Reclaiming the Gentle Man

Today on the podcast, I’m sharing a conversation with one of my teachers and mentors, Ryan Ginn —a man who has held deep space for me in men’s circles and helped me learn some of the most powerful tools I now use in my own coaching. Ryan is a therapist, coach, and men’s work facilitator. I’ve watched him bring men into some of the most important work of their lives—and help them come back to the s...

If you’re in gridlock, it probably feels like you’ve tried everything. You’ve explained yourself. You’ve argued your point. Maybe you’ve even gone to therapy. And still, somehow, you end up right back in the same place. This episode explores a way out you probably haven’t tried, because sometimes the thing keeping us stuck isn’t just the disagreement itself. It’s the story we’ve built around it. A...

When your partner’s anger, sadness, anxiety, or frustration fills the room, it can be easy to decide that their emotions are the problem. In this episode, we explore how our relationships expose the emotions we have the hardest time being with, why discomfort and toxicity aren’t necessarily the same thing, and how developing a healthier relationship with emotional intensity can create more freedom...

On my way to officiate the wedding of two dear friends and coaching clients, I found myself reflecting on what officiating weddings, coaching couples, and being in a committed relationship myself have taught me about sustaining love. For more practical resources for having the hard conversations better and sustaining a passionate committed relationship, follow me on Instagram @dave_lishansky or vi...

What happens when you deeply love your partner—but you’re not sure where your attraction to them has gone? Or maybe you’re on the other side of that question: lying next to someone you love, wondering if they still desire you the way they once did. We tend to treat attraction like a binary: chemistry or no chemistry, my type or not my type. But what if attraction isn’t only something another perso...

Maybe you've read the books and you've sat in the circles. Maybe you've done the ceremony, maybe more than one. And somewhere underneath all of it there's still a version of you running the show... the one who needs to be seen, who's still looking for a father figure in every teacher he finds, who's still trying to earn something. More tools didn't touch him. Jose Alejandro guides men through wild...

You've had the conversation. You named the pattern, you saw where it came from, and for a few days it felt like something moved. Then it happened again. Same fight, same shutdown, same apology that sounded right and changed nothing. Somewhere along the way we started treating insight as the finish line. Know your attachment style, name the wound, understand why conflict felt dangerous in the h...

This is a re-air of a conversation I had with Tara on her podcast, Unblock Your BS . Thank you to Tara and her team for the permission to share it here in my feed. I think this episode gives a lot more detail into my thoughts on a number of different topics — and into my own story as well. Follow Tara at Unblock Your BS: - Apple Podcasts - Spotify - Instagram Connect with me: - Instagram ( @dave_l...

There's something just about everyone does in a relationship that feels totally innocent and fair, but which causes more harm to your connection than almost anything else. In this episode, we start with a couple stuck in a familiar pattern: he feels like he's carrying everything, and when she asks for one more small thing, he explodes. He's emotionally exhausted and doesn't know it...

None of us come into relationships knowing how to love well, and the gap between not knowing and knowing feels existential when it's love on the line — which is exactly why tiny arguments blow up. Drawing on Dr. Becky Kennedy's framing of resilience as tolerance for that gap, we get into why the best relationships aren't the ones without conflict — they're the ones where both peopl...

In this episode, we get into how the questions we often begin with when we start to do the work can lead us to dead ends, and how and why the mind hijacks your inner work by turning it into performance. My guest Parm Bains is a brilliant coach. In this episode, he shares his own story about losing his father, his insights into getting free of the mind's traps, and what happens when we choose f...

Most of us were taught that great communication is the foundation of a great relationship. But that idea has a shadow side nobody talks about — and it's  making your fights longer, harder, and more damaging than they need to be. In this episode, we name the hidden expectation that turns a solvable moment of frustration into a full-blown conflict: your need for justice. The belief that before y...

We've all heard the old story about the honeymoon phase — the spark fades, the attraction cools, and what's left is companionship if you're lucky. This episode flips that. What if the end of the honeymoon phase isn't a slide into boredom, but an invitation into the relationship you've actually been looking for all along? We get into what keeps two people attracted and alive tog...

Most of us were never taught that being nice could be the problem. In this episode, we get underneath one of the most common — and most invisible — patterns men carry into their closest relationships: the nice guy default. Not cruelty, not neglect, but something harder to see. A performance of goodness that functions as armor, keeping real presence, real emotion, and real accountability safely out...

The man you are isn't only defined by how you hold it together when your back is up against the wall. It's also defined by how you come back after you've failed — how you repair, take accountability, and make right with the people you've hurt. The man we measure ourselves against? He's in the process of becoming too. We all are. Mentioned in this episode: Free 3-minute Reconnec...

This is the final episode in a five-part series on the patterns that quietly wreck our relationships from the inside. This episode is about fawning. The pattern where we absorb, accommodate, and apologize our way through conflict — not out of genuine accountability, but out of a need to make the discomfort stop. In this episode we get into why so many men were conditioned to manage the emotions of...

There's a  viral video  that's been around for years — a woman with a literal nail in her forehead, her partner trying to point it out, her insisting it's not about the nail. A lot of men have felt deeply seen by it. In this episode we get underneath why. Why the urge to fix runs so deep in us, what it's actually protecting us from, and why the woman we love so often goes cold the...

Most of us have been called defensive at some point. And most of us, when it happens, are pretty sure we have a good reason. In this episode, we look at what's actually happening underneath the defense — what we're protecting, why it feels so necessary in the moment, and what it costs us in the relationships we care most about. We get into why being right so often loses us the thing we act...

This is part 2 of a 5-part series on the disconnection patterns — the tendencies that turn small moments into full-blown conflict. In this episode we get into what avoiding actually is, how it differs from suppressing, and why it tends to be the most damaging of the five. We talk about the man who can't tell his partner he might lose his job, the guy who knows he should stop drinking but never...

Most men learned the same lesson early: stay strong, don't burden anyone, deal with it inside. And for a while, that strategy works — until it doesn't. This episode kicks off a five-part series on the patterns that get in the way of connection in committed relationships, starting with suppression — the one that tends to cause the most explosive damage when it's left unaddressed. We unp...

This week's episode is not about the men in the headlines, but all of us. This is what happens when men spend their lives hiding the most intimate parts of themselves, and it's a map for what we can do to shepherd in a better future. LINKS: The Map to Pain-Free Conflict: painfreeconflict.lovable.app 3-minute assessment for conflict patterns in your relationship — Your Reconnection Code: yo...

What's happening when we're giving everything we possibly can, and it still doesn't feel like enough?  Often, it's not a relationship problem. It's an inside job. Join my free workshop for men, The Map to Pain-Free Conflict: painfreeconflict.lovable.app Follow along on Instagram: @dave_lishansky

Fear often runs relationships without our even knowing it. If you're finding yourself procrastinating on the hard conversation, on taking action toward the things you most want to do, need to do, have been called to do… then this is for you. Free workshop — April 11 & 14 Join Dave for a free live workshop on working with the fear that's quietly running your relationship — and learn the...

Every man in a hard moment has had the fantasy: a partner who just… goes easy on him. Who doesn't ask so much. Who forgives quickly and doesn't bring her own hard days to the table when he's already running on empty. Maybe it's a softer version of the woman he's with. Maybe it's someone else entirely. In this episode, we get underneath that desire — and what we find isn&#39...

Most men learned to armor up long before their first relationship. And most don't realize they're still wearing it. In this episode, we explore the difference between listening and defending — and why presence, not performance, is what love actually asks of us. Join the free virtual workshop The Map to Pain-Free Conflict : painfreeconflict.lovable.app painfreeconflict.lovable.app Follow on...