07/23/2025
“It was me. 30 years ago, I was in a relationship with this beautiful woman, smart, successful. She loved me. She was sitting on the couch saying, “Owen, I don’t feel you.” And I would debate with her why she should feel me. And she’d say, Owen, I just don’t feel you. Then, after a few minutes of her patience and my stupidity, I finally realized that I wasn’t feeling [myself]. I wasn’t giving her any emotional experience. I was giving her an intellectual experience. I was using a lot of emotional words, but there was no emotion. There was no authenticity there...”
“...I had a resistance to working with men or starting a men’s group. I thought, well, if I have a resistance, maybe that’s a sign I should do it. I started my first men’s group out of my integrated medical clinic I had in Scottsdale....”
“...20 years ago, I really shifted to this somatic model that I started learning back in the late ‘70s when I was living in Boulder, [I] applied it in my clinic, and I started a new group for myself. 20 years later, and it’s just exploded. It generated a group of over 500 men, a documentary film, and three businesses. Because this little system works, it’s just taken off on its own.”
➡️ We close season 8 of The Back 9 with a powerful episode, as we sit down with Owen Marcus, the founder of MELD and a pioneer in men’s emotional wellness. Whether you’re navigating partnership, burnout or your own inner disconnect, this conversation unlocks the tools so many men are missing, and offers a raw and accessible path to become more connected from the inside out. So take the leap, with the Back 9 wherever you get your podcasts.
