Episode 282: The Inner Kingdom: Who's Sitting on Your Throne?

Hey, everybody, this is Dr. John. Welcome back to another episode of the Evolved Caveman podcast. And this episode I'm pretty excited about because it's entitled The Inner Kingdom: Who's Sitting on Your Throne? Let me ask you a question. Have you ever reacted to something, and even while you were reacting, some part of you knew you were making it worse?

Your wife says, "You seem distant." You hear, "You're failing me." Your boss asks you to revise something. You hear, "You're not good enough." Your kid rolls his eyes, and suddenly your nervous system reacts as if your authority, your competence, and possibly the future of Western civilization are all under attack.

So you get angry. You shut down. You become defensive. You explain yourself with the intensity of an attorney delivering closing arguments. Or you retreat into work, alcohol, porn, your phone, video games, whatever lets you avoid that really painful discomfort. Then later you wonder, "Geez, why did that hit me so hard?

Why did I say that? And why on God's green earth do I keep doing this?" Well, today I wanna give you a framework that I've been working on for some time that will help answer those questions, hopefully once and for all. It's called the Inner Kingdom, and it begins with one deceptively simple question. Who has the throne right now?

Welcome to the Evolved Caveman podcast. This is the show for men who want more success, more meaning, stronger relationships, and greater control over the one thing we were never actually taught to lead, ourselves. This is an introduction to the new model I've created to help men develop inner leadership.

It's now included in the AI coach I just built, Proxi He, built on three decades of my work. And if you want, you can play around with it, do a trial for free at proximitycoaching.com. That's proximitycoaching.com. So let's get into it.

Nobody ever sat most of us down and explained what man up actually meant.

They just expected us to know. Be strong. Don't complain. Figure it out. Don't let them see you sweat. Don't ask for help. And by gods, for God's sake, don't feel. Great instructions, zero training manual. It's a problem And even the instructions are good and bad. There's some good and bad in there. So most men, well, they did what any intelligent animal does when given an assignment that nobody explains.

We guess. And the guess many of us landed on was this: shut it down, don't feel it, don't show it, don't need anyone, handle it yourself. And that strategy works for a minute, right up until something important happens. Your marriage goes quiet. Your child begins struggling. You lose someone you love. The promotion doesn't make you feel the way you expected it to.

You disappoint someone you love. You get criticized. You achieve the goal and still feel empty. Or someone you care about says, "I don't feel close to you anymore." That's when shut it down stops looking like strength and starts revealing the cost to you Here's the sentence I think is more accurate: No one taught you how to be a man.

They just expected you to know. I don't mean the superficial performance of masculinity. I mean the whole kit and caboodle: fatherhood, partnership, conflict, ambition, disappointment, fear, grief, love, connection, communication, repair, responsibility. See, you were handed a kingdom without an instruction manual and told to look like you'd already read it So this new model, The Inner Kingdom, is an attempt to provide that manual

Man up means show up. Let's begin by redefining two words that have been used against men for far too long. Man up To man up isn't to shut down, it's to show up. Let me repeat that. To man up isn't to shut down or erupt in anger, it's to show up. It means leading yourself before you try to lead anyone else.

It means taking responsibility for what you feel instead of pretending you don't feel it, or more commonly, making your feelings everyone else's fault Let me say that again. It means taking responsibility for what you feel instead of pretending you don't feel anything or making your feelings everyone else's fault.

It means responding intentionally rather than reacting automatically. Real strength was never the absence of emotion. Real strength is knowing what to do with what you feel

Men don't avoid support simply because they don't want it. Often we avoid everything that comes before receiving support, like admitting something is wrong, or finding someone trustworthy, or putting an experience or a feeling into words, risking the possibility that needing help means we weren't man enough to handle it alone And asking for help isn't weakness, it's a skill.

It's a muscle to be worked out and strengthened that every man needs.

And like every other skill, it has to be learned and practiced So let's talk a bit about the emotional dashboard. Because as boys, we learn very early that some emotions are acceptable and others are not. Anger, usually acceptable.

Confidence, stress, lust, competitiveness, generally acceptable. But sadness, fear, tenderness, loneliness, grief, even excitement, joy, and silliness, those are often met with an unspoken warning, "Don't. Don't cry. Don't be soft. Don't be scared. Don't embarrass yourself. Don't care too much." Boys don't stop experiencing those feelings, they stop expressing them.

They shut them down. They cut themselves off from those parts of their humanity, and eventually many men stop recognizing them altogether, a condition called alexithymia. And that's how a grown man ends up with only three settings on his emotional dashboard, fine, stressed, and pissed off The goal isn't to make men more emotional.

It's to give men access to the emotions they already have. Every emotion carries information. The goal isn't to suppress that information. It also isn't to spray it across the room like a lawn sprinkler. The goal is to understand it, contain it, and allow it to inform you without allowing it to control you Most men were only handed two options, shut it down or let her rip.

There is a third option. You can contain what you feel without suppressing it. You can express it without being ruled by it. That is emotional strength.

So let's meet the inner kingdom, the characters in your inner drama, and here's where the framework becomes visual. You see, in your head you are not one voice.

There are many voices in your head. So to keep it simple, what we're gonna say is that internally you're a kingdom containing four figures, the king, the knight, the squire, and the lover. Each one has an important role. None of them is bad. The problem begins when the wrong guy takes the throne at the wrong time.

The squire. The squire is the younger part of you. He carries your early experiences, vulnerabilities, and conclusions about the world. He remembers rejection, humiliation, abandonment, not feeling good enough, not feeling safe, not feeling wanted. The squire doesn't interpret the world with the perspective of the adult man you are today.

He reacts from beliefs formed when you were younger, when you had fewer resources, less power, less understanding. So when something in the present resembles an old wound, the squire quickly can conclude, 'I'm being rejected again,' or, 'I don't matter. I'm not safe. They're going to leave me. I'm failing. I'm not worthy.'

The present event may be relatively small, but the feeling it activates is much older and much larger. And you can tell when the squire is in charge because it's any time your emotional reaction is way bigger than the present situation warrants The lover.

The lover's your capacity for connection. He knows what matters to you, what truly matters to you.

He wants closeness, honesty, meaning, connection, affection, and belonging. The lover knows the vulnerable truth beneath that defensive reaction, that hurt. I'm afraid of losing you. I miss you. I need reassurance. I wanna feel close to you. I'm feeling insecure. This matters to me. The lover's message is often the one that most needs to be communicated, but it rarely reaches the surface because another figure moves much faster with much more intensity.

The knight. The knight is fast, brave, and vigilant, and he is completely convinced he is helping and he is right. The knight is one reason that our species survived. He's also the reason that a slightly terse text message can occasionally be treated like an actual wooly mammoth charging at you across the tundra.

The knight protects. He attacks, withdraws, controls, performs, predicts, pleases, or numbs. Any of your defensive strategies, the knight is behind them. He may raise his voice. He may go silent. He may insist on being right. He may work harder to prove his worth. He may attempt to control every variable. He may disconnect from everyone and disappear into a screen or a bottle or a bong.

Different tactics, same mission Because here is the one sentence that drives the entire inner kingdom. The Knight is sworn to protect the Squire. When something today resembles an old injury, the Squire's fear or hurt activates, and the Knight draws his sword. He isn't trying to destroy your marriage. He isn't trying to alienate the children.

He's not trying to sabotage your career. He is trying to make sure that that younger part of you never, ever feels that terrible pain again, whatever that pain was. His intention is good. His intention is protection. His strategy, however, often outdated. Meanwhile, underneath the Knight's protective measures, the Lover's real message, "I'm hurt.

I'm scared. I miss you. This matters to me," never reaches the surface.

The Knight is too loud, too fast, and nobody consulted the King The king is the part of you capable of perspective, responsibility, and deliberate, rational, values-based choice. He can listen to the squire without letting fear make the decision.

He can appreciate the knight's protection without handing him control of the entire kingdom. He can hear the lover's needs and express them with courage and confidence. The king doesn't exile these figures. He leads them. He asks, "What is happening inside of me? What part of this belongs to the present?

What part belongs to my past? What am I trying to protect? What do I actually want?" And perhaps most importantly, what response serves the man I want to be? The king does not always feel calm. Inner leadership isn't the absence of activation, it's the ability to choose what happens next It's a seating chart problem.

So here's the reframe that can change the way you see yourself. Low self-leadership does not necessarily mean you are weak or broken. It means someone other than the king grabbed the throne and started making decisions. Usually, it's the knight. This doesn't excuse destructive behavior. The king still has to return, take responsibility, and clean up the damage.

But there's a meaningful difference between saying, "I'm an angry, broken man," and saying, "My knight took control temporarily, and I need to understand what he was protecting." One is a character indictment, the other is a seating chart problem, and seating charts can be changed. So the central question is, who has the throne right now?

And this is a question to ask yourself throughout the day. If you're furious, defensive, or preparing for battle, probably the knight. If you're people-pleasing, abandoning your own boundaries to preserve connection, probably the lover. If you're blindsided by an emotional reaction that feels much bigger than the current event, the squire might be seated in the throne.

Calm, clear, accountable, and choosing intentionally, the king is back on the throne Holding court.

So how do you put the king back in charge? Well, you hold court. Holding court is the practice of creating space, time between your internal reaction and your external response. At first, you only have a third of a second, but with practice, that second...

that third of a second grows to a second, to five seconds, and so on. It isn't suppression. You don't get to skip the reaction. That's not how nervous systems work. The goal is to notice the reaction, understand it, and then choose your next move from a place of values.

So there are six questions to ask yourself to play around with this new framework.

Number one, what just happened? Stick to observable facts. Not, "She disrespected me." Instead, try, "She interrupted me and said she didn't agree with me." Not, "My boss thinks I'm incompetent." Instead, try, "My boss asked me to revise the proposal." Separate the objective facts from the story you are telling yourself Separate what actually happened from the old meaning your nervous system attached to it.

Number two, what tactic did my knight reach for? Did you attack with your sword? Did you withdraw? Are you trying to control? Are you performing? Are you predicting? Are you pleasing? Are you numbing? What did the protective part of you immediately want to do? Number three, what was the knight trying to protect?

Your pride? Your sense of competence? Your need to belong? Your fear of being rejected? Your fear that you aren't enough? Your self-worth? Number four, what is my squire afraid that this means? And this is where you locate the deeper levels, the deeper conclusions, and you begin to unravel years-old reactions.

So the squire might be afraid that he's failing, that he doesn't matter, that he's not lovable, that he's going to be left, that he's powerless, that he's not worthy. Naming this fear does not make it true. It allows the adult you to examine it Number five, what does my lover actually want me to say? Maybe it's, "That embarrassed me," or, "I'm afraid we're growing apart," or, "We feel disconnected to me," or, "I wanna know you still believe in me.

I need a few minutes to settle down, but I don't wanna disconnect from you," or, "I love you, and this relationship matters more to me than winning this argument," or quite simply, "That hurt my feelings." And finally, what would my king cho- what would my king choose right now? Not what would eliminate discomfort the fastest, not what would prove you're right, not what would punish the other person, but what action reflects your most deeply held values and serves the outcome you genuinely want?

What action would the man take, the man that you want to show up as? That is holding court. Six questions. You can run through them in your journal, in a difficult conversation, after a difficult conversation, or sitting in the driveway before walking back into your house.

So let me give you an everyday example.

Imagine your partner says, "I feel like you're never really here anymore," or, "I feel like you're not present." The squire hears, "You're failing as a husband. You're not enough. She's going to leave you." The knight immediately draws his sword, and you say something like, "That's ridiculous. Do you have any idea how hard I work for this family?"

Now, the conversation is about whether her statement was technically accurate, but that was never the real issue, so you hold court. What happened? Well, objectively, my wife said she doesn't feel like I'm present. What tactic did my knight choose? Hmm, defensiveness and counterattack. What was he protecting?

My identity as a good husband and provider. What is my squire afraid this means? That I'm failing and I'm gonna lose her. What does my lover wanna say? "I'm scared that you feel alone. I've been overwhelmed, I've been busy, and I miss you also." What would my king choose? Ideally, he would take a breath, fight off the urge to defend, and say, "My first impulse was to defend myself because I heard that as you're failing me, but I don't wanna fight you, I wanna understand.

Tell me when you feel my absence the most." That's not weakness. That takes far more courage and inner leadership than winning an argument. That is a man leading himself in real time

So full circle back to the caveman evolved. Because the knight is your inner caveman, ancient software, fiercely protective, deeply loyal, still running, still running old software. The king is what the caveman evolves into when you do the work. Not a different man, the same man integrated. An evolved man doesn't kill his inner caveman.

He knows he needs him. He doesn't shame him or pretend he has tr- transcended him. He learns to lead him. And I need you to tune into this next part closely

Because you can be fierce without being cruel, protective without being controlling, open without dumping your entire inner world onto whoever happens to be standing closest, strong without pretending to be bulletproof Most men were taught how to fight very few were taught how to rule The Inner Kingdom isn't merely an anger management framework.

It isn't just a communication tool. It isn't even simply a model of emotional intelligence. The king, the knight, the squire, the lover, and the practice of holding court all serve one larger outcome, inner leadership. Leading yourself first. Leading what you feel instead of being led by it, then and only then leading more effectively in your relationships, your family, your work, and your community.

Masculinity is not defined by whether you feel, it's defined by how you lead what you feel. So the next time you feel that surge, the urge to attack, withdraw, control, perform, or numb, stop being your brain's bitch. Pause. Ask yourself, who has the throne right now? What is my knight trying to protect? What is my squire afraid this means?

What does my lover actually wanna say? And what would my king choose? Hold court before you draw your sword. That's how the caveman evolves.

If this episode resonated with you, send it to one man who could use it Check out proximitycoaching.com for the AI coach. And this week, notice one moment when your knight reaches for his sword.

Don't judge him. Get curious about what he's protecting, and invite the king back onto the throne. Until next time, be good to yourself. Keep evolving. This is Dr. John signing off