GoodGuys2GreatMen Video Podcast

How to Eliminate Soul Sucking Energy from Your Life

Dan Dore & Steve Horsmon • 6m 10s • 5 November 2016

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How to Eliminate Soul Sucking Energy from Your Life
Video overview: If your mood, confidence, and happiness depend on how your wife treats you, you’re living in a very painful trap. This video is about the mindset that keeps a man stuck, resentful, and powerless — and the mindset that helps him become calm, self-respecting, and free inside himself.

Your mindset is not some fluffy little idea.

It’s not a slogan. It’s not positive thinking. It’s not pretending everything is fine when your marriage feels cold, distant, tense, or disappointing.

Your mindset is the place you live from.

It’s the lens you look through every morning when you wake up and think about your wife, your marriage, your future, your confidence, your sexuality, your value, and your life.

And brother, if that lens is dirty, fearful, ashamed, needy, or resentful, it will shape everything you do.

You can have the right words. You can read the books. You can watch the videos. You can try to be a better husband. But if the mindset underneath all of that is, “I’ll be okay when she finally changes,” you’re going to suffer.

That’s the trap.

A lot of good men are living with a mindset that makes their wife responsible for their happiness.

They don’t usually say it that way. They say, “I just want her to be affectionate.” They say, “I just want her to appreciate me.” They say, “I just want to feel wanted again.” They say, “I just want my marriage back.”

I understand that.

Those are human desires. There’s nothing wrong with wanting closeness, sex, warmth, respect, and connection with your wife. I’d be worried about you if you didn’t want those things.

But there’s a big difference between wanting those things and needing those things in order to feel okay about yourself.

That difference changes everything.

When your mindset says, “I need her to respond the right way so I can feel confident,” you give her power she never asked for. You put your emotional stability in her hands. You start watching her face, her tone, her mood, her body language, her affection, and her sexual interest like they are the scoreboard of your worth as a man.

That’s exhausting for you.

And it’s heavy for her.

Because now your love starts to come with a hidden question underneath it.

“Am I okay now?”

“Do you approve of me now?”

“Are you attracted to me now?”

“Can I relax now?”

A woman can feel that, even when you don’t say it. She can feel when your confidence is borrowed from her reaction. She can feel when your kindness is tied to an outcome. She can feel when your good mood depends on whether she gives you what you want.

That doesn’t create attraction.

It creates pressure.

This video is about choosing a different mindset.

Not a fake one. Not a loud, arrogant, chest-beating one. Not some cold mindset where you pretend you don’t care about your wife or your marriage.

I’m talking about the mindset of a man who decides, “I am responsible for the way I lead myself.”

That’s where freedom starts.

You may not be able to control whether she wants sex tonight. You may not be able to control whether she apologizes, softens, forgives, opens up, or sees your effort. You may not be able to control the timing of repair in the relationship.

But you can control the meaning you make.

You can control whether you collapse into shame.

You can control whether you chase, sulk, attack, withdraw, or punish.

You can control whether you keep abandoning yourself in an attempt to win her approval.

You can control whether you keep feeding the same self-limiting story that says, “I’m stuck unless she changes.”

That story will rob you.

It will rob you of your presence. It will rob you of your confidence. It will rob you of your ability to think clearly. It will rob you of the future you secretly want because you’ll keep waiting for someone else to unlock the door.

The door is yours.

That doesn’t mean this is easy.

Changing your mindset can feel like going against years of training. Most men were never taught how to validate themselves. They were taught to perform, provide, fix, please, succeed, and keep moving. They were taught to earn love by being useful.

Then they get into marriage and wonder why they feel so powerless when usefulness no longer creates desire.

That’s why this matters so much.

A strong mindset says, “I can love her without needing her to manage my worth.”

A strong mindset says, “I can want more without becoming needy.”

A strong mindset says, “I can feel pain without turning it into a story that I’m a failure.”

A strong mindset says, “I can lead my life even when my marriage is uncertain.”

That is the kind of mindset that changes a man from the inside out.

Not because it magically fixes everything overnight.

But because it gives him back to himself.

He stops waiting. He stops begging life to be easier before he becomes stronger. He stops making his wife’s mood the boss of his nervous system. He stops acting like confidence is something she must hand him before he can stand up straight.

This is the work we do with men every day.

We help you see where your thinking is keeping you trapped. We help you challenge the old stories that keep you small, reactive, resentful, or dependent. We help you become the kind of man who can create connection from fullness instead of trying to extract it from fear.

That’s the mindset shift.

And if you’ve been feeling stuck, angry, rejected, unappreciated, or dependent on your wife for your happiness, this video will hit something important in you.

Because your future is not held hostage by her mood.

It’s waiting for you to decide who you’re going to be.

Change The Way You Lead Yourself

If your confidence rises and falls with your wife’s mood, affection, or approval, we can help you build something stronger inside yourself. You don’t have to become cold or detached — you can become calmer, clearer, and more self-respecting in the middle of real relationship pain.

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About the Hosts

Steve Horsmon & Dan Dore | Certified Professional Men’s Coach

Steve Horsmon and Dan Dore have spent over a decade supporting good men who are confused, frustrated, and afraid that their marriages and families are falling apart with no idea what to do about it. We've both experienced the same emotions that you're going through now. We know what it feels like to try all the mainstream try harder, be nicer advice while watching things continue to get worse. And that's exactly why Goodguys2Greatmen exists. Since 2012, we've coached thousands of men through some of the hardest periods of their lives; marriage breakdown, emotional distance, sexless relationships, fears of divorce or separation. We focus on practical solutions to help you survive some of the most challenging and painful experiences that a man can go through. This podcast is for men who are done waiting for their life and relationships to improve and are ready to make some bold decisions so that you become more calm and confident and start moving toward what you really want.