Violence will also be working on that initiative.

Genevieve Morgan:

Do the boys in your program express some sense of relief or joy or a sense of understanding and being accepted? Once you support their values, these inner emotional values that perhaps might in their school setting be stifled? Once they're let out of that emotional straitjacket, what happens?

Drew Wing:

Well, the program that we do directly with boys, particularly the RSVP program, we also have girls involved in that program. So really what we, you know, we have the opportunity to create a dialogue. And what we. What the boys and the girls understand is they're both experiencing challenges that are often based on the way we narrowly define gender and create gender stereotypes. So in talking about that, they all feel liberated in a certain way and kind of raise up and say, you know, we don't have to. We don't necessarily have to live this way. We don't have to perform this way because none of us really want to. So that's liberating for both the boys and the girls. I think one of the things, one of the aha moments that happens for the boys in our program is when they hear from the girls about the girls daily experience in terms of the things they have to think about to remain safe, to not be sexually assaulted on a daily basis. We ask the guys the same question, you know, what do you do to remain safe? What do you guys have to think about specifically around the scenario of being sexually assaulted? And the boys say nothing. There's nothing they have to say other than stay out of jail. And the girls will quickly fill up a sheet of paper, a poster board sheet of paper with all the things they have to do. Carry my keys, think about where I'm going to walk, think about what I'm going to wear, and the list goes on and on. And at that point, I watch the boys almost every time their jaw drops. And they didn't realize that their friends, oftentimes these are girls that they're best friends with, are having a totally different experience. So that's morally kind of an aha moment for the boys. And when they see that, they're like they want to be part of kind of a change. They don't like being Lumped. They don't like the idea that girls, girls that they like and that they care about, are feeling unsafe around other boys and men and that they're lumped into that they're like, this is not good.

Genevieve Morgan:

I have a question that is directly related to that. You guys can choose who wants to answer it. But I grew up in New York city in the 70s and the 80s, and I went to an all girls school and we were taught from a very young age to avoid any grouping of boys. So that if there was more than two boys on the street, you crossed the street and went away. Because boys have a tendency to be fine on their own, but when they're in a larger group, that that can change their temperament momentarily. And I'm wondering, in terms of the bullying, Roger, or in terms of some of these peer groups, is it peer pressure part of this, that boys who naturally wouldn't behave this way might behave in a more violent or aggressive way when they're in a group?

Drew Wing:

We don't really, I mean, we don't really address that group dynamic. I mean, we're talking. Most of what we talk about is the messaging that they're getting about what it means to be a man and then how they want to show up and how they want to participate when they see something going on that's not right and that they know is not right.

Genevieve Morgan:

But isn't that the hard part, to show up as an individual when six of your friends are misbehaving? It's very difficult. If you're 14 years old, it's very hard to rise up against four of your friends.

Roger Martin:

So one of the things that I've noticed in experiencing these programs and watching films of them and experiencing them myself is that the boys sort of stand there when they go through this aha moment and they see the girls write the list down of all the things they need to worry about. And the boys go through that aha moment. They take a moment and they look at each other and they see if they're all going through that aha moment. And for the most part, you can see that they are. And I think that's a breakthrough and there's an understanding there. The other thing I would add about sort of the moral behavior and the breakthrough for these boys is the other thing I have seen is what happens after we leave the schools with these programs. We have very successful programs and there are some young adults there who will be the future leaders and have really been hit home with this program. They'll keep it alive. So we have schools where students have kept this program alive and they've taken on and run programs on their own, whether it be for different classes or different kinds of events. We just held a program a couple of weeks ago at the Portland Library and we had a young man, a senior from high school, come and talk to us about how his life has been impacted by this program. And it really was amazing about how it really, it hit home with him. And he will take that with him for the rest of his life. So we know we're making a difference there and that will help them, help these young boys and girls grow into more healthy adults on a go forward basis.

Drew Wing:

And I think your question is right on. It is difficult and we don't sugarcoat it, to say that it's not. I mean, one of the fundamental things that we talk about in this program is this is about leadership and what does it take to be a leader. And one of the things that they identify when we do this is it takes courage. So standing up to whether it's your own peer group or another group and saying, I don't think this is right is challenging. And it's challenging for all of us. And that certainly doesn't change for a 13 or 14 year old student.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, that seems to be the essence of the new manhood then, is to have that kind of emotional courage to stand up when you see something wrong happening.

Drew Wing:

Exactly. And to kind of flip the idea of, kind of the masculine idea of what does it mean to have your buddies back? What does that mean? Does that mean to cover up for him? To jump in when he finds himself in a physical altercation and fight with him? Is that what it means to have my friends back? Or does it mean that I'm gonna look out for his emotional well being? That when I see him involved in a situation or acting a way that I don't think he should, or that he doesn't think he should, am I gonna allow him to do that or am I gonna challenge him on that?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have a question for both of you. What did you learn from your own fathers that has impacted your lives most significantly? Whether it's just living life in general or whether it's parenting your children?

Roger Martin:

So my dad was a firefighter and a plumber by trade. So he worked 60, 70, 80 hours a week. My mom and my dad had five children. He put us all through school on his own on today, which would be a salary which would be slightly above sort of poverty level. And the most important thing that he taught Me was around my feelings, to share my feelings, to cry when I needed to, to be mad when I needed to, but to do it in a respectful way, to have dialogue, to have conversation, and to not hold things. Not hold things in and have that create sort of a problem for me. And I remember back having family discussions. So it was three boys and two girls in my family and having those family discussions. And that was one of the things that my dad insisted upon, was we would have family discussions and talk about whatever was going on in our lives, in the city that we lived in, in the nation that we lived in at the time. And for that, I really thank him, because being able to share that emotion and that feeling in today's world, I think has really helped me be a better leader, a better father, a better friend to my wife and my friends that I have. Very nice.

Drew Wing:

You know, I think when I think of my dad and what I learned from him, he would always say this. I mean, this is repetitive, is I expect you to be a gentleman, a scholar, and an athlete, in that order. And I think I've carried that with me a lot. And not that that's the perfect model for everyone, but it ended up being a pretty decent model for me. And I reflect on that often and ask myself, am I, you know, first of all, am I behaving here like a gentleman? And am I thinking critically? Have I thought through the issue? And, you know, the athletic part is, am I having fun and am I living a healthy. You know, am I living a healthy life? So I think that was great. The other thing I learned from my dad was, you know, he was a. He worked for the community and worked to support the community and really put a lot of time into making sure the people around us were taken care of. And that was a value that I took from my dad. And then one final thing was, as I always remember him saying, is work with good, talented people and then get out of their way and let them work. So that's just one of the other things I remember him saying. And I often think about, how can

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

people learn more about the Boyz II Men organization?

Drew Wing:

The best way to learn a little bit about our organization is just going to our website, mainboystomen.org and there's a lot of great information there. We're also on Facebook, which gives you a lot of our current things that are going on, and we're always welcome to, you know, pick up the phone, call us locally, and just ask us questions and see how you can get involved.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, thank you. We've been talking to Drew Wing, who is the executive director of Boyz II Men, and also Roger Martin, who is the the chairman of the board of directors of Boys II Men. Each of them a father, and each of them, I hope, celebrating this Father's Day with their children in a wonderful, wonderful way. We thank you so much for the work you're doing in the community.

Roger Martin:

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Drew Wing:

Thank you very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Our next guest for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is Dameron Midget, who I will turn over to my co host, Genevieve Morgan, because she spent some time with Dameron and I think that they've had an interesting conversation.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's true, Lisa. We have. Damron and I met as part of my job as wellness editor at Maine Magazine. I'm always on the lookout for people doing interesting things in therapeutics and healing in Maine. And Dameron has had a long history in our state of really body awareness and kinesthetic movement, particularly in the fields of martial arts and structural reintegration. So, Dameron, welcome.

Dameron Midgette:

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Dameron, when we brought you into the studio or just before you were doing some movements to work on, I guess spatial awareness, was this what you Told me.

Roger Martin:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me what you were doing and why this was important. Why would you do this before you came on a show?

Dameron Midgette:

Well, we're creatures of habit. You know, this is how we. As you watch kids run around and do their thing, and once they get to a certain point with something they get good enough at walking, they're not really going to refine that so so much. It refines as they grow. But we often don't always have the best possible answer for what we're doing at the moment. As we grow into adults, we carry compensations and history from various things. And I love to sort of press the reset button on that every once in a while and remind my nervous system of the full range of possibilities as opposed to what I normally use so that I have a little bit more freedom and choice available to me. I find that that's underneath most of the problems that people. That I run into when people come to me looking for a whole range of things, everything from athletic performance to freedom from this problem, that problem.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you're trying to create an openness.

Dameron Midgette:

Yeah, yeah. Most what we accept as normal in this culture is a very small percentage of what's possible for humans, our minds, our bodies. And so I would call it opening up the field again to a lot more of what I'm capable of, you know, at least in the physical realm.

Genevieve Morgan:

We're here talking about raising good men, and you're a dad, and you and I have talked a lot about boy energy. And one of the problems that boys have often in school is that idea of boy energy and not being aware of space. I remember my eldest, when he was in fifth grade, got sent home from school because he backed into a teacher and stepped on her toe. And she was really angry that she felt that he wasn't respecting her. And I was sort of like, well, he's in fifth grade and he's not aware of his body in space. So how does that relate to what you're talking about?

Dameron Midgette:

Well, I think that one of the reasons that boy energy is a problem, possibly more in this culture than other cultures, is that I think the world they're growing into isn't really physically aware, but that's such an emphasis of that growing process. And so it's doesn't fit as they're running around testing things physically, that causes problems because often the grownups around them aren't that comfortable with physical exploration or, you know, there's a person in that teacher who, you know, responded to something that didn't have much intention and put a story on it. And, you know, if somebody's comfortable in their, you know, in their physical presence, they might be more aware that somebody's coming at them, or they might just go, oh, well, that didn't feel like it was aggressive. It felt like somebody stepped on my foot.

Drew Wing:

Ow.

Dameron Midgette:

You know, and then. And then let it go. But often, because we're. We're often at a little bit of arm's length with the body, then there we start making stories about what comes in instead of just feeling it. And I think, you know, my baseline for a lot of things, I think, is awareness. That's what boys need is. That's what men need. That's what people need in general, is masculine energy. I think everybody needs awareness. And often we sort of. We. Okay, either you're not aware, or we're going to teach you awareness for something. No, let's just make that a baseline so that we're aware of ourselves and the tendencies. Tendencies. We have what we have around us, kind of the whole spectrum.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, I don't want to call you out, but you have this sort of big kid energy, and you're a big person.

Drew Wing:

So I don't know.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How tall are you?

Dameron Midgette:

Six four.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Okay, so you're six four, and you're kind of a big kid. And I have five brothers, so I'm used to big kids and a big son. So how do people take your kid energy and your boyishness and your.

Dameron Midgette:

Yeah, yeah, I have a great story about that. My dad was a very, very big person, Very passionate. And when I first one of my early jobs was in outdoor sales, I worked at an outdoor equipment store in Los Angeles. I was going to school there and very passionate and, you know, interested in what I was doing and helping people out. But my manager called me inside one time and he said, you know, I love your enthusiasm, but. But you've scared a couple of customers, so can you work on toning that down a little bit? And at that point, I had this. I couldn't not project. It was just my voice was loud and I wanted to be near people. And for some folks, that was a little bit too much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It strikes me that this may be an issue for more than just you. Again, having the five brothers, myself. How do you learn to channel that energy?

Dameron Midgette:

The first. The introduction for me was martial arts. At. Right about that time, I had started training in a fairly aggressive style, and that was the first point in my life where I'd had a lot of. My father was close, but he passed away When I was young and I hadn't had a lot of physical, sort of intense physical contact. One older sister, no wrestling, no, none of that anymore. And I remember distinctly the sensation of leaving a class, having spent an hour or two beating the crap out of some really good friends, and feeling so deeply satisfied by the contact. I remember the sensation of fists. And part of me, part of my mind is going, what? And scratching my head. I had no real way of understanding it at that point, but feeling happy and relaxed and content, satisfied at some level with that contact. And that was the beginning of it. Unfortunately, there was also more. There was a story around that kind of training, which often happens with martial arts. Where there'll be tai chi is. It's about relaxation. And so if you want intensity. Sorry, there's martial arts that are about intensity. So if you want relaxation or subtlety or some balance for health purposes, not so much. I've had to find my way to something that has that for me and sort of developed my own perspective on it. But. So there was a lot of. There was more aggression to that and it was keying me up. And eventually, even though I was quite successful in it and doing very well and, you know, good relationship with the whole school, I had to. I had to move on because I was treating everything in my life as a potentially threatening interaction to defend myself against, to be wary of hyper vigilance, which isn't a healthy state. So that was, you know, learning how to deal with that, I think, takes awareness and acceptance of things that we traditionally sometimes judge in the culture. Intensity, sometimes discomfort, the things that we're not happy with about ourselves, you know, learning to accept all those different parts, particularly if they're physical. And then from there we can begin to look around and go, oh, well, this is what this needs. This is what that needs. And I think for boys and men particularly, it has to be or it feels like for me, it's been largely a physical process.

Genevieve Morgan:

Men and boys have a need for that physical expression, that kind of vitality. And like you said, the wrestling and boxing, how do you find a useful expression for that in today's society? For all those boys and men listening

Dameron Midgette:

today, I think it's important to find a foot in the door. Eventually. I would hope that it wouldn't be something separate from the normal process of living, but. But often we need something to introduce us to that. And for me, the thing that's found the most richness recently, I've been teaching for about five years something called Sistema, which Is a Russian martial training system not really an art. It doesn't have a particular look. The purpose is more to help you. The original translation of what it's known as in Russian often is posenai sibi or know thyself or learn yourself, discover yourself. So most of the training is focused on self awareness, particularly in intense situations. And so the idea being that if you can be calm in the extreme, the normal will be easy. I think practices that give people a chance to explore all of the different states that might be comfortable or practical or needing of expression, needing of feeling in a way that doesn't push them farther away or keep them at a distance, but that brings them in so that we can learn more about them. And most physical intensity has a pretty particular. It goes over here, this is what it's about and we're going to leave it there. It's mma, it's boxing, it's the extreme sports. What?

Genevieve Morgan:

Weightlifting.

Dameron Midgette:

Weightlifting, which can be, yeah, very much a, you know, let's get harder, stronger, bigger, you know, a lot of that idea and just changing the question or the purpose of training into why do I want to do this? You know, okay, it may not, you know, a lot of times, stuff like that, it can be intense, it can hurt. And as a culture, we don't often like to. We'll sort of revel in it, but we don't necessarily get comfortable in it. Even the people I know who've done really extreme things weren't comfortable in themselves.

Genevieve Morgan:

So you're really talking about redefining strength into a kind of suppleness.

Dameron Midgette:

Yes, yes. Being able to bring your, all of your energy, as intense as it may be, physical, psychic, mental and emotional energy to bear on whatever it needs in a way that doesn't lose you. Being able to listen and being able to respond to everything that's happening in the situation, in sustain. When we talk about a lot about calm under stress, if I do, if I punch with a rigid arm, I can't feel what's on the other end of that. I've desensitized myself physically. If I am able to make contact with somebody in a relaxed way, then I'm still listening. I can feel their body, I can feel what's going on for them. I'm open and receptive. Even if I'm doing something that's possibly fairly intense, fairly direct, keeping those channels open, being able to remain aware while we exercise these parts of ourselves and let them out, I think is is the key.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, that kind of responsiveness and awareness how has that affected your own fathering?

Dameron Midgette:

I would say, I mean when I first started training in Sistema, the thing that really sold me on it because the training, some of it's intense, some of it's very intense. Some of the folks that train it are ex military, current military. And you know, I have a little more of a health focus because that's what I've been doing for a long, long time. But the thing that really sold me on it was I came back from my first long inside intensive and noticed immediately the difference in my ability to be present with my kids. That something would come up and there would be a three year old tantrum and I would take that in breath of this is driving me crazy and then go oh. And just be able to find space in that moment and take a breath and let my body let go of any responses emotionally, you know, any kind of response that I was sort of going to react with as opposed to actually respond to be present. And I mean sometimes the intensity isn't even something in the moment that could lose us. Our sensitivity isn't even something we ask for, it's just something that's, that's there where we're particularly sensitive to something.

Genevieve Morgan:

I'm thinking of road rage.

Dameron Midgette:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. That kind of thing. Then we're actually a prisoner to that. That because we have this place that can get pushed on and we're going to respond a certain way, we have no ability to make a choice about it. And so beginning to be able to make more and more choices and better choices, have more of our resources available in no matter what the stressor is yelling, kids, somebody cut us off, somebody threatening us. It's all the same pathway in the body. So

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

what kind of commitment do you have to have to maintain this ability to stay present in the moment? It's easy to say in the abstract, but from a practical standpoint, as a parent, how do you do that on a day to day basis?

Dameron Midgette:

Part of it, well, I'd say a lot of it is making is trying to make sure that it doesn't take a lot of mental commitment. There's a commitment to establishing different habits, to being willing to feel actually because there's this idea I think in our culture about parenting and a Lot of other things that if things are going well, this is how it's supposed to feel. It's supposed to feel nice and maybe orderly and like, we're good and all this stuff. And actually in a world that we don't have fundamental control over, being in the best place often doesn't feel very good. And so a willingness to embrace that idea and say, oh, it may feel worse for me to embrace my desire to respond to something because I have to actually tap into that. If I don't, it's just going to come flying out. It'll fly by and I'll go, oh, I feel better now. But because I kept it at arm's length and I'm still not gaining. I'm not gaining the ability to sort of have a relationship with it and have some choice about how I express it. So that decision up front can be tough. However, for me, being very kinesthetic, I love being able to work it out physically. And it's amazing how when you get into a physical arena, the way Sistema trains often they say, you know, you can tell somebody something a hundred times, but if they mess it up once and they get bopped in the head, they're gonna remember making sure that we do things that create different habits so that the. That basic. The thing that arises is different than it was before. So it's not a mental exercise of, I'm gonna do this right. It doesn't work because by the time that kicks in, it's already done. So we need to retrain our. A lot of our deeper feeling state, our autonomic nervous system, so that we have a different response to things.

Genevieve Morgan:

For someone who's so responsive, you've really watched your kids, and when we've spoken before, you've had insight into what you feel you needed as a boy growing up and what you're trying to give your son and daughters growing up. And what can you just tell us more about that?

Dameron Midgette:

I think that awareness piece is huge. And it shows up differently for different. For girls and boys or. And that's. It's energy, you know, that every. Every kid is a different mix of masculine and feminine. Those archetypes, those, you know, sort of ways of being in the world, but for boys in particular, it feels like. And I'm, you know, in the middle of this. He's four turn. No turn, five today. So. And then I have two older. He's got two older sisters. But something. It's. I'm calling it respect, which is this sort of a physical awareness. Of I'm here and this is where I am. Warts and all this is sort of how I feel in myself, whether that's good or not. And there you are and how you're feeling and all of it and accepting it. Oh, that's not right. That's where you are right now. And being able to allow that, not try to sort of change who they are, but particularly physically say, look, this is your body and here's. And I respect your authority, sort of your ability to make choices over some limited thing, you know, small kid, not too much authority that will grow as they get older, but and giving them that a sense of physical contact that's real, that has meaning, that has my awareness behind it. It's not just roughhousing. Usually when it gets too much, it's because people have just. They've gotten angry, they're no longer there. And so contact that has awareness is, I think, deeply respectful. It's a meeting. And that's the. That feels like the best way, I think, that I can think of to talk about giving that respect specifically.

Genevieve Morgan:

So seeing him as other. Not only his own person, his mental state, but in his physical state and keeping those physical boundaries yourself. So with the hugs and the wrestling and the sports and the this and the that that you as a man kind of prescribe his boundaries with respect to him.

Dameron Midgette:

I help show him where they are, I think. And I do that by hopefully by having my own clear. Because that's. They imitate more than they do anything for years, the first years of their lives. So hopefully I'm a good model of that. I have no idea because I don't have a mirror of that kind in the house. But when I am around him, particularly physically, being aware with my touch, being aware physically so that he. Because then that's going to. We get a taste of somebody's state when we touch them. No matter how that touch is, whether it's body work or martial arts or. Or loving touch in a family or whatever. And so really, the more that I show up, the more he's going to go, oh, I feel that. And I can. I feel, you know, I feel myself. It's the beginning of sort of shaping that. So it's sort of teaching, trying to teach it from the outside or just giving an example of it where he'll. That he can fill into. And then the roughhousing is fine because it feels right. It's not, oh, I'm supposed to roughhouse with my boy, and maybe he doesn't want to then or at all, you know, some don't.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Dameron, if you could go back to yourself as a younger person and give yourself assurances that everything was going to be fine and that you didn't need to act a certain way, or what would you say to yourself? What, what, how would you do anything differently or what advice would you give?

Dameron Midgette:

Mmm, that's a very good question. I pretty much throughout my life have always wanted to understand that I would be a 12 in the middle of various 12 year old angsts that would look up at the stars and say, I just want to figure this out, you know, which I don't know. I mean, looking around from the outside, it looked like other people had different questions they were asking, but who knows? And talking about it in the biggest sense. And I think I would go back and tell myself that I don't need to, that that's not the point. It's an interesting goal. It carries you a lot of great places, but that it's much more interesting, more worthwhile, more rewarding to just feel what's happening, to just show up and then the rest of it may actually get answered easier than you think. But it's not, you're not going to get there that way necessarily. So I think I would do that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sage advice to yourself and to those who are listening to our program, thank you so much for coming on our Father's Day show. Dameron, midget body worker and martial arts trainer and so many more, so many other things. Yes, thank you for being here.

Dameron Midgette:

Thank you very much for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Father's Day. Our guests today included Roger Martin and Drew Wing of the Boyz II Men organization and Dameron Midget of Body Knowledge. We hope that this week, as every week, you will be inspired by the words of our guest to go out and live your life more fully. Thank you so much for being a part of our world. Happy Father's Day, everyone. May you have a bountiful life.