Quick test: how do you deal with your neediness? If you just cringed, you found your enemy emotion.

(Want a taste of what Front Row Dads is actually like? Come sit in on a live Brotherhood Experience. It's 60 minutes on Zoom with Jon and a few other dads, free, and it's the easiest way to find out whether a room like this is for you. You don't have to share, and you don't have to prepare. Dates and sign up at frontrowdads.com/experience)

 

Psychiatrist Dr. Laura Dabney has spent her career working with successful men who buried three feelings so deep they stopped recognizing them: neediness, anger, and sadness. In this Deep Cut from the vault (recorded in 2019), she maps what each one turns into when it goes underground: neediness becomes compulsive giving, sadness becomes relentless positivity and joking, and anger becomes the blowup you swore you'd never have. Jon goes first: the punched wall, the need for validation he'd been dressing up as contribution, the positivity that was really sadness-avoidance. Then Dabney lays out the way back: accept the feeling, catch yourself invalidating it, journal with a purpose, and start with you before you manage everyone else's reaction. It ends with the story of a patient who couldn't ask a woman on a date and now sends her postcards of his four kids.

 

IN THIS EPISODE:

  • The cringe test for finding your enemy emotion
  • What buried neediness, anger, and sadness each turn into
  • "Winning, but you don't realize the price you're paying on the flip side"
  • Why being sad in front of people isn't selfish, and why that word is a trap
  • Journaling with a purpose: practicing the right thing instead of rehearsing the wrong one
  • The turnaround story: from suicidal and stuck at home to married with four kids


WANT THE BOOKS?

The book list we mention in this episode: over 100 books Front Row Dads recommends, the ones that changed how these guys operate at home and at work. Free at frontrowdads.com/books

 

WANT THE FULL STORY?

The full conversation also covers stopping anger before it becomes a blow-up, why men funnel every emotion into sex, and the boundary conversation that saved a military man's marriage. Hear the whole thing: "How Men Deal With Neediness, Anger and Sadness with Dr. Laura Dabney" : frontrowdads.com/74

 

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