🎙️ MEN SEEKING CALM Podcast

Episode Title: Emotional Reasoning: When Feelings Pretend to Be Facts

Host: Greg Martin – WalkTheMountain.com

🧠 Episode Summary

In this episode, Greg explores the thinking trap of Emotional Reasoning — the tendency to believe something is true just because you feel it strongly. From feeling like a failure to assuming your relationship is falling apart, emotional reasoning can distort reality and sabotage connection.

Greg breaks it down with real examples, practical tools, and one powerful reminder:

“Feelings are signals, not facts.”

💡 What You’ll Learn

🔁 Key Quotes

“The feeling becomes the proof — but it’s not proof at all.”

🛠️ Tools & Takeaways

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🎙️ MEN SEEKING CALM

In this episode, Greg dives deep into one of the most draining cognitive traps for men in relationships: The Fallacy of Fairness. This thinking habit convinces us that life — and love — should always feel "fair," and when it doesn’t, someone must be doing something wrong.

Let go of keeping score and start building bridges. The real win in relationships isn’t fairness — it’s mutual care, honest repair, and showing up as teammates, not opponents.

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In today’s episode, we dive deep into a sneaky and exhausting thinking trap: Personalization (Me-Blame) — the mental habit of believing everything going wrong is somehow your fault. Greg explores how this faulty thinking drains men of energy, inflates guilt, and wrecks intimacy.

Personalization = blaming yourself for things you didn’t cause.

Often rooted in early emotional conditioning and trauma.

Reinforces guilt, martyrdom, and unearned responsibility.

Creates distance in relationships by reacting to imagined blame.

Prevents emotional connection and trust in your partner’s autonomy.

Reality-check your thoughts: “Is this really about me?”

Ask gently instead of assuming: “You okay?”

Separate feelings from facts.

Say out loud: “That’s not mine to carry.”

Trust your partner’s emotions belong to her.

Shift from guilt to curiosity: “What’s going on for her?”

“You’re not a walking apology. You’re a human in progress — and not everything is about you.”

Subscribe to the FREE newsletter at WalktheMountain.com for more tools, scripts, and sanity-saving support.

In this episode of the MEN SEEKING CALM podcast, Greg Martin of WalkTheMountain.com unpacks the sneaky trap of Labeling and Mislabeling — where one mistake becomes your identity and a single moment defines your partner.

When men say things like “I forgot the bin — I’m useless” or “She’s nagging — she’s a control freak,” they turn moments into harsh, fixed judgments.

This thinking trap shuts down empathy, blocks growth, and feeds shame and disconnection. Mislabeling exaggerates neutral situations with loaded language, like calling yourself “pathetic” for crying or your partner “cold” for needing space.

The result? Emotional isolation and unnecessary conflict. Greg encourages ditching the name-tags in favor of curiosity and gentler, more accurate thinking.

Replace labels like “failure” or “drama queen” with deeper questions like, “What’s really going on?” and “What’s being asked of me here?” Growth comes not from judging, but from understanding — moment by honest moment.

WalktheMountain.com

In this episode of the MEN SEEKING CALM podcast, Greg Martin from WalkTheMountain.com explores the cognitive trap of “Should” statements — those internal scripts that sound like motivation but actually breed shame, pressure, and disconnection. In men’s work and relationships, “should” thinking fuels unrealistic expectations of self and others, rooted in cultural and childhood conditioning.

Phrases like “She should appreciate me more” or “I should always know what to say” trap men in cycles of guilt, control, and emotional shutdown. Greg offers a gentler, more relational alternative: swap “should” with expressions like “It would be helpful if…” or “I’d prefer if…” to foster curiosity and connection over criticism. These small language shifts open the door to vulnerability, self-compassion, and more honest communication.

The takeaway? Ditch the “inner drill sergeant” and start replacing rigid thinking with flexibility, humanity, and humor. Let go of the “shoulds” — and start walking the mountain with more ease. WalkTheMountain.com

In this episode of the Men Seeking Calm podcast, we explore the thinking trap of Disaster-thinking — the tendency to assume the worst-case scenario in relationships and treat it as inevitable truth.

Men often spiral from minor moments, like a quiet dinner or a single comment, into full-blown emotional catastrophes: breakups, failure, and rejection.

Disaster-thinking feels like self-protection but actually fuels anxiety, shame, and emotional distance. It turns silence into imagined rejection, feedback into proof of failure, and uncertainty into personal doom.

Greg humorously urges listeners to take off the “emotional doomsday bunker” mindset and swap panic for perspective.

The antidote? Pause, reality-check, and ask, “Is this really happening or am I in a mental soap opera?” Instead of scripting drama, men are encouraged to speak gently and check in with their partners. Because most emotional storms are passing showers — not the end of the world. Just breathe… and leave the almond milk drama behind.

In this episode of the Men Seeking Calm podcast, Greg Martin explores the thinking trap of Jumping to Conclusions — the mental habit of assuming the worst before knowing the facts.

Common in men during relationship stress, this distortion includes mind-reading (“She must hate me”) and fortune-telling (“This is going to end badly”). It’s driven by fear, past wounds, and a deep desire to protect oneself, but often causes more harm than good — leading to emotional shutdown, miscommunication, and growing distance.

The fix? Replace assumptions with curiosity. Ask instead of assume. Recognize when your mind is writing fiction. Instead of dramatizing, communicate. When you stop jumping to conclusions, you step out of fear and into real connection.

As Greg says — ditch the detective work, and just ask her how she’s doing. WalktheMountain.com

In this episode, we dive into the faulty thinking trap of Disqualifying the Positive — the mental habit of rejecting compliments, kindness, and progress.

Whether it’s your partner saying, “Thanks for helping with the kids”, or “I appreciate how you listened”, your inner critic swats it away with thoughts like, “She’s just being polite”or “I still screwed up.” This mindset often stems from past experiences where praise felt unsafe, and it trains your brain to only see failure.

Over time, it erodes intimacy and keeps connection out of reach. Greg uses humour and real-life examples to call out this “Compliment Ninja” mentality and offers a simple, powerful antidote: pause, receive, and let it land. Practice saying “Thank you, that means a lot” — and take the win. Because real growth starts when we let the good stuff in.

In this Men Seeking Calm episode, we explore Negative Filtering — the cognitive trap where men obsess over one critical comment or tense moment, ignoring the many things going right in their relationship.

Whether it’s a forgotten bin or a frustrated sigh, this faulty thinking filters out gratitude, affection, and shared joy, leaving men feeling like constant failures.

Greg shares 10 examples of how this plays out and how it silently feeds resentment, shame, and emotional withdrawal.

The fix? Clean your mental lens. Notice what also went well. Reframe the story

When men start to see the full picture, connection and self-worth begin to return. For more grounded guidance, visit Walk-The-Mountain.com and subscribe to the free newsletter.