Three Percent

By Three PercentHealth & Fitness Mental Health

Three Percent episodes

October 05 How Your Past Is Still Showing Up | The Field Guide Pt. 2
What happened to you is in the past. But what did it leave behind?
In Part 2 of The Field Guide series, Jamie and Blake explore “the 3% that’s in you now”—the ways past wounds and experiences continue to shape how you show up today.
They look at four places where that 3% can live: your body, your beliefs, your relationships, and your behavior.
Why can it be easier to explain what you think than notice what you’re actually feeling? Why do old protective strategies keep showing up in relationships that are different from the ones where those strategies were formed? And how can talking about your pain sometimes become another way of staying disconnected from it?
Jamie and Blake discuss self-abandonment, resentment, intellectualizing, shame, nervous-system responses, compassion, and the difference between asking “What’s wrong with me?” and becoming curious about “What’s going on within me?”
But this isn’t only an inventory of what needs to change. They also turn toward the other 97%—the strengths, gifts, beauty, and goodness already present that deserve to be noticed and celebrated.
This is Part 2 of The Field Guide, a series exploring the framework behind the book Jamie and Blake are currently writing.
Keep showing up. You’re worth it.
00:52 The Field Guide: Part 2
02:00 The 3% That's in You Now
06:23 Four Ways Your Past Shows Up Today
08:15 Why We Disconnect From Our Bodies
11:14 How Your Body Learned to Keep You Safe
15:07 Selflessness vs. Self-Abandonment
18:19 Shame, Rage & Protective Parts
20:50 Why We Need Other People to Heal
23:37 Your Body Can Reveal What You Believe
25:37 Stop Asking “What's Wrong With Me?”
28:06 Talking About It Isn't Always Feeling It
30:20 Intellectualizing Your Pain
32:10 Content vs. Process in Relationships
34:47 Don't Forget the Other 97%
38:30 What Is Already Good in You?
40:54 An Honest Self-Assessment
43:11 “You're Not a Good Writer”
43:44 Keep Showing Up

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46 min
September 28 Family Estrangement: Is Cutting Them Off Really the Answer? | Matthias Barker
Family estrangement between parents and adult children is rarely simple. When a family relationship has caused real hurt, is cutting contact the healthiest choice—or can reconciliation still be possible?
In this episode of Three Percent, Jamie and Blake sit down with therapist Matthias Barker for a nuanced conversation about family estrangement, strained parent-child relationships, forgiveness, boundaries, reconciliation, and relationship repair.
Matthias explores what can happen when therapy, social media, family culture, and our own need for healing give us different ideas about what a healthy relationship should look like. They discuss when distance may be necessary, why an apology isn't always the same thing as healing, the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, rebuilding trust, resentment and justice, and how parents and adult children can begin taking small steps toward repair.
There aren't easy answers here—and that's the point.
Whether you're an adult child struggling with your relationship with a parent, a parent experiencing estrangement from an adult child, or simply trying to understand a difficult family relationship, this conversation offers a more nuanced way to think about healing, boundaries, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

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1 hr 17 min
September 14How Your Attachment Strategy Shaped Your Picture of God with Geoff Holsclaw pt. 2
What if the way you relate to God has less to do with your theology — and everything to do with your attachment strategy?
Dr. Geoff Holsclaw is back, and this time the conversation goes somewhere none of them planned. In part one, Geoff laid out the attachment landscapes — the desert, the jungle, the war zone, and the pasture — and gave listeners a way to see themselves in their relational patterns. This episode takes that framework somewhere more personal: straight into the room where faith lives. How does your attachment strategy shape your picture of God? And what does it actually look like to move toward something more secure — not just with people, but with Him?

KEY TAKEAWAYS
How your attachment strategy shapes your picture of God — the difference between compensation and correspondence

Why anxious/jungle people and avoidant/desert people often end up in the same church frustrated with each other for completely opposite reasons

Why deconstruction is sometimes just dragging God into your insecure attachment landscape — and why that's worth sitting with

How stoicism and trauma-informed therapy are two sides of the same insecure coin in our current cultural moment
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Cold open: am I always trying to do it right with God?
(02:00) Welcoming Geoff back — and what we left on the table in part one
(05:00) The question this episode is built around: how does your attachment strategy shape your picture of God?
(08:00) Compensation vs. correspondence — two ways your childhood gets projected onto God
(10:00) Why people with insecure attachment tend to have the big crisis conversion
(12:00) Jungle spirituality: hyper-focused on whether God showed up in worship
(14:00) Desert spirituality: as long as I check the right boxes, God and I are good
(15:00) When desert people and jungle people attend the same church
(17:00) Blake: how losing the emotional spiritual experience left him skeptical of everyone who still has one
(19:00) Jamie: how his desert strategy built a faith with no room to receive — until it wasn't
(23:00) Secure attachment as balanced attachment: holding cognitive and social-emotional together
(27:00) We're always trying to drag God into our landscape — and He's always drawing us into the pasture
(28:00) Deconstruction as a way of making God match your insecure attachment style
(29:00) The rise of stoicism and trauma-informed therapy: two insecure extremes of the same cultural moment
(31:00) How to know if you're pulling God into your landscape vs. being invited into the pasture
(38:00) Jamie on experiencing God as Friend before Father — and why that path is valid
(41:00) God met me in the desert too: why you don't have to throw away the gifts from your old landscape
(44:00) Geoff: 26 years into marriage, he just started asking his wife, "Can I share my heart with you?"
(48:00) The secret pain of high performers: everyone thinks you have it together, and inside you're terrified you're a fraud
(59:00) Where's the growth edge? Running new experiments — that's what faith actually is
(01:03:00) The Attachment to God Summit and where to find Geoff

LINKS & RESOURCES
Three Percent Website: https://threepercentco.com/

Join The Basement (private community + reflection guides): https://threepercentco.com/membership

Part 1 — Geoff Holsclaw on the Attachment Landscapes: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4TwXYm72Fprc7Bu2Xu6EZV?si=243a17fc5134416d

Geoff Holsclaw's Website — Center for Embodied Faith: https://www.embodiedfaith.life/

Landscapes of the Soul (book by Geoff & Sid Holsclaw): https://www.embodiedfaith.life/

The Attachment to God Summit (fall): https://www.embodiedfaith.life/

KEYWORDS
Three Percent Podcast, Geoff Holsclaw, attachment to God, attachment landscapes, desert spirituality, jungle spirituality, secure attachment, faith, deconstruction, stoicism, trauma, embodied faith, Landscapes of the Soul, men's mental health, holistic masculinity, spiritual formation, running new experiments, pasture, healing

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1 hr 7 min
September 07Permission to Talk About It — Suicide, Shame, and Stay with Jen Butler
What if the most dangerous thing we can do around suicide isn't talking about it — but refusing to?
September is Suicide Awareness Month, and Jamie and Blake are kicking it off with someone they describe as the most accessible voice on this topic they've ever encountered: Jen Butler — real talk writer, comedian, and author of Volume Control — who has spent years refusing to let shame keep this conversation small. Both Blake and Jamie share openly from their own stories in this episode. Blake attempted suicide at 17. Jamie has experienced passive suicidality. Jen has had multiple attempts, multiple psych ward stays, and years of addiction underneath it all. And yet somehow this episode is also funny. Warm. Honest in a way that makes you feel less alone rather than more afraid.
Jen traces her story from a heartbreak at 14 in a Burger King parking lot, to a cancer diagnosis at 22 and the narcotic pain pills that followed, to two psych ward stints, breast implant illness, disordered eating, and finally — sobriety, courtesy of a poet with a man bun. She talks about what it took to write Volume Control — a choose-your-own-emotional-regulation guidebook she built over six years by writing letters to her future self from her darkest places — and previews her next book, Stay, which publishers keep loving and refusing at the same time, because the word suicide makes everyone nervous. The irony is not lost on her.
If you've ever had the thought that you just didn't want to be here anymore — or you love someone who has — this episode will give you language, permission, and a little bit of relief.
If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Why not talking about suicide is the most dangerous thing we can do — not the other way around

How suicidality is really just one expression of a universal human instinct: discomfort is loud, we want comfort

Why a suicide attempt doesn't automatically lead to a shift — and what actually has to change

What "the volume turned up on life" means and why some people feel everything louder than others

How Jen built Volume Control — six years of letters to her future self, organized by emotional state
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Cold open: the reason I got sober was a poet with a man bun
(02:00) Kicking off Suicide Awareness Month — and why Jen is the perfect guest
(05:00) Introducing Jen Butler: real talk writer, comedian, not afraid of the dark stuff
(07:00) Volume turned up on life: what it's like to feel everything louder than everyone else
(08:00) First thoughts of suicide at 14 — heartbreak, a Burger King parking lot, and no language for the pain
(10:00) Cancer at 22, pain pills, and finding the blend that numbed the discomfort
(11:00) First attempt at 23 — and why getting a clean bill of health was the trigger
(13:00) Being a victim is cozy — Jen, Jamie, and Blake on the seductive comfort of that identity
(15:00) Blake shares his own attempt at 17 and what was underneath it
(17:00) Suicidality as binary thinking — the same switch that fires at a bad job or a rough relationship
(21:00) The psych ward experience, and why leaving didn't change anything
(25:00) Getting sober at 27 — and then three years of white-knuckling through breast implant illness
(29:00) Writing letters to future Jen — the six-year origin story of Volume Control
(34:00) How to use Volume Control: zero through 11, the feely-wheely, and a choose-your-own-adventure table of contents
(37:00) Stay — the new book, the subtitle, and the publishing world's fear of the word suicide
(44:00) Platforms, shadowbans, and why even the word gets blurred like a photo of a... you know
(48:00) Veterans, police, and the career cost of asking for help
(51:00) Why getting help is treated as proof you're a liability — and why that's backwards
(55:00) Self-publishing, crowdfunding, and why Jen is done asking permission
(57:00) In the time of this episode, 83 people will have died by suicide

LINKS & RESOURCES
Three Percent Website: https://threepercentco.com/

Join The Basement (private community + reflection guides): https://threepercentco.com/membership

Jen Butler's Website: https://www.jenbutlersays.com/

Jen Butler on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenbutlersays/

Volume Control by Jen Butler (buy the book): http://volumecontrolbook.com

Free PDF from Stay — "Tricks for Rough Brain Days": sign up at https://jenbutlersays.kit.com/pdf-justfortoday

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988 — https://988lifeline.org/
KEYWORDS
Three Percent Podcast, Jen Butler, Volume Control, Stay, suicide awareness, suicide prevention, suicidality, mental health, men's mental health, addiction, recovery, sobriety, emotional regulation, trauma, shame, stigma, veterans mental health, self-publishing, holistic masculinity, personal growth

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1 hr 2 min
August 31Top Plate with Chris Winikka
What happens when the anger showing up in your classroom has nothing to do with your students — and everything to do with a kid who never felt heard?
This week Jamie and Blake welcome Chris Winikka for a Top Plate episode — a live coaching call where a real member of the Three Percent community brings his actual 3% to the table. Chris who is in his 26th year of teaching high school computer science found the podcast while processing his own story, and somewhere along the way started noticing something he couldn't ignore: after decades of keeping his cool in the classroom, he was snapping at students. The anger was back — and it was louder than it should have been for what was actually happening.
What follows is one of the most practical and quietly moving Top Plate episodes yet. Chris traces the anger back through anxious attachment, a childhood of being dismissed as "just Chris," the identity crisis that came when AI started threatening his sense of worth as a teacher, and the slow realization that what his students need most from him has nothing to do with what he knows about programming. If you're a teacher, a parent, or anyone who has ever let frustration loose on someone who didn't deserve the full weight of it — this one will find you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Why anger that feels disproportionate is almost always pointing to something deeper underneath

How anxious attachment from childhood can show up decades later in the classroom — or anywhere you need to be received well

What the AI identity crisis reveals about where we've been quietly sourcing our self-worth

Why negativity bias means one bad student review encodes louder than ten great ones — and how your brain then lies to you about the ratio

The difference between rescuing a dysregulated student and helping them navigate discomfort

Why naming the process — not the content — is the most powerful tool in the room

What it means to be a regulated nervous system in a room full of kids who may never encounter one
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Cold open: who am I if AI can just do this stuff?
(02:00) What a Top Plate episode is — and why Chris chose to do it twice
(04:00) The difference between coaching and therapy
(07:00) Chris: 26 years of teaching, and suddenly snapping at students again
(11:00) AI, falling enrollment, and the identity crisis underneath the anger
(15:00) The SEEN Method and asking "what am I scared of?"
(16:00) "It's just Chris" — tracing the anger back to anxious attachment in a family of five
(18:00) You can't tame what you can't name
(20:00) Apologizing well — and what a real apology sounds like vs. "I'm sorry you were offended"
(23:00) Negativity bias, Rate My Teacher, and why one bad review drowns out ten good ones
(28:00) How Chris is approaching the new school year differently
(30:00) Not robbing students of the opportunity to struggle — and what learned helplessness actually looks like
(33:00) Naming the process, not the content: Blake's tool for the classroom
(40:00) When did you decide you weren't good at this? — the third grade math moment
(41:00) What do you want future Chris to remember?
(44:00) You might be the only regulated nervous system these kids encounter all day

LINKS & RESOURCES
Three Percent Website: https://threepercentco.com/

Join The Basement (private community + reflection guides): https://threepercentco.com/membership

Want to do your own Top Plate episode? Reach out at: https://threepercentco.com/
KEYWORDS
Three Percent Podcast, Top Plate, live coaching, Chris Winikka, teacher mental health, anger, anxious attachment, AI identity crisis, negativity bias, classroom management, learned helplessness, self-worth, nervous system regulation, men's mental health, vulnerability, personal growth, holistic masculinity

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49 min
August 24Spider-Man, Vulnerability & What It Means to Be a Safe Man
What can Spider-Man teach us about masculinity, mental health, vulnerability, and authentic connection?
In this special episode of the Three Percent Podcast, Jamie and Blake take a different approach: they react to the newest Spider-Man movie and unpack the deeper psychological and relational themes hiding underneath the superhero story.
Through Peter Parker's loneliness, rage, isolation, self-acceptance, and relationships, they explore what happens when we don't have safe places to process our emotions—and what can happen when we finally allow ourselves to be known.
They talk about the difference between fixing our emotions and actually engaging them, why high-performing people can still experience deep hopelessness, how vulnerability creates vulnerability in others, and why some of our deepest pain can only be repaired through connection.
There are plenty of Spider-Man references, but ultimately this episode isn't really about superheroes. It's about what it means to stop hiding behind the mask and let ourselves be seen.
⚠️ Spoiler warning: This episode contains significant spoilers for the newest Spider-Man movie.

Takeaways
You can look like you have it all together and still be deeply hurting. Peter is literally Spider-Man—saving people and performing at a high level—while experiencing profound loneliness and hopelessness.

Isolation turns pain into behavior. Peter experiences overwhelming emotions, isolates himself, works more, and eventually his unprocessed pain begins showing up as rage and destructive behavior.

We don't just need to "fix" difficult emotions. Jamie and Blake explore what happens when we treat emotions as problems to eliminate rather than experiences that need to be understood and integrated.

Connection is often the pathway to repair. The movie's most powerful moments aren't resolved through dominance or power, but through empathy, vulnerability, connection, and repair.

Vulnerability creates the possibility of hope. Peter's willingness to risk connection—even when he could have walked away—becomes a powerful picture of how vulnerability can open the door to hope and authentic relationship.
Chapters
(00:00) — What's Up, Spider-Fans?
(02:00) — What Spider-Man Has to Do With Men's Mental Health
(05:00) — The Loneliness of Being Spider-Man
(21:00) — Isolation, Rage & Self-Medicating
(24:00) — "You're Too Much"
(32:00) — The Power of a Corrective Emotional Experience
(34:00) — Connection Over Dominance
(38:00) — Vulnerability Breeds Vulnerability
(40:00) — You Don't Have to Fix What You're Feeling
(44:00) — Self-Acceptance & Being Loved for Who You Are
(46:00) — Vulnerability, Hope & the Final Handshake
(48:00) — What Spider-Man Can Teach Us About Connection

Keywords
Three Percent Podcast, men's mental health, Spider-Man, Marvel, masculinity, holistic masculinity, vulnerability, authentic connection, loneliness, depression, hopelessness, emotional health, emotional regulation, self-acceptance, self-compassion, shame, rage, isolation, male friendship, empathy, emotional connection, relationships, repair, corrective emotional experience, safe men, mental health, vulnerability and masculinity

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50 min
August 17The Enneagram, Your “Small Story,” and Becoming Whole with Katie Gustafson
What if your Enneagram type isn't the definition of who you are, but simply a strategy you learned to survive?
In this episode, Jamie and Blake sit down with therapist and Enneagram practitioner Katie Gustafson to explore the Enneagram as more than a personality test. Katie describes it as a “map of attention”—a way of understanding what we instinctively focus on, what we're trying to protect ourselves from, and what we may be missing as a result.
This is ultimately a conversation about authenticity, grace, healing, and becoming more fully human.

Takeaways
Your Enneagram type is a strategy, not your identity.

What you focus on can reveal what you're missing.

Hurt isn't necessarily harm.

Anger can be a signal rather than a problem.

Your “small story” doesn't have to become your whole story.

Resources / Links
Katie Gustafson
https://katiegustafson.co/
Katie on Instagram — @katiegustafson.co
Three Percent Co. https://threepercentco.com/

Chapters
(00:00) — What is the Enneagram, really?
(05:00) — The stories we create as children
(07:00) — When your personality becomes a mask
(10:00) — What your Enneagram type helps you miss
(13:00) — The struggle of being “special”
(19:00) — Your Enneagram strategy vs. God's grace
(22:00) — What is the “ouchie”?
(24:00) — Hurt vs. harm
(30:00) — Nine different “normals”
(35:00) — Why anger matters
(40:00) — Anger, boundaries, and right action
(43:00) — The nine Enneagram strategies
(54:00) — When your strategy makes you lose yourself
(58:00) — Learning what you need
(1:02:00) — Your type is the small story
(1:05:00) — Becoming the author of your life

Keywords
Enneagram, Enneagram types, personality, authenticity, emotional health, emotional healing, relationships, attachment, self-awareness, self-compassion, common humanity, anger, boundaries, hurt vs harm, abuse, trauma, grace, God, identity, personal growth, healing, emotional honesty, needs, vulnerability, masculinity, therapy, narrative therapy, protective strategies, survival strategies, integration, wholeness, spiritual formation

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1 hr 10 min
August 10What Did You Expect Healing to Look Like? Part 2
What does healing actually look like — not in theory, but right now, in the middle of your real life?
In part one, Jamie and Blake laid the foundation: the hidden rules they carried into healing, why they thought it meant fixing themselves, and how those expectations got in the way. Now they're back to answer the harder question — what does cultivating the garden actually look like for them today? Nearly a decade into their respective journeys through therapy, 12-step recovery, and story work, they're both currently going through it, and they're not pretending otherwise.
If you're somewhere in the middle of your own healing and wondering why it doesn't look like what you thought it would, this one's for you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Why healing is an ongoing journey, not a destination — and the difference between healing and healed

What self-abandonment actually means and how it quietly shows up in relationships

Why what looks like trusting yourself and going to addiction is actually your intuition asking for care with a maladaptive solution

How abuse systematically disorients your intuition — and what coming home to it looks like

Why forgiveness is a process you begin, not a moment you complete

Why holding onto resentment feels like power but functions like a prison

What tending the garden actually looks like in the day-to-day
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Welcome back: part two of what did you expect healing to look like?
(01:00) The vacation analogy — when expectations ruin what's actually beautiful
(03:00) Recapping part one: what we thought healing was supposed to be
(05:00) What healing looks like for Jamie right now — slowing down and story work
(07:00) The gym analogy: why you can't bank mental health reps and coast
(09:00) Blake: healing looks like coming home to and trusting my own intuition
(10:00) How hyper-responsibility and self-abandonment are connected
(11:00) Defining self-abandonment — leaving yourself there to suffer
(14:00) The difference between your intuition and your adaptive child parts
(16:00) Your desire for care is not the problem. Your solution might be.
(18:00) The coming cultural revolt against therapy — and what it reveals about our desire for easy fixes
(21:00) Maybe healing is learning how to suffer well
(23:00) Forgiveness as a garden tool — Jamie on beginning the process with his abuser
(25:00) Drinking poison and hoping he would die — and why Jamie finally put it down

LINKS & RESOURCES
Three Percent Website: https://threepercentco.com/

Join The Basement (private community + reflection guides): https://threepercentco.com/membership

Part 1 — What Did You Expect Healing to Look Like?: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5aOAfVihpYRNLfbf9GlpdX?si=3094581eb19e4ed2
KEYWORDS
Three Percent Podcast, healing, what does healing look like, forgiveness, self-abandonment, intuition, trauma recovery, 12-step, therapy, men's mental health, resentment, shame, adaptive child, garden metaphor, suffering, holistic masculinity, personal growth

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29 min
August 03Your Pain Is Killing a Future You Never Knew You Had with Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson
What if the most healing thing you can do in a season of pain isn't to fix it, process it, or even talk about it — but to make something?
Jamie and Blake are joined by two of their favorite people — artist Scott Erickson and musician, poet, and coach Justin McRoberts — for a conversation that goes places none of them planned. These four have been in each other's orbit for a while now, and it shows. What starts as a question about art and the low seasons of life quickly becomes one of the most honest, unexpected, and quietly stunning conversations this show has hosted.
Scott offers a definition of pain that stops the room: most pain is the death of future memories — the slow grief of realizing that the life you quietly expected to have isn't coming. Jamie opens up about being in a low himself right now, triggered by story work around eight years of abuse he's never fully shared, and what it's costing him to look at the mountain of those stories. Justin reframes the entire practice of making things — not as self-expression, but as a way to have a conversation with the parts of yourself you don't yet know how to talk to directly. And Scott, who spent a season this spring genuinely questioning whether he wanted to keep being an artist, closes the episode by inviting Jamie to throw himself the high school party he never got to have.
Bring a casserole to the wake. You'll understand by the end.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Why the practice of making something matters more than what you make

Scott's definition of pain as the death of future memories — and why processing it enlarges you

How art functions as an intermediary — a way to have a conversation with yourself about who you are and who you thought you'd be

Why evil has an agenda and good asks a question, and what that means for what you create in uncertain times

What "faith freely chosen" looks like when the world feels like it's falling apart

How to give hospitality to the wounded parts of yourself through ritual, creativity, and community

Why your artwork — whatever form it takes — is the casserole you bring to the shared wake
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Cold open: make a casserole and show up to the shared wake
(02:00) Reuniting Scott and Justin — and why Jamie wanted both of them at the same time
(04:00) Jamie names where he's at: a low season, triggered by story work
(05:00) How the practice of art frees you to actually feel your feelings
(07:00) Scott on the vocation crisis he had this spring — and how he found his way back
(10:00) The Sad Avengers: building your team of artists, creatives, and truth-tellers
(11:00) Evil has an agenda. Goodness asks a question. What are you going to make?
(14:00) Phil Stutz, True and False Magic, and faith freely chosen in the face of uncertainty
(19:00) Why the practice matters more than the product — and who you become while you're making it
(22:00) Art as the casserole you bring to the cultural wake we're all attending
(24:00) Pain as the death of future memories — Scott's definition that stops everything
(27:00) Making playlists as liturgical practice — singing your way through the low
(33:00) Jamie opens up about eight years of abuse and the deaths of future memories inside it
(36:00) Art as an intermediary: having a conversation with the parts of yourself you can't talk to directly
(41:00) Scott's invitation: throw yourself the party you never got to have
(47:00) Landing the plane: be hospitable toward yourself

LINKS & RESOURCES
Three Percent Website: https://threepercentco.com/

Join The Basement (private community + reflection guides): https://threepercentco.com/membership

Scott Erickson's Website + upcoming shows: https://www.scottericksonart.com/

Justin McRoberts' Website: https://www.justinmcroberts.com/

In The Low — book by Scott Erickson & Justin McRoberts: https://www.justinmcroberts.com/in-the-low

Phil Stutz, True and False Magic (referenced by Scott): https://www.amazon.com/True-False-Magic-Phil-Stutz/dp/

Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara (referenced by Scott): https://www.unreasonablehospitality.com/
KEYWORDS
Three Percent Podcast, Scott Erickson, Justin McRoberts, In The Low, art and grief, creativity, pain, depression, low seasons, faith, making things, holistic masculinity, trauma, hospitality, men's mental health, death of future memories, Phil Stutz, community, healing, spiritual practice

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50 min
July 27A Field Guide to the 3%: Part One
What if the thing running your life isn't a choice — it's just the way your brain learned to stay safe?
Jamie and Blake are back with something a little different. Fresh off their annual retreat in Smithville, Tennessee, they're pulling back the curtain on a book they're writing — a field guide to the 3% — and using this episode to work through the big questions that anchor part one: the 3% that happened to you. No guest, no filter, just two friends and therapists getting into the neuroscience, the theology, and the deeply personal reality of why the past doesn't just stay in the past.
This is one of the more honest episodes they've recorded. Jamie shares openly about building his identity around his story of abuse — not to heal, but to get the hit of care that felt like worth. Blake gets into the neurobiology of why your brain is literally wired to encode pain louder than joy. And together they make a case for why the most countercultural thing a man can do is bring his hidden 3% into the light of real relationship.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Why a memory that lasted an afternoon can run someone's life for decades — and why that's not a choice

How the lower brain processes emotion and threat 1,000 times faster than the thinking brain

What negativity bias is and why your brain encodes painful experiences with more color and context than positive ones

The difference between guilt and shame — and why the distinction changes how you recover

Why shame feels solitary but is actually born in relationship — and why it heals the same way

Why keeping something secret does more damage over time than the original wound

The difference between naming what happened to you and building your identity around it
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Cold open: men's mental health, carnivore diet, never show feelings
(02:00) Fresh off retreat: Jamie and Blake are writing a field guide
(06:00) What the book is — three sections, field guide format, under 100 pages
(08:00) Part one: the 3% that happened to you
(09:00) Question 1: Why does a memory that lasted an afternoon run someone's life for decades?
(11:00) The top brain and the bottom brain — why emotion outruns logic
(17:00) Your body is still running from a tiger that left years ago
(18:00) Negativity bias: why your brain encodes pain louder than joy
(21:00) Question 2: What's the difference between guilt and shame?
(24:00) Shame as identity vs. guilt as behavior — and why it matters
(25:00) Shame feels solitary but happens first in relationship
(28:00) What it means to have a "regulated other" — and what happens when you don't
(32:00) Question 3: Why does keeping a secret do more damage than the thing itself?
(37:00) Question 4: What's the difference between naming your story and building your identity around it?
(38:00) Jamie gets honest about seeking applause instead of attachment
LINKS & RESOURCES
Three Percent Website: https://threepercentco.com/

Join The Basement (private community + reflection guides): https://threepercentco.com/membership

Brené Brown on guilt vs. shame (referenced): https://brenebrown.com/
KEYWORDS
Three Percent Podcast, field guide, 3% book, shame, guilt, trauma, negativity bias, neuroscience, limbic system, nervous system, men's mental health, healing, attachment, regulated other, vulnerability, identity, personal growth, holistic masculinity

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46 min

About Three Percent

From the publisher's feed

Welcome to Three Percent. This is your space if you’re on a journey of pursuing holistic masculinity, growing your emotional awareness, and cultivating deeper relationships and an authentic faith.