When Dr. Jon Caldwell, a psychiatrist and Medical Director for Meadows Behavioral Healthcare, was a kid he worked at a golf course where his job was to pick up golf balls in the rough and take them back to the clubhouse. He saw that when a golf ball had been hit by a lawnmower, the shell would break open, and the elastics that make up the core of the golf ball would start to spew out.
You know where we’re going with this, right?
The inner core of elastics represents the internal pressure, emotions, and painful memories that influence how we, as men, respond to the various interactions and situations we find ourselves in day to day.
In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Caldwell explains the ways we tend to react to adverse experiences are related to the ways in which we did or didn’t attach with our caregivers as children. There is a lot to this idea of attachment and it is essential to understanding how men experience and engage in relationships as adults.
Caldwell also explains how, through mindfulness practices, we can learn to choose for ourselves how to respond moment by moment rather than reacting and letting fear, anger, or The Man Rules dictate how we show up.
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[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/5357253/height/90/width/480/thumbnail/yes/render-playlist/no/theme/custom/tdest_id/515453/custom-color/#87A93A” height=”90″ width=”480″ scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]About Our Guest
Dr. Jon Caldwell has long been interested in the human condition. From osteopathic medical school to his current formal practice in Vipassana meditation, Dr. Caldwell has long approached health and wellness in a holistic manner. Dr. Caldwell completed his residency at the University of Utah, exploring the effects of childhood trauma on physical and psychological health. He completed specialty training and board certification in adult psychiatry, before completing PhD graduate studies in human development at the University of California at Davis, under the mentorship of renowned attachment researcher Phil Shaver (and others like Ross Thompson and Jay Belsky). Dr. Caldwell focused his study and research on how child maltreatment effects attachment relationships and the capacity for self-regulation, adaptation and resilience. He currently serves as Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California at Davis, where he teaches students, interns, residents and clinicians about the effects of child maltreatment on health and wellbeing. He also is employed full-time at The Meadows of Wickenburg, a world-renowned treatment center for psychological trauma and addiction. In addition to his clinical work there, he writes for The Meadows blog, lectures locally and internationally, and conducts research on topics such as childhood trauma, attachment, emotion regulation, and mindfulness.
Mentioned In This Episode
