71: Empower Men To Excel, Women To Understand them & Relationships To Thrive with Stefanos Sifanos

Using your greatest pain to cast a bigger purpose In this week’s episode I introduce you to a man whose gruff tattooed appearance contradicts his soft-spoken words of wisdom, power, and strength—his name is Stefanos Sifandos. We dig deep into Stefanos’ childhood, the implications of parenting and generational trauma on how we express ourselves in relationships at work and at home, and how to foster and grow in each kind. We talk about what it takes to be willing and open to break the cycle of wounding behavior, how to commit to change, transition, and FEELING in order to pay it forward and leave behind the impact and legacy you truly want. In this episode, we deeply analyze the impact of environment and family patterns on our idea of safety, and how we project those habits to the world. We talk about Stefanos’ volatile family life, the emotional and physical abuse, and the behaviors he grew to deem as normal—omission, lying, anger, and unfaithfulness. Stefanos opens up about how he reproduced these actions as a means of comfort, repeating what he knew as familiar in order to protect and defend himself from feeling and being vulnerable. Willingness to change, to internally transform We discuss the turning point in Stefanos life—the moment he knew he needed to make a change and move away from the self-loathing, dishonest, and aggressive entrenched patterns he had been repeating. He shares the depth of the work, the years, the willingness to feel through repressed pain and memories he had forgotten in order to become self-aware and in tune with his true self. Liberation from generational trauma We talk about his relationships in love, how they evolved as he explored his past, and his relationship today with his wife. He shares advice for women and men on different ways to start the work, what that can look like, and how to be willing to do it. He describes the sense of freedom and liberation he felt the moment he started internally transitioning himself. To truly serve and be with another, he emphasizes the necessity for both people to work on themselves, to stop perpetuating wounded behavior, to open your heart to compassion, and shares what it takes to honor the needs of another without feeling threatened. Stefanos Sifandos Stefanos understands there is a difference between culturally defined masculinity and sacred masculinity. He further explores what it means to be a GOOD man and to be GOOD at being a man in today’s world. By restructuring and reframing his own masculinity and movement through the world as a man relating to himself, his environment, women, and his purpose, he has discovered and created methodologies and innovative models for navigating the often-difficult path of contemporary manhood and intimate relationships. Stefanos places his focus and energy towards evolving the nature of relationships in contemporary times. An advocate and proponent of "sacred union", Stefanos believes cultivating healthy relationships to self, ideas, others, our lovers and the Earth will liberate humanity towards a new empowered expression of itself.Quotes:There was no more space for justifying. 9:30 stefThe pain and intensity of what I was experiencing was so incredible, so confronting, that I didn’t really have a choice to numb it any more, I couldn't, I couldn't undue or outsee what I had done to myself. 10:40 - StefHoly shit im about to repeat history if i don’t repair this -12:15 tracy It's not so much what our human nature is but what do we want our human potential to be. 14:10 stefWe get to choose what type of person we want to be. 14:25 - stefI had to go in and feel those feelings and really release them as well. 22:55 - stefForgiveness without feeling is false. 24:30 - stefThe most important part is the willingness 29:45 tracyThe wisdom was accessible to me but i wasn’t choosing to act on it - 38:45 - stefI had to feel that density to get really honest and open with her 39:35 - stefWe avoid grieving, so part of the healing process and the transition from good to great is taking time to actually feel and actually grieve 48:20 - stefWe also have to embrace the great that we are stepping into because we often focus on what were losing and focusing on the choices were making and the great can give you perspective —not losing anything just transitioning 50:00 stef