The Motyv Podcast · Shayden J. Bertagnolli MS LMFT Men's Mental Health Expert

The Motyv Podcast | Unmasking Male Pain: The 5 A's of Masculine Pain

·45 min·2 clips

He calls approvalism "the original addiction" and ties it to achievement, shame, and addiction.

1. The Motyv Podcast returns with "Unmasking Male Pain: The 5 A's of Masculine Pain," centered on men, pornography recovery, and the host's own framework. 2. The host speaks as the show's founder and solo narrator, and he says his work matters because he wants to help men with principles, skills, and "liberate". 3. The episode asks what pain drives men to seek approval, addiction, and burnout, and why the answer begins in childhood. 4. He says he spent two years in the studio building a pornography recovery program called "Liberate," which is a digital online course with videos and a PDF workbook. 5. He describes the course as "Christ centered" and "clinically focused," and says it has seven modules. 6. He names the last four modules as the "four P's of liberation": pain, porn, pride, and purpose. 7. He says the first module deals with "resistance" and why people do not change. 8. He uses Peter, "Simon, son of Jonas or Jonah," as a case study and says the course treats fishing and his boat as a pattern of unhealthy attachment. 9. He says the program follows Peter from captivity to liberation and uses Jesus Christ as the one who calls him away from the pattern. 10. He says the deepest reason for the course is his sons, because if he died at 43 like his father, he wants them to have a framework for purity, forgiveness, and compassion. 11. He says the problem behind male pain is a relationship to love, because many men believe love must be earned. 12. He explains attachment by describing infants seeking a caregiver's face, with heart rate increasing when they move away from safety. 13. He says consistent caregiving creates "secure attachment," while repeated failure to get eye contact can block mirror neurons and empathy. 14. He describes attunement as deep connection and says boys often turn to dads with "Johnny hit me" and get questions like "Did you deserve it?" instead of comfort. 15. He says repeated rejection teaches the brain to minimize pain, so a boy learns not to turn back for help. 16. He says approval becomes tied to achievement, and he calls that pattern "approvalism," the original addiction. 17. He says Jesus's baptism shows the difference between being beloved and being approved, because God says "This is my beloved son" before "in whom I am well pleased." 18. He presents the episode as a long solo teaching session with a sermon-like rhythm, frequent self-correction, and repeated direct address to men and wives. 19. Men trying to understand shame, approval, porn recovery, and father-son dynamics would likely benefit from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a tight celebrity interview or fast entertainment may probably skip it.

As heard by us

A reflective return that treats men's hurt as something to understand.

The Motive Podcast returns after a pause and settles into a talk about men, attachment, and the way pride can make love harder to take in. It works best when it moves from the plain idea that life gets harder when people try to do hard things without skill or principle into…

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Why you'd press play

You want a faith-aware talk that takes men's pain seriously without getting clinical.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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