Benjamin John Lee: And War is an interesting filter because it doesn't matter how much bravado you have or how confident you are or how cool you think you are, as soon as the bullets start flying, you can really tell what the measure of a man is based on how they respond to that situation. And obviously, training goes a long way for that. The more the more you train, the more experience you have with those situations, the cooler and more composed you're going to be. But there is this innate. quality that some men possess where they're just stoic under fire. And I I don't necessarily know what forges that. I I think that goes all the way back to early childhood, depending on how much adversity you have to face during your upbringing. But that was just the biggest thing I learned that like if if if you want to know the measure of a man, pay attention to his actions and not his words. I think that plain and simple is probably what war taught me.
martin: Hey everyone, welcome to the Odyssey in Alchemy. On this show, I sit down with psychologists, healers, survivors, and teachers exploring depth psychology, inner transformation, spiritual awakening, and liberation. We tackle the real stuff: anxiety, masculinity, grief, parenting, plant medicine, and what it actually takes to live a life that means something. If you're enjoying the show, please rate, comment, and share with someone who needs to hear it. It helps more than you know. Let's dive in.
Martin P Prihoda: Welcome to the Odyssey Alchemy podcast.
martin: My guest today spent his career as a bomb disposal technician in Iraq and Afghanistan. He came home to PTSD, lost identity, and addiction. He rebuilt himself more than once the hard way. Benjamin Lee now runs the initiation source, coaching men through the same rebuild with a method he calls the reforge protocol. Today we break down shadow work and what it actually takes to forge a man back into one piece. Benjamin, welcome to the Odyssey and Alchemy Podcast.
Benjamin John Lee: Martin, it's a pleasure to be here.
martin: it's great to have you on when I was I was doing research on you. What a great story. let's take it back to your time in Iraq and Afghanistan as a soldier. You were there in the capacity of diffusing bombs. What what was that experience like? Like what did that teach you that civilian life couldn't?
Benjamin John Lee: Wow. I mean so many things. I think the the thing I I I've always been interested in human psychology and I I didn't I wasn't consciously aware that that's what I was doing my entire life, but I've always just been the kind of person who likes to sit in the corner and watch people to see how they respond to certain stimulus and how they react with other people and how they get activated by certain situations. And War is an interesting filter because it doesn't matter how much bravado you have or how confident you are or how cool you think you are, as soon as the bullets start flying, you can really tell what the measure of a man is based on how they respond to that situation. And obviously, training goes a long way for that. The more the more you train, the more experience you have with those situations, the cooler and more composed you're going to be. But there is this innate. quality that some men possess where they're just stoic under fire. And I I don't necessarily know what forges that. I I think that goes all the way back to early childhood, depending on how much adversity you have to face during your upbringing. But that was just the biggest thing I learned that like if if if you want to know the measure of a man, pay attention to his actions and not his words. I think that plain and simple is probably what war taught me.
martin: Well, like specifically like bomb diffusing, that is so just inherently dangerous. To to, you know, you're not you're not in in the sort of the background as a medic or, you know, working in a field hospital. You're actually out in the field doing something that is so specifically dangerous with a such a specific set of skills. Why did you choose that path?
Benjamin John Lee: This is gonna be a really boring answer, but I was 17 when I joined the military. And so when I went in, when you join the military here, you take what's called the ASVAB, which is like a a placement test based on your IQ and a bunch of other metrics. And the jobs that you can get in the military are based on your score. So I had scored high enough that I could I had a pick of any job that I wanted. So the recruiters were like, hey. Here's the two jobs that we're really recruiting for right now. An EOD technician, which has a $10,000 signing bonus, and a cryptolinguist, which also has a $10,000 $10,000 signing bonus. I didn't do so hot in high school. So the idea of spending three years learning Arabic to like listen in on phone conversations just didn't appeal to me. So I was like, hey, $10,000 sounds like a lot of money. I'm going to go diffuse bombs for a living. And that was that was about it.
martin: And so you know, you're you're on the field, like is you you came home with PTSD. how how did the PTSD arise from that specific that specific job you had?
Benjamin John Lee: PTSD is a weird phenomenon because I've noticed that you have like acute PTSD and then chronic PTSD. So it's something that is related specifically to a large catastrophic event and then something which is just the nervous system getting conditioned to be in a state of fight or flight over a long period of time. So it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with like, I saw or witnessed this and it really messed me up. It's just I spent a decade being on twenty four seven and now my nervous system doesn't know how to shut off. And I started feeling the the early parts of that before I even was medically retired from the military. Just you're you're so go, go, go, go, go all the time that in those moments of quiet where you should be able to like rest, then your brain should be able to shut down for a little bit, like all your body wants to do is run. Because and I didn't again consciously know this at the time, but that's it was trying to avoid feeling all of those feelings that I had avoided feeling for those past 10 years. And so I was fine until I was fully medically retired. And then once I got home and was kind of planning what to do next with my life and I had the chance to sit still, like it caught up to me like a freight trim. And I when I was medically retired, I had nerve release surgery and I got a taste for opiates. And that was what led to my heavy addiction to opiates was just that feeling of like not needing to think or feel anymore. Just that escape that it provided was too alluring for me at that point in my time to avoid. but that I mean, that's what the early parts of dealing with that looked like.
martin: Yeah, I'm just fascinated by that work because, you know, I've I don't even like firecrackers, dude. growing up, my friends were all out lighting firecrackers. I was always like standing back and like, I don't like firecrackers. And so so to hear you just speak about a career diffusing the largest firecrackers you can imagine. And the the amount of calm and the amount of presence you must have had in those positions. Like can you ca can you walk us through an example of what this like a scene that you went through or or a particular event, just just for the audience to to get an idea of what that kind of tension would have been like.
Benjamin John Lee: Think the best case it's there's this weird level of almost disassociation that happens when you're in the middle of combat. your your instincts take over. And from a bomb diffusal perspective, it's kind of a ps a second layer to it because not only are you in combat, but then you also have a mission to do whilst you're in the midst of combat. So you have you're you know you're surrounded by a platoon of Well, I guess the the instance I'll reference right now, I was with I was attached to first combat engineers, first combat engineering battalion Marines out of Camp Pendleton. We were in Afghanistan in Hellman province. And we were trying to clear a route that had been overwhelmed with IED emplacement to a special forces post that was like in the middle of a back wadi and it was on the edge of a cliff face. So you only had one access route. in and out and it was the same thing. So once you committed to going in, like you were committed until you reached the other end and could turn the the convoy around and get out. And the enemy had spent months placing IEDs along this route. So the job essentially was to slowly crawl our way against this mountain ridge, diffusing IEDs while we were being attacked from the Wadi to our left. So it was essentially a week of just getting pot shot at taking full contact, RPGs, but in the middle of that, your job is not to participate in the combat, it's to diffuse the IEDs which are preventing your movement. So th there's this multi-level thing here going where it's like, okay, I need to stay alive. I need to return fire and I need to be aware of the combat that's going on around me. But my main focus also needs to be on defusing these explosive hazards that are preventing us from egress or moving forward. That was probably the hairiest situation that I was in because there was there was no option at that point. But that's the that's almost the nice thing about those situations is if you're not given a choice, most people step up to the task. So I I don't even consider myself particularly heroic or courageous. It's just like okay, we either do this or we stand still and die. Like that that's just what our options are.
martin: Wow. And so and so when you finished your tour and you came back, did would w did the military provide you with support for what you were going through and like reintegrating back into society?
Benjamin John Lee: That that process, I don't know what it looks like nowadays. And I've been out since 2014, but they started to get a better handle on it as the wars went on. So like my first tour was in Baghdad, Iraq. And that was a pretty that was a really bad one. And there was no there was no transition support whatsoever. It was we got on a plane, went home, and then just started drinking with our buddies and reintegrated back into our daily unit. my second tour in northern Iraq was the same way, but then by my third tour, they started hosting I think they called them decompression camps or events or something. So they had like a week where they would bring in counselors and therapists, and as a unit, you know, you would go to these decompression events. The only issue with that is like the culture. Like that cool guy culture almost has this underwritten agreement that like nobody's gonna sit here and complain about what we're doing because some guys just replaced us that are downrange right now. So like who are we to sit here and complain about what we just went through when, you know, guys we know are doing that same job right now. So that that's not to say they didn't try, but it's just it's almost a losing battle because you almost have to shut yourself off to do these jobs. And it's It's hard to ask somebody to become vulnerable enough to share what's going on in their internal world while also asking them to be hard enough to endure these sorts of circumstances. So I I don't even have a good answer as to like what that decompression process could look like. I think they tried. It's just, I think that was just a failing battle to begin with.
martin: Yeah. Well, I mean, i y y y y you go back to like even the seventies in the Vietnam War. Like they didn't really like those vets that came back had there was no support. They it was such an unpopular war, they had to come back and and they probably didn't even really have a handle on what PTSD was at that point. And it would have been even worse in like the Second World War, right? You just come back and you've seen so much and and now like you know, here's some alcohol, right? Like you start drinking and then Wow man, it's just so traumatic. It's just so traumatic to to come back from that. And a lot
Benjamin John Lee: If if you look at the if you look at some of the studies that have been done though, it's very interesting because what they experienced in World War II should on paper have been catastrophically worse than anything that we experienced in Vietnam and during the desert storms. But there's a weird phenomenon that happens when the entire nation Felt like it was at war with the soldiers it was sending over. So when they came home and reintegrated, the entire nation was decompressing from a world event. So there weren't these cases of isolation and depression and addiction that really ran rampant. Don't get me wrong, it was there from combat trauma. But it wasn't like Vietnam and these wars when when you come home, you're surrounded by people who have absolutely no idea. That like there's even a war going. So like some you come home and some people wouldn't even know that there was a war going on that you were just at. So there's this weird disillusionment that happens because it's like, I just went and risked my life for these people and they're not even aware of the sacrifices I'm making. So I I I find that interesting that it also has to do with like the the collective resilience towards catastrophic events. It's not just at the individual level.
martin: That's fascinating. And and that's why I think that coming home from Vietnam would have been so hard for for Betts, because they're coming home to a very unpopular war and probably not a lot of support. And you know, the country was protesting against it. And you know, even Iraq and Afghanistan had its share of definitely a huge share of naysayers and pro protesters. Like, why are we there? Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Like, is this about oil? Like, what's this about? Yet you guys are there risking your lives, right? And it's yeah, just it's it's crazy. so so then you you came home and the opio opioid addiction came about. And and that was from you, you were just you were home, you you couldn't decompress, you were, you were stressed, and so you were prescribed something that just took a hold on you. Is that right?
Benjamin John Lee: Ye yes and no, the initial prescription is what gave me a taste for it. Although to sit here and say that any surgery or any anything had to do with my addictive behavior, because now with the clarity of hindsight I realize that that that addictive tendency inside of me existed long before that event ever happened. It's just I had I had built myself around this identity of being disciplined and routine and rigid. So like it it insulated me from those addictive tendencies. Although I did my fair share of drinking in the military too and which wasn't overly healthy. So like those those characteristics in my personality existed long before that event happened. It's just once once I had that opportunity to sit still, like it really grabbed a hold of me. And the other downside was Who who's going to tell a veteran that just came home from war that like they need to get their shit together? It's like nobody in their right mind is going to be like, well, I'm sorry you're feeling this way, but like suck it up and go get some help or whatever it is. Like you can say you're here for you, you can like you can suggest it, but it's such this hard thing because everybody feels so bad about what you're going through and nobody knows what to say to you or how to help you. And it's it's really not until you realize that the only way you're going to get out of it is by helping yourself that like that door opens. So like I unfortunately that was just and weirdly, I'm actually grateful that I went through that because that situation taught me so much about myself that I I don't think I would have learned otherwise. But I mean, it was hard when I was going through it, but in hindsight, I'm infinitely grateful for that experience.
martin: And and Benjamin, when you're coming home, w were you coming home to family, like a wife, kids, d parents, friend, like what were you coming home to as far as family support?
Benjamin John Lee: I moved back home to Ken I'm from Connecticut up north in the United States. And my parents were up there and I went and moved back with them right after I had gotten out. I've never been married. I don't have any kids. I mean I would love to, but putting myself back together this last fifteen years has kind of taken precedent to that. but yeah, I I have family which I just moved down to ch not just last year I moved down to Charleston 'cause You know, we as we talk about the process of forging a new identity, you know, sometimes we have to get away from old environments and people who are part of the identities that we're trying to shed. so while I do have loving parents and brother and sister up north, unfortunately last year I had to spend kind of on my own to figure out who I was outside of outside of the uniform, outside of my family structure, outside of everything, and just figure out who I am and how I want to navigate the world.
martin: Yeah, and and that's the other thing that that I was gonna mention is that you're you had such a strong identification with this work you were doing. You had to because it was so dangerous, right? Like this is your whole identity was wrapped around, you know, doing this job because if you if you didn't do it right, you'd be dead, which is different than almost any job that exists. So your the identity around it was much stronger. So when you came back home, like the uniform came off. Who was there? But like once that identity folded and once that identity was gone, like what was there? Who was Benjamin?
Benjamin John Lee: I
martin: Who was Benjamin Lee?
Benjamin John Lee: I tra I try I held on to that identity for a while. Like at at first when I got out, I was just the retired bomb squad technician instead of the bomb squad technician, which he showed up in the world almost identically, except for he didn't have any of the responsibilities. And then as that identity started, I mean, and it took a few years for that identity to wear itself out because like It's such a cool identity to wear around. It's like, I'm a war hero, I'm a decorated veteran. Like everybody thinks you're cool. You can get away with anything. And it's the ultimate excuse to do whatever you want, essentially. And but that started to get really old after a while. And after that started to dry up, then the wounded veteran identity started to kick in. As I started to really have to face these. Emotional and psychological issues that started to arise to deal with the remnants of my addiction, to deal with my lack of identity or purpose or meaning, like all like that, I had to like wrap myself in that wounded veteran identity, which also insulated me from needing to like make any movement or have any answers or pick up responsibility. but it wasn't until that identity grew old that I was like, okay, like I I now need to to take ownership of my own life and figure out who I am, like almost let the veteran persona die in its entirety and then see
martin: Right.
Benjamin John Lee: what grows out of that soil.
martin: And what what did what did rock bottom look like for you? Like what had to happen before you're like, okay, something's gotta change?
Benjamin John Lee: I I don't it wasn't a specific just like the PTSD thing. I don't think it was any one specific event, but there was a good period of time where I was just I felt like a passenger in my own brain. And I've never had like suicidal ideation. In fact, I feel for anybody who has, but there has there was this a period of time where like I would have my pistol on the counter while I was taking a bath, just staring at the ceiling and like praying that some entity would give me the strength to just end it because that's how much pain I was in. And There was going through that over and over, this it kind of changed in my head from this woe is me to being like, Okay, well, I'm never going to go through with this because I do still have like I still had so many things that I wanted to do. I just didn't know how to get out of the place that I was currently at. And so it just came down to a decision that had to be made that was like, hey. You can either keep sitting in this bathtub and staring at that pistol and wishing things were easier, or you can get up, dry off, and go figure out how the hell to do something about it. And so, like, that's kind of what it looked like for me was just that again, like being on that cliff face in Afghanistan, just I have no other option. I either move forward or I sit here and die. So that's what rock bottom looked like for me.
martin: Wow. Yeah, that's powerful. You said rebuilding took multiple attempts. What did the failures teach you that the first success couldn't?
Benjamin John Lee: I wasn't. So as I've been developing my skills as a coach and a just a mentor in general, I've realized that the only way you can really figure out who you are is by figuring out who you are. Because as you grow up, the world fills you with all of these things that have nothing to do with you. You know, your your parents' ideal of success, society's idea of what makes you. worthy or lovable, or it's all of these notions that are put into us from exterior sources that we adopt as our own. And it's only been by like recreating an identity and chasing down these things that I thought were in my highest interest. And then getting close enough to feel like, wait a minute, there's something wrong about this. This isn't aligned. And then being able to sit still and then address what doesn't feel aligned about it. take whatever positives I grew out of that new identity along with me and then shed the skin of the stuff that doesn't fit anymore. So it's I mean, I that's kind of how I view the growth growth process in general is we there is no finish line to cross. There is no like, I made it, I'm successful, I'm this. It's like even people who on paper right now look successful, they can lose it all next year and have to rebuild themselves from the ground up. So if you just look at this journey as a continuously evolving process instead of this like idealized image of yourself that you're trying to reach, that that's going to save you so much headache in the long run.
martin: So let's let's walk me through Reforge, which is your protocol. What what does the protocol actu what does the protocol actually do to a man?
Benjamin John Lee: I mean, you're only going to get out of it what you put into it. But essentially what I have done, I I'm a big fan of Youngin psychology and it's shadow work. So essentially what the Reforged protocol is is just the foundation of Youngin' shadow work. It's it's the exact process that I went through to pull myself out of that bathtub into the seat that I'm sitting in right now. So Reforge is an acronym. R stand R and E stand for reveal and examine. So the first thing, before you can fix a problem or troubleshoot a problem, you have to know that a problem exists. So you have to bring up all of that stuff that is preventing you from being the person that you want to be and then examine why it was put or why it's that way in the first place. So as we just mentioned, our parents, society, teachers, mentors, siblings, all of these things that don't belong to us. And then The F is the face part. That's the shadow work. So it's really diving into really getting to know yourself because our formative years kind of imprint onto us who we are, how our nervous system shows up in the world and how we get activated by the world. And the face phase of that is figuring out what activates us, figuring out why it activates us, and then integrating whatever. we learn from that into our identity moving forward. And then the O and the R is offload and reclaim. So there's two parts there, which is you need to shed all of that skin that doesn't belong to you anymore. And then you need to reclaim the parts of you that you have suppressed for someone else's idealized image of yourself. So I'll see like when people hear the word shadow, they think of like darkness, that the shadow is only bad things. But there's just as many positive components to the shadow as there is negative. So Young referred to it as the golden shadow. So say like you're very headstrong and and you have a lot of conviction. I I consider that a good trait. But if you had a parent that did not like a child who asked questions or talked back, you learn to repress that because that would upset where you got your source of love from. So it's like learning to reclaim these things that you that characteristics in yourself that are naturally there that you have repressed throughout your life. And then the G in Reforge stands for grieve, which that's sort of part of the offload process. Because what I've what I've noticed is you can't let go of an old identity until you've fully grieved why you created that identity to keep you safe in the first place. And that's the part where I see a lot of people that they get hung up on that is they want to, they want to move into something new without fully honoring and letting go of where they've come from or why those maladaptive strategies were formed in the first place. And that grieving process is just really honoring what the that old version of you, how that old version of you is protecting you. And then the E in Reforge stands for embody. So like
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: if you think of like atomic habits, it's figuring out all the little ways that in a physical sense we can prove to ourselves that we are the person that we want to be showing up in the world. So, I mean, it looks different from person to person because everybody's trying to be somebody different. But if you have this image of yourself that you're trying to show up in the world as, the easiest way is figure out how that version of you shows up in the world and then just create microhabits that reinforce that to your nervous system that you are this person. So from start to finish, and there's there's really no timeline on how long this could take. It's a phased program, but like you're acknowledging who you used to be. recognizing who you wanna be and then figuring out how to fill the gap between between those two points.
martin: So l let's say, a man is in that that space between those two things. something his some part of his identity's been ripped away from him. He's lost his job. his maybe he's he's gotten a divorce. And so this this identity's been ripped away, extremely painful. He's in the bathtub, but he can't ever everything is foggy. He can't see the next breadcrumb. He doesn't know. What the next, he can't see the the the mountain, he can't see the path. It's just foggy. He hasn't gotten to that point where he's like, okay, this is where I want to be. What do you do in that space? Cause that's that's a real anxiety-inducing space. I've been in that space in my life. And you know what you no longer are, but you don't know what the next step is. You're just in this, like, you're in this waiting room.
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah, I I love that you just said the waiting room. That I call it a few different things. For a while I referred to it as the abyss because that's what it feels like when you're in
martin: Right.
Benjamin John Lee: it. It's like there's no light, you have no sense of direction, you're just you know that you had to leave where you were, but you can't yet see where it is that you're going.
martin: Yes.
Benjamin John Lee: And I've been in this place many times. And in fact, that's that's an integral part of the process and the The grieving part of Reforge is where I found really works best in this area because the anxiety that comes up is this this sense of unproductivity. Like we know so we we know we need to move, but we're not yet sure what direction we need to move in. And it's almost this shame over the fact that we're not making progress that makes us feel so bad. So spending that time, like just grieving where you've come from. In large part can emotionally release the energy that you have that might be attaching you or anchoring you to where you're coming from. Cause that in large part could be what's preventing you from moving forward is you just haven't yet let go of where you're coming from. And the the other part of that is a lot of times we end up in these situations for things that are completely outside of our control. And The worst part about excuses is most of the time they're true. Like excuses have a lot of power in them because you can say, I, you know, this happened to me and I can't do this because of that. And you could be completely right. What I like to remind my clients of and myself almost every single day is you only have power over what you can control. So in those moments where you don't know what to do. Start getting radically honest and radically accountable about how it is you contributed you contributed to the fact that you are where you're now at. Like pick up that ownership because picking up that ownership is the only thing that's going to empower you to make that next move forward. And sometimes you're not going to be able to see what the next move is until you make it.
martin: Hmm.
Benjamin John Lee: And that's so scary for P. That's scary for me. But sometimes you just need to take that leap of faith and see where you land. Because life doesn't always give you a clear path forward. Sometimes it's about choice and it's just about choosing a direction and going until you realize it's not the right direction anymore and pivoting. So there's there's a lot that can be done in there, but I understand that that overwhelming sense of anxiety and sadness that happens in that waiting room.
martin: Well, and and it again, interesting, you know, as as a soldier, there's this whole concept of the fog of war, right? Where you have a plan and you're going to execute the plan and then all of a sudden shit hits the fan, you've lost communication. Like, you know, plan B plan A is out the window, plan B is out the window, plan C is out the window, and you're just like, nothing makes sense, you know, and and metaphorically, I think what you're the waiting room is kinda like that. It's like your own internal fog of war. And Another another interesting thing I I think often is that people people love the people love the the the caterpillar to butterfly analogy, right? You know, caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. There's this metaphorphosis, but very rarely I think do people focus on the middle part, which is the chrysalis. And what happens inside the chrysalis is, you know, the caterpillar ra wraps itself in this chrysalis, and then basically it It decomposes and turns into goo, into mush. And from this mush, the s the new cells of the butterfly, the wings, the antenna, all that stuff begins to form inside this ugly decomposing sludge that's happening inside this chrysalis. And then finally the the butterfly breaks out. So I think the waiting rooms also like the chrysalis, where things are decomposing, they're ugly, they're stinky, they don't make sense. But There are the cells of change that are that are manifesting within that process that we can't always see because it's hidden inside this chrysalis. So, you know, can you also speak about that? And, you know, the abyss, the waiting room. What's actually happening in that space that we might not be conscious of?
Benjamin John Lee: There is a part of that metaphor, and I love that metaphor, but there's a part of that that a lot of people don't often think about. And that is that after all that goo and cells turn into a butterfly, that butterfly is still in that chrysalis for a good amount of time, pushing itself against the outside because it needs to strengthen its wings and its legs in order to even be able to break out of that chrysalis. And the same thing happens inside that waiting room where You're like you're like, okay, I am this new person and I'm ready to go do the things. And I don't know how spiritual a man you are, but I I am pretty spiritual myself. And I like I believe that the universe puts you exactly where you need to be and tests you with the exact things that you need to do to receive the things that you're asking for. And so in that waiting room, sometimes all of those challenges and the your prayers going unanswered and all of these things, they're strengthening you. If you're a if the man you're trying to become is a patient man, guess what? You're going to be given a lot of opportunities where you need to exhibit patience. If you're trying to be a resilient man, the universe is going to give you lots of opportunities to be resilient. So we don't we like we want so badly to run across that finish line and feel the ribbon break across our chests. But so often we we want to avoid that long part inside that hallway, which is us. just doing push-ups and pull-ups and jumping jacks to strengthen ourselves up to finally break through that door once we see it. And
martin: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Benjamin John Lee: like you talk about the fog of war. That's a good analogy because what do you do when all of the plans like fall apart? And that's simple sometimes all the universe is asking of you is to survive. Sometimes that's all that is on your plate is to just get through the day. Just survive. Just show up as the man that you say that you want to be in the world, and that can be enough for the day. You know, lead with honesty, be accountable, take care of yourself, take care of your mental and physical health. Like you don't have to be out here making moves and conquering the world. Sometimes just
martin: Yeah.
Benjamin John Lee: maintaining the version of yourself that you say that you want to be long enough until it becomes second nature. That's sometimes that's all you're being called to do.
martin: That's beautiful. And the other thing that's interesting is is you know, you could be in this waiting room for so long and it can seem so long and drawn out, but then you know, when you break out and things start to move, shit moves fast. Like it's like, okay, let's go, and all of a sudden it's like. all these things that you've been thinking about, it's like it's just like it starts raining and then it starts pouring and then it's like boom, boom, boom, boom. Like it's it's funny life that way. Like it it it can move fast, like and you can catch you off guard. Cause 'cause you've been you've been feeling so sedentary for so long that that when it happens, it's yeah, it it happens fast. Yeah. Yeah. I I spent actually I'm a I'm an advertising photographer and producer by trade. And I spent 15 years in India and I went over there back in 2008 with just my just my photography portfolio and I I managed to find a great deal of success there as a as a producer and as a photographer in Bollywood. And we came home about three years ago back to Canada, but and it ended up having kids there and and everything. but So I and my listeners know this about me already, but I am I spent quite a bit of time in the ashrams and studying the the studying the Eastern, the great Eastern texts, the sutras of Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita. So you ask if I'm a spiritual man, I would say absolutely yes. Absolutely, yes. And you know, there's this there's this part of us that is the observer self,
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah, I've when when I went to college but I I went to college to study psychology.
martin: the witness self, the witness to the experience, right? so so I I incorporate that a lot into into my philosophy as well. you know, that that even though I'm going through all this stuff, even though a man's going through this stuff, you still have the opportunity to be the observer and the witness of the experience, that there's something eternal in there that that is that is beyond the identity, you know, and knowing that can help you move from identity to identity when you need to. You know, so you could call it the soul, or you know, in the East they call it the Atman. And it's this personalized consciousness that is eternal, that has been with you since your birth. Aware pure awareness. So so that I guess the reason that I bring that up is that strengthening strengthening the knowledge of that part of yourself can help you in the waiting room. You know? So get lit talk a little bit more about shadow
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah. It I mean, connecting to that that's
martin: work, Benjamin. Like it's 'cause I'm also very interested in in in in Jungian
Benjamin John Lee: Shadow. Thank
martin: Jungian philosophy.
Benjamin John Lee: The shadow is a funny thing because the more you ignore the shadow, the more it takes control of your day-to-day life and you will have absolutely no idea what it's doing. So from a Jungian perspective, the shadow is just the aspects of your nature that you refuse to acknowledge and then they will manifest themselves in your behavior, your beliefs. and your thoughts on a day-to-day basis. And it's only through bringing the shadow into the light that we can integrate those aspects of our persona into the person that we're trying to become and then carry those attributes from a resolved perspective or a healthy perspective because every quality has a has I I hate using the words good and bad because that implies some sort of judgment, but like Every there's duality to almost every single quality that exists. And it's finding, as Aristotle would say, finding the moderation between those two ends of the spectrum of whatever quality it is. That's really the basis of what the shadow work is. And throughout my journey, I've discovered that what when I was saying how grateful I was about going through that addiction experience. Think it's because it showed me that every dark or negative aspect of human nature lies inside of me. So I'm not one of those people who's like, well, I would never do that or I would never say that. It's like, no, given the right circumstances or the right stimulus, I have the capacity to show up with the both the greatest and worst aspects of human nature. And it's only the people who think. that they aren't certain ways or that certain elements of human nature don't apply to them. Like sometimes in the religious communities you'll see this where you have the people who are you know on the pulpit telling
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: people how bad they are, what they should and shouldn't be doing, but then in their own personal lives, there's some of the crabbiest, meanest people that you meet. And like that's the shadow showing up is where when you repress these aspects of yourself, they're going to dominate your personality. Especially when you're operating from a place of unconsciousness. so that's really just the foundation of that shadow work, is just getting to know yourself, learning yourself, and not not being ashamed of who you are or what lies inside of you. So when you uncover that you have the capacity to be a cheater or a liar, it's you don't want to shame yourself for it. You go, okay, I understand what purpose this is trying to serve or what this is, what need this is trying to meet in me. But I don't want to be that person anymore. And so I'm going to bring this into the light and be aware that it's there. And that's the only way I can make sure I don't trip over it as I'm now navigating forward.
martin: And what what are some of the techniques you use to bring that shadow into the light? Like that, you know, a man that's listening right now that's struggling with this and there's shame, there's compulsive behavior, there's alcohol, there's cigarettes, there's pornography, there's gambling, there's all these compulsive behaviors that he knows and he just carries great shame around. How do we bring that stuff to the light?
Benjamin John Lee: There there is an unfortunate difficulty in in the modern day, and that's so many people have dopamine addictions. So it's really hard to figure out what need that dopamine is trying to fill when your nervous system is just so dependent on you know, people wake up, go straight to coffee, will smoke nicotine. All day, they wind down at night by taking something to sleep or smoking weed. And it's like this has just become normalized, where it's just we wake up, we use substances to bring ourselves up, we use substances to bring ourselves down, we keep ourselves placated all day by using social media. We distract ourselves with I mean, gambling is now available pretty much everywhere. It's like it it's and I don't blame people because it's just been sold to you since day one, your entire life. However, kind of like the bathroom analogy, if you want to be free from it, you just you got you have to do the work. You have to grit your teeth and you have to get through it. And I wasn't able to really do the shadow work until I got completely sober. And most people aren't going to like to hear this, but when I say completely sober, like I mean no nicotine, no caffeine, no THC, no social media, like. You you need to purge your and I'm not saying you have to go live like a monk on on the side of a mountain. Like you can enjoy TV shows and movies and certain things, but like what when you're relying on external stimulation to to reward your brain all day long, like it's no wonder that you don't know up from down because you've clouded these signals for so long.
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: So, in large part, the first step in that shadow work journey can just be nervous system regulation. 'Cause if you can't nervous if you can't regulate your nervous system, the you can't tell up from down.
martin: Yeah, and and Benjamin, you bring up a great point. Like all those things you you brought, like you know, social media is free, pornography is free. there's a liquor store on every corner. And it just seems to me that the things that are keeping us whether it's the powers that be that allow this to be legal, it just seems to me that. Everything everything in society is sort of built to keep you down and repressed and keep you dysregulated. Maybe so you don't get out there and create a problem for the higher ups or the powers that be, right? You have we have this placated, placated society, right? Placated people that are just addicted to all these things, dysregulated, you know, addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, whatever. so really, you know. The reforging that you talk about really is is just really channeling that warrior energy and and and just like just getting the chains off you, right? This is a chain. This is a chain. This is like it's untethering yourself from all of these energetic hooks that we've put into ourselves that that are that all these things are just attempts at regulating ourselves, our nervous systems, right? You wake up in the morning, you feel a bit drowsy, I don't like that, have a coffee, again, perfect up. That's the nervous system regulation. Same with alcohol, same with social media. I'm bored. I can't, I you know, I don't want to sit with myself right now. So I'm gonna reach for my phone and start scrolling Instagram. These are all nerve, these are all attempts at regulating a nervous system. Whereas you take that, you you know, you you sit with yourself, or you sit in meditation, or you like start to focus on your breath. That is a much healthier way of of regulating the nervous system. But I like I like the the first letter in Reforge is I think is recognize, you said, right?
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah.
martin: Re reveal. Okay, reveal. Well, reveal and recognize are kind of that there's a similarity there, right? so reveal, you know. Well, I think first of all, you just gotta get just fucking sick and tired of where you're at, of being in that bathtub. Like I'm I'm tired of this. I don't know exactly where I wanna go, but I just know that I don't want this anymore. So knowing what you don't want and and I think that's really powerful what you said.
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah, and this it leans back on that that radical accountability part because you're right, there there's a liquor store on every corner, you can buy vapes in every gas station, weed is now legal in most states. It's you can't keep saying like, well, it's just so easy, or they're doing this to keep me down, or th it's like, okay, that's great, but you have the ability to say no. You have the power
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: to cleanse your system. You have the power to go sit outside in the grass and breathe for 10 minutes instead of going reaching for something unhealthy. So while I and I understand why people do it, I did it myself for over 35 years. But
martin: Yeah.
Benjamin John Lee: when are you going to reach the point where you go, I I'm either I'm either going to continue to live the life I'm living and hate it, or I'm going to make a change and try for something
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: better. You like it all comes down to choice. Did you make the decision or don't? Like if you want to make that change, I'm here to support you. If you don't, then please,
martin: Yeah, yeah.
Benjamin John Lee: yeah.
martin: There there's the there's this other thing, and I'm sure you've noticed this too, being an American and I'm Canadian, so it's the same, but there's there seems to be this this this thing running through society now where like victimhood is is is being raised as an ideal. You know, like everybody's kind of a victim of something. So it's just this w which is so disempowering.
Benjamin John Lee: I man, I what's with I hold a relatively unpopular opinion, and that's I am so sure that things are about to get better in society for
martin: Yeah.
Benjamin John Lee: one simple reason, and that's as I have been observing the way the society has been unfolding, I've realized that there is a collective shadow to nations in the same way that we as individuals have shadows. And just like those of us who see ourselves for what we are and we can't ignore it anymore and have to start making better decisions. I see the like on the geopolitical stage this starting to happen because we're our mistakes are getting thrown in our face at such a quicker and quicker rate. And the the whole disempowerment thing, I I hear a lot of people saying like it's this orchestrated, you know, they're doing it to keep you down. And but like I think this the answer is actually much more simple than that. And that is it is human nature to seek comfort and avoid discomfort. And the easier that becomes, the more prone we as a society is going to be to incorporating that into our day-to-day lives. So like it's if you see somebody else getting off the hook because they are shirking responsibility, hey, I'm gonna use that strategy because it seems pretty seems like it works. So
martin: Hm.
Benjamin John Lee: it's only those people who are willing to go, you know what? That's not right. That's not who I want to be. And I'm going to live as the man and set the example for everybody else around me. Because people you asked before how we notice the parts of our shadow. And I've noticed something about the golden shadow, which is if I pay attention to the people that I really admire, the people who when I see them show up in the world, and I'm like, man, there is something about them that I I just want to follow. Or I want to incorporate a part of their personality into the way that I show up. It's like if you can pick up those qualities and attributes and start walking around the world like shining a light for everybody around you, people are going to follow you and want to know what you are doing to be the way that you are. So it's it's a lonely path at first, but if you can embody your authentic self and start showing up powerfully and not have those chains of easy dopamine and And easy blame or whatever it is you're doing to shirk responsibility. It's like that that power is felt and people will want to be like you and want to know what you're doing. And then it it like feeds the same thing that you were searching with the easy dopamine in the first place. So if you take the hard route, you get the same finish, except you're not a slave to all of these things that have been
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: pulling you down the entire time.
martin: There's there's this beautiful term in Sanskrit in the yoga tradition called tapas. and it's basically the fire of discipline. And it's you know, it comes from the yoga tradition, and it's it's it's this idea that when you start to when you start to choose the discipline over your over the easy way out, that there's this fire and this heat that comes from that and begins to burn away. The things that no longer belong in in your life. And so that I love this idea of tapas. And I that's what you're talking about with Reforge. It's like there's this by resisting the easy way, by resisting the victimhood, by resisting the throwing your hands up in the air and choosing discipline, you're you're creating the fire and the heat that you need to burn away the the obstructions.
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah. The only the only word of advice that I will give people is you can't do it all at once. You can't go
martin: Correct.
Benjamin John Lee: from doing none of it to all of it. Like we we all have individual windows of tolerance in terms of like emotional growth and experience. So you need like my embodied phase for the program is about being smart about setting those goals in a sustainable fashion. Cause like if you're addicted to weed, nicotine, and caffeine and you're like, all right. I'm going stone cold sober today. I can almost guarantee you that you're going to fail. Whereas if you're smart and you say, okay, I'm gonna 90 days, I'm gonna get rid of nicotine, get that under control for 90 days, and then I'm going to work on the THC for 90 days. It's like we need to be smart about the way that we're building these, the building blocks. Like it's just like the little pig who built his house out of brick instead of straw. It's like, let's be smart about the the tools that we're using to build this identity for ourselves because we want it to be able to withstand the storm.
martin: What another interesting you thing you talk about a lot, Benjamin, is you know, not not necessarily healing or growth, but you call it initiation. What are we initiating? Or why do you call it initiation instead of healing or growth?
Benjamin John Lee: I call it integration.
martin: Okay.
Benjamin John Lee: actually I don't call it integration. Young called it integration. But that is so in Western society, I don't know why, but we have this and and through Eastern philosophy has really interested me. I've done a like I've met with gosh, Mahayana monks and jhana yoga practitioners, bhakti yoga practitioners, like just But but I've also gone to to temple and spoken to rabbis and spent time with Muslims and Christians and like the thing I find fascinating is in the West we have we always put this good and evil spin on things. Whereas in the East, there's not so much this like this is good, this is bad. It's more like this
martin: Spectrum.
Benjamin John Lee: in it's a spectrum and like this in any amount is good or bad, and then this in any amount is good or bad. And so it's It's learning to find that moderation. And like in finding that moderation, what you're doing, like integrating. So like you're acknowledging that I have, if say I'm I am, I'm a man of conviction. The other end of that spectrum could be stubbornness, where like I can be ignorant and I can just stand still despite not having all of the facts and stomp my feet. Whereas a man of conviction is no. I'm I'm hearing you out. I'm acknowledging all both points, but I am standing by what I believe. Integrating both of those is acknowledging, okay, I have the capacity to be both stubborn and a man of conviction. And it's only through recognizing that both of those things rest inside of me that I'm able to, without being activated, look at a situation and determine which of those I'm being. Because if you're somebody who doesn't want to believe that you can be stubborn. Then when somebody says, like, hey, I think you're being a little stubborn here, instead of going, like, okay, let me take an honest look at this, you're gonna get activated and you're gonna go, No, I'm not. Like, you're just not seeing this right. And so it's I say integration because integration exists beyond heal. Like, you need to be somewhat healed to even start integrating. But the integration process is just acknowledging that every single aspect of human nature lies inside of you and to not be ashamed. of it when it manifests itself in your life.
martin: That's fantastic. I I agree with that so completely. the path to healing in in the Eastern tradition is the is the path to wholeness. And so all of the all of the identities that are floating around that are often contradictory, you know you know, bring bringing those into an incr integrated self is really the basis of all. you know, the purpose of psychology really, or the understanding of psychology, the understanding of the psyche, which is the understanding of the fragmentation of self and how do we create a wholeness of that. And then in some cases, you know, some people have really are really unwell, schizophrenia or or bipolar, where it's just really an extreme fragmentation of self that, you know, might have come from childhood trauma or things that happened in the past where that integration becomes very, very difficult. There's like a split sense of self. But I think that's where, you know, medical intervention and, you know, peop people that study that sort of thing can come in and help. And and you you have, you know, medications that can help with that at times too. But yeah, that's that's fascinating work. And and so how are you doing? how how many clients are you working with these days and what are some of the pro progress that you're seeing in people?
Benjamin John Lee: I have well unfortunate not unfortunately. I am transitioning. I just started the initiation source a few months ago. I actually work at the College of Charleston. I'm the head life coach for their life design program here. And so I'm just now making the process of trying I'm trying to slowly transition out of the university setting into my private practice. Right now I only have three people going through the reforge protocol, but it is a little bit intensive on my end. So I have to be careful about how many people I'm
martin: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin John Lee: trying to take on at once. I have room for more, but I'm not sure how many more. but I would I would love to transition to that full time when I'm when I'm able to.
martin: And w just just a final question for you, Benjamin, because I think this is a question that a lot of people wonder about. What is what is the difference between what you're doing and say traditional therapy?
Benjamin John Lee: There's a lot of answers to that. The the simplest thing that I like to say is therapy is more concerned on where you're coming from and coaching is more concerned on where you're going. So I I I'll tell people before we even start working together, like what I do is not therapy. You already need to be at a relatively healed and resolved place from an emotional standpoint. Because if you have not resolved all of the energetic ties to your trauma in the past. There's no way that you're going to be able to hold yourself accountable and do the work that you need to do moving forward. And
martin: Okay.
Benjamin John Lee: what people will try to get a coach a lot of times because they want to outsource their accountability or they want somebody to make decisions for them. And if like, if I like, and I don't just take on anybody. So if I have a meeting with you and and I'm talking with you and I can get the sense that you want me to do all the work for you, like this relationship just isn't going to work. But the people who I can tell to say, hey, here's where I've come from, here's what I've learned about myself, and now I want to take all of that knowledge that I know about myself and figure out how to effectively move forward, those are the kind of people that
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: coaching is really good for.
martin: Benjamin, it was fascinating talking to you. This is a great episode, and man, what a story you have and coming from the experiences you've had, and now you're now you're coaching and leading people. it's beautiful work, man. It was a pleasure to have you on. And just quickly, where can people find you?
Benjamin John Lee: best pre if you want to just talk, best place to reach out is probably Instagram. I'm at Benjamin.john dot Lee. if you're interested in my book, which is actually about national identity, so probably not so much for any of you Canadians, but for Americans, you can go to Benjamin.jo or Benjamin John Lee dot com. My book Sincerely America is there. And if you're interested in coaching, you can go to theinitiation source dot com. That's you can book a free consultation call with me and Maybe we can find out if you want to work together.
martin: That sounds great. Benjamin, it's great to have you on the show.
Benjamin John Lee: Yes, Martin, I've I had a great time during this conversation, so thank you.
martin: All right, we'll talk to you soon.
Benjamin John Lee: Sounds good.
martin: Hey everyone, welcome to the Odyssey in Alchemy. On this show, I sit down with psychologists, healers, survivors, and teachers exploring depth psychology, inner transformation, spiritual awakening, and liberation. We tackle the real stuff: anxiety, masculinity, grief, parenting, plant medicine, and what it actually takes to live a life that means something. If you're enjoying the show, please rate, comment, and share with someone who needs to hear it. It helps more than you know. Let's dive in.
Martin P Prihoda: Welcome to the Odyssey Alchemy podcast.
martin: My guest today spent his career as a bomb disposal technician in Iraq and Afghanistan. He came home to PTSD, lost identity, and addiction. He rebuilt himself more than once the hard way. Benjamin Lee now runs the initiation source, coaching men through the same rebuild with a method he calls the reforge protocol. Today we break down shadow work and what it actually takes to forge a man back into one piece. Benjamin, welcome to the Odyssey and Alchemy Podcast.
Benjamin John Lee: Martin, it's a pleasure to be here.
martin: it's great to have you on when I was I was doing research on you. What a great story. let's take it back to your time in Iraq and Afghanistan as a soldier. You were there in the capacity of diffusing bombs. What what was that experience like? Like what did that teach you that civilian life couldn't?
Benjamin John Lee: Wow. I mean so many things. I think the the thing I I I've always been interested in human psychology and I I didn't I wasn't consciously aware that that's what I was doing my entire life, but I've always just been the kind of person who likes to sit in the corner and watch people to see how they respond to certain stimulus and how they react with other people and how they get activated by certain situations. And War is an interesting filter because it doesn't matter how much bravado you have or how confident you are or how cool you think you are, as soon as the bullets start flying, you can really tell what the measure of a man is based on how they respond to that situation. And obviously, training goes a long way for that. The more the more you train, the more experience you have with those situations, the cooler and more composed you're going to be. But there is this innate. quality that some men possess where they're just stoic under fire. And I I don't necessarily know what forges that. I I think that goes all the way back to early childhood, depending on how much adversity you have to face during your upbringing. But that was just the biggest thing I learned that like if if if you want to know the measure of a man, pay attention to his actions and not his words. I think that plain and simple is probably what war taught me.
martin: Well, like specifically like bomb diffusing, that is so just inherently dangerous. To to, you know, you're not you're not in in the sort of the background as a medic or, you know, working in a field hospital. You're actually out in the field doing something that is so specifically dangerous with a such a specific set of skills. Why did you choose that path?
Benjamin John Lee: This is gonna be a really boring answer, but I was 17 when I joined the military. And so when I went in, when you join the military here, you take what's called the ASVAB, which is like a a placement test based on your IQ and a bunch of other metrics. And the jobs that you can get in the military are based on your score. So I had scored high enough that I could I had a pick of any job that I wanted. So the recruiters were like, hey. Here's the two jobs that we're really recruiting for right now. An EOD technician, which has a $10,000 signing bonus, and a cryptolinguist, which also has a $10,000 $10,000 signing bonus. I didn't do so hot in high school. So the idea of spending three years learning Arabic to like listen in on phone conversations just didn't appeal to me. So I was like, hey, $10,000 sounds like a lot of money. I'm going to go diffuse bombs for a living. And that was that was about it.
martin: And so you know, you're you're on the field, like is you you came home with PTSD. how how did the PTSD arise from that specific that specific job you had?
Benjamin John Lee: PTSD is a weird phenomenon because I've noticed that you have like acute PTSD and then chronic PTSD. So it's something that is related specifically to a large catastrophic event and then something which is just the nervous system getting conditioned to be in a state of fight or flight over a long period of time. So it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with like, I saw or witnessed this and it really messed me up. It's just I spent a decade being on twenty four seven and now my nervous system doesn't know how to shut off. And I started feeling the the early parts of that before I even was medically retired from the military. Just you're you're so go, go, go, go, go all the time that in those moments of quiet where you should be able to like rest, then your brain should be able to shut down for a little bit, like all your body wants to do is run. Because and I didn't again consciously know this at the time, but that's it was trying to avoid feeling all of those feelings that I had avoided feeling for those past 10 years. And so I was fine until I was fully medically retired. And then once I got home and was kind of planning what to do next with my life and I had the chance to sit still, like it caught up to me like a freight trim. And I when I was medically retired, I had nerve release surgery and I got a taste for opiates. And that was what led to my heavy addiction to opiates was just that feeling of like not needing to think or feel anymore. Just that escape that it provided was too alluring for me at that point in my time to avoid. but that I mean, that's what the early parts of dealing with that looked like.
martin: Yeah, I'm just fascinated by that work because, you know, I've I don't even like firecrackers, dude. growing up, my friends were all out lighting firecrackers. I was always like standing back and like, I don't like firecrackers. And so so to hear you just speak about a career diffusing the largest firecrackers you can imagine. And the the amount of calm and the amount of presence you must have had in those positions. Like can you ca can you walk us through an example of what this like a scene that you went through or or a particular event, just just for the audience to to get an idea of what that kind of tension would have been like.
Benjamin John Lee: Think the best case it's there's this weird level of almost disassociation that happens when you're in the middle of combat. your your instincts take over. And from a bomb diffusal perspective, it's kind of a ps a second layer to it because not only are you in combat, but then you also have a mission to do whilst you're in the midst of combat. So you have you're you know you're surrounded by a platoon of Well, I guess the the instance I'll reference right now, I was with I was attached to first combat engineers, first combat engineering battalion Marines out of Camp Pendleton. We were in Afghanistan in Hellman province. And we were trying to clear a route that had been overwhelmed with IED emplacement to a special forces post that was like in the middle of a back wadi and it was on the edge of a cliff face. So you only had one access route. in and out and it was the same thing. So once you committed to going in, like you were committed until you reached the other end and could turn the the convoy around and get out. And the enemy had spent months placing IEDs along this route. So the job essentially was to slowly crawl our way against this mountain ridge, diffusing IEDs while we were being attacked from the Wadi to our left. So it was essentially a week of just getting pot shot at taking full contact, RPGs, but in the middle of that, your job is not to participate in the combat, it's to diffuse the IEDs which are preventing your movement. So th there's this multi-level thing here going where it's like, okay, I need to stay alive. I need to return fire and I need to be aware of the combat that's going on around me. But my main focus also needs to be on defusing these explosive hazards that are preventing us from egress or moving forward. That was probably the hairiest situation that I was in because there was there was no option at that point. But that's the that's almost the nice thing about those situations is if you're not given a choice, most people step up to the task. So I I don't even consider myself particularly heroic or courageous. It's just like okay, we either do this or we stand still and die. Like that that's just what our options are.
martin: Wow. And so and so when you finished your tour and you came back, did would w did the military provide you with support for what you were going through and like reintegrating back into society?
Benjamin John Lee: That that process, I don't know what it looks like nowadays. And I've been out since 2014, but they started to get a better handle on it as the wars went on. So like my first tour was in Baghdad, Iraq. And that was a pretty that was a really bad one. And there was no there was no transition support whatsoever. It was we got on a plane, went home, and then just started drinking with our buddies and reintegrated back into our daily unit. my second tour in northern Iraq was the same way, but then by my third tour, they started hosting I think they called them decompression camps or events or something. So they had like a week where they would bring in counselors and therapists, and as a unit, you know, you would go to these decompression events. The only issue with that is like the culture. Like that cool guy culture almost has this underwritten agreement that like nobody's gonna sit here and complain about what we're doing because some guys just replaced us that are downrange right now. So like who are we to sit here and complain about what we just went through when, you know, guys we know are doing that same job right now. So that that's not to say they didn't try, but it's just it's almost a losing battle because you almost have to shut yourself off to do these jobs. And it's It's hard to ask somebody to become vulnerable enough to share what's going on in their internal world while also asking them to be hard enough to endure these sorts of circumstances. So I I don't even have a good answer as to like what that decompression process could look like. I think they tried. It's just, I think that was just a failing battle to begin with.
martin: Yeah. Well, I mean, i y y y y you go back to like even the seventies in the Vietnam War. Like they didn't really like those vets that came back had there was no support. They it was such an unpopular war, they had to come back and and they probably didn't even really have a handle on what PTSD was at that point. And it would have been even worse in like the Second World War, right? You just come back and you've seen so much and and now like you know, here's some alcohol, right? Like you start drinking and then Wow man, it's just so traumatic. It's just so traumatic to to come back from that. And a lot
Benjamin John Lee: If if you look at the if you look at some of the studies that have been done though, it's very interesting because what they experienced in World War II should on paper have been catastrophically worse than anything that we experienced in Vietnam and during the desert storms. But there's a weird phenomenon that happens when the entire nation Felt like it was at war with the soldiers it was sending over. So when they came home and reintegrated, the entire nation was decompressing from a world event. So there weren't these cases of isolation and depression and addiction that really ran rampant. Don't get me wrong, it was there from combat trauma. But it wasn't like Vietnam and these wars when when you come home, you're surrounded by people who have absolutely no idea. That like there's even a war going. So like some you come home and some people wouldn't even know that there was a war going on that you were just at. So there's this weird disillusionment that happens because it's like, I just went and risked my life for these people and they're not even aware of the sacrifices I'm making. So I I I find that interesting that it also has to do with like the the collective resilience towards catastrophic events. It's not just at the individual level.
martin: That's fascinating. And and that's why I think that coming home from Vietnam would have been so hard for for Betts, because they're coming home to a very unpopular war and probably not a lot of support. And you know, the country was protesting against it. And you know, even Iraq and Afghanistan had its share of definitely a huge share of naysayers and pro protesters. Like, why are we there? Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Like, is this about oil? Like, what's this about? Yet you guys are there risking your lives, right? And it's yeah, just it's it's crazy. so so then you you came home and the opio opioid addiction came about. And and that was from you, you were just you were home, you you couldn't decompress, you were, you were stressed, and so you were prescribed something that just took a hold on you. Is that right?
Benjamin John Lee: Ye yes and no, the initial prescription is what gave me a taste for it. Although to sit here and say that any surgery or any anything had to do with my addictive behavior, because now with the clarity of hindsight I realize that that that addictive tendency inside of me existed long before that event ever happened. It's just I had I had built myself around this identity of being disciplined and routine and rigid. So like it it insulated me from those addictive tendencies. Although I did my fair share of drinking in the military too and which wasn't overly healthy. So like those those characteristics in my personality existed long before that event happened. It's just once once I had that opportunity to sit still, like it really grabbed a hold of me. And the other downside was Who who's going to tell a veteran that just came home from war that like they need to get their shit together? It's like nobody in their right mind is going to be like, well, I'm sorry you're feeling this way, but like suck it up and go get some help or whatever it is. Like you can say you're here for you, you can like you can suggest it, but it's such this hard thing because everybody feels so bad about what you're going through and nobody knows what to say to you or how to help you. And it's it's really not until you realize that the only way you're going to get out of it is by helping yourself that like that door opens. So like I unfortunately that was just and weirdly, I'm actually grateful that I went through that because that situation taught me so much about myself that I I don't think I would have learned otherwise. But I mean, it was hard when I was going through it, but in hindsight, I'm infinitely grateful for that experience.
martin: And and Benjamin, when you're coming home, w were you coming home to family, like a wife, kids, d parents, friend, like what were you coming home to as far as family support?
Benjamin John Lee: I moved back home to Ken I'm from Connecticut up north in the United States. And my parents were up there and I went and moved back with them right after I had gotten out. I've never been married. I don't have any kids. I mean I would love to, but putting myself back together this last fifteen years has kind of taken precedent to that. but yeah, I I have family which I just moved down to ch not just last year I moved down to Charleston 'cause You know, we as we talk about the process of forging a new identity, you know, sometimes we have to get away from old environments and people who are part of the identities that we're trying to shed. so while I do have loving parents and brother and sister up north, unfortunately last year I had to spend kind of on my own to figure out who I was outside of outside of the uniform, outside of my family structure, outside of everything, and just figure out who I am and how I want to navigate the world.
martin: Yeah, and and that's the other thing that that I was gonna mention is that you're you had such a strong identification with this work you were doing. You had to because it was so dangerous, right? Like this is your whole identity was wrapped around, you know, doing this job because if you if you didn't do it right, you'd be dead, which is different than almost any job that exists. So your the identity around it was much stronger. So when you came back home, like the uniform came off. Who was there? But like once that identity folded and once that identity was gone, like what was there? Who was Benjamin?
Benjamin John Lee: I
martin: Who was Benjamin Lee?
Benjamin John Lee: I tra I try I held on to that identity for a while. Like at at first when I got out, I was just the retired bomb squad technician instead of the bomb squad technician, which he showed up in the world almost identically, except for he didn't have any of the responsibilities. And then as that identity started, I mean, and it took a few years for that identity to wear itself out because like It's such a cool identity to wear around. It's like, I'm a war hero, I'm a decorated veteran. Like everybody thinks you're cool. You can get away with anything. And it's the ultimate excuse to do whatever you want, essentially. And but that started to get really old after a while. And after that started to dry up, then the wounded veteran identity started to kick in. As I started to really have to face these. Emotional and psychological issues that started to arise to deal with the remnants of my addiction, to deal with my lack of identity or purpose or meaning, like all like that, I had to like wrap myself in that wounded veteran identity, which also insulated me from needing to like make any movement or have any answers or pick up responsibility. but it wasn't until that identity grew old that I was like, okay, like I I now need to to take ownership of my own life and figure out who I am, like almost let the veteran persona die in its entirety and then see
martin: Right.
Benjamin John Lee: what grows out of that soil.
martin: And what what did what did rock bottom look like for you? Like what had to happen before you're like, okay, something's gotta change?
Benjamin John Lee: I I don't it wasn't a specific just like the PTSD thing. I don't think it was any one specific event, but there was a good period of time where I was just I felt like a passenger in my own brain. And I've never had like suicidal ideation. In fact, I feel for anybody who has, but there has there was this a period of time where like I would have my pistol on the counter while I was taking a bath, just staring at the ceiling and like praying that some entity would give me the strength to just end it because that's how much pain I was in. And There was going through that over and over, this it kind of changed in my head from this woe is me to being like, Okay, well, I'm never going to go through with this because I do still have like I still had so many things that I wanted to do. I just didn't know how to get out of the place that I was currently at. And so it just came down to a decision that had to be made that was like, hey. You can either keep sitting in this bathtub and staring at that pistol and wishing things were easier, or you can get up, dry off, and go figure out how the hell to do something about it. And so, like, that's kind of what it looked like for me was just that again, like being on that cliff face in Afghanistan, just I have no other option. I either move forward or I sit here and die. So that's what rock bottom looked like for me.
martin: Wow. Yeah, that's powerful. You said rebuilding took multiple attempts. What did the failures teach you that the first success couldn't?
Benjamin John Lee: I wasn't. So as I've been developing my skills as a coach and a just a mentor in general, I've realized that the only way you can really figure out who you are is by figuring out who you are. Because as you grow up, the world fills you with all of these things that have nothing to do with you. You know, your your parents' ideal of success, society's idea of what makes you. worthy or lovable, or it's all of these notions that are put into us from exterior sources that we adopt as our own. And it's only been by like recreating an identity and chasing down these things that I thought were in my highest interest. And then getting close enough to feel like, wait a minute, there's something wrong about this. This isn't aligned. And then being able to sit still and then address what doesn't feel aligned about it. take whatever positives I grew out of that new identity along with me and then shed the skin of the stuff that doesn't fit anymore. So it's I mean, I that's kind of how I view the growth growth process in general is we there is no finish line to cross. There is no like, I made it, I'm successful, I'm this. It's like even people who on paper right now look successful, they can lose it all next year and have to rebuild themselves from the ground up. So if you just look at this journey as a continuously evolving process instead of this like idealized image of yourself that you're trying to reach, that that's going to save you so much headache in the long run.
martin: So let's let's walk me through Reforge, which is your protocol. What what does the protocol actu what does the protocol actually do to a man?
Benjamin John Lee: I mean, you're only going to get out of it what you put into it. But essentially what I have done, I I'm a big fan of Youngin psychology and it's shadow work. So essentially what the Reforged protocol is is just the foundation of Youngin' shadow work. It's it's the exact process that I went through to pull myself out of that bathtub into the seat that I'm sitting in right now. So Reforge is an acronym. R stand R and E stand for reveal and examine. So the first thing, before you can fix a problem or troubleshoot a problem, you have to know that a problem exists. So you have to bring up all of that stuff that is preventing you from being the person that you want to be and then examine why it was put or why it's that way in the first place. So as we just mentioned, our parents, society, teachers, mentors, siblings, all of these things that don't belong to us. And then The F is the face part. That's the shadow work. So it's really diving into really getting to know yourself because our formative years kind of imprint onto us who we are, how our nervous system shows up in the world and how we get activated by the world. And the face phase of that is figuring out what activates us, figuring out why it activates us, and then integrating whatever. we learn from that into our identity moving forward. And then the O and the R is offload and reclaim. So there's two parts there, which is you need to shed all of that skin that doesn't belong to you anymore. And then you need to reclaim the parts of you that you have suppressed for someone else's idealized image of yourself. So I'll see like when people hear the word shadow, they think of like darkness, that the shadow is only bad things. But there's just as many positive components to the shadow as there is negative. So Young referred to it as the golden shadow. So say like you're very headstrong and and you have a lot of conviction. I I consider that a good trait. But if you had a parent that did not like a child who asked questions or talked back, you learn to repress that because that would upset where you got your source of love from. So it's like learning to reclaim these things that you that characteristics in yourself that are naturally there that you have repressed throughout your life. And then the G in Reforge stands for grieve, which that's sort of part of the offload process. Because what I've what I've noticed is you can't let go of an old identity until you've fully grieved why you created that identity to keep you safe in the first place. And that's the part where I see a lot of people that they get hung up on that is they want to, they want to move into something new without fully honoring and letting go of where they've come from or why those maladaptive strategies were formed in the first place. And that grieving process is just really honoring what the that old version of you, how that old version of you is protecting you. And then the E in Reforge stands for embody. So like
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: if you think of like atomic habits, it's figuring out all the little ways that in a physical sense we can prove to ourselves that we are the person that we want to be showing up in the world. So, I mean, it looks different from person to person because everybody's trying to be somebody different. But if you have this image of yourself that you're trying to show up in the world as, the easiest way is figure out how that version of you shows up in the world and then just create microhabits that reinforce that to your nervous system that you are this person. So from start to finish, and there's there's really no timeline on how long this could take. It's a phased program, but like you're acknowledging who you used to be. recognizing who you wanna be and then figuring out how to fill the gap between between those two points.
martin: So l let's say, a man is in that that space between those two things. something his some part of his identity's been ripped away from him. He's lost his job. his maybe he's he's gotten a divorce. And so this this identity's been ripped away, extremely painful. He's in the bathtub, but he can't ever everything is foggy. He can't see the next breadcrumb. He doesn't know. What the next, he can't see the the the mountain, he can't see the path. It's just foggy. He hasn't gotten to that point where he's like, okay, this is where I want to be. What do you do in that space? Cause that's that's a real anxiety-inducing space. I've been in that space in my life. And you know what you no longer are, but you don't know what the next step is. You're just in this, like, you're in this waiting room.
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah, I I love that you just said the waiting room. That I call it a few different things. For a while I referred to it as the abyss because that's what it feels like when you're in
martin: Right.
Benjamin John Lee: it. It's like there's no light, you have no sense of direction, you're just you know that you had to leave where you were, but you can't yet see where it is that you're going.
martin: Yes.
Benjamin John Lee: And I've been in this place many times. And in fact, that's that's an integral part of the process and the The grieving part of Reforge is where I found really works best in this area because the anxiety that comes up is this this sense of unproductivity. Like we know so we we know we need to move, but we're not yet sure what direction we need to move in. And it's almost this shame over the fact that we're not making progress that makes us feel so bad. So spending that time, like just grieving where you've come from. In large part can emotionally release the energy that you have that might be attaching you or anchoring you to where you're coming from. Cause that in large part could be what's preventing you from moving forward is you just haven't yet let go of where you're coming from. And the the other part of that is a lot of times we end up in these situations for things that are completely outside of our control. And The worst part about excuses is most of the time they're true. Like excuses have a lot of power in them because you can say, I, you know, this happened to me and I can't do this because of that. And you could be completely right. What I like to remind my clients of and myself almost every single day is you only have power over what you can control. So in those moments where you don't know what to do. Start getting radically honest and radically accountable about how it is you contributed you contributed to the fact that you are where you're now at. Like pick up that ownership because picking up that ownership is the only thing that's going to empower you to make that next move forward. And sometimes you're not going to be able to see what the next move is until you make it.
martin: Hmm.
Benjamin John Lee: And that's so scary for P. That's scary for me. But sometimes you just need to take that leap of faith and see where you land. Because life doesn't always give you a clear path forward. Sometimes it's about choice and it's just about choosing a direction and going until you realize it's not the right direction anymore and pivoting. So there's there's a lot that can be done in there, but I understand that that overwhelming sense of anxiety and sadness that happens in that waiting room.
martin: Well, and and it again, interesting, you know, as as a soldier, there's this whole concept of the fog of war, right? Where you have a plan and you're going to execute the plan and then all of a sudden shit hits the fan, you've lost communication. Like, you know, plan B plan A is out the window, plan B is out the window, plan C is out the window, and you're just like, nothing makes sense, you know, and and metaphorically, I think what you're the waiting room is kinda like that. It's like your own internal fog of war. And Another another interesting thing I I think often is that people people love the people love the the the caterpillar to butterfly analogy, right? You know, caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. There's this metaphorphosis, but very rarely I think do people focus on the middle part, which is the chrysalis. And what happens inside the chrysalis is, you know, the caterpillar ra wraps itself in this chrysalis, and then basically it It decomposes and turns into goo, into mush. And from this mush, the s the new cells of the butterfly, the wings, the antenna, all that stuff begins to form inside this ugly decomposing sludge that's happening inside this chrysalis. And then finally the the butterfly breaks out. So I think the waiting rooms also like the chrysalis, where things are decomposing, they're ugly, they're stinky, they don't make sense. But There are the cells of change that are that are manifesting within that process that we can't always see because it's hidden inside this chrysalis. So, you know, can you also speak about that? And, you know, the abyss, the waiting room. What's actually happening in that space that we might not be conscious of?
Benjamin John Lee: There is a part of that metaphor, and I love that metaphor, but there's a part of that that a lot of people don't often think about. And that is that after all that goo and cells turn into a butterfly, that butterfly is still in that chrysalis for a good amount of time, pushing itself against the outside because it needs to strengthen its wings and its legs in order to even be able to break out of that chrysalis. And the same thing happens inside that waiting room where You're like you're like, okay, I am this new person and I'm ready to go do the things. And I don't know how spiritual a man you are, but I I am pretty spiritual myself. And I like I believe that the universe puts you exactly where you need to be and tests you with the exact things that you need to do to receive the things that you're asking for. And so in that waiting room, sometimes all of those challenges and the your prayers going unanswered and all of these things, they're strengthening you. If you're a if the man you're trying to become is a patient man, guess what? You're going to be given a lot of opportunities where you need to exhibit patience. If you're trying to be a resilient man, the universe is going to give you lots of opportunities to be resilient. So we don't we like we want so badly to run across that finish line and feel the ribbon break across our chests. But so often we we want to avoid that long part inside that hallway, which is us. just doing push-ups and pull-ups and jumping jacks to strengthen ourselves up to finally break through that door once we see it. And
martin: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Benjamin John Lee: like you talk about the fog of war. That's a good analogy because what do you do when all of the plans like fall apart? And that's simple sometimes all the universe is asking of you is to survive. Sometimes that's all that is on your plate is to just get through the day. Just survive. Just show up as the man that you say that you want to be in the world, and that can be enough for the day. You know, lead with honesty, be accountable, take care of yourself, take care of your mental and physical health. Like you don't have to be out here making moves and conquering the world. Sometimes just
martin: Yeah.
Benjamin John Lee: maintaining the version of yourself that you say that you want to be long enough until it becomes second nature. That's sometimes that's all you're being called to do.
martin: That's beautiful. And the other thing that's interesting is is you know, you could be in this waiting room for so long and it can seem so long and drawn out, but then you know, when you break out and things start to move, shit moves fast. Like it's like, okay, let's go, and all of a sudden it's like. all these things that you've been thinking about, it's like it's just like it starts raining and then it starts pouring and then it's like boom, boom, boom, boom. Like it's it's funny life that way. Like it it it can move fast, like and you can catch you off guard. Cause 'cause you've been you've been feeling so sedentary for so long that that when it happens, it's yeah, it it happens fast. Yeah. Yeah. I I spent actually I'm a I'm an advertising photographer and producer by trade. And I spent 15 years in India and I went over there back in 2008 with just my just my photography portfolio and I I managed to find a great deal of success there as a as a producer and as a photographer in Bollywood. And we came home about three years ago back to Canada, but and it ended up having kids there and and everything. but So I and my listeners know this about me already, but I am I spent quite a bit of time in the ashrams and studying the the studying the Eastern, the great Eastern texts, the sutras of Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita. So you ask if I'm a spiritual man, I would say absolutely yes. Absolutely, yes. And you know, there's this there's this part of us that is the observer self,
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah, I've when when I went to college but I I went to college to study psychology.
martin: the witness self, the witness to the experience, right? so so I I incorporate that a lot into into my philosophy as well. you know, that that even though I'm going through all this stuff, even though a man's going through this stuff, you still have the opportunity to be the observer and the witness of the experience, that there's something eternal in there that that is that is beyond the identity, you know, and knowing that can help you move from identity to identity when you need to. You know, so you could call it the soul, or you know, in the East they call it the Atman. And it's this personalized consciousness that is eternal, that has been with you since your birth. Aware pure awareness. So so that I guess the reason that I bring that up is that strengthening strengthening the knowledge of that part of yourself can help you in the waiting room. You know? So get lit talk a little bit more about shadow
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah. It I mean, connecting to that that's
martin: work, Benjamin. Like it's 'cause I'm also very interested in in in in Jungian
Benjamin John Lee: Shadow. Thank
martin: Jungian philosophy.
Benjamin John Lee: The shadow is a funny thing because the more you ignore the shadow, the more it takes control of your day-to-day life and you will have absolutely no idea what it's doing. So from a Jungian perspective, the shadow is just the aspects of your nature that you refuse to acknowledge and then they will manifest themselves in your behavior, your beliefs. and your thoughts on a day-to-day basis. And it's only through bringing the shadow into the light that we can integrate those aspects of our persona into the person that we're trying to become and then carry those attributes from a resolved perspective or a healthy perspective because every quality has a has I I hate using the words good and bad because that implies some sort of judgment, but like Every there's duality to almost every single quality that exists. And it's finding, as Aristotle would say, finding the moderation between those two ends of the spectrum of whatever quality it is. That's really the basis of what the shadow work is. And throughout my journey, I've discovered that what when I was saying how grateful I was about going through that addiction experience. Think it's because it showed me that every dark or negative aspect of human nature lies inside of me. So I'm not one of those people who's like, well, I would never do that or I would never say that. It's like, no, given the right circumstances or the right stimulus, I have the capacity to show up with the both the greatest and worst aspects of human nature. And it's only the people who think. that they aren't certain ways or that certain elements of human nature don't apply to them. Like sometimes in the religious communities you'll see this where you have the people who are you know on the pulpit telling
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: people how bad they are, what they should and shouldn't be doing, but then in their own personal lives, there's some of the crabbiest, meanest people that you meet. And like that's the shadow showing up is where when you repress these aspects of yourself, they're going to dominate your personality. Especially when you're operating from a place of unconsciousness. so that's really just the foundation of that shadow work, is just getting to know yourself, learning yourself, and not not being ashamed of who you are or what lies inside of you. So when you uncover that you have the capacity to be a cheater or a liar, it's you don't want to shame yourself for it. You go, okay, I understand what purpose this is trying to serve or what this is, what need this is trying to meet in me. But I don't want to be that person anymore. And so I'm going to bring this into the light and be aware that it's there. And that's the only way I can make sure I don't trip over it as I'm now navigating forward.
martin: And what what are some of the techniques you use to bring that shadow into the light? Like that, you know, a man that's listening right now that's struggling with this and there's shame, there's compulsive behavior, there's alcohol, there's cigarettes, there's pornography, there's gambling, there's all these compulsive behaviors that he knows and he just carries great shame around. How do we bring that stuff to the light?
Benjamin John Lee: There there is an unfortunate difficulty in in the modern day, and that's so many people have dopamine addictions. So it's really hard to figure out what need that dopamine is trying to fill when your nervous system is just so dependent on you know, people wake up, go straight to coffee, will smoke nicotine. All day, they wind down at night by taking something to sleep or smoking weed. And it's like this has just become normalized, where it's just we wake up, we use substances to bring ourselves up, we use substances to bring ourselves down, we keep ourselves placated all day by using social media. We distract ourselves with I mean, gambling is now available pretty much everywhere. It's like it it's and I don't blame people because it's just been sold to you since day one, your entire life. However, kind of like the bathroom analogy, if you want to be free from it, you just you got you have to do the work. You have to grit your teeth and you have to get through it. And I wasn't able to really do the shadow work until I got completely sober. And most people aren't going to like to hear this, but when I say completely sober, like I mean no nicotine, no caffeine, no THC, no social media, like. You you need to purge your and I'm not saying you have to go live like a monk on on the side of a mountain. Like you can enjoy TV shows and movies and certain things, but like what when you're relying on external stimulation to to reward your brain all day long, like it's no wonder that you don't know up from down because you've clouded these signals for so long.
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: So, in large part, the first step in that shadow work journey can just be nervous system regulation. 'Cause if you can't nervous if you can't regulate your nervous system, the you can't tell up from down.
martin: Yeah, and and Benjamin, you bring up a great point. Like all those things you you brought, like you know, social media is free, pornography is free. there's a liquor store on every corner. And it just seems to me that the things that are keeping us whether it's the powers that be that allow this to be legal, it just seems to me that. Everything everything in society is sort of built to keep you down and repressed and keep you dysregulated. Maybe so you don't get out there and create a problem for the higher ups or the powers that be, right? You have we have this placated, placated society, right? Placated people that are just addicted to all these things, dysregulated, you know, addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, whatever. so really, you know. The reforging that you talk about really is is just really channeling that warrior energy and and and just like just getting the chains off you, right? This is a chain. This is a chain. This is like it's untethering yourself from all of these energetic hooks that we've put into ourselves that that are that all these things are just attempts at regulating ourselves, our nervous systems, right? You wake up in the morning, you feel a bit drowsy, I don't like that, have a coffee, again, perfect up. That's the nervous system regulation. Same with alcohol, same with social media. I'm bored. I can't, I you know, I don't want to sit with myself right now. So I'm gonna reach for my phone and start scrolling Instagram. These are all nerve, these are all attempts at regulating a nervous system. Whereas you take that, you you know, you you sit with yourself, or you sit in meditation, or you like start to focus on your breath. That is a much healthier way of of regulating the nervous system. But I like I like the the first letter in Reforge is I think is recognize, you said, right?
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah.
martin: Re reveal. Okay, reveal. Well, reveal and recognize are kind of that there's a similarity there, right? so reveal, you know. Well, I think first of all, you just gotta get just fucking sick and tired of where you're at, of being in that bathtub. Like I'm I'm tired of this. I don't know exactly where I wanna go, but I just know that I don't want this anymore. So knowing what you don't want and and I think that's really powerful what you said.
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah, and this it leans back on that that radical accountability part because you're right, there there's a liquor store on every corner, you can buy vapes in every gas station, weed is now legal in most states. It's you can't keep saying like, well, it's just so easy, or they're doing this to keep me down, or th it's like, okay, that's great, but you have the ability to say no. You have the power
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: to cleanse your system. You have the power to go sit outside in the grass and breathe for 10 minutes instead of going reaching for something unhealthy. So while I and I understand why people do it, I did it myself for over 35 years. But
martin: Yeah.
Benjamin John Lee: when are you going to reach the point where you go, I I'm either I'm either going to continue to live the life I'm living and hate it, or I'm going to make a change and try for something
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: better. You like it all comes down to choice. Did you make the decision or don't? Like if you want to make that change, I'm here to support you. If you don't, then please,
martin: Yeah, yeah.
Benjamin John Lee: yeah.
martin: There there's the there's this other thing, and I'm sure you've noticed this too, being an American and I'm Canadian, so it's the same, but there's there seems to be this this this thing running through society now where like victimhood is is is being raised as an ideal. You know, like everybody's kind of a victim of something. So it's just this w which is so disempowering.
Benjamin John Lee: I man, I what's with I hold a relatively unpopular opinion, and that's I am so sure that things are about to get better in society for
martin: Yeah.
Benjamin John Lee: one simple reason, and that's as I have been observing the way the society has been unfolding, I've realized that there is a collective shadow to nations in the same way that we as individuals have shadows. And just like those of us who see ourselves for what we are and we can't ignore it anymore and have to start making better decisions. I see the like on the geopolitical stage this starting to happen because we're our mistakes are getting thrown in our face at such a quicker and quicker rate. And the the whole disempowerment thing, I I hear a lot of people saying like it's this orchestrated, you know, they're doing it to keep you down. And but like I think this the answer is actually much more simple than that. And that is it is human nature to seek comfort and avoid discomfort. And the easier that becomes, the more prone we as a society is going to be to incorporating that into our day-to-day lives. So like it's if you see somebody else getting off the hook because they are shirking responsibility, hey, I'm gonna use that strategy because it seems pretty seems like it works. So
martin: Hm.
Benjamin John Lee: it's only those people who are willing to go, you know what? That's not right. That's not who I want to be. And I'm going to live as the man and set the example for everybody else around me. Because people you asked before how we notice the parts of our shadow. And I've noticed something about the golden shadow, which is if I pay attention to the people that I really admire, the people who when I see them show up in the world, and I'm like, man, there is something about them that I I just want to follow. Or I want to incorporate a part of their personality into the way that I show up. It's like if you can pick up those qualities and attributes and start walking around the world like shining a light for everybody around you, people are going to follow you and want to know what you are doing to be the way that you are. So it's it's a lonely path at first, but if you can embody your authentic self and start showing up powerfully and not have those chains of easy dopamine and And easy blame or whatever it is you're doing to shirk responsibility. It's like that that power is felt and people will want to be like you and want to know what you're doing. And then it it like feeds the same thing that you were searching with the easy dopamine in the first place. So if you take the hard route, you get the same finish, except you're not a slave to all of these things that have been
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: pulling you down the entire time.
martin: There's there's this beautiful term in Sanskrit in the yoga tradition called tapas. and it's basically the fire of discipline. And it's you know, it comes from the yoga tradition, and it's it's it's this idea that when you start to when you start to choose the discipline over your over the easy way out, that there's this fire and this heat that comes from that and begins to burn away. The things that no longer belong in in your life. And so that I love this idea of tapas. And I that's what you're talking about with Reforge. It's like there's this by resisting the easy way, by resisting the victimhood, by resisting the throwing your hands up in the air and choosing discipline, you're you're creating the fire and the heat that you need to burn away the the obstructions.
Benjamin John Lee: Yeah. The only the only word of advice that I will give people is you can't do it all at once. You can't go
martin: Correct.
Benjamin John Lee: from doing none of it to all of it. Like we we all have individual windows of tolerance in terms of like emotional growth and experience. So you need like my embodied phase for the program is about being smart about setting those goals in a sustainable fashion. Cause like if you're addicted to weed, nicotine, and caffeine and you're like, all right. I'm going stone cold sober today. I can almost guarantee you that you're going to fail. Whereas if you're smart and you say, okay, I'm gonna 90 days, I'm gonna get rid of nicotine, get that under control for 90 days, and then I'm going to work on the THC for 90 days. It's like we need to be smart about the way that we're building these, the building blocks. Like it's just like the little pig who built his house out of brick instead of straw. It's like, let's be smart about the the tools that we're using to build this identity for ourselves because we want it to be able to withstand the storm.
martin: What another interesting you thing you talk about a lot, Benjamin, is you know, not not necessarily healing or growth, but you call it initiation. What are we initiating? Or why do you call it initiation instead of healing or growth?
Benjamin John Lee: I call it integration.
martin: Okay.
Benjamin John Lee: actually I don't call it integration. Young called it integration. But that is so in Western society, I don't know why, but we have this and and through Eastern philosophy has really interested me. I've done a like I've met with gosh, Mahayana monks and jhana yoga practitioners, bhakti yoga practitioners, like just But but I've also gone to to temple and spoken to rabbis and spent time with Muslims and Christians and like the thing I find fascinating is in the West we have we always put this good and evil spin on things. Whereas in the East, there's not so much this like this is good, this is bad. It's more like this
martin: Spectrum.
Benjamin John Lee: in it's a spectrum and like this in any amount is good or bad, and then this in any amount is good or bad. And so it's It's learning to find that moderation. And like in finding that moderation, what you're doing, like integrating. So like you're acknowledging that I have, if say I'm I am, I'm a man of conviction. The other end of that spectrum could be stubbornness, where like I can be ignorant and I can just stand still despite not having all of the facts and stomp my feet. Whereas a man of conviction is no. I'm I'm hearing you out. I'm acknowledging all both points, but I am standing by what I believe. Integrating both of those is acknowledging, okay, I have the capacity to be both stubborn and a man of conviction. And it's only through recognizing that both of those things rest inside of me that I'm able to, without being activated, look at a situation and determine which of those I'm being. Because if you're somebody who doesn't want to believe that you can be stubborn. Then when somebody says, like, hey, I think you're being a little stubborn here, instead of going, like, okay, let me take an honest look at this, you're gonna get activated and you're gonna go, No, I'm not. Like, you're just not seeing this right. And so it's I say integration because integration exists beyond heal. Like, you need to be somewhat healed to even start integrating. But the integration process is just acknowledging that every single aspect of human nature lies inside of you and to not be ashamed. of it when it manifests itself in your life.
martin: That's fantastic. I I agree with that so completely. the path to healing in in the Eastern tradition is the is the path to wholeness. And so all of the all of the identities that are floating around that are often contradictory, you know you know, bring bringing those into an incr integrated self is really the basis of all. you know, the purpose of psychology really, or the understanding of psychology, the understanding of the psyche, which is the understanding of the fragmentation of self and how do we create a wholeness of that. And then in some cases, you know, some people have really are really unwell, schizophrenia or or bipolar, where it's just really an extreme fragmentation of self that, you know, might have come from childhood trauma or things that happened in the past where that integration becomes very, very difficult. There's like a split sense of self. But I think that's where, you know, medical intervention and, you know, peop people that study that sort of thing can come in and help. And and you you have, you know, medications that can help with that at times too. But yeah, that's that's fascinating work. And and so how are you doing? how how many clients are you working with these days and what are some of the pro progress that you're seeing in people?
Benjamin John Lee: I have well unfortunate not unfortunately. I am transitioning. I just started the initiation source a few months ago. I actually work at the College of Charleston. I'm the head life coach for their life design program here. And so I'm just now making the process of trying I'm trying to slowly transition out of the university setting into my private practice. Right now I only have three people going through the reforge protocol, but it is a little bit intensive on my end. So I have to be careful about how many people I'm
martin: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin John Lee: trying to take on at once. I have room for more, but I'm not sure how many more. but I would I would love to transition to that full time when I'm when I'm able to.
martin: And w just just a final question for you, Benjamin, because I think this is a question that a lot of people wonder about. What is what is the difference between what you're doing and say traditional therapy?
Benjamin John Lee: There's a lot of answers to that. The the simplest thing that I like to say is therapy is more concerned on where you're coming from and coaching is more concerned on where you're going. So I I I'll tell people before we even start working together, like what I do is not therapy. You already need to be at a relatively healed and resolved place from an emotional standpoint. Because if you have not resolved all of the energetic ties to your trauma in the past. There's no way that you're going to be able to hold yourself accountable and do the work that you need to do moving forward. And
martin: Okay.
Benjamin John Lee: what people will try to get a coach a lot of times because they want to outsource their accountability or they want somebody to make decisions for them. And if like, if I like, and I don't just take on anybody. So if I have a meeting with you and and I'm talking with you and I can get the sense that you want me to do all the work for you, like this relationship just isn't going to work. But the people who I can tell to say, hey, here's where I've come from, here's what I've learned about myself, and now I want to take all of that knowledge that I know about myself and figure out how to effectively move forward, those are the kind of people that
martin: Mm.
Benjamin John Lee: coaching is really good for.
martin: Benjamin, it was fascinating talking to you. This is a great episode, and man, what a story you have and coming from the experiences you've had, and now you're now you're coaching and leading people. it's beautiful work, man. It was a pleasure to have you on. And just quickly, where can people find you?
Benjamin John Lee: best pre if you want to just talk, best place to reach out is probably Instagram. I'm at Benjamin.john dot Lee. if you're interested in my book, which is actually about national identity, so probably not so much for any of you Canadians, but for Americans, you can go to Benjamin.jo or Benjamin John Lee dot com. My book Sincerely America is there. And if you're interested in coaching, you can go to theinitiation source dot com. That's you can book a free consultation call with me and Maybe we can find out if you want to work together.
martin: That sounds great. Benjamin, it's great to have you on the show.
Benjamin John Lee: Yes, Martin, I've I had a great time during this conversation, so thank you.
martin: All right, we'll talk to you soon.
Benjamin John Lee: Sounds good.
