In this episode, Tyler and Brannon delves into the psychological reasons behind lying as a coping mechanism for insecurity and fear. They explore how individuals often resort to deception to protect themselves from vulnerability and potential judgment. Ultimately, the video encourages viewers to confront their fears and embrace honesty as a path to true safety and self-acceptance.
Transcript (Tap to Toggle) why do I lie to feel safe hey Tyler Randon how’s it going man it’s going it’s we do the same thing every time you ask me how it’s going and I’m like ah it’s going all right I like to I like to beat you to the punch because then you have to answer the question I know I noticed that yeah so I’m turn back on you how’s it going things are going pretty good man I I woke up with I think I got a fever last night and I got a little bit of sore throat um so I’m not feeling great physically but but it I’m feeling extra good today because I got to hang out with my brother this weekend so that was good dude you’re always getting sick man I know ever since ever since Co my immune system has never come back it’s like anybody gets a sniffle and I know I’m going to catch it yeah well what do we got to do get you some vitamin C or something don’t I’ve been I’ve been taking these uh I’ve been taking these Airborne like they’re candy my my kids call them pixie sticks because they’re like hey Dad it’s just straight Placebo like you’re the sickest one in our family and you’re the one who swears by them so yeah oh gez I don’t know I’m not a doctor but yeah let’s get your immune Understanding Lies system in order my goodness yeah um but I’m glad you’re alive and kicking today uh we have a good guest today so we’re going to need you full force to today Tyler so bring it I’m excited about our guest so Mark welcome to the show thank you um if you could give us just a little bit of context a little bit of background as to what’s going on with you and we we’ll go from there yeah so um I’m on my second marriage and um my first marriage dissolved for a couple of reasons I would say um as all my behavior is probably related to a lot of uh PTSD after the military and uh and some infidelity I’m not going to lie um Straight Up physical infidelity um but I’m on my second marriage um I kind of had a reborn Reawakening kind of church experience after my first marriage I would say I U developed a different relationship with with what people call god um you know was doing great met my met my wife uh she already had kids from her first marriage uh we got married you know back in 2015 we have a kid together um about four or five years into this marriage um some things happened I felt really mad at God mad at my marriage mad at my wife mad at it just wasn’t what I thought it was going to be and um I went through another series of emotional infidelities where I this time I didn’t physically you know do anything with anybody but I I had a series of emotional uh Affairs I guess you know where I just would talk to other women and make myself feel better kind of like a looking for validation and um one time I um I just rre of guilt when I came home from having lunch with a cooworker and because we had a little bit more than lunch we went on a walk together and you know did some other things that we you know just just inappropriate behavior you know like like it was kind The Need for Safety of in a friendly way but I I just needed to feel good and almost like push the boundaries to feel good and and then when my wife quartered me about it because I rre of guilt when I got home I couldn’t tell her the truth I just I was so afraid of losing everything that I I couldn’t tell her the truth and um so I hit it and had another couple of flirtations over the next year or two again nothing like physical or anything but just would take my attention outside of my marriage to get validation you know straight up um I look back now and I mean of course it disgusts me now to even like think that that’s who I was and then um long story short I I I had about four yeah about four little flings I guess you want to call it during a time period about five years ago and um I just I just buried them deep in my heart um li like I told you I lied about it to my wife when she asked me what happened at lunch that day you know she’s like something else happened I feel it I feel it she kept telling me you know her senses were because I just rre of guilt man I I wear my emotions on my on my sleeve and um and then about a year ago I reconnected with God in a totally different way um God Spirit Universe whatever you want to call it and um this voice said you got to come clean and tell her all this stuff and while I was praying like I was like meditating praying and it was just like you got to come clean I was like no like like no this will destroy everything so I kind of squashed it down again and then a couple of months ago it kept coming back in my head just louder and louder and it was like blocking every time I try to talk to God it was like a guilty conscience basically straight up just a guilty conscience I I felt like my my lack of clarity and lack of sincerity with my wife would hold us back from a vibrant future I kept having this feel Psychological Triggers that that that these women that I had flirted with and talked to would get jealous if they saw me or my wife successful and that they would because people like to crash right like they like to be vindictive when someone else is successful someone likes to take you down right I felt that this past would come back to haunt me if I didn’t get rid of it um so it’s this weird guilty conscience thing and um you you know so I’ll tell you what happened is on Valentine’s Day night my wife and I went to had a good time but some things went South in our Valentine’s Day evening I felt very unloved that night and very um very much hurt by an action that happened and I don’t want to talk about it on the show but I I felt very much like I could no longer trust my wife um some things said happened that night and um the next day I I went out in the woods and I cried my eyes out I talked to God for like three hours by myself in the woods out of the blue this guy comes up to me in the middle of the woods he’s like I heard a tree snap and I was like I heard a tree snap and but he comes to talk to me and I I just spill my guts to him I don’t have a clue who this guy is so I’m like looking for advice right um I’d already had a a good friend of mine say no do not talk about that stuff leave it in the past it’s dead you’re not that man anymore right like you yeah maybe that wasn’t right you should have admitted to doing it back then but now don’t talk about it just keep it buried let the sleeping dogs lie kind of stuff that was I got I got that advice from three different people that I would ask about because it was in my head I kept trying to think like what do I do with this information it’s eating me alive this I felt I felt guilt eating me alive even though the past year of my marriage has been the happiest year of almost 10 years of marriage I’ve freaking self-sabotaged and then go tell her I go tell her that hey you know five years ago I did more than what I said I did and and and I panicked and I didn’t tell her everything because my brain went into shutdown mode where I freaked out and Types of Lies because she got really animated and pissed off as she had every right to be and I shut down and then um and then after the emotions died down the brain came back on said hey you didn’t tell her everything like you said you were going to and I knew I had in my heart my heart hurt and so I waited I I I prayed about it again I said do I need to tell her all the rest of this or does she get the idea now and it just kept coming up like hey you basically emotionally cheated on your wife she has a right to know what happened that’s the guilt that kept talking to me and so like three weeks later I tell her hey there’s more I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the rest of this but there is more and then and and it has gone pretty far south of course now because she feels that I’m a habitual liar that nothing I say will ever um be truthful that um and here’s the reality like I can’t I just can’t remember when I try to tell her it’s like it all just goes it’s like Panic sets in and and can’t remember anything that I want to tell her because it’s like I’m freaked out so much you know that I’ll be to be very honest that I’m gonna lose everything that’s that’s what it is that’s what freaks me out um look I know I got like relationship issues with women I’ve had it my whole life like a distrust for women you know my mom cheated on my dad left my dad you know and at a younger not a young age but like when I was a teenager and early teenager and it just feels like I’ve never had a I just I guess I just always feel like women are going to cheat on me so I’m like I thought everyone flirted with other people kind of deal and it just I don’t know why that when I get panicked like that when it comes to When A lot’s on the line right you know like she’s like I just she tells me I just want the truth is what she tells me you know basically you’re a coward if you don’t tell the truth you know those are her words right I I just couldn’t do it Mark have you have Consequences of Lying you gone to therapy at all um no no um okay um the reason I ask is because you’re you’re seeing patterns of behavior here as you’re talking like there’s a pattern going on and you know there’s something underneath like there’s you know your first marriage there was infidelity this marriage there’s been emot tional infidelity there’s been a consistent pattern of freaking out when it comes to getting honest and uh just vulnerable and open um but there’s there’s a reason why um and I think you touched on it a little bit when you you talked about what you went through um in your family when your mom left your dad um what are you so afraid of I I think I tend to um I tend to box myself in and thinking because I I I I tend to believe I’m extremely intelligent but I I feel like I’m stuck as a teenager motion I feel like I’m stuck at like that age of like a teenager like where I don’t want to say it’s kind of a game but like but I I do I I feel like I always my whole adult life up until recently I’ve always felt like I needed outside validation I never felt like I was good enough like especially with women and like what’s fascinating is I’ve had women tell me like straight up you’re [ __ ] hot excuse my language but like you’re hot yeah yeah like like you’re an attractive guy you know like and I’ve always had pretty my self-confidence always felt like a facade it always felt like it was there just to get validation and then but it’s a double-edged sword when when you need validation from women you’ll seek it so you’ll seek a relationships inappropriate relationships and then you’ll also hide who you really are from your wife and it’s all the same thing it’s all the same thing that I don’t Fear of Vulnerability know if I’m lovable um I don’t know if I’m Chosen and so I want to prove it by seeking it or I want to protect the the the feeling that I’m not lovable by manipulating my partner so she stays is with me it’s the same thing can you see that yeah yeah I I don’t know why I do it it’s horrible like I it never I never realized I was really doing all that until like recently just kind of like it’s just like I see my behavior and I’m like it’s like a shame cycle you know like you know you shouldn’t talk to other women but you do it because it feels good right and then you hide it because you don’t want your wife to flip out on you and and threaten to leave you and everything just because you smiled and felt good for a bit you know like and I I guess I was too much of a I didn’t have the strength to tell her what was going on inside of me back then here here’s the thing Mark is your fear is that she’ll leave you and your behavior is going to create her leaving you yeah right and that that’s so so we got to break this we got to deal with the actual issue um because long you can’t can’t you can’t juggle this forever you can’t you this this system isn’t working yeah right so so you know I want to come back to to this part of it right now but I want to just illustrate this because so many people can relate to what you just just shared here and I want to point this out for people to help them understand it we talk about different kinds of disclosures and one of them is what we call Death By A Thousand Cuts where you go and you disclose one thing and you’re like okay I disclosed it I feel good now and then a sudden you go away and your conscience kind of kicks back in and you’re like oh crap I wasn’t totally honest like dang it I got to go tell her more and then you go and tell her more and but you only tell her just enough to get her to not leave you but now your conscience feels better but then your conscience kicks back in and she’s over here going like why do you keep bringing this stuff back up like you’re killing every single time but the reason you’re doing it is because you’re like so afraid of losing her because deep inside yourself you feel like you’re not good enough and you don’t you’re not really Coping Mechanisms worthy of her in the first place and so and then you have this other part of you which is the noble part of you that is going to eat at you until you get clear with the noble part which is you want to be an honest guy you have a heart inside of you that wants to live with a clear conscience and be an honest guy fear of disconnection that if people really see you as you are they won’t want you and they’ll leave you and that’s where Brandon was going is is that now you’ve got got other women giving their validation sues the shame but then the fear of losing your wife leads to the dishonesty because you don’t want to lose her CU then that could be rejection and down at the core is your work is actually coming to understand yourself and learn to become resilient to the shame that you’re experiencing that’s causing both the dishonesty in relationship and the outward pursuing of that validation but it’s a shame issue it has nothing to do with women it doesn’t have to do with your wife doesn’t have to do with these other women that you’re seeking this from um you’re searching for it in all the wrong places um you know Eldridge says that femininity cannot bestow masculinity and and what that means is like men search for their worth through women that we that they do that all the time and you can you can seek for it by hiding things from your wife you can seek for it by getting relationships you’ll never actually get your question answered and so I want to back up a little bit you’re do you come from a big family do you have siblings just um one sister one sister are you the oldest I’m I’m the youngest by like four years so they’re decent little separation between the two of us so you’re the youngest only boy and you were early adolescence when your mom left your dad yeah she basically just started like not showing up at home and when she would show up they would just argue and then you know my dad like basically moved out like into the living room for like two years you know my sister was gone in college and all this was starting to happen and um yeah I just she just was a ghost like and then one time like I remember walking down like see her and she was on the computer Embracing Honesty and she like turned the computer off and like what are you doing like you know yelling at me and stuff you know for like just coming to say hello to her CU she was hiding stuff right so straight up she was doing stuff on the computer and then turn into more and I at the time I forgot I’m I’m going to tell you this straight up like a couple of months ago my dad reminded me of an incident that happened when I was there and and that’s when she told us I’m leaving right like she told us like I’m leaving the family or whatever and my dad was like yeah man son you took it hard you you he’s like you stormed off and punched the wall and said something along the lines of I thought our family was better than this it’s just a big lie is what I said I guess I don’t remember any of that like I I still can’t remember like my brain has no memory other than him telling me of it did you as Early Childhood did you feel like connection and love and like nurturing from your mom no I mean yeah but like no like she was a good mom like she would love to I mean she would do things for us you know cook and clean we’d have fun occasionally but look I can remember back like quite a bit now that I think about it like I’ve thought about this a lot of the past month or two as I’ve disclosed this and torn my life to shreds I’ve I’ve been thinking a lot about why this is happening and um you know I can I can recall the way that she used to to treat us as kids or treat me and I just felt like like if I ever if I ever messed up I felt like the world was coming down on me because of her because of her reactions right like like you mess up she wasn’t the type that would just be like okay well you messed up let’s let’s fix this it was it was like freak out mode like like why would you do like judgment like judgment like condemnation judgment and um you know my dad was always super duper the opposite you know like you know forgiving you know like I mean he would he would discipline you know but my mom was always the wait till your dad gets home right like and then she would turn it over to him but that’s after she would get like pissed at me and then you know then he would have to do the discipline which was usually like a like a talk and then a Real-Life Stories spanking and then um um I I can recall another incident where we were on a boat and we got trapped in this really bad storm and um and uh my mom like freaked out and was like yelling at us like we’re gonna die like and my dad was like Rock Solid right he’s over there holding this we’re under this bridge and this huge wind Storm’s happening and he’s holding the Rope to like tie it to the boat and everything and keeping us stable and she’s just sitting there screaming that we’re all about to die and like you know I’m like six years old I could still remember that that was pretty that was pretty wild but that that that story is kind of a metaphor for your childhood in many ways right your dad holding steady like just trying to keep the ship solid and your mom yelling freaking out like being pretty intense yeah as you’re telling these stories Mark you’re making a lot of sense um you connection do you see the connection of what you just said I feel like an emotional teenager I have my mom abandoned me when I’m a teenager but before that I’m afraid of her because her responses when I mess up are bad like that I get punished and now I get abandoned and then you said and I don’t know why but every time I go to tell my wife something her response I I shut down I can’t I can’t even think clearly like yeah I mean connection between those things yeah I mean my wife is she has a history of being super aggressive with her responses and I I don’t want to I’ll just leave it there well I’m wondering let’s let’s dig let’s get to it here like what when it when it came to you to Mark to that child who who mom was pretty intense with and um to that teenager that that Mom left the family and left you um what kind of identity did you take on what beliefs about you did you have as a result of Moving Forward those experiences I’m not sure can you guide me we can see them through your behaviors right now as an adult they’re coming out I mean Tyler could probably tell you right know what they are but it’s better if you figure them out yourself um so so think about it Mark yeah I mean if Mom’s really intense and you can’t like you get in big trouble what do you learn as a child about about who you are yeah that you can’t be who you are because you you don’t feel like look I I guess I’ve learned this that if like so for my kids I’m just going to relate for a second because it’s really been the past couple of years like that I’ve it’s just been I feel like the best dad and husband that I’ve ever could have been go figure I I’ve strived to create an environment to where when my kids mess up they can like say hey Dad you know I I was smoking pot you know what I mean like like and I’m going to tell you in our past in this family like it would be freak out for Mom and scare the [ __ ] out of them where they shut down and they don’t talk and then they have major traumas that they have to go to counseling for M or you Conclusion could have like I’m just gonna say this I’m not trying to bash myself or or you could do like me and just like not say anything which is not good either because I’m supposed to be leading this family as a man but I’m too but I’m too afraid of stepping on her toes as a mom because these were my step kids and I was unsure where to draw the line on discipline and you know I just I just was a coward to be frank with you I hate to use that word but like in the past that’s who I was and in the past couple of years I’ve kind of taken over as as the kids have gotten a little older into their teenage years I’ve I feel like we’ve created a space that where they feel like they can mess up and be safe um and what I mean by that is I wanted them to as a teenager especially make choices where you’re gonna mess up but I don’t want you to feel that when you mess up that that you can’t tell the ones that you love which is your parents your mom your dad you know like wh why is that so important there there’s got to be something that because I apparently I could never be who I was it’s the only thing I can figure um but you you something inside Share Your Thoughts of you knows that’s really important for the for your kids right and you didn’t have that um it and be you learned something as a result of not having that and your your childhood um you learn that love is conditional you learn that love is earned you you learned that and this isn’t true but you believed that you’re deficient and you need to either prove yourself or hide yourself in order to be okay yeah right um and then on top of that throw throw on top of all of that abandonment and it makes perfect sense you’re acting out with women and trying to manipulate your wife to love you can can you see it can you see the what why this is happening yeah I um when when all that was happening you know so I joined the army when I was 17 it was a long process as it always is Right divorce I think it took them years to divorce they were separated for like maybe a year or two before they divorced which took another what year or two whatever when I joined the army when I was 17 um I did it for two reasons one is my Final Reflections grades were [ __ ] and then and then and then two um I wanted to be the hero like I’m gonna tell you straight up I I had a hero complex I think it came from all this too I wanted to be the hero man I wanted to like be a hero and be get recognition I wanted to I wanted to feel good about myself so I joined the military I had this big plan to go into Secret Service and all that um you know like when I was in the Army though my dad had to reach out to me via Red Cross because at the time you couldn’t have cell phones or anything it was all you know like and when you’re in training they they take all that right and so the only way they can get a hold of you is through the Red Cross well my dad got a hold of me in in training through the Red Cross which is like weird you know because you don’t have any contact with family for like 17 weeks basically and um and he told me you know he called me crying and was like son your mom’s divorcing me like it was Final right or whatever and I I never forget what I said to him I was such a jerk man I just said you got your own life to live and so do I and I hung up on I hung up on my dad from like across the country and I hadn’t heard from him for weeks you know I just said hey that that’s your problem you know like you you screwed it up I got my own life to live is pretty much what I told him wow and um I think I I’ve come to realize recently that I I kind of just got that way against both of my parents you know I was just like I don’t know I don’t know I I felt like I had been lied to for a long long time as a kid of what was happening like so Rec recently with with everything exploding in my marriage I’ve been very open with my kids on exactly what I’ve done exactly you know hey look here’s what’s happening here’s what I did I’m sorry I betrayed the family by putting us in this position and doing what I did and I said the one thing that I hope that can come out of this is that you learn from me like you know you learn and say hey look here’s what Dad did here’s and I talk to my kids openly about my behavior and even what’s going on in here you know because they’re all they’re the youngest one’s nine I don’t have the conversations with him yet like to that extent he just knows that there’s some rocky stuff going on but the older two are 16 and 18 and you know and then my daughters are 21 and 19 so they they shoot they’re basically my they they’ve been through counseling they’re basically my counselor sometimes I feel like Mark do you know what Mark do you know what you need to do to to shift this to not continue these patterns what’s that you know so I just want to because with the time that we have I really want to give you some direction of what to address and um what you what you need to do in order to not live in in this anymore um but Tyler I want to put you on the spot um do you do you have things I’m sure you do I have my own thoughts on it you know we’re going off of a 20 minute conversation so far so but I do have my I do have some thoughts on that um so so you don’t have a you don’t have a cheating problem you’ve got an Integrity problem and the Integrity problem stems from from an attachment problem and the attachment problem is connected to your shame and your shame is connected to your trauma and the trauma is what fueled the shame so you experience hang on Tyler let’s check do you understand what Tyler just said Mark yeah absolutely and and I’m gonna if you don’t mind me just adding one more incident that just seems to pile on in my personality issues um would be when I was in the Army I I got injured and um I wasn’t available for my team I was a team leader I was injured due to handang grenade stuff and um and then my my team like a week later went out with somebody else and a whole bunch of people died and my one of my my driver came up to me in the middle of the night woke me up and I was like what are you doing here you this is when I was like bedridden because I couldn’t do anything and uh he’s like oh yeah we got into this Ambush and all these people died and if you had been there this would have never have happened because everyone like back when I was in the Army I was like the [ __ ] and uh man it took me years to really figure that part of me out like we were watching a movie and I’m sorry I’m way off topic for a second but we were watching a movie like a few years ago with my current wife and is called um thank you for your service and and just watching it having no issues at all then all of a sudden like in the middle of the movie there’s this scene and I just I literally broke down crying in the middle of the living room and everyone was like what in the heck is going on and it was just that what do they call it survivors guilt and um I don’t know like I think part of me still deals with that a little bit I don’t know why I don’t know why I still deal with it in my head a little bit knowing like The Logical mind knows like come on Mark you know like there’s nothing you had to do with any of that you know but of course but of course you still deal with it yeah I mean that’s a big deal that’s a lot weird stuff man it’s just weird stuff yeah so Tyler say that again he doesn’t have a cheating problem you actually do have a cheating problem but Tyler’s saying that’s not the problem right right so say it again Tyler he doesn’t have a cheating problem he has a got an Integrity problem and the Integrity problem stems from an attachment problem and the attachment problem stems from the shame problem and the shame problem stems from the trauma that he’s experienced and and and most people want to try to pluck off the fruit of the cheating which you need to do you have to do that the kind of man you want to be means you’re going to have to do that but in order to actually do that in a real way you’ve got to go to the place where your body is experiencing the fear of disconnection so deeply that you are willing to sacrifice your values to try to make sure your wife doesn’t stay mad at you right now and your body doesn’t know the difference it’s as if you’re in combat and it’s saying you’re going to die because no one we’re we’re wired for connection and attachment and now there’s a belief inside of you that says that if your wife were to reject you then you you’re basically your worst fear will come true you’ll die basically that’s what the body is saying yeah and so I’m to sacrifice my values and my Integrity in order to try to keep from getting rejected and what you have to do this is sounds weird you have to go confront the places where you learned that you were rejectable and you’ve got to make peace with those parts of your life and you’ve got to look at it from a different set of eyes and treat yourself differently and if you don’t do that it’s going to be really difficult to pluck off the fruit of having these emotional Affairs yep there’s a there’s an inner child inside of Mark that’s screaming out saying I’m not safe I’m going to get abandoned I’m not loved I’m not okay there’s an adult self inside of Mark that’s putting on a mask and saying look I’m goodlooking I’m a good father I’m you know I’m I’m I’m I’m okay I’m okay but that child is in there like freaking out scar to death right and and so the answer isn’t to help solidify that adult Behavior so to speak like here let’s make you look better and behave better the answer is for that child to be held and and taught that that he is loved and that he is okay and that all the messages that he got from his trauma were actually [ __ ] like not true that you’re that that you’re conditionally loved that you have to earn it that you and but you have to hold that child in order to do that and what I mean by that is go into the deepest darkest fears and the trauma and sit with it and deal with it and desensitize the trauma and I would also suggest you do some some trauma work around your combat experience as well um Mark Mark it’s time for you to go to therapy with a good therapist who understands trauma work is trained in ifs is trained in EMDR um instead of trying to like change your behaviors and fix things around your marriage it’s time to go do the Deep work and focus on you um and focus on desensitizing that trauma right do you understand what I’m saying yeah I uh my wife and I have gotten kind of it’s just she she knows how to push every button you know as course of course she does and I’m I’m not able to control my emotions right now so I move to the back of the house in a separate room but um yeah I mean like I would be lying if I said that I want to fix my marriage because of my marriage I mean yes I want to be a good dad and all that but I man I a year ago I told my son whatever I’ve been doing for the past 40 years is not working and and I have to change who I am is like I have to change you know like I have to change and I didn’t know what that would mean when I put that out to God or to the universe whatever you want to call it um you know when we pray and we ask God for something to be something different we don’t always know exactly what it’s gonna do to get you there like you go through and then you know like I said I got people telling me hey yeah don’t bring that up that’s the past I’m like I’m like but why does it eat at me you know like what like how do how do you just bury that like not tell your wife that you did this stuff you know like it just that just didn’t sit right with me you know all these men that are called themselves Christians telling me to do that and I’m like like isn’t God a god of truth I mean like what the heck like my morals just seem like they’re all over the place but you know deep down like and we can hear this like you’re you are a good man and also I would say um I’ve I’ve heard a couple of things I think you’re really important to God like you being you you not dying in combat um um you you not also some stranger showing up in the middle of the woods to help you process and like I I don’t think that’s coincidence these things no it was not coincidence that was the most crazy experience I’ve ever had like he’s like oh I heard a stick snap and I was like and he’s like that made me look over and I saw you and I was like I heard a stick snap and I thought it was you stepping on a stick and he’s like no I didn’t step on any stick and I’m like okay come you found each other right yeah and yeah got is fighting for you um you’re really important um but you got to address the underneath stuff I mean that’s that’s really the the key to it all yeah I’ve got some VA counseling signed up I just got to get started on it like I haven’t done the first session yet so when you go I don’t know how the VA works but you want to make sure as Brandon said that the therapist is trained in something like ifs or EMDR um and if get to choose a therapist make sure you get some training there um I’d also recommend something this is going to be all tied together Brandon and I like in the way that we work with people we have them start with some basic building blocks something called The Daily charge and then something called lines of Defense the daily charge is about caring for yourself you know connection with other people Hobbies mindfulness rest God exercise that kind of stuff but then the the lines of Defense are where I might also challenge you most people set their lines of Defense around the fruit part I’m not going to have an emotional affair I’m not going to talk to women you guys you probably need some of those but the biggest line of defense that I think you could set for yourself right now is this Mark every time you recognize that you feel like you’re lying or hiding you have to share that with somebody within the next day um so man I went to bed oh I I got this guilty conscience I’m going to call somebody on my team that’s why we it works to have a good group of men or something I’m going to get straight with it and then if I need to I’m going to turn around and go tell my wife um imagine living for a full year where the minute you know you’re hiding you speak it out loud number one your conscience will actually get clearer but number two it’s going to lead you to the path that you’re afraid of going anyway which is that your wife will then have the information to make the decisions that she needs to to make and she might ultimately leave you right but that’s the cave you have to enter is you’ve got to go make peace with the fact that if somebody leaves you what does that mean about you does it mean you’re unlovable does it mean you’re unworthy is it proof that all those beliefs are actually true or is it something that you need to navigate where you can realize it doesn’t matter what my mom did it doesn’t matter what my wife does it doesn’t matter whatever anybody else does I have a different relation relationship with somebody bigger than me something bigger than me and I know that I’m lovable no matter what yeah that honesty is going to facilitate you stepping into the deeper work because that honesty is going to is going to force choices for you and for the people around you mark have you ever read Wild at Heart um no I’ve heard of it never read it okay so are you a Christian Mark you you spoken in spirituality in terms of like Universe like where where yeah so I I mean I was raised in a very traditional Christian family um I would call it a full gospel right that’s I I considered you know going to Jesus when I was 30 years old as an adult and then I got really mad at God few years ago like I remember standing in my backyard cussing at God saying this is not what the freak I have forign a marriage anyways and um I now I don’t really consider myself Christian like the church considers me a Christian um but I do believe in yeah definitely a higher power that we are co-creating with God lives in us but it’s not really in a religious way it’s more of esoterism I guess would be what you consider my belief system or Jewish mysticism right like the cabala and all that like like I I believe in I believe that we live in a vibrational universe and and that frequency is is everything you know what your subconscious is that’s literally generating your reality you know so like it’s this is all kind of like the Matrix right so and and like like I said God is within us and but goes you know with what we think about like yeah creat the vibrations yeah esoteric belief system I guess would be the the most accurate way to describe my my belief system right now that that’s awesome um I I think Mark we have uh reclaim yourheart dorg we have a full like framework system for you to to work through you’re like a perfect candidate for it um but it’s a process and it’s hard but it works if you work it and we also have a community there we have education we have support like we have we have everything you need to actually go heal these deeper wounds um if if you want to go there it’s reclaim yourheart dorg um also if if I were you um when we open up Rising Sun in in our our retreat in the fall I would be the first guy on the list to to make sure that you’re you’re going to be able to come to that um that there we also do we do a ton of experential work um we push you we challenge you um we get you to feel feel some things that you haven’t felt in a long long time um so uh between those two things along with a good therapist who’s doing some some EMDR some trauma work with you wild the heart would be good for you too I cut you off Brandon but yeah yeah yeah Wild at Heart um I know I know I’m loading you up here but no it’s okay you know I got Wild at Heart reclaim your heart um and the Rising Sun along with a good therapist you’re going look back and be like okay like I’m I’m actually dealing with this now um I’m dealing with the actual issue I’m getting better um I’m loving myself more trusting myself more having confidence and what do you know I’m authentic I’m honest and and I stand in my strength now um but you can’t snap your fingers and all of a sudden you’re that man right you must go through the process and practice and understand your trauma and get conscious in order to to to then realize who you really are um so it’s there for the taking Mark if you if you want to if you want to work it we’re happy to help in any way that we can yeah reclaim your reclaim your heart.org right yep reclaim your heart.org okay Mark we’re just about out of time are is there anything else on your heart or anything else that needs to be spoken today I mean like you know I’ve I struggle like I’m just going to be open and this all ties back into Brandon I’ve heard you talk about it about sex addiction and all that stuff and porn addiction and I remember when my wife told me because I used to like man I started watching porn when I was like 10 right like it started at a very young age and yeah you it’s you consider it normal so to speak right and then um when my my current wife earlier on in our marriage she said um I consider poor and cheating and I was like what it really came down to I I think that her and I had differing views on where infidelity lied you know and and we were never I could never be honest with her I guess at the time of I I just caved into her belief system rather than rather than saying let’s talk about this help me to understand why you feel that way and because I and so rather than doing that I HIIT it for years that I would still do it you know what I mean and and now I don’t really do it anymore it’s it’s weird how the heart changes over time it’s just that now all those years of deception I’ve opened the can of worms to by bringing the past into the present which that’s where I’m like man every man told me to leave the past in the past and like that’s my burden to carry and I’m like well how come this guilty conscience is eating me alive so no of course that’s no one could answer that right so like and so now like being open and honest with my wife it’s it’s definitely open that door more into but now she of course she’s like I’m done with you you know we’re divorcing and this is just you know so it’s just um I’m just believing that as I work on myself that that I just don’t know why that that voice said hey you’ve got to comp clean with her to everything after years I had like forgotten and buried it you know then all a sudden my conscience was like and I’m like no it it it scared me it like scared me to death to think about that and I don’t know why I believe that fearful thing to where I just unloaded and basically Dropped a Bomb on my family years after it was kind of dead and gone and I and I’m not that man anymore but yet it’s be Mark it’s because you’re trying to get in alignment with your integrity and so it’s like it’s still in there and it’s like okay I gotta like I it’s because you’re a good man actually trying to get in alignment with your integrity but now it’s like whoa like the damage of the way this has all gone down is is not awesome but so then it’s like okay instead of getting back in this mess again in the future do your work so you’re not in that mess in the future yeah um so that you can be consistently honest and open and authentic so yeah Mark we’re out of time but uh it’s been awesome talking to you today I appreciate your vulnerability your willingness to just open up and talk about all kinds of things today so I appreciate it it’s an honor like it’s it’s tough to to say this stuff hopefully this will be helpful to you just to have come on and spoken it but then also to go back and be able to listen to it again I think there’s some things in there that will be good for you to go back in reference okay I just want to say man I’m glad I’m grateful for your willingness to come on and shoot so straight and be so open I don’t know what the outcomes are going to be in your life with your marriage and other things but I do know this and I know that the inside of you knows this and what it’s why it keeps pulling you back here there’s a good part inside of you that knows that you were built to be an honest man and and there’s no better feeling in the world at least in my estimation than going to bed on a clear conscience and when you start life where you go to bed every night on a clear conscience you start to do beautiful things and I hear you going there you got to confront your shame to get the honesty intact U but when you do that disguise the limit for you man so so thank you for coming on today appreciate it yeah thank you all right you guys if this was helpful please share it if you’re grateful for Mark too don’t don’t hesitate to leave a review and mention him and just say thank you and until next time keep on keeping on