Avery – 00:00

I know and have known for as long as I can remember literally since I was a child that I did not want to be a parent and there has been no biological clock ticking there is no baby desire anything and I just know that that’s not part of my journey but I do think it’s really important to have those

kinds of conversations about understanding your identity and how that shifts and how you can reclaim parts of who you are After you become a parent and so today we have Jason from Epic Dad Coaching to really dive into that a little bit talking about the struggles of losing who they felt they were.

They really felt like they lost who they thought they were as a person and it’s just so interesting to hear it from a different perspective because I know that I’ve had my own experiences of lost identity And it’s just neat to hear how somebody can also feel that same loss of identity with having

children.

So without further ado, let’s get into the conversation with Jason.

Hi, I’m Avery Thatcher, a former ICU nurse, and this is not your standard stress management podcast where we just focus on those band-aid solutions like the benefits of meditation, mindfulness, and self-care.

You already know that you need some kind of recovery strategy to deal with your stressful life, but what you may not know Are all of the sneaky ways that society, our upbringing and our high achieving nature and so many other factors contribute to our risk of burnout.

Avery – 01:38

That my friend is what we talk about here on this podcast because you can’t do something about a situation that you’re not aware of, right?

So if you’re ready to get out of the pattern of burning out, feeling better only to burn out again, it’s time for us to shut the light on the truth about burnout.

Welcome back.

I am so excited to speak with Jason today.

He has a really interesting story and one that I can’t relate to at all because I choose to be childless and that is not Jason’s story.

So I’m excited to dive into that and to talk about what that experience was like for him.

And then he’s got another couple of things that he wanted to touch on as well that he thinks would be really helpful because when we hear other stories that we can relate to, we realize that we’re not alone in that.

Avery – 02:28

Resistance and struggle.

So welcome, Jason.

Jason – 02:32

Thanks for having me.

I’m really excited to be here.

Avery – 02:35

So why don’t you tell us a little bit about you and the journey that kind of led up to the moment that you want to speak about today.

Jason – 02:42

Yeah, certainly.

So I am first off a husband.

I’ve been happily married to my wife for almost 17 years now.

And we have three kids who are 11, 13 and 15 at the moment.

I always mention my family first because that’s very much a focus for me.

And for reasons we’ll get into later that it can also cause some issues as well.

I’m also a coach for dads who are looking to kind of rediscover their passion for life after having kids and being so focused in having or being dad for so long that they kind of lose who they are as an individual and so that’s kind of what I do for That’s so beautiful, so why don’t you tell me a

Jason – 03:28

little bit more about

So the story of how all that came about is, you know, I worked at a corporate job for 15 plus years and it was kind of in this place where You know, I didn’t really have a passion for the job.

And at this point, you know, my kids were probably around the eight, 10, 12 ages.

And I found myself really lost in, you know, that whole day-to-day grind of, I would go to work, drive for 40, 45 minutes, you know, one way in traffic, sit at my desk in a cubicle for eight to 10 hours.

Doing work, like I said, I just didn’t have a passion for it.

It paid well, but there was no, no passion for it there.

And then do the 45 to 50 minute drive back in traffic.

Jason – 04:30

And by the time I got home, it was basically time for dinner, time to get the kids ready for bed and then, you know, go to bed and do it all over again.

And I really felt that I was, I was starting to lose myself as a, as a person, you know, I, I. was no longer Jason, I was Natalie’s dad, I was Carter’s dad, even Becky’s husband is my wife.

And part of what I had passion for in life beforehand was just gone.

And I think a lot of men feel this, especially since we put so much into being a dad that becomes very much who we are as identity and we think we need to turn Everything in life around for that so you know we have to provide for our families we have to be the one to lead them and be the strong one

the stoic kind the guy who can you know take all problems on their shoulders and just carry it and not show that emotion and that pain and that you know that weight and I found myself Like I said, when my kids were probably about 8 to 10, 8, 10, 12, falling in this pretty deep depression of,

you know, is this it?

Is this all there is going to be in life?

Jason – 05:50

Have I kind of devolved from what I thought were my passions and loves?

And don’t get me wrong, I love being a dad.

I absolutely love being a dad.

It’s my favorite thing in the world.

It always has been, but especially when your kids get a little bit older and they no longer Really need you to be present all the time.

You start to figure out that, okay, well, when I used to be especially hovering over my children, making sure they’re not hurting themselves and doing all these things, what do I do now?

What’s the next step?

Jason – 06:24

You know, obviously I can spend time with my wife and that’s great, but we also need to have some time alone and figure out what our path is and move towards that.

So that became kind of my focus.

And, you know, I started with my health journey because that was a big part of it as too, as I gained about 50 or 60 or plus pounds.

When my kids were born, you know, that sympathy weight for the dads out there, they’ll be very familiar with that.

That became something that I could control and start to create an identity around what I wanted to be as an individual.

Then I started looking at the other parts of my life.

How do I want to show up as a husband?

Jason – 07:09

How do I want to show up as a dad?

What are the intentional things that I need to take steps towards to become that person in everyday life?

That’s what I’m helping dads do now as well.

Avery – 07:23

So what you talked about is something that I can relate to in my own way is losing the identity when you have identities outside of yourself.

Yes.

So what was that moment like when you realized that your identity was no longer your own and what did you do to start figuring out who are you?

Jason – 07:43

Yeah, I think that’s what it was.

It wasn’t like this, um, you know, snap a finger and suddenly decide, Oh, that’s what’s wrong.

Right.

I haven’t figured that out.

It was slowly going, you know, I used to love doing, you know, so-and-so I used to love going rock climbing, used to go going backpacking and doing these things that were very individualistic and, you know, some of that left.

And what was the passion about that, that I really enjoyed and how can I bring that into my life now?

Um.

Jason – 08:12

So I just decided that I wanted to be a lot more intentional with the life that I was living.

I wasn’t, you know, at the time I felt like I was just more or less going with the flow and doing what life was bringing towards me and what I was kind of expected to do as a dad.

You know, the, the bringing the, bringing the money, bringing the, you know, the, the protection, the care, all that kind of good stuff.

But It parts of it were definitely not what I would felt needed to be in my life.

So I took a lot of time and actually started journaling.

I created a little workbook for myself of, you know, I wrote down every single, I guess, pillar of what I consider for my life.

So me as a husband, me as a father, just me as an individual, my physical health, my mental health, you know, and I started writing down more or less mission statements for each of these pillars.

Jason – 09:06

And you know for myself like I am a individual who you know considered himself to be healthy and these are the habits that I want to put in place to be to become that so I looked into all the things that I thought of you know who is a person or an ideal that has these identities that I want to

incorporate into my life and what are the habits and skills that they have that you know that I can start incorporating into my life Even in small bits, right?

If it’s somebody who’s a marathon runner, all right, I can’t run a marathon right now, but maybe I can go for a walk every day, right?

It’s just small little habits that I can start incorporating into my life to bring that into my identity and so that I can become who I want to be.

Avery – 09:53

I love that.

How easy was it to do the small steps rather than like leap off the cliff and be like, yeah.

Jason – 10:01

I think that’s been the problem in the past.

I’ve tried to do that in the past.

Like I’m like, all right, I’m going to, I’m going to get up every day at 4 AM and I’m going to go to the gym for an hour and I’m going to go run a mile.

And then I’m going to make sure I only eat salads and whatever, and tried to do it all at once.

And I would find myself like all right you know it’s a week if we’re going strong and then after that week you just hit this wall and you’re like boom all right reality sets in this can’t all happen at the same time and quite honestly you don’t tend to find the consistency um if you try to

do that so if you’re starting small like I just started with like I said going for a walk 30 minutes every morning that was the starting point okay I can do that And after that I found that when I did those 30 minutes then I started to think well I should probably eat better because you know I’m

doing these healthy habits to begin with and then I’m going and eating a box of donuts so that’s kind of negating all that.

Jason – 11:00

So all these things kind of stockpile on top of each other and then after a while you have all these habits that you’re starting to create and that has become a part of your identity.

I do get up at five o’clock every morning and I do go for a walk every day or I run three miles or whatever but it’s always those little steps that happen.

And I find it easier to incorporate some of the habits that you want on top of other habits that you already have.

I think if you’re familiar with the Atomic Habits book by James Clear, it calls it habit stacking and those kinds of things that are really vital to the way that I created my program for myself to be able to reach all of the goals that I had for myself.

Avery – 11:48

I really like that you talked about that and specifically habit stacking too.

It’s something that we dig into a lot in the flow state membership because really We want to have all of these changes happen at once.

That’s the ideal.

It’s just like flick a switch and be like, new person.

But like you said, it doesn’t happen.

And that’s where it’s looking to identify your snowball habit.

And so if you don’t live in a place where you get snow, then I say that it’s to identify your Indiana Jones habit.

Avery – 12:15

So like the temple of doom when he’s running away from that boulder, that’s just like gaining momentum.

And so it’s that little moment where.

It starts to gain momentum and the energy gets bigger and bigger as it goes and it’s finding that right habit first.

So for you it sounds like it was going for those walks.

Jason – 12:34

Yes.

Avery – 12:34

And maybe journaling might have been a component of that too.

Jason – 12:37

Yeah, journaling was, I would say journaling was the catalyst for How I decided what to start with first.

Like I said, I went through the entire pillar of what I wanted to consider if I was my ideal self on how I see it in my head, regardless of any situation that I find myself in now, you know, okay, maybe I’m 60 pounds overweight, but whatever, it doesn’t matter.

Maybe I’m in debt or, you know, whatever your situation is, that’s just the situation that you’re in.

And the idea of, all right, what in my life now do I want to make sure I keep in my life?

Obviously I want to keep my wife.

I want to keep my kids.

I want to keep that family unit intact.

Jason – 13:17

Okay.

How do I incorporate this new identity into those pieces as well?

And so, yeah, and, you know, going back to the habit stacking bit.

When the biggest hurdles I had of going over is when those times that I tried to do everything at once I would you know fail at one thing it would just be one thing like one day would fail and be like well that’s it I’m done you know I’m a failure I’m terrible at this so who cares why do we even

bother and I would just you know stop doing everything for like a week and so yeah bringing those small habits were vital for sure.

Avery – 13:53

That is so relatable.

I think all of us have been in that space where like one tiny thing goes wrong and we’re just like, ah, well, I’ll just give up on it for now.

So you’ve already talked a little bit about things that didn’t work for you.

What else didn’t work for you?

What was something else that people often try or the people that you work with have tried before they meet you and it doesn’t ever seem to work?

Jason – 14:16

Yeah I think that trying everything at once is the biggest thing that I run into for sure.

I think also not getting, especially for those who are married or you know in a partnership of some sort, not getting your partner involved is a big thing that a lot of people have problems with.

I know for me personally that was one of the things that kind of kept me from getting started even is I am a little bit of a morning person so I would want to go on walks at like 6 30 in the morning and my wife is not a morning person she tends to sleep till eight or nine in the morning and we have

two dogs that like to bark at everything in the neighborhood.

And so whenever I left to go for those walks, the dogs would go crazy.

They’d wake her up and I would feel really bad.

And so that kept me from going for a little bit until I actually sat down and had a conversation with her and was like, this is why I need to do these things.

Jason – 15:09

And this is how I think it’ll benefit not just me, but our relationship in total.

And we were able to really work together to find Those things that really resonated with both of us, what are the habits that we can both enter, you know, interchange with, you know, why are we doing each, you know, really discuss what is it that we’re getting out of, out of the whole situation and

how can we help each other and hold each other up.

Avery – 15:35

Speaking of the dogs.

Jason – 15:36

Yeah.

Avery – 15:37

That’s all good.

It’s all good.

I have cats that wander through and a dog that’s sleeping beside us.

So, you know, it happens.

So yeah, what would you say to someone that wants to have this kind of conversation with their partner but is so worried about how it’s going to be received?

Jason – 15:55

Yeah, I can definitely relate to that.

I think As guys especially, and this is a very big generalization I know, and I’m sure women do this too, but we tend to, especially if we’ve been with our partner for a long time, we tend to have this mask that we hold on, right?

And it’s not even necessarily what we, or what our partner thinks of us, it’s what we think our partner thinks of us.

And so, you know, breaking through that to say, you know, like me personally, I was never a runner.

I was never one who went out and exercised per se.

And so for me to say, you know, I’m going to start walking every morning and blah, blah.

And I had this little fear of.

Jason – 16:40

Oh she’s going to think that I’m trying to improve myself because I want something better or I want to find someone better or whatever you know and it’s completely asinine really it’s not something that she actually had in her mind but it was in mine and so yeah the hardest part is just coming

together and saying this is What I think I need for myself and how, again, how it benefits the overall relationship between the two of us is the most important part, I think.

And I think that, especially with my wife, she was very supportive and was like, yeah, you need to do that.

That’s awesome.

Let’s go, you know, whatever I can do to support you.

That’s great, let’s do that.

But it can be a scary conversation to have for sure, but I am a big believer in you can do hard things and some of those things are just small conversations.

Avery – 17:33

Absolutely.

And I know that it always, it seems cheesy because it always seems to come back to communication as the secret to blissful life in a partnership, but it’s really removing assumptions, I feel is the core thing.

I know that when my husband starts to Feel defensive.

I can see it right away.

And because we’ve had so many of these conversations, I can just be like, so I recognize that you’re getting defensive.

Can we talk about what you think I’m thinking?

And it just opens things up because then he realizes that I don’t actually have the, I think you’re being a dumb ass thought circling around in my brain.

Avery – 18:11

He’s like, oh, it’s not there.

It’s like, yeah.

So I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to not challenge the other person in our life, but Sometimes that other person isn’t even worried about what you think they’re worried about.

Jason – 18:27

Yeah, I think sometimes we have entire arguments with our partners without actually saying a word.

It’s all in your head.

You’ve had that argument, you know.

In your head, you know how it’s going to go and then you get home and you’re like, I told you that I was going to do this and you’ve already finalized it before you even had that conversation.

So, uh, yeah, I think communication is the biggest part.

I think the stories that we tell ourselves that someone else is thinking, um, often trips us up.

That happens to me daily.

Avery – 18:57

Yes, assumptions based on a lack of information is one of our core ways that we sabotage ourselves.

And it’s just once we know that that’s one of our key sabotaging styles, it’s information.

Now we know what we likely need to be addressing.

So that’s awesome.

Thank you for sharing that so vulnerably.

I think that’s really important.

Speaker_00 – 19:16

Thank you.

Yeah.

Avery – 19:18

So tell me, Jason, what would you recommend somebody that identifies as a father, that is struggling with their identity, not really knowing who they are anymore?

What first step do you think that they should take?

Jason – 19:33

Yeah, I think there’s a lot of work into it, right?

You really have to be able to take the time to Really consider what it is you want out of life.

And a lot of guys, you know, we don’t, we don’t necessarily want to do that.

We want to, you know, step into video games or, or put ourselves into work or, you know, get into alcohol or whatever it is, the advice is that you’re, you’re kind of escaping from.

But I think it is a lot of just finding out what excites you.

And even if that’s just journaling for like a week and just free forming, I’m really happy about this or whatever.

But it can take a lot of work for sure, especially if you have been feeling lost for a long time.

Jason – 20:22

And for me, what I did was look back at, okay, what are the things that I used to be really passionate about?

And what was it about them that I was really passionate about?

I used to be a backpacker and it wasn’t necessarily the backpacking and those kinds of things, but it was a little bit of alone time as being outdoors.

It was moving my body during that time and being at one with nature a little bit.

And so while I live in a relatively flat Suburban area, there’s not a lot of backpacking around this area.

There’s things that I can incorporate into that.

I can go for walks on the parks and forest preserves or whatever and just doing those small little bits to start bringing in those identity of those passions that you used to be really happy about.

Avery – 21:09

I like that you dug into what was it really about the backpacking?

What was that?

Because then we could tap into that again.

That has been a big part of my healing too.

After my chronic illness diagnosis and disability diagnosis, there was a lot of things that I used to like to do that I’m not physically capable of doing anymore.

So it was like digging into, well, what emotion did that actually bring for me?

What else can I do now that’s still going to give me that same thing in the circumstances that I’m living in right now?

Avery – 21:40

So I really like that perspective.

So I have to ask you, who is Jason when he’s not being labeled as a father and a husband?

Jason – 21:50

That’s an interesting thought because I do, I still hold a father and husband as one of the biggest pieces of me.

Like that is my identity.

Like anybody I speak to, my wife, my kids are such a big part of my life and a big part of who I am because of the support they give me, the, you know, the uplift.

Um, that is a passion of mine.

It’s teaching it’s, it’s being a mentor.

It’s, um, You know, being supportive, being a loving, caring, nurturing man, that’s one of the passions that I love.

I enjoy that immensely.

Jason – 22:27

So I think that’s a big part of it.

Outside of that, though, I’m also a podcaster, I’m a coach, I am a guy who enjoys going for a run and hopefully getting healthier slowly bit by bit every day.

I am somebody who wants to be a guide to others and that’s essentially the biggest makeup of me.

Avery – 22:57

That’s the perfect segue into telling people how they can connect with you.

How can they have you be your guide?

Jason – 23:04

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I, interestingly enough, I’m in this weird transition of, I’m doing one-on-one coaching, but I’m launching a membership group for dads who are looking to improve their parenting, their Marriages, their individual identities, and all the above.

So that’ll be coming in the next couple weeks.

That’ll be at EpictadCommunity.com.

But I’m on LinkedIn all the time.

That’s where I spend most of my time.

Jason – 23:34

So I’m just Jason McCleary at Linkedin, and a little bit on IG, but I do less there than I should.

And you can also check out the podcast, Epic Dad Podcast, and I have guests on there quite often talking about these kind of things, masculinity and fatherhood and being a husband and all the great stuff in that.

Avery – 23:57

Wonderful.

We’ll link to all of those things in the description and the show notes.

You can definitely go and check that out.

Thank you so much, Jason, for this.

Is there anything else that you’d like to leave the audience with before I let you go?

Jason – 24:10

Yeah, I think the biggest part of what I talk about is the idea of being intentional in whatever you do.

So, you know, think about your identity and actually intentionally create it because I think there’s a lot of people who think they just are who they are and they don’t understand that they have the ability to look at themselves and say, this is not who I want to be.

I want to be this other person.

What steps do I need to do in order to get there?

Avery – 24:35

Excellent way to end it.

Multiple speakers – 24:38

Thank you so much again Jason, this was a beautiful conversation.

Avery – 24:46

Uh, excuse me, one second please before you skip on to the next podcast.

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