Warrior Compassion: Healing Men & Mending Society

THE EVOLVED CAVEMAN PODCAST: WHY MEN NEED HEALING AND WHAT THE HELL TO DO ABOUT IT

This episode gets real. Dr. John Schinnerer, top men’s therapist, sits down with Sean Harvey, CEO of Warrior Compassion Institute and author of Warrior Compassion, to tackle a topic most guys avoid like a visible STD—healing.

Sean has spent years working inside hypermasculine, paramilitary organizations (e.g., fire, police, etc.), helping men navigate personal transformation, shame, and the deep-rooted emotional baggage that no one ever taught them how to deal with. This is about more than just therapy—it’s about breaking cycles, stepping into authentic leadership, and learning how to balance power with compassion.

We get into it all. How attachment styles shape men’s ability to connect. How shame fuels self-sabotage. Why vulnerability is the real superpower. And, yeah, we even go there—addressing white supremacy, radicalization, and how to dismantle hate without turning it into another pissing contest. 

Sean’s approach is different. He gets men to do the work through adventure, play, and spaces where they actually feel safe enough to be real. No crystals. No drum circles. Just real conversations that lead to actual change.

WHAT WE’RE DIGGING INTO

Sean’s work inside paramilitary organizations and what he’s learned about men in extreme environments

Why personal growth for men isn’t just about “opening up” but about rewiring how we operate

How shame keeps men stuck in toxic patterns

Why most guys suck at relationships and how attachment styles explain a lot of it

The surprising role of play and adventure in men’s healing

The challenge of addressing white supremacy and radicalization without making it worse

How balancing masculine and feminine energies can make you a stronger, more grounded leader

How men can finally build real self-worth without external validation

ABOUT SEAN HARVEY

Sean Harvey is the CEO of Warrior Compassion Institute, the author of Warrior Compassion: Unleashing the Healing Power of Men, and a TEDx speaker on the power of compassion in leadership. He co-founded **Project Compassion**, a national movement to bring more emotional intelligence into police departments, federal law enforcement, and the military. His work now extends to firefighters, paramedics, veterans, and industries like defense and energy.

For over 25 years, Sean has worked in Leadership and Organizational Development, helping men step into authentic leadership while dismantling the toxic cycles that keep them stuck. He has also served on the faculties of Cornell, NYU, and Baruch College CUNY.

If you’ve ever felt like something is missing, if you’ve struggled to balance power and vulnerability, or if you’re just tired of the same old patterns running your life, this episode is a must-listen. Time to stop pretending and start doing the work.

To listen to this episode on Podomatic, click here.

To watch the video, see below.

The transcript has been included below if you’d rather read through it.

Healing Men and Mending Society w/ Dr. John Schinnerer & Sean Harvey – Transcript

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Hello, avid listener. This is Dr. John back with the latest episode of the Evolved Caveman podcast, and I am thrilled to have with me here today, Sean Harvey. And Sean is CEO and Senior Strategic Advisor of Warrior Compassion Institute, author of Warrior Compassion, Unleashing the Healing Power of Men. A TEDx speaker, which was entitled Compassion Makes the Warrior, he co founded Project Compassion, a national initiative to deepen compassion in police departments, federal law enforcement, and the military, which now extends to firefighters, paramedics, veterans, and sectors such as defense and energy.

Sean’s work addresses hate, polarization, and extremism. through innovative leadership and engagement strategies. With over 25 years of leadership and organization development experience, Sean’s also served on the faculties of Cornell, NYU, and Baruch College, CUNY. Sean, welcome. How are you doing? 

Sean Harvey:  I’m doing well.[00:01:00] Thanks for having me.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: So we had a fantastic conversation when we first met and I didn’t realize I was going to be having you on the podcast, but the conversation was so compelling that we had to do this. I agreed. So tell me a little bit about the work you’re doing in paramilitary organizations because that was fascinating to me.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I think it’s I’ve been in the men’s workspace for about eight years, eight or nine years, and I’ve been in organization development change management for about 25 years. By 26 years now, we’re in a new year. And I think just as I’ve been on this journey, it’s the spiritual path that I’m on, it just continues to show me what the next step is. And I just keep following each spiritual breadcrumb. And there’s a certain point when I realized when I moved to Washington, D. C. that My, the only organizations that were showing up were hypermasculine systems. So athletics defense police, [00:02:00] military. And so it just really it showed me that’s, this is, these are the places that, that it’s needed.

And then bringing men’s healing into those organizations. And given that a lot of these systems have men who’ve either. Men who hold hate or radicalize ideology have infiltrated or these cultures kind of support and grow men and who are vulnerable to more of this ideological the, these ideological, radicalized ideas. And so it just, the pieces all came together. And now I’m doing work in these organizations with corporate men’s circles or organizational men’s circles or men’s ERG programs or men as bridge builder programs or adventures as ways to engage men differently and to have men feel like they’re included as part of their wellbeing, their resilience and their inclusion in.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: The organizations were often, they felt excluded by the way [00:03:00] these initiatives have been done in the past. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: So you talk about men’s healing. What is What does that term look like and mean to you? 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: So it’s really a thing when we started doing our inner work. When I was at Eileen Fisher I was the head of personal transformation and wellbeing.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And so I was starting to see the power of this work on our employees when they were able to start doing some of their shadow work, limiting beliefs, work looking at their ego, looking at the Enneagram and just like some of the understanding they have of themselves. Why they do what they do, as opposed to just looking at what they do or the behaviors they have, what’s underneath.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And so being able to, to me, the healing work is doing the personal transformation work, doing the inner work and healing and starting to understand the shadow, understanding the wounds and starting to find ways of healing those wounds to come into your truest [00:04:00] definition of yourself. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah, I was thinking about this interview today and I was thinking part of that work also to me lately focuses on shame.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And uncovering areas of shame and also kind of attachment wounds. And I, I think men skew or men skew heavily towards avoidant attachment styles. And I think that when we’re avoidant, we can externalize blame. We convince ourselves that we’re rational. We disconnect from emotions. And I think that fits a lot of the work that you and I do with men.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I think when you add to that the grievance the grievances that I think are often at the root of some of the ideological radicalization and that the grievances that are misunderstood that are externally looking at externally, as opposed to looking within, for their own and our accountability.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And so I think it’s, I think we’re just looking at the kind of the perfect storm.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. And I think [00:05:00] that to me, externalization is a big part of this whole problem, because if, if you look at anger dynamics, I’m always curious about anger. And when I’m angry at you, I’m externalizing all blame onto you.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: So “if you just stop being such a fill in the blank, I wouldn’t be so pissed off”. But then you add, an avoidant attachment style to that, which adds to that externalization. And then any layers of trauma. And I agree, you’ve got this perfect storm where people are Pretty unaware of what’s going on internally and find it far easier, although un unconsciously to just blame the other, whether it’s an individual or a group.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And I think that’s part of the dynamic here that is so problematic.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I think I’m just thinking back to some of the examples I’ve come across, I think there’s shame. I think there’s the grievance. And then there’s, and then there’s the deep seated fears, and I think there’s the fears around. Especially when I talk to folks who want to be the, one guy wanted to be the face of the white power movement. And so I said, what’s that about?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: He’s it’s, it’s, it gives me pride in my identity. So I think that’s also the fear of losing relevance and the identity of claiming clinging to an identity that gives that sense of connection to self. And that’s, so I think there’s those layers as well 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Men’s Therapist: when, and from, the white supremacist that I’ve worked with in the past, it, one of the things that really strikes me is the need to belong.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And I’ve seen a lot of young men that are. Isolated, depressive, in the room on the internet that go down these rabbit holes that find identity, as you said, with some of these groups and finally feel like they belong somewhere. Although I would argue that it’s based on,[00:07:00] 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: it’s based on false beliefs. It’s based on cognitive errors. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work Expert: Yeah. I often say it’s toxic conditioning and faulty teachings, that, that are often in play. And finding that sense of tribal community or tribal belonging. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Men’s Therapist: Yeah, which is a basic human need that we all have. Literally it comes down to life or death if we look back to tribal times.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: That if you weren’t part of the tribe, odds are you weren’t going to survive. And so belonging to a group is incredibly important to us on an unconscious level. So Tell me about how you can, how you get men engaged in this work, because I think that’s one of the biggest sticking points for us in men’s work is, how do we get men to really look inward and do the work?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Because I think it’s scary. It’s terrifying at some 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: level. I think there’s, I think there’s a stigma around our [00:08:00] work. I think there’s stigma around personal transformation work in general for men. And that’s why I personally have gone the route of organizational systems because it’s one space I know it’s where I’ve been for the last.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Over two decades, and I can say men will invest in professional development more than they’ll invest in personal growth. So if you embed the personal growth aspects into professional development and skill development and put it into an environment that is voluntary, but safe because it’s organizational and it’s not that they have to do it on their own.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: But I do think, The flip side of it it’s usually through, the example I give, I created something called Men’s Soul Adventures DC when I lived in Washington DC. And within the first, and I didn’t know how it was going to go over. I didn’t know if there’d be any interest. In the first 24 hours, 52 guys signed up.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Within three months, we had 180 guys. And then I just experimented and went to three other, four other [00:09:00] cities. Within three days, we were up to 320 guys. That’s amazing. What it told me was one, we can’t really make it a circle. What’s going to keep guys like engaged if we’re just coming for a circle week after week to feel, can feel like therapy.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: But if you add an adventure or an outdoor component that can be powerful and you make it interesting and you mix it up and it’s always a new adventure that men really do want deeper connection, deeper bonding. And I think for a lot of these men, in particular, faith is a big component, either questions about faith, questions about spirituality how to relate what they’re religious teachings and upbringing to real world application and modern day application.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And so I think there’s a real, when we can connect. And I often, when I’ve often thought about this, what’s really driving our yearning is often our souls yearning that our souls yearning is yearning [00:10:00] for something our logical mind doesn’t understand. And so that’s why we got such, I believe we got such a great response to the solar ventures.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And when I started to really dig in and ask questions and, why a solar venture as opposed to an adventure. In Half War they wanted, a third of them said they wanted just a different type of adventure experience. A third wanted, just deeper conversations with men that went to even the more philosophical.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And then a third had just practical questions around spirituality, which I started calling practical spirituality for dudes. And that actually that combination, I think it’s finding the right combination of what’s going to find what in a man’s busy schedule, especially in that 30s early 40s when they have kids when they’re focused on work that they’re actually going to take the time to go do something and carve that out.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: [00:11:00] What is that going to be? If it’s not in the workplace, and I think you have to add that level of play, fun, creativity into the mix, that’s going to make it worth their while. And so I think when we get so consumed on healing and fixing and all of this, it’s it’s not necessarily going to resonate.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work Expert: But if you can embed it into cool, fun types of experiences. Where you have skilled facilitators that can hold the space to really take men into the types of questions that with the right positioning can just open guys up, and they start bonding with each other and go on deep.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Mens Therapist: Yeah, I really like the approach of, incorporating activities or adventures in there. The doing as opposed to just the talking, because I think traditionally that’s the way men have socialized is side by side, think hunting and the tribe versus face to face, eye to eye. And I think the face to face can often make us feel a little bit uncomfortable versus being shoulder to shoulder and [00:12:00] looking boat.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: We’re both looking at the same direction at some common goal and then having conversation as we move towards that common goal. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Right. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Whether that’s river rafting or hunting or whatever it is. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I think the only place that might be interesting to explore and test this out as well is with barbers because barbers tend to be able to get that same type of openness for guys.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: It’s, what happens in a barbershop for a lot of men. And maybe because they aren’t looking there, they’re, they’re not looking eye to eye. And 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: so it’s safer if you’re not looking eye to eye, we’ve done couples work Jory and I, where we have people look face to face, eye to eye gazing for two minutes.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And a lot of people find that really vulnerable and uncomfortable. And so I, I think it’s playing to our strengths and moving into the space using those strengths or where we’re more comfortable because one of the things I didn’t hear in your conversations [00:13:00] about what you were going after with the soul adventures is emotion, that emotional level.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: But I imagine you get to that around the edges. Is that a goal or is it more, you want to talk about spiritual or you want to talk about philosophical or cognitive issues? 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I think that, what I’ve seen is by opening with you, the philosophical, the spiritual, that is safe. And then guys started opening up about their relationships and about their kids and about their, what.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: What broke their heart, but I think it’s I don’t necessarily start with the emotions right out of the gate. I just, I trust that’s gonna that’s gonna, that’s gonna show byproduct. Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. Because I think one of the things that It scares most men is vulnerability is talking about our struggles, our challenges, or we’re not good.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Right. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And so to find places or find ways to help them to feel safe to [00:14:00] self reveal is critical because I think one of the things that. You’ve talked about in the past is this idea that we men think that oh I’m going through this thing it’s only me and then we minimize it. Oh, it’s not that big of a deal I’ll just deal with it on my own and yet there might be a hundred million other men going through exactly the same thing Whether that’s you know parenting challenges or relationship issues or ED or you know drinking or whatever it is and the more we can Connect over those areas of challenge.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: I think the closer we are and the more we can heal. I’ve thought about this a lot. If I just tell you all my accolades and all the shit on my resume, I don’t think that makes us any closer. In fact, it might make you think, geez, this guy, John’s a kind of a prick, he’s full of himself.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Whereas if I tell you, Hey Sean I just lost vision in my left eye and I’m hoping to get it back. And it’s been six weeks due to a retinal tear and a bleed. That’s a little bit more [00:15:00] vulnerable. And I would say that’s a better pathway to connection to authentic connection is to be vulnerable and to share your areas of struggle and fear and difficulty.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: One of the, one of the things that I always, whenever I lead a group, I have a no elevator pitch rule. And so I always say, tell us who you are, don’t tell us what you do, or we care about who you are than what you do. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Cause that’s going to be challenging. I think for many. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Oh, it is. It is. And and it’s also powerful when you frame the check in questions where they can’t talk about what they do.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Who am I other than what I do? Exactly. And then especially for so many men where that their work is their identity, and so I think, yeah we I think that’s a real challenge for. For a lot of men and when we are able to just share and break what I like to say the terminal uniqueness that we’re not the only one.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And it’s Oh, now we can bond and when we [00:16:00] don’t, when we don’t just give off all of our accolades. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. Yeah. And one of the exercises, one of the positive psychology exercises that I love is this idea of the best possible you introduction. And so it’s the idea of tell me a story of you at your very best, where there’s a story arc of you overcoming a challenge.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And, I remember doing this in a class I was teaching of psychologists and therapists and there was a psychologist from Stanford that I think had gotten great grades, Was working at Stanford after getting educated at Stanford like just had a stellar career, but really struggled with what do I say?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Whereas everyone else in the group was starting a story like one guy told a story about his really nasty contentious divorce and how he really worked on loving kindness and meditation to forgive his ex wife and eventually got to this place where He reconciled with the wife enough that he could go over there and help out around the house, even though they stayed divorced.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Mens Therapist: So it’s [00:17:00] this interesting part because I think that the bottom part of that story where you’re struggling is really what connects us emotionally. So I like that model. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work Expert: Yeah, no, that’s a great. I think this is the conversation we’re always having in men’s work. I’m always, how do we get men to be vulnerable?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: How do we invite men into vulnerability? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Or is there another word we can use besides vulnerability? That’s something else I’ve thought about. Men don’t like that word. I don’t want to be fucking vulnerable. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I did it. I actually brought that word in to training at an insurance company that had a very hyper masculine energy to it.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And the biggest pushback in that five day training was around that word vulnerability, vulnerable. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Let me ask you this. Do you remember the first time you were significantly vulnerable with others? Cause I do. I remember one that I had earlier. In fact, while you’re thinking about that, I’ll share mine if you don’t mind.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Yeah, go [00:18:00] ahead. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: I remember I was doing a radio show back in Jesus, almost 20 years ago and I’d come out. Cow with a PhD and someone offered me a radio show and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. First of all, I was scared shitless, but I while I sucked in the beginning, I slowly got better over time and got to interview some world class experts, but I had this realization that I need to share that part of my DNA is depression and part of its anxiety because if I can’t share it, then who the hell can.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And I remember being terrified before I did that, that I was going to get mocked and humiliated. And I went on the air and I shared it and. None of that happened. In fact, there was a lot of support and kindness that I received. But that was one of the first times that I was publicly vulnerable.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And I remember just being really scared to do it. And since then I’ve worked on it quite a bit and now I have pretty much no problem, but it’s definitely a process. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: You’re taking me back. [00:19:00] You’re taking me back. And I just got a kitten two weeks ago. So that’s what you’re maybe hearing some of the background noise. I remember I remember when I was in 12 step and I finally got my 90 day trip and finally told my story, told all aspects, the good, the bad, the ugly, and I just saw people crying in the room.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And when you hear the feedback. after and how it touched them, how that how they could relate to it. I think that’s when I really got the power of, telling our stories telling our, the good, the bad, the ugly the real ugly. True. And I think I’d been around long.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I think I’ve always been more open to being vulnerable, but I think being able to be in that conversation, I was able to really see the impact I had on others. [00:20:00] And these days, whenever I’m in a group, if I noticed the room is staying shallow, then I’ll model and just take the room with a different level of vulnerability.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: That was 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: my 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: next 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: question. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think, I think to your other point, when we start racking up the credentials, it becomes really easy to be intimidating. And and so I, what I was going to say to that other comment was vulnerability makes us human and shows our humanity.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And that’s the other part, which is not just hearing the story of vulnerability, but also showing our humanity and showing that we’re human. And that makes us more relatable. And so I find that in men’s work, especially I try to focus less on my credentials and more on just who I am as a person and, try to be authentic from that place, not from the place of my calling cards.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. I [00:21:00] realized that after I got the PhD from Berkeley and. Like I, I went, I did it because I wanted to I wanted the academic challenge. And I think at the time there was probably a little bit of ego in there as well. And then shortly after I got it, I realized, Oh shit, like this can be intimidating to a lot of people.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Like I need to start practicing kicking that pedestal out and just showing up as a human. And that’s one of the reasons I went and got the PhD is I was really curious about the level of emotion. I’m an emotion geek and have been for 30 plus years. And. I love that level because, while you and I might have different life experiences, the emotions that you have based on those experiences are quite similar to something I’ve experienced in the past.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And so I can connect with you on that level, regardless of differences in our lives. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Yeah and also the unexpected ways that we can relate, and I think to the, [00:22:00] often, was supposed to be a third generation long haul trucker. So being able to relate to the blue collar guy to the, corporate guy and being able to, yeah. I think it also gives us more versatility to relate to more men. And then they see like beyond our work facades. Who are we as men? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. When I like your point of kind of having that set of skills in your toolbox to connect to a wide variety of ages, people, demographics. I think that’s a huge asset.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: I remember I was like a trainee. I was an intern as a school psychologist. 30 years ago and I realized like I could go in the midst of one day I could go from working with a kindergartner who was on the spectrum to Talking to parents who you know I was telling them bad news about their child from test results to Talking with a professor at [00:23:00] Cal and I was like those are three radically different sets of communication skills and ways of being and to learn to flip through those quickly was huge for me Just as an example.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: So let’s talk a little bit about white supremacy and how to begin to dismantle that, how to come alongside. How do you begin to, cause I, you can’t challenge those belief structures. If you challenge individuals they’re going to turn away. How do you begin to go about that? 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I think first is.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Understanding the complexity, the understanding complexity of what it is, in the experiences I’ve had the first time the first, my first encounter was with a purple heart military army vet, who I thought we were he does some amazing mindfulness work and I thought we were on [00:24:00] the same page.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And a certain point, he just says, Yo, take a picture of me. And when I take a snap the photo, he flashes the white power symbol. In the middle of the photo and I was like what was that? And went to my spiritual guides and they’re like, yeah, this is this is your guy. These are your guys.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: You’re here to bring love to the hate. And and so I knew the next time I had a conversation with them, I just brought it in. I was like, working with cops and military. I’m going to meet my fair share of white supremacists, white nationalists. And he got uncomfortably dead silent for 45 seconds. And I said, all right Sean, what’s in your toolbox right now? Like you’re not, you can’t be a progressive, you can’t be a social justice warrior, you can’t wrong him. But you are a minister, so you can talk Jesus. So I hammered down, I didn’t, talk Jesus. I talked the principles and the teachings of Christ through love, compassion, and deeper humanity.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And that kept him in the conversation. So I think from that encounter, I started learning the linguistic gymnastics of what’s actually going to, for these [00:25:00] guys, and then to understand the complexity of their story. And then I think what we like to do is we like to say, all white supremacist, or in this case where we are today, all MAGA, we put all these guys into a box and say, yeah, I’m like no, these guys are complex human beings that often don’t have a way of expressing all their.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: either tapping into or expressing all their dimensions, or we don’t see their many dimensions. And the first is I acknowledge, I see them in their humanity. And I also separate out between their humanity and their views. And I know that their views are not their humanity. And so then I, from there, I know that the views that these guys hold often lead to a life of suffering.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: So as opposed to, I never say I meet guys where they are because I think that can be condescending because I’m coming down from a higher place. But what I do say is because I know that most men are suffering and political statistics and these guys in particular have some level of suffering that goes unacknowledged.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I [00:26:00] always say I meet them in their suffering. I’ve listened for their yearning and I have for hope in the midst of both. So that’s the mindset I hold. And then I just really get curious about their experience. And I, I, what I say is my, when I’m doing this work, my values and beliefs are secondary.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I can put them in my back pocket so I don’t lose them. I don’t lose my own integrity in it, but I don’t need to lead with it. I don’t need to hold them so hard safeguarded so that I can really understand their experience. And so I just get curious and I just ask questions from a place of open hearted non judgmental curiosity.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah, you, there’s a couple of things in there you mentioned, which I think are huge, the curiosity and non judgmentalness are key because you’ve got to understand where they’re coming from and why they hold the views they hold, and quite respectfully, and I remember the first time I did it, it was difficult.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: It was difficult to put my judgments in my [00:27:00] back pocket. And, you get better at that and I think it’s the only way I, one of the exercises that I like that has been shown to reduce racism is the 36 questions exercise where there’s this list of 36 questions and it’s broken up into three sections of 12 and you alternate asking each other questions and just listening to the answers, no comment and What they find in research is that by going through this exercise, you can have, for instance, African American and a white supremacist doing this exercise, and it reduces the racism.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And it’s, that seems like a relatively simple exercise, but it allows one another, it allows each individual to see the humanity behind the mask. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: See, I think you just hit it. We like to make this stuff really complex. And we like to over package it, we like to over process it. And what I’m finding is often it’s the simplest [00:28:00] activities or experiences and just breaking down the isolation, creating the sense of connection, asking questions that go deeper than even subtly deeper than the superficial, can start to open the door.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And when it feels like an invitation as opposed to a mandate, it feels like an invitation as opposed to forced. If it and I know with working with cops and military, if it doesn’t feel political, right? And so I think there’s just certain things that you start learning, like what’s gonna what’s gonna trigger and what’s not.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And like I said, living with my ex boyfriend, who was ultra conservative MAGA, I got to learn what’s going to land, what’s not going to land and it opened the door for me to say, okay, how to really do this work. And for me with him, it was like, how do I love this man?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Even when I hate his views and I don’t hate him, I hate, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: it was a great distinction. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. And one of the things I’m also trying to do in those situations [00:29:00] is over time, get at what’s underneath the anger and and that’s, I’ve done anger management for many years. And. It’s a question I teach a lot of clients, like what’s the secondary emotion. Anger is not always a secondary emotion, but a lot of times there’s emotions underneath anger guilt, shame, sadness, embarrassment, depression, things like that, anxiety even, and so to begin to get at what are you actually feeling underneath that anger that’s fueling the anger?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And I, you mentioned irrelevance early on. And I think that’s, it’s not an emotion, but it is a thought, a fear. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I think, what I would, we would when Jim and I started dating, we would have these rage filled conversations about politics, rage filled. And I said, look, I said, I’m not here to change your, I don’t care what your politics are.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I’m not here to change your politics. It’s not my job, and [00:30:00] it’s not my place, but given what I do for a living, I, you best believe I’m going to call you out and ask you about the anger with which you hold those views. What’s behind, what’s beneath that anger? What’s that about?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And that’s and basically over the course of our nine month relationship, we went from rage filled Political conversations to non emotional civil political conversations. And so even if it wasn’t shifting anything else, but just like getting us a better sense of creating safety to understand the anger and the emotion involved, I think that was a huge movement.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And what I often say then when I’m able to really hold someone around their hate, my question is, all right, so let’s talk about the hate. Let’s understand what’s underneath that, and so I think to your point, the emotions. The anger, the rage, the hate beer, and then underneath it the deep seated fear, the shame, what are what’s creating the, the third rail [00:31:00] that’s going to electrify you if you touch it, what’s that about?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And I always look at that’s. When you’re going into some of these conversations, the, one of the best ways to engage the conversation is just to do a, like a process check around what’s going on emotionally, or to just name the emotion that you’re seeing and then say, let’s just unpack what that’s about.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And that usually deescalates in a certain way. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. One. And I think part of it also is about creating greater emotional awareness, self awareness in any of us, because I think we all need some teaching there. Introspection there?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: The one thing there, there’s not a lot of us to do this work. There’s a lot of us do men’s work these days, but not a lot of us do this work with men and these particular groups of men. I think you can see it in for a lot of men on the right, evangelical mega churches that can do a men’s revival and take a thousand guys out, right?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: So the spiritual aspect to it or [00:32:00] religious, I should say religious aspect, but you’re getting the dogma as well. But to be able to, outside of that context, be able to engage men on the right or the far right. Or extremists in this type of work, I often look at it as a gift that they see me as non threatening and feel safe opening up.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And so I think there’s something in that to also explore. What is it about me? You that if we’re able to do this work that what are we doing to create the level of safety the level of comfort. And being, feeling like we’re non threatening. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: So what would you say is, 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: what’s behind that for you?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: For me? I think one, I’ve done A lot of my own inner work. So I don’t, I’m not coming with inner turmoil when I approach these guys. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: So when is another way to say that you have some calmness to you or peace generally 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: calmness, groundedness piece. [00:33:00] Yeah. So I think that’s part of it. I think part is I’ve integrated in the masculine and the feminine.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And so they don’t necessarily understand the feminine but they’re drawn to it, I think I understand I mean I have what I call, in this work practice package privilege like I can look the parts. And I’m, I really demonstrate that I can be curious about their story and they’re not, they’re going to be judged.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. Nonjudgmental. Yeah. I love the idea of balancing the masculine and the feminine. I honestly think that’s the goal for all of us or a goal. For all of us, male or female. I think that, one of the things I talk a lot about is the man box and how we’re socialized and the rules that we come to believe about what it means to be a quote unquote, real man.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And a lot of that is this turning away from and mocking and humiliate or mocking the feminine. And [00:34:00] that’s a real problem to me because those are necessary skills and they’re part of our humanity. And we tend to just cut ourselves off from half to two thirds of our own humanity. And then wonder why we can’t connect with someone in relationship, for example.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: So tell me, what does that mean to you to balance the masculine and feminine? 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: So I, when I write in my book I just did this era where we start in the wounded masculine, we move to the wounded feminine ’cause we don’t know what the hell it is. We heal in the healing feminine and then we strengthen the healing masculine.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: But the only way we can actually come into our true integration is through the feminine. . And that’s what gives us the capacity for emotionality. A more emotional expression, more creative expression open to compassion. Healing our wounds so we can have compassion for ourselves and forgiveness for ourselves.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And and then [00:35:00] that piece around vulnerability that we can be vulnerable with who we are. And I think those are and coming in I think, What I see in a lot of men’s workspaces either where we’re bringing a hyper masculine approach to beat your emotions out of you, or we’re taking a consciousness approach that is demonizing the masculine and elevating the divine feminine and, but we’re not really, there’s not as many that are talking about the true integration and to your point into our humanness or into our humanity.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: It can really be balanced and just have a broader array. And I think that’s the approach I take in general, which is accepting, whatever, man, this is his truth. And then as opposed to wronging that truth, just expanding it by saying, and if we look at it from another perspective, Or here’s another layer to, to help you think about this and just keep adding layers to the equation as to pay saying, no, [00:36:00] this is this is the, your way is wrong.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And I have the right way because when we talk about belief systems, he used to say that my belief system is better than your belief system. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Right. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And I really liked that idea of bringing the healing feminine and I agree because I think what often happens it happened to me. In my journey, and I think happens to a lot of men in general, is that we’ll start to feel something, a vulnerable feeling.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And then we attack ourselves for having that emotion and feel shame about it. And then we get stuck in this negative thought emotion spiral or loop. And the thing that’s really damning about shame to me is it’s the belief that we are unworthy of love, connection and belonging. So it just serves to further isolate those that are already isolated.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Yeah. Yeah. That’s why I’m writing the book. It was You know, men’s healing as a catalyst for systems change, but really the sub message was helping men learn to love in a new way where they can start to learn to [00:37:00] love themselves and moving from the love with conditions they’ve learned to what does it mean to actually give and take on conditional love.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And when receiving love, I find is really difficult for a lot of the men I’ve worked with. And again, I think that has to do with worthiness. Do you feel you’re worthy of that kind of love? And I think that’s a, our hurdle for most of us to overcome at some point in this journey. I know it was for me.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I find the self worth conversation is probably the most pervasive that comes out of the work. Self worth or trying to achieve someone else’s validation, a. k. a. father. And 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: so that, that distinction between internal validation and external validation is huge. And I think it’s one of the hallmarks of moving to becoming a mature male is moving from the need for external validation or validation of others saying, wow, great job.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: You got an A or, you got this contract signed to internal validation where you’re operating according to your own set of values and you pat yourself on the [00:38:00] back when you behave in accordance with those values. It’s a huge shift to your point. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And I think, but to understand what have you been chasing all this time?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: You’ve been chasing this validation all this time. And what you’ve internalized is a low self worth that no one can fill until we start doing some of the work of giving yourself the love, the forgiveness and the appreciation and the gratitude for what it is you can bring to the table.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. I would add self compassion to that, which is often very foreign to most men being kind to yourself. I need that inner critic. That’s what motivates me. Maybe it would be helpful to have a second gear that you could shift into at times just perhaps, but the research is really good on that point.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: So go ahead. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: No, I was just going to say when I worked at Eileen Fisher, they sent me to this artist commune for five months in Canada to incorporate the arts into into. creative facilitation. But one of the things that I just, there are certain things that you just are stuck etched in your [00:39:00] brain, right?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And the one was, imagine an orchestra. Now, what role does the inner critic play in that orchestra? And it’s that inner critic, the conductor, or can you give that inner critic permission to go play in like the bassoon section and then let someone else, the self compassion, the gratitude, or something else play the conductor role?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And so I think the other part for me and a lot of this work is also using metaphor creativity play in the mix along with outdoor adventure. And artistry and drawing and painting what have you as a way to. To access, and have a doorway in and access into the inner life that most men are going to be, most people are often challenged to go in when it’s just a literal sort of my, but if you can just get it through their [00:40:00] intuition and their creative expression.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And I 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: totally agree. I metaphor and storytelling are key. There’s a couple of ways I wanted to go this one was getting back to self worth and in terms of self worth. How do you begin to bolster someone’s self worth? Because that’s it’s I agree. I think it’s it’s foundational.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: I think I

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: mean, spiritually, I’m often told I’m a seer. And so I just see people as they are. And so the one thing I do is I can just do a read on someone and I what I where I’m at is usually look at all the great qualities you bring that you can’t see yourself. And so I think there’s an acknowledgement of, even with this kid that wanted to be the face of the white power movement, it said, look, you’re like, you’re a good looking guy you’re intelligent, you’re a deep thinker, you care about your family, and you’re holding on to this [00:41:00] idea, but let’s talk about where’s love playing in your life, right?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: What’s where is love? And I made that distinction between the love of conditions versus the unconditional love, the giving and receiving of it. Because I asked him, I said, so what does being the face of the white power movement give you? And he said it gives me pride in my identity.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And he said, okay and what do you love? And he couldn’t come up with anything. Yeah. And I said, here’s my take. When you start to fill your coffers with love, the grip that this has on you is going to start to lift. And you’re going to see that this moves from an identity you claim to a phase in your life, and he could really hear that for about three minutes, and then he climbed back down, but he, but a seed was, I think that’s another part of it is planting seeds without this expectation that we’re going to create masterful transformation. Let’s get off the delusion of that.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And the flip side of it is to, when we can [00:42:00] see the positives in these guys share with them, because they’re so used to at this point being told all the ways that they’re in the wrong, what’s wrong with them, that when you start to say, and this is what I’m seeing, these are the skills, these are the gifts.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: This is like your unique, contribution, that has nothing to do with your work. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. I love the idea of going after love. Cause I absolutely agree. And I think I’ll go after love, I’ll go after happiness, I’ll go after positive emotions, I’ll also go after playfulness, which you mentioned earlier, which was one of the other ways, other avenues I wanted to get back to because one of the questions or series of questions I’ll ask men at some point is, where did your playfulness go?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Where did your sense of humor go? Where did the laughter go? Because I think, research shows that we tend to cut ourselves off from sense of humor, laughter, smiling around the age of 23. And I think there’s a, another negative hit around the age of 13, give or take. And we think we’re supposed to be this serious, stoic individual.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: [00:43:00] And I would argue that’s not a great way to go through life. And so I can press people on positive emotions. How many can you recognize? How often do you experience them? And, Most people, I, I believe are shooting for happiness at some level or to be happier. And so you can begin to dovetail some of those ideas.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And I really like the idea of planting seeds. That’s my approach as well. I just think of it as I’m just planting seeds of different ideas in their head and then I just back off. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Yeah. Yeah. Of course. I’m going back to the, play. I think when we create experiences where I often tell facilitators, you’re not going to come in with some robust like play experience, but you can start to embed little micro playful experiences that start to get men in particular to be comfortable with being silly.[00:44:00] 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: It’s often it’s, and what I find is, my whole thing. Is you don’t know, you don’t know you need me until you experience me and it’s like no matter what I describe, it’s not necessarily going to give you a sense until you’ve actually experienced it. And I think the same is with the play.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: When we’re giving, when we’re giving men permission to play, and then we can debrief it after and say, so how was that? And then they realize they want more of it, or you give them a kernel of self awareness. Oh man, I want more of this. Give me the Enneagram. Let me talk about, so I think if we go backwards, sometimes it’s go ahead on, like we’re going to do and they’re like screw you.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: But when you just give them an immersive experience that they can, or even just little bites, so they can start to Realize they can be, because I think one of the, one of the big fears for men is and what the stoicism is the fear of being ridiculed. And so when they’re not ridiculed or they can [00:45:00] all laugh at each other and go, Oh yeah, this is what play can feel like.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: This is what fun can feel like, then they start to become more balanced human beings. Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Counselor for Men: And I think you say fear of being ridiculed. I say fear of embarrassment. Because I think there’s a lot of stuff we don’t do in life for fear of being embarrassed. And I think, laughter, playfulness, silliness are right up at the top of the list.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And then I go into but what is embarrassment? Let’s break down embarrassment. What is it truly? It’s, you violate a social norm, you look foolish, your 30 seconds, and you want to get the hell out of the situation. Is that something that you can Tolerate. Yes, you can.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: And can we work on that? And can we get more comfortable with being embarrassed and realize that it’s not the end of the world? Because I’ve seen that in pretty much every man I’ve ever worked with over the last three decades. A fear of embarrassment, a deep fear.[00:46:00] 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: So I really appreciate the work you’re doing. I appreciate the time spent in this conversation. I love what you’re doing. What did I not ask you that I should have?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: What are my hopes? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: What are your hopes? 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: What are my hopes? Or why do I do this? Yeah, why? Why? I think partly it’s that I’ve been called to it and partly I know I can do it and I know that I can do it in a way that it’s its own unique lane, but there’s something about seeing the light bulb go off for these guys.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: that it feels different when it’s maybe someone who’s like kind of gets it or might be more on the progressive side of the equation. But when that light bulb goes off, that light bulb goes off and it’s it can just feel powerful [00:47:00] for them 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: when you talk about meaningful work. And I don’t, that’s some of the most meaningful work out there to me.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And, flip side of my metrics are like, how does this work reduce mass shootings, mass casualty events, hate inspired violence. And suicides, when men go past that point of hopelessness, and they see that they only have two options take someone else’s life for their own life, and so being able to contribute to that.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: So my hope is to really one mature into this work myself. I actually just applied to go through my own version or go through an organization’s training on de radicalization techniques. And so I’ve been doing a lot of this through intuition and instinct and doing all right. And so now I’m like, let me start getting some more formal training in this capacity.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And it’s actually [00:48:00] for the, preferences given to residents of the state of Pennsylvania because, Pennsylvania has the third highest rate of hate activity in the country. So I call it the sleeper state. What are the other two by the way? California is number one based on size.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Florida is number two, then Pennsylvania, then I believe it’s Texas and then Georgia. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: I guess we’re in the right states then. 

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Yeah. So I I want to, my hope is to become a contributor and really add value to the community of others who are doing this work. And be a voice for this work.

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: And be able to just support more men in their healing. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: Yeah. Amen. And I saw you were on Ashanti Branches podcast who’s doing some great men’s work as well. Yeah. He, yeah, he’s a great man. So let me ask you this. Where can people get ahold of you if they would like to find out more about what you do and how you do it?

Sean Harvey, Men’s Work: Yeah. I think that the easiest is to go to my website, [00:49:00] warriorcompassion. com. Perfect. And within there, there’s the podcast I’ve done, been a guest on and also just more information. And as I start putting out more programming, it’d be the first place to go 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: to learn more. Excellent. Yeah. Thanks so much, Sean, for your time.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: I really appreciate it. And as I said, I appreciate the work you’re doing. All right. Thank you so much. It’s great being here. And that’s it for this episode of the Evolved Caveman. Thanks so much for your attention and time. I know it’s precious. If you liked this episode, be sure to like, rate, review, and most importantly, share.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: If you didn’t like it, you don’t have to do a damn thing. Thanks so much. Until next time.