I wouldn’t say becoming a man is finding a long-term committed partner necessarily that’s part of where a man
gets to choose but I do think that if a man does choose long-term committed partnership um whether it’s marriage or
some other long-term covenant that that is an initiation and there is an identity that gets to be shed parts of
those that identity that won’t serve that will actually destroy and and kill
a long-term relationship if they keep showing up
welcome to the embodied relationship experience my name is John Weinland i am your host and if you are watching on
YouTube please do me a favor and like you can subscribe and you can leave a comment that really helps get the
content out which is something I’m very keen on also if you’re listening on Spotify or Apple please leave a review
that also helps us to get the content out so today there’s a topic that is near and dear to my heart and I have a
dear friend Jetty Izuma here uh to discuss this and we’re going to jump into the topic of what it means to
become a man and I know this is a very broad topic with so much nuance jetty
brings a a wealth of experience on leading men in vision quests and in
initiation and leading men’s groups and so you’re a a family man and a father
and and a man out in the world doing your thing so before we start you want to just give us a little you know minute
or two description of who you are and what you do in the world yeah yeah first of all honored to be here thank you for
having me thank you for coming thank you i always start with saying that I’m a father and a husband first cuz
everything I do all of the bullet points on the resume it doesn’t mean anything if it’s not making it home and that’s
really the message that I bring into the work I do with men too is we can get really good at doing men’s work but if it doesn’t make it home to our families
and our communities what’s the point right so um father husband and leader of
men is really how I see it um founder of Rising Man and that’s the organization
we created to initiate men into purpose-driven leadership and I’ve really just devoted my life to helping
men be the best leaders that they can be so that they can experience fulfillment because when when a man is really
fulfilled and on his mission as you know everybody else around them lights up that’s as simply as I can put it that’s
my life’s work yeah beautiful yeah yeah and I uh you know I’ve known you for a few years now and you really do walk the
walk and I I have a great amount of respect for what you do in the world yeah and hope to go out into the desert
with you at some point myself and do another vision quest yeah it’ll happen yeah so I wanted to start with this
question really which is you know what it what it means to become a man and
then especially where you see the modern man struggling to do that and what sort
of you know uh initiations rituals rights of passage you see working really
well for men in order to make that sort of leap i kind of think about it this way i kind of think that there’s all
these processes and you and I were talking about this just a minute ago there’s all these processes of
rediscovering the parts of your boy Mhm that are still kind of running the show
in some ways you know that are still uh hijacking you know the man or sort of
sidestepping what the man wants to do and um so the way I’ve seen it in my life is that there’s just been many many
times I mean having a having a child was an initiation you know raising a child with special needs was an initiation um
for me um when I was really young getting sober was an initiation i mean there’s all kinds of initiations that
move on and then just recently you know I’ve had my own sort of initiation again where I’ve had to go back into my
childhood and and and rediscover and sort of transmute the wounds that were
still there and so what I’m discovering is that there’s this process of becoming
a man that requires sort of I don’t want to say constant but
consistent examination and ruthless self-reflection but just on the the the
big question of what it means to become a man what would you say first of all it’s not linear which I think you’d
agree it’s not just a straight line um and it’s not a singular moment there’s not a singular moment where a boy snaps
his fingers there’s a puff of smoke and then a man emerges i think there’s singular moments where we mark a very
intentional point of transition in these ceremonies that we’re going to talk more about um initiation right the word
initiate to begin something I look at as starting a new chapter very deliberately
very intentionally but becoming a man is is maybe an ongo a forever process
perhaps i know a lot of your stage
there’s this element of the forever becoming a man that I get to show up for there’s not I get my graduate degree and
becoming a man and then I’m check the box and I’m done right um but some of the signatures of that for me are
certainly more responsibility i I can identify a moment in my life where I remember feeling a very distinct it’s
all about me and now 180°ree how do I make it about everybody else and that’s
been a nonlinear process too i I want to double click that cuz that feels really important it’s it’s that it’s that sort
of process of taking the focus on what you want and what you’re interested in
and what your priorities are and then expanding that not necessarily discarding those but I guess refining
those and then deciding that other people are that you are also of service
or meant to be of service to the greater good absolutely and that distinct moment
that happened for me was when my son was born my first child i remember it felt like my my cells in my body did a
backflip 180 and I was like what is this what and I recognized that that there
was now a life form on this planet that was really counting on me my wife is
depending on me for sure but she was an adult this was completely different and I could feed herself yeah she could feed
herself this one if I if I walk out of the room he might not be okay so yeah I think there are these distinct
moments where there’s a larger step forward into that it’s not about me anymore but I’m still learning that at
37 going on 38 i still have a lot to learn about that so that’s a con that’s where the constant becoming a man part
for me right and what are some of the questions that you would suggest men start to ask themselves you know in this
exploration of like how do I be step more fully into manhood and we can get
into it later about the different stages of manhood right you know I mean there’s there’s there’s different things you’re
becoming a father you’re becoming a king you’re becoming an elder you’re becoming you know what I mean like there’s a lot
of different stages to it but but what are the questions that you think men should start asking themselves
one question I ask that gets guys flustered sometimes is what do you want
it’s so simple but I noticed that especially in modern times a lot of men
ignore that deep question not like what do you want for lunch right what do what is it that you deeply want that in the
absence of that you’re unfulfilled because in the absence of fulfillment I believe there’s only resentment external
resentment internal resentment so if I’m not deeply connecting to what I want which again isn’t a snap of the fingers
now I know and now I can make it happen right it’s a discovery process so that’s one of the first questions i can usually
tell pretty quickly if a guy knows what he wants you ask him and it’s almost embodied it just comes right out and
even more importantly you see it if you follow him around for 24 hours it’s all over his day he’s living what he wants
that’s okay cool now now we know we’re at a different level most men I encounter regardless of how old they are
too they’re not really connected fully to what they want so that’s that’s like the first big question yeah it’s
interesting because um it would seem that becoming a man then is to align your life with what you truly want right
to align life with heart you know heart’s desires not necessarily distractions and pleasures and you know
peak experiences and all of those things um but actually like taking the steps to
align your life to to what you want and having missteps along the way right like all of those things you mentioned too
i’ve experienced all those things myself that I think of it like walking through the woods on a trail and those moments
where I step off my path because of a vice or a bad relationship it’s it’s like walking into the brush and getting
pushed back onto the trail some people just get lost in the woods for too long and that’s where I think a lot of people
get stuck in substance abuse and pornography but I think that’s where
that’s all part of the journey and the discovery as well is figuring out well what is not part of that that’s the negative space of the vision right what
is not sometimes that’s what I ask guys too because if you ask them what’s your vision that’s another question that gets guys really flustered and they can’t
paint a picture i’ll say “Well let’s start with the negative space what is it not what do you know you don’t want i I
don’t want children that is not what I want in my Okay well that’s clear that sections off a portion of possibilities
right um I think all those experiences are informative i think there’s a lack of mentorship and guidance for men to
incorporate those learning moments to keep walking the path instead of wandering further into the wilderness
right so you know for the guys that are are watching that are like I’m not quite sure um I do feel like I’m wandering in
the woods you know I mean we’ve all been there we’ve all had those moments but what would be the steps that a man could
take to start aligning himself more to you know the the the traits of manhood
yeah well as you know we’re both big advocates of not just men’s work but having a men’s group a men’s circle
whatever we call it but essentially a container that is so safe that I can
unpack my whole suitcase and take a look at everything that I’ve got look at what I’m carrying around look at what I don’t
want to carry around anymore and again that’s not a fast process this is the long game that we’re talking about here
now that can be in a men’s circle that’s my preferred direction what I recommend um but there’s you know different
therapies other modalities but the the common thread is having a space that is
so safe that I can take off every mask and every disguise I have and expose what’s really there cuz until we get to
that point we’re really playing a surface level game we’re not getting to the core tap routt of who a man is yeah
so again I think it could be a number of different ways but that’s a safe place to explore that in sincerity most
important yeah I would agree and so we’ll get back to the question of like what what what does it mean to become a
man your first answer was on responsibility you also just mentioned like having other men around you who can
hold you and and challenge you and you know kind of keep you accountable um
what else is on that list for you i think purpose we’ve we’ve I’ve alluded to it so far but having that unique
purpose data right was one of the first people who put that on the map for me that a man must make that the most
important p important thing in his life is the pursuit of that and at first I didn’t understand it personally cuz I
thought it was about family and duty and I was like that sounds selfish but then I came back around to it six seven years
later and I said “Oh I understand what he’s saying it’s not to disregard family is to find a way to pursue that unique
thing that I’m here for and incorporate my family and all these other things that are important to me into that in
that and layering my life that way so I think that becoming a man is actually an art form like martial arts right it’s
like how do I bring these components of my life into greater harmony instead of in conflict and competition with each
other yeah a lot of guys struggle there too where something I’m really passionate about is in conflict in
competition with my partner and maybe it’s just I don’t have the game to navigate that space with her tend to her
needs but a lot of times it’s also just a mismatch i’m amazed at how many men have committed to long-term partnership
with partners that they’re poorly matched with yeah and so I think that’s another thing is this journey of
identifying who am I is priority before I can promise myself to anyone else in a
long-term partnership or even at a company yeah um to to say here’s who I
am and here’s what you can expect that’s part of becoming a man yeah and knowing yourself at that level yeah it would seem that that this journey from boyhood
to manhood is a bit of shedding what your family you know pressures were to
become a man what you learned about what becoming a man was from your father what
you know what society tells you i mean you know we have these situations now where becoming a man is is wrapped up in
power you know I’m thinking of Andrew Tate um you know you know and not to dismiss everything he says is you know
[ __ ] but but this this idea that becoming a man is about gaining power
especially gaining power over women and um you know and all of these sort of societal pressures that I think young
boys are starting to really come up come up against so to me I’m thinking that
becoming a man is is really like who am I really yeah you know beyond my
training or patterns or messages that I received when I was young let’s talk about power and authority for a second
sure i I I’ve been lately I’ve been talking with men about the signs of the immature and the mature masculine i
think signs of immature masculinity is the desire for power the mature masculine doesn’t desire power he
accepts it but he doesn’t desire it and I found that I trust the leaders that I trust the most personally are the ones
who they don’t crave the power they don’t want the responsibility of being somebody who leads battalions and who
you know is running ceremonies and things like that they accept the responsibility because that’s what they’re directed to do the requirements
of a leader are supposed to be informed by the people not what I want and so I think that’s really important
around power and Yeah and and authority as well i’m big on the word authority you know you’re saying who decides who I
am or the story of me mhm the root word author is something I look at a lot too
and I think part of becoming a man is reclaiming authority and taking the pen back from anybody that I gave it to or
who had it mom dad coaches and reclaiming that authority for myself to
narrate my own story to a degree and then balancing that with my circle of trust that can hold up the mirror to see
where I’m bullshitting myself yeah exactly i I remember one of the things that that I learned from my teacher you
know growing up in my work was that he would dismiss anybody who wanted to sort
of rise in the ranks of of his teaching community if they had a desire to teach
it was almost and you’d be thinking to yourself I because I did I remember this i had a desire to teach and so I had to
I had to there was something that that he wanted me to see about my desire to
be in a position of authority yeah to have the power to lead right and I think
that is such an interesting sort of approach and I I think that’s just something that men may be part of their
um examination of what it means to drop into a true manhood is what is my relationship
to power what are my shadows around power where am I seeking power and why
am I becoming an instrument of power that is not based on my past or my
desires or my patterns or my defense mechanism so that I we see so many men
who accumulate wealth and power and even authority who are um doing it as a way
to guarantee that they have control so that they don’t get hurt so that they
feel safe right and yeah that that seems to be a big piece of it as well yeah one of the
indigenous teachings to this land that I learned from the Lakota teachings is the the context of a hollow bone one of the
instruments that they use in ceremony is a eagle bone that’s from the wing that’s been hollowed out and turned into a
whistle and the context of that is that as the wind passes through that hollow
bone it creates the sound that sends the prayers up to up to the sky up to the heavens m and the teaching for men women
everybody in the community is that to be of service is to be a hollow bone the bone is just an instrument it’s it has
structure it has form and as wind passes through it it creates the sound but it’s not asking to be more than it is it’s
the instrument of service right now we know these teachings we can talk about them all day long but who actually is
embodying that and I think that’s why these teachers and masters they identify that in people there’s a difference and
you can see it you can see that quality you can tell when people want it and that’s human that’s that’s not bad yeah
it’s that paradox between like you the first thing you said is what do you want right right and also being willing to
let go of what you want in order to be of service of maybe something greater that you didn’t distinguish at the
beginning and maybe it’s where we start to talk about the how right yeah i I I wanted to I I still want to be a leader
for my community but I surrendered a big portion of the how i’ I’ve just listened to how I’ve
been called into that it’s been a pretty unexpected twist of the narrative i didn’t I used to be a physical therapist
man i didn’t expect to be sitting here talking about this stuff with a guy like you right right right and yet that’s what my path over the last 12 years has
called me deeper into i never expected to take guys out into the wilderness and do conduct ceremonies like that there
was a time where I want I remember very distinctly when I was trying to find myself and I went on my journeys as a 20-ish year old guy i remember oh I want
to I want to be a shaman right i’m sure a lot of people that see yeah you see that all over the place here especially
in Austin it came from a pure place in me at that time like I want to do this so I can help people but I also wanted
to do it at that time to be seen to be validated like I saw people in that position they had a lot of prestige and
respect from the community so I also wanted that i didn’t know it but that was right driving that underneath and so
this long slow burn of patience and saying you know what I’m not going to go after that because I want it but what
what’s going to call me into service i don’t identify as a shaman just to be clear that was not that called me in
fact I I know that that’s a big responsibility and I don’t want that and so far I haven’t been called into that i
support a lot of people who have that responsibility and that’s an honor to me but I’m happy for them to follow their
path and just do my part yeah it would seem that this sort of journey into manhood is about um letting go of
external validation and really starting to focus on internal validation of of
what I am what who I am in the world what I am in the world what are my gifts in the world and to let go of you know
the things that we’re sort of you know putting our energy into so that we do
get the external validation would you agree I I would agree and the thing about external validation is I do think
it’s a resource that we’re always going to depend on to some degree i just want to depend on it less it’s like food and
water i can’t I I can never take food and water completely away from me i can depend on it less and where do I go for
external validation is it I think that’s the big question right like what kind of external validation are we looking for
likes on Instagram or we looking for you know men we trust to really tell us when we’re on the right path or off the right
path you know exactly and how often do I require that and and I noticed that I’ve gotten a lot of validation over the
years for the type of person that I am um it’s always at times it’s polished my ego more than others and I I know that
I’m making progress because first of all when people say these things back then I didn’t believe it i didn’t really
believe it in my heart like “Okay I’m glad you experienced me that way but I don’t see it yet.” I start to believe it
more and more and I I don’t need to hear it from people as much as I used to i needed people to believe in me before I
believed in myself for a while and now it’s less i still do i still go to my
men and there’s moments where I need those guys to say “Dude you’re doing a great job hang in there you’re a great
guy yeah you’re a knucklehead but but you’re a good dude hang in there.” But
now I can also source that for myself too and there’s that element of fathering myself that’s another part of becoming a man fathering learning to
father me and not having to outsource that as much as I have in the past same
say more about that that feels like a really important point and there’s a lot that goes into it right and I think it’s different for every person but when I
say fathering I don’t mean that daddy energy it’s just can I provide for
myself what I need to be okay to keep following my path and show up for my responsibilities sometimes it’s a word
of encouragement m sometimes it’s discipline to get up and go to the gym at 6:00 in the morning and take care of my body it could be a number of
different things creating a career where I can provide for myself and my family that all falls
under that category of fathering and I think where most men still have a lot of work to do is the internal dialogue like
the father that externally would sit down with you and give you that beautiful soulfilling fathering when
when you need a gentle touch like “Hey you’re doing okay.” Yeah i believe in you yeah you know and also on the other
end of the spectrum come on time to time put your big boy pants on exactly and to
be able to give myself that dialogue in a healthy way not in these like self-destructive internal berading ways
but the healthy fathering when I can do that for myself then I depend less on that from around me then I’m more
available for service and yeah I love I love that and I think that that’s something that I see as well right is
that you know I lead a lot of men and and they are this process of reparing i
hadn’t really identified it but it makes a lot of sense that part of reparing part of becoming I mean becoming a man
in many ways is about reparing yourself in the ways you weren’t properly
fathered right and there’s so many in my generation maybe in yours as well there’s so many men that did not have
the proper fatherly love direction discipline um encouragement um all of
those things yeah and a lot of guys had it way worse than I did i have a great
father taught me a lot of wonderful things and even having a great father it’s still incomplete i don’t think any
one person can get everything they need from either one of their parents i think going back to the older models the
traditional models in a village the the men of the village were the uncles and
fathers to everyone they are our children not just my child it’s our children and the mothers and
the aunties treated it the same way so the way I think of it is I had to go out in the world and meet these different
men encounter different styles of masculinity and manhood and then take what was useful and make it my own and
that to me is fathering myself is taking all of those things and creating what I usually refer to as the father avatar
that I want to embody and then not just in principle but in practice take that
avatar of a man and be that guy and then put in the reps over the years and then that’s when that confidence that so many
men are looking for that sense of safety cuz even if the unknown comes in I know I can handle it that’s where that comes
from after many many many reps of fathering ourselves yeah yeah i consider that sort of a benevolent patriarch you
know the benevolent patriarch and and I’ve had moments of where I was in deep grief um and I could feel the hand of
the father on my back right i could you know I mean there’s a process I think that a lot of men are missing because
they weren’t given that in they weren’t given it young so they just have no felt experience of it right and they have to
here they are in their 20s and 30s now thinking like okay I have to find my own felt experience of receiving the love of
the father yeah and you know it’s funny even just recently I’m recognizing that a big part
of my work and and further framing my work is that I’m I’m helping to father men and I say that with humility because
a lot of people hear that and say you’re trying to be everybody’s daddy no time no it’s it’s just another way of of
describing more clearly what mentorship and guidance looks like and any any one of us can father each
other i say that we say that at our events i can be fathered by any other man in any moment we all sit on the
ground together i just happen to be in a position to give something that you may not have for yourself right now and a
lot of guys who don’t like we were saying before didn’t have a father at all or they had an alcoholic father like
they got very little useful healthy masculine in that first primary
archetype that was my experience yeah and there’s a lot of work to do yeah there’s a lot to uncondition and then
fill in the gaps with that and you know maybe this is a good segue into the rights of passage stuff because shedding
is an important part of becoming a man too and releasing and one of the things we miss in our current society framework
is that we don’t have a lot of clear ways to release an identity and we
overidentify with certain things and certain qualities that they can stick with guys i’ve taken out 70-year-old men
to fast who are shedding things from their childhood still so okay so if if I am a man you know in
my let’s say early 30s and I’m I’m aware like okay I didn’t get the fathering that I that I needed and I don’t really
have a clear path on what it means to become a man what are some of the steps that you would give to that guy it
really depends on where a man is at if a man is sincerely ready to release who
he’s been and to do that deep inventory of what has impacted the man that I am
currently and what’s no longer working like I said before unpacking the suitcase and going through it and discarding and jettisoning the things
that aren’t going to serve me for what I want to be um that’s when I start talking to guys about rights of passage
um because a right of passage ceremony is a death and a rebirth i often use the metaphor of a chapter book where it’s
you’re putting the finishing touches on this chapter of your life you’re doing a lot of that beautiful completion work
and having conversations and really laying to rest who you’ve been it’s a
courageous thing right make sure guys don’t take it lightly this isn’t just another thing you’re doing you’re actually deciding to let this identity
die it’s very vulnerable and then you step into this window this portal of the
unknown where you don’t actually have a form right for four days right you don’t actually have you’re formless and you’re
being informed by what your experience is and then emerging on the other side to fresh pages in a new chapter that’s a
really deliberate and intentional journey to take so I usually talk to guys and do my process of discovery to
say is this something you’re really ready for is there actually a threshold that you’re marking for yourself it can
be boyhood to manhood it can be going into fatherhood when when I went out and did my first fast it was 3 weeks before
I got married it was 4 months before we got pregnant with our first child so I was marking the end of my nighthood
adolescence you know it’s all about me days and going out to learn what do I
need to be a husband a provider a father etc but it can be any number of things
for men you know it’s age and timeline of life is is not the most important
thing um so that’s usually what I would say is like what what what are you wanting to step into without having to
know the finished product cuz you can’t you can’t know what the next chapter holds until you start writing it
yourself but to what degree are you clear on your purpose and your intent to release and to become yeah it seems like
there’s a bit of a a letting go of the known and embracing the unknown that is
required for this sort of leap of faith that men that men need letting go of
what they all of the strategies right because I think that to me what I’m seeing is I see men you know show up at
least to my work with so much strategy of you know how to deal with women and how to make money and how to live in my
purpose and you know and that strategy is obviously built on their childhood
experiences right and their life experiences to that point but letting go of strategy and tapping into something
deeper so when you take men maybe you could describe a little bit about what you do when you take men out into the
wilderness and what you see happen to them like what do they get what do they get in contact with what do they get to
touch that that helps them reorient in all the ways that we’ve been talking
about well well for starters I think one of the thing that everybody needs to become a man is to learn how to take a punch in the face sometimes sometimes
literally but I mean more you know metaphorically can I get hit in the face
with the unknown and can I wobble and find my feet again cuz that’s just going
to happen for the rest of our lives i think another plague of society is that we’re trying to insulate ourselves from
the unknown from pain from discomfort of all types physical mental emotional i
mean just look at the statistics right we don’t know how to encounter hardship and difficulty where we don’t know how
to resource ourselves in those moments so a big part of having guys go out into
the wilderness 4 days alone no food no technology we’re lowering the the
barrier safety not to be reckless but to let men encounter risk and challenge and
adversity a bit more becoming a man is all about how well can I handle adversity my response and discomfort
right discomfort and discomfort for sure yeah yeah and there a lot of guys we talk you say “Okay I’m going to take you
out in the wilderness i’m going to sit you down four days you’re going to be by yourself and you’re not going to have food a lot of people that’s such a
obscure or unusual way to conduct oneself in four days what’s the ROI on
that right yeah what is this going to hit me i’m I’m paying for this why am I doing this because what guys have to
realize especially if they don’t have that spiritual orientation to a process like this is that we are so distracted
and so over nurtured in modern society it’s so convenient it’s so nurtured
right right what if we take all that away right we’re going to take away your phone so you can’t distract yourself
we’re going to take away comm communication and contact with other people so you have to be with yourself 4
days you can’t escape that for 4 days you got to be with yourself you may have to look at yourself and see the things
you don’t like 4 days that’s a that’s a long time 4 days goes by very quickly
when you’re here in the modern world and we got things to show up for when you sit down in a circle for 4 days it takes
forever right right right right and so that’s part of the process too is encountering these things we don’t
normally get to encounter and often times the hard part for guys is not going without food it’s not being in the
wilderness it’s having nothing to do and deeper than that it’s having no distractions cuz I got to hear that
voice inside now and see hear what it has to say yeah so what do what do you see when a man comes out of this process
i mean you see them when they go in and then I’m imagining you’re not checking in on them during the 4 days they’re just out there doing their thing yeah
and then they come back and what do you what do you notice what what happens to their systems incredible transformation
um and it’s what I always tell guys cuz some guys will ask me “What should I expect to get?” And I love that question
you know it’s it’s a very modern way of thinking what am I going to get
and I tell people that I don’t know exactly what you’re going to get but what everybody’s come out with i’ve
taken over guys every one of them comes back with greater clarity now in most
cases there’s a calmness you see guys walking back into camp and they’re just beaming with a smile across their like
scruffy face cuz they haven’t shaven just cuz they’re so relaxed um a lot of
guys come back with inspiration motivation confidence because just
survived four days in the wilderness without food even just even just that forget about all the other layers of
insight and spiritual growth but just knowing that I can do this is empowering i can’t tell you how many times in the
last 11 years since I firsted I thought to myself man I’ve been out in the wilderness for 4 days and four nights by
myself in the dark with no food i can send this email right i can go and ask
this beautiful woman out on the date right so there’s just a degree of
selfrust yeah that comes back it’s different for everybody but that’s the themes yeah so if we were going to take
that the concept of that and apply it to the modern man you know not all of them can do vision quests right or go out it
seems like what you’re asking them to do is you’re asking them to put themselves consciously in a period with no
distraction discomfort uh deep self-reflection uh you know kind of deep
listening for lack of a better term right i guess they’re out there really listening you know the way I’ve always I’ve always done those kind of practices
is is to go out and listen like stop trying to right and just listen um and
and so how would you suggest somebody who can’t go out into the wilderness you know attend to that well I’m glad you
mentioned that too because I’m also really adamant about this is a way to do this it doesn’t have this is my way of
life it doesn’t have to be everybody’s and that’s fine um I also emphasize that in the realm of rights of passage and
traditional ceremony around these things we all come from people all over the world that had different ways of doing
something very similar but there was almost always a consistent thread of time alone mhm in the wilderness and
fasting from any combination of food water sleep right lots of different
things um and there’s also many examples of customs or traditions where there was pain that was invited in or introduced
which not the way we do it sundance for example sundance for example um there’s ceremonies down in the Amazon where they
put the fire ants in mitts right so we don’t do that but there’s lots of different examples of that um in fact
before I ever went out and fasted I did a vapasa 10day silent meditation and I’m
a huge advocate of that too because that was another style of learning how to listen to and be with myself and to see
in like in that deep mirror that’s somewhere down there caked under a bunch of other [ __ ] what’s actually here so I
would say for anybody who isn’t either doesn’t resonate with the wilderness and doing it this way or isn’t able to to
find ways to spend an extended amount of time yeah it’s wonderful to have a daily meditation practice right 10 15 minutes
breath work even an hour of breath work wonderful but what happens when we stretch that timeline and we eliminate
distractions so any anything that creates that unique experience I think is really valuable yeah that’s something
I always I you know I wrote in my book that you know time alone time alone in nature time with men in nature like all
of these things are you know are are meant to get you deeper in touch with
who you really are as a man right and there’s one more important component maybe the most important component is
after the fast right after the ceremony after the experience the peak experience
is the incorporation of it and my teachers more than others I’ve experienced emphasize the importance and
value of incorporation what’s the point of doing anything if I don’t find a way to incorporate it into my life that’s the
hard part going out in the wilderness that’s easy 4 days four nights no problem how do I take that and sincerely
apply that to who I am when I walk footsteps back on this side and that’s where community is a requirement we we
used we talk about these auto initiations that’s another interesting phenomena right now like young men young
people know I need to be challenged so they go out in the wilderness by themselves or they go travel and
backpack i did stuff like that and it’s like I need to feel what it feels like to challenge and push up against to see
what I’m capable of even eagles do it the most this is going back to some indigenous teachings juvenile eagles are
the most revered feathers cuz they fly higher than any other bird and the reason they do this is they have this amazing ritual where when they’re ready
to gain their adult plumage and be able to procreate they they do this ritual they soar up into the stratosphere where
the air is so thin that they lose consciousness wow and then they start plummeting to the earth and then they
snap out of it and they do this over and over and over again till they’ve learned their limits wow and then they never fly
that high anymore and then they they start to gain their adult plumage and have children wow so it’s we do it we’re
we’re compelled to do it as as humans as animals as creatures but if we don’t do
it in community then there’s not that reflection there’s not the accountability Yeah of who you came back
and claimed to be i see you i encourage you to be that person i challenge you to get back on your path when you fall off
of it right it’s it’s a requirement yeah i would I would think so i think there’s something about part of becoming a man
is to be seen mhm in in who you really are which would include from my
perspective becoming a man means to show to certain people in your community um
the shadows that you are right the the the parts of you that you are wanting to
shed or integrate i would say integrate probably the better word for me but but but you know to to be able to show the
people in your community and let them love you even in the parts of you you
feel are unlovable yes right is is part of becoming a man so there’s there’s all
this you know there’s often times I think this misunderstanding that becoming a man requires so much sort of
solo work and so much you know what you’re talking about what I’ve seen is that it’s a combination of both of being
you know what does it mean to be a leader in your community what what how
do you actually walk in your community it’s something that I’ve had to as I’ve I’ve embraced now becoming an elder it’s
something I’ve had to embrace you know and in my community pe people here and the people I teach I’m I’m I tend to be
one of the oldest and not the oldest and so I’ve really had to embrace walking
into my community as that right and really allowing myself to be seen as
that and that has been that was a whole other sort of initiation that I went through in the last year or so oh man
and even before we started recording we mentioned these cycles of initiation right again the you know the modern call
it colonial mindset is that things are linear right that we that it’s a step function of steps whereas indigenous
people know that things happen in a circle and so there’s tools like the medicine wheel even when you look at a
tree if you go out into the forest and you stand next to a tree and you look up you can see this pattern of how the branches grow in a like a spiraling
staircase up the tree so there’s all this evidence of a circular cyclical it’s in the seasons it’s in the sun it’s
in the moon phases it’s everywhere and so why would we be any different right why would it be this linear
climbing of the social ladder of gaining but it’s actually coming back around to beginning again and initiating into
elderhood right i’m beginning again it’s not a flat circle though it’s a spiral
it’s a coil and we spiral up in this direction but we keep coming around to these familiar seasons so I’m sure the
first steps into elderhood are going to feel a lot like your first steps into adulthood on a cellular level like this
is I’m not sure what I’m doing here i don’t know if I belong and I’m not sure you know yeah I’m not sure what I’m
doing or exactly how to be in this situation yeah for sure for sure and yet you have a whole so much more experience
and visibility from up here because you’ve walked those circles when you were down here at an earlier one um and
communities would initiate their elders too this is a huge I mean this a whole another conversation but we’ve discarded
our elders so much sure and I always say that you can tell how healthy a community is by the way they treat their
youngers and their elders and you look at two of the populations that were overmedicating
isolating trying to you know with boys trying to tame the boy trying to isolate
and incubate the elders so they can just shuffle off yeah so there’s a whole and
there’s so much to it yeah for sure for sure i’m curious if we we could you know expand the conversation into other
initiations that you see men go through in life like these are very conscious rights of passage that you’re talking
about but what other initiations are do you see fatherhood you mentioned but but what else fatherhood for sure we talked
a little about fathers why don’t we talk about relationships let’s talk about long-term partnership you know which isn’t necessarily for everybody i don’t
think it’s a guarantee that becoming I I wouldn’t say becoming a man is finding a long-term committed partner necessarily
that’s part of where man gets to choose but I do think that if a man does choose long-term committed partnership um
whether it’s marriage or some other long-term covenant that that is an initiation and there is an identity that
gets to be shed parts of those that identity that won’t serve that will actually destroy and and kill a
long-term relationship if they keep showing up yeah so the initiation then is trying to find out who you are in
relationship at least in this this example to the feminine one of the things that I’ve often taught the men
that I work with is that the you know the feminine is all of it right the feminine is the world the feminine is
nature the feminine is you know children the feminine is the part of yourself
right i mean so so your relationship what would you say about the difference
between how a boy relates to the feminine and how a man relates to the
feminine i’ll shoot off some examples right when my wife and I get in an argument when I show up in that argument
as a man I demonstrate humility first where did I mess up here what did I do
wrong either I’m not listening well enough or I was reactive and defensive there’s a whole laundry list of what I
could have done you out the boy in a certain way yes whereas the boy deflects responsibility right he’ll project well
it’s your fault or you know what did you do you did this too right yeah totally right which that’s I mean I don’t know
if that ever completely gets eliminated from who I am that’s that self-protective reptilian function of
the brain that we cannot labbotomize unfortunately unfortunately well fortunately i don’t know i because it’s
also important for survival right of course of course and and sex and you know all the things that you know are
are you beautiful in life as well absolutely another man that I’ve learned a lot from over the years a guy named
Justin Sterling he actually just recently passed so rest in he did yeah last week and one of the things I learned from him was this concept of
terms or essentially a man’s territory what are the things I I do this this circular what what exists inside here
that I don’t compromise under any circumstances right the things that are for me now I don’t have to defend that
territory violently or aggressively i can very assertively and calmly impose
my boundaries but as long as I tend to this space of who I am as a man and what fulfills the man that I’m here to be I
can be available for everything else outside of this i can go shopping with my wife at the mall even though I could
care less about doing that because I took care of this and I think in relationship and learning to what do I
who do I need to become in order to be here for a long-term partnership I got to identify what is this and owning it
i’m curious what is that for me um two things um one of my terms is that I’m a provider and that’s a whole another
conversation that’s more than just money on the table right that’s a lot of things i’m a provider for my family uh
I’m a man of spirit i’m I’m a man of ceremony i am a a mentor for other men
i’m a man who builds community around himself um I’m a man of integrity and
when I tend to those things those that’s my north star my my my constellation of who I am as a man when I’m tending to
those things sincerely I’m whole and I’m complete i’m not angsty i’m not
aggressive in my relationship i’m available i’m calm i’m poised i’m ready i’m inviting requests to show up instead
of being overwhelmed by them because I’m struggling to figure this out yeah yeah it’s interesting because the way you
describe those really I occurred to me like values right these are my values interchangeable yeah um I’ve always
thought of terms um as like this is what I this is what I will tolerate or not
tolerate so for example you know one of my terms in relationship at least is that we repair we have a culture of
repair right another term in relationship for me is um we don’t call
each other names right we treat each other with respect that’s another another term would be I need time alone
to be solo right i need time I need to have time and space so that I can tend
to the things that we’ve talked about yeah another term for me is that we explore sexually right like so I I think
it’s interesting and I don’t I think it’s a yes and conversation right of like yeah what are my values that that
make me whole and complete and then what are the values in relationship that I
need in order to be able to be a hell yes to everything that’s not those yes
yeah and I love that cuz I think it’s actually important that we have interchangeable language for what we’re talking about here essentially we’re
talking about the same things and what you’re mentioning as terms in your relationship I usually call those partnership standards but if we were
speaking Spanish it’d be a completely different word the point is is we’re we’re speaking about the same things and I think that’s also important is knowing
what I’m looking for in a partner and what’s non-negotiable about that which is what I heard when you say terms i
think non-negotiable standards yeah I think there’s other standards that are in a category of important but not
essential yeah it’s really high up there but it’s not an absolute dealbreaker i think it’s really important going back
to men determining what they want and in relationship to relationships for example that I I find men are incredibly
opaque around those terms you know both around both both parts of them the
values like all right who am I you know regardless of whether I’m in relationship or not and then what are
the things that are non-negotiable to me in relationship and I see so many men uncertain about that right so it feels
like cl you know in this conversation of what it means to become a man clarity is such an important piece of it right to
be really clear on you know what is your the way I would describe this is heart’s truth truth you know what is your
heart’s truth around how you want to relate and how you want to have community and how you want to live in
the world those kinds of things to have real clarity on that and the vision quest is a way to get clarity i would
also Yeah I try to encourage men to take an hour or two i usually do this pretty
consistently where I I sit on my back porch and I I have a I have a view of
trees and nature and I just kind of sit there for an hour mhm i love it becomes
one of my one of the best hours of my day to just sit and listen
because my relationship to clarity is so important right relationship to clarity
is so important like let’s talk a little bit more about the shedding piece i think that’s I think that’d be really cool like so what does it what does it
take to shed your old identity and install a new one or or at least take a
step into you know creating a new one yeah courage courage and honesty because
exposing those parts of ourselves is really scary in fact I think that’s what we learn in childhood is to contain
those parts of ourselves cuz it’s such a volatile time we we could it’s easy to
be bullied it’s easy to feel different and less than when our brain can’t quite understand how what to make of that so
we learn to contain and shelter those things so I think just having the courage first to say here it is
this is what this is who I am at that core level and trust that I’m not going to be judged for it and then to look
honestly at those things like that that really is so important you know paired with clarity because you can look at
something clearly you can polish off the the magnifying glass and look right at it right but if you’re not being honest
about what you see it’s it doesn’t really serve yeah it would seem it would seem again that I keep want I keep
wanting to like identify these places where manhood sort of comes online and it’s it’s I to me it seems that you’re
talking about truth yes right like it’s really you know that that our relationship to the truth of who we are
not necessarily who we’ve created as an identity to show the world is a big
piece of stepping into manhood yeah which takes a lot it takes a lot it does
and and that’s one of those sort of circular you know areas that we’re talking about because what you can identify as truth in your 30s is and is
different than your 20s and in your 40s and in your I found in your 50s like there were truths that I discovered
about myself that I was like “Wow.” Like I I I can’t even believe that that’s in
me yeah that that that that level of immaturity or neurosis or insecurity or
any of those things are in me but then when I’m name it right something you
know something relaxes in me something Yeah so it seems that one of the
misconceptions that I think men have about becoming a man is this concept of push
right that there needs to be force right and and and what what I’m seeing
happen in myself and in other men is that actually you you you can feel all
of these aspects of your own manhood in relaxation and flow more than in force
now there’s appropriate times to use force and will right but but for most
men I think force and will has that’s a muscle that’s been overdeveloped yes often times I’ll talk to guys about
becoming more rangy becoming a full range man or we can go to these different ends of the spectrum because I
believe that any any quality overexpressed can be harmful yeah right so being too rigid like rigidity is part
of integrity like rigorous being rigorous be part of integrity we’ve gotten hit on this you you both you and
I because we’re those kinds of guys right and being too rigorous and inflexible can have a cost at times it’s
useful and it can also have a cost so I find that a lot of guys who who learn to
survive in life by being rigid i think about military guys or athletes who that
worked for them there’s that unlearning of that component of well what if you changed your mind about something cuz a
talk about an untrustworthy man is somebody who will never change their mind yeah and uh there’s a woman named
Kimberly Anne Johnson who I’ll credit her this the first place I heard it she says,”I reserve the right to change my
mind.” I was like “Wow that’s empowering because then I can be confident and
assertive in what I believe today but I don’t have to be attached to that forever right?” And I think that’s one of those subtle things that some guys
get stuck in they’re figuring out what it means to be a man yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense okay so I think
that it would be good for people here to get some ideas from you about like how
do men identify right and I guess we could talk about this in terms of lessons like how to identif how how do
they identify that oh [ __ ] I am in a time of initiation or I’m in a time
where there’s a lesson here that I need to really incorporate in order to develop as a man grow as a man h how do
you you know coach men on identifying those and making the most of them i think the first ingredient is humility
right like having the humility to acknowledge I got a blind spot many of
them and I want to look at them um one of the things that I’m really proud of is I’ve I’ve learned to embrace almost
obsessively like what am I missing what am I missing here and that requires a
little bit of lightness too like hey it’s not the end of the world to find out that I’ve got this huge blind spot
about how I’ve been showing up it can be painful but I’m not going to get stuck in that pain and I think that’s where
the the circle the men’s support having a really safe place of non-judgment but trusting that you can be challenged in
every direction to find the truth is really important and it starts with humility is presenting myself to that
making myself available and supportable by other people so identifying those
things we talk about looking in the mirror right in in in rising man it’s a big thing for us is looking in the
mirror and for us that starts with the mirror of the other men if I’ve got nine men that I’ve built trust with and I’ve
got rapport we’ve got agreements if they’re seeing something that goes directly against what I think about
myself I’m going to trust nine other people versus me and getting into that that’s where the
humility and the curiosity even is really important yeah the way the way I’m hearing that is that you know part of becoming a man is to have the
humility to put yourself in the center of other men you trust and allow them to
polish you mhm and and I also have let go of it only needs to be men at all
times me too i I learned to trust the mirror of my partner right because if I if I
invalidate everything that she reflects back to me she’s with me more than any of the guys on my men’s team yeah so I’m
I’m ignoring this resource it it requires a little more discretion yeah right for example I don’t necessarily
take the same value or put the same value on my wife’s input on being a man
or be how I am showing up as a father as I do to other fathers that I know right cuz there’s a there’s a context that
they just understand a little differently but she does have some really valuable insight on how I’m being with my kids that applies to who I am as
a father so if I invalidate and discard that cuz you’re just a woman yeah yeah then that’s that’s not really honoring
what she has to offer yeah it seems that cultivating the relationship with your inner voice your inner knowing is a huge
piece of ascending let’s say into manhood right whereas what I see with
men who are still you know in a lot of puer energy or a lot of they don’t really I I don’t sense them to have
clarity there’s more confusion about do I do this or do I do that and there’s less of an inner knowing and when you’re
when you’re in a relationship with a highly feminine being you know this is something David used to talk about a lot
that you should really use her feedback as a way to gauge your level of presence
your level of integrity you know your level of grounded depth right like she’s she’s like a like a tuning fork to all
of those things and I think there’s a lot of truth to that but what I also see and what I’ve experienced is where we
take on you know it’s again the external validation question we’ll take on stuff
and ignore our inner voices to the point where we’ve now like internalized their
childhood wound around the masculine for example so cultivating this capacity to
just know like no yeah you’re right i can see this part but that that other part that’s not me mhm and and that
seems like a journey that a lot of men are struggling to really find yeah
that’s a great distinction i think that goes back to my understanding of authority um and who I give authority
and how much authority I give to them i often reference Bruce Lee he has that famous quote about observe everything
take it all in and and take only what’s useful and then discard the rest and make what you hold on to your own and
I’m like ah make it uniquely my own that’s that’s that synthesis and I think going back to becoming a man
strengthening that filter that I have for everything that comes in and there’s indicators along the way for example if
you have if a man has a mentor in his life often times we look into somebody because we admire them or we’re just we
just fully buy into who they are and I’ve had men like that in my life and I’ve noticed over the years that I I
give less authority to them not because I respect them less or I trust them less but because I’ve gotten from them what I
require and I’ve made it my own but there’s this balancing out where I’m not just outsourcing authority to them the
way that I did it starts to lower and my inner authority grows because I’ve gotten what was useful for them and then we can our relationship evolves and
grows same with a partner right maybe early on like I I really take some things in but then I learn how to
distinguish between what’s theirs and what’s mine and I don’t think there
again I don’t think that’s a journey that has an end point or a final destination it’s constantly taking
inventory and assessing that and developing my inner authority but I think what most guys are struggling with
and what they’re looking for is a sense of confidence and trust selfrust i can trust this voice he’s not going to steer
me wrong he’s not going to [ __ ] me because I’ve calibrated him against these other resources in my life yeah
that makes a lot of sense it would seem that you know I’m just trying to identify the tools of masculinity or
manhood right i mean those two words aren’t interchangeable but they’re related
the the capacity for presence for example right like that that feels like
an important piece of manhood like to be really present really dropped into the
present moment to be dropped in and attuned attuned to the the environment
that feels like a big and important part of cultivating skills of manhood let’s
call it this capacity to um reflect to really self-reflect and have the
awareness to keep looking at like okay here’s what the here’s the stimulus from the outer world let me get with my voice
of inner knowing and reflect and and and inventory you use the word inventory I think that’s so important right so we’ve
got tools of initiation that include going out into nature and being alone
we’ve got tools of self-reflection we’ve got tools of of creating relationship
with your own inner knowing right which you could I guess call your soul you could call God you could call any number
of things anything else that you feel any other tools that you feel really important for men to know about well I
would just put a punctuation mark on the community component of all those things cuz I think any of those things you mentioned there’s a version that is
purely solo i can go and sit in silent meditation by myself i can go out into the wilderness alone by myself if I can
sit and journal by myself but until I take this process into some community
some some external relationships I think that’s a really important piece to mix with it cuz there’s times you need to go
and be I need to go and be by myself nobody’s with me more than I’m with myself that’s true right and there’s I
think there’s nourishment there’s there’s a there’s a really like part of I this relationship between vitality and
our capacity to actually act as the men we want to be is is directly related to
how well we nourish ourselves well I think that’s a very almost easy to overlook component of I have to have the
physical machine to execute on a big vision too right i mean I don’t know AI stuff the future who knows but even
nervous system capacity to to hold it to put it into put it into being all of those things require strong nervous
system nervous system poise composure the ability to have my mind run off but
then I can come back and just be really present with you and be right here those are And there’s a lot of ways to develop
that skill set I think you know um so I mean what are some you’d suggest martial
arts yeah right like actual physical combat training um because I mean
there’s a lot of people who have a lot of peace and the ability to generate peace within their nervous system but what about when there’s an external
force and we can’t just ignore external forces our whole lives so I think it’s I I kind of joked about it before but
getting punched in the face you know getting hit and a healthy way right like
not just like scrapping in the bar but actually doing it in a deliberate way and pushing up against other men a lot
of times I ask men at our events “When was the last time you wrestled a grown man?” A lot of guys are like “Never.”
For a lot more and more I mean people are doing the stuff that’s growing yeah yeah um I think that’s one that gets
overlooked uh taking care of my body hydration
seen me drinking water yeah when guys are struggling anybody struggling I say “Let’s go back to the basics are you drinking enough water are you eating
good food are you getting some rest are you taking some time to recharge are you doing something that you care about
every day?” Most people are not doing those things on a daily basis i know I just got 10
hours of sleep last night after my wife was out of town i was sleeping like four
so I think just even that you know can be over yeah self self-care self-care i
mean the the stepping into the role of not just manhood but leadership right i
mean you know part of there’s sort of this natural connection between being a leader and being a man right it does it
doesn’t have to be you don’t have to be a community leader but there’s you’re leading something yeah you’re leading yourself you’re leading your family
you’re leading a business you’re leading a department right and so cultivating these skills of leadership in whatever
part of the tribe you exist feels like you know a lot of the things that you describe being able to and maybe that’s
the only other piece that’s missing is just very clearly emphasizing an arena for practice right so what is your arena
on the table on leadership right like is it within your men’s circle that’s one
is it in your family that’s another or creating something like starting a business like having these arenas to
practice leadership and I’m really big on safe environments to do that first right i’d rather have guys come in and
make all the mistakes on a men’s team when we’re doing our events and stuff cuz the stakes are lower and we have
compassion for those things the world isn’t as forgiving yeah and that’s what you know we’ve been doing as people
forever is giving more opportunity to succeed and fail because that’s part of
the recipe before we hand over the keys to the kingdom before we say “Okay now
it’s life or death you’re going out and hunting and we’re either going to make it or not.” Right right are you ready i taught you how to throw throw a spear
now it’s time to actually go hunt a buffalo exactly i also call it bowling with bumpers right like I’m not going to
send a man alone into oncoming traffic blindfolded right that’s reckless but
here you bowl with bumpers and like fall in the gutter a little bit but hey just practice it’s okay yeah yeah practice is
such an important thing especially with other men yes i mean there’s there’s the whole biological component about men
just being with other men actually have higher testosterone than men that are alone i mean it’s biologically yeah
biologically it’s it’s true right so so and men also sitting in silence together
or sitting in quiet together create higher levels of dopamine which then get converted into testosterone so there’s a
lot of there’s a you know it’s there’s a lot of biology that just just supports all the things we’re talking about yes
right and you know let’s face it we’re biological beings we’re energetic beings and so being able to you know have the
machine running well is really important i We haven’t talked about love oh how do
we miss that yeah I know right and and so I think it’s such an because you know what we’re talking about is integrity
and clarity and you know what I mean and yeah all this all these masculine things but I’m just curious how you would how
you would you know integrate that concept like what does it mean to be a man and have a deep connection to love
or what are some of the ways that we obviously you know we get tripped up by love you know the men often get tripped
up by the feminine in this area and lose themselves you know I’ve certainly had that experience so how would you talk
about love and manhood first of all I think that part of becoming a man is
really exploring the depths of love uh when I thought I was becoming a man love for me was still the butterflies in my
stomach for a pretty gal and that’s part of it right but I think that I’ve also
learned that love grief is part of love i talk about grief as the dark side of
the moon of love it’s the part of finding out how much I love someone or something when I can no longer be in
relationship with that person or thing when it’s gone um I think love is also finding it’s passion it’s enthusiasm for
something that’s not just a person it’s appreciation it’s gratitude it’s creativity love is so much more broadly
defined in my life now where I am than it used to be when I was just looking for a partner yeah and so I think and
also to I think a lot of immature masculinity is placing all investing all of that love energy into one person or
one area of life and I think there’s a lot of love to go around and uh so I
think expanding the definition of what love is cuz to us for me I put love in the east it’s that east energy it’s that
spring energy it’s that creative visionary possibilities that that
healthy part of the lover that’s just eyes wide open poet the the room inner
room the inner fees yeah yeah exactly so I think my at least my journey into
manhood and deeper into it is understanding that there’s more to it than just a person or relationships but
also especially the love that I have for myself really i mean there everyone says self-love but a man really understands
what that means
right right i love that guy you do your best you do your best i always think of love in in the terms of being a verb
right right and so that you know love is this kind of constant choice and you can
walk through a you can be walking down the street and filled with love right
and and I think that the way I would define manhood is that you you start to develop a really beautiful relationship
with the capacity to give it and the wisdom to know when it’s needed and how
it’s needed right and so and so I you know I think I see a lot of men kind of
shy away from you know from that because they’re either afraid they’re going to get hurt or they’re afraid they’re going
to do something wrong or they’re afraid they’re going to you know look bad or whatever the thing is but the capacity
to love um like fully consistently thoroughly you know
unabashedly as a form of leadership is something that I also see men struggle
with and you know it’s a big piece of my work i’m glad that you said that cuz it reminds me that there’s also dimensions
of love and spectrums of love so many I think about the love that I received
from other men you know like that encouragement that sincerity a man putting his hand on my heart and tears
down both of our faces cuz he really sees me and he’s validating me but 5 minutes later the same guy could be
punching me in the throat saying “Wake up.” That’s love too like that that part of love that I think it’s it’s fun to
talk about because it’s something we all feel and it’s the interesting exercise of trying to put words and language to
it but when I think about what it actually
like hitting plants where it like it illuminates and allows for life to grow
versus the contrary and uh it can have a lot of forms yeah i go back to your hollow bone right you know what I mean
like part of what I would define as becoming a man is to become the hollow bone for love for the sort of flow of
love and and you know you’ll see people go too too far into that you see men get
too wrapped up in in it’s more the romantic love or you know what I mean that kind of stuff but to to be the
hollow bone so that the p the universal infinite consistent flow of
love just kind of kind of moves through you feels like a big piece of of modern
manhood and again allowing for that expression of love to evolve i mean on a on a relationship level my wife is
moving into menopause and she very I’m I’m fortunate i have a wonderful partner very aware and expressive but she let me
know she’s starting to feel like she needs a different type of love from me and we’re in the conversation well what
does that look like right right and um and then it’s it’s clarifying for me well how can I give her that type of
love that she’s asking for where it’s a lot more curiosity than I’ve ever given before a lot more gentleness and a
softer touch which has always been my challenge in in in being a partner is like how do I bring the soft touch to my
partner in that way that just goes against my other masculine qualities yeah yeah for sure so yeah just that
evolution of love too yeah yeah who who am I really right is the question that
we we started with right who am I really i think is sort of the way that I would like to leave this with men right like
okay who are you really and what do you need to bring into your life cultivate
as a practice in order to honor that mh because let’s face it in in the modern
world like what a man is what a man does has so much opportunity has so more than
ever Right so who we are who am I really what is my how do I want to share my
love in the world as purpose how do I want to share my consciousness um into the world as clarity as you know all of
these things so who am I um it’s the LA it’s funny I was just out in the desert with a bunch of guys and this was the
last exercise we did was I just had men staring at each other for long periods of time asking each other you know who
are you m and and the man’s work was to just search like to really like feel
okay who am I beyond my personality and my paycheck and my status and my who am
I and behind your Instagram bio and your resume yeah and your family and all the
things that we attach to who we are right and to me we hadn’t said this but to me it seems like the journey to
manhood is is is that discovery of finding who you are both in terms of
your truth as a human but also your truth as a as a spiritual being or as
consciousness and love itself you know that David David talks about two side you know the feminine is love expressed
the masculine is consciousness expressed and so how do you see men needing to
integrate their feminine and masculine sides as part of this journey right you
know in men’s work especially you know the the men’s work you grew up in there’s a lot of talk about you know
the more sort of traditional masculine work right but what I’m finding is that
men’s work today is really about integration as much as you know as just
learning the sort of basics of being a man and knowing your terms and being clear in your communication and all
those kinds of things so how do you how do you look at integration yeah I’m one of those guys who looks at the words
feminine and masculine as words that have a series of qualities and characteristics that most of us would
agree to that creates a polarity right so just to kind of take the charge out of feminine m being a feminine guy or
whatever so I think it comes back to just beingcoming more of that full range type of man that I can access that soft
touch cuz that’s what somebody in front of me needs in that moment maybe it’s what I need in that moment and I can
also go to the other end of the spectrum and be that healthy assertive boundary enforcing type of person um and the more
range that I cover the more capacity I have to serve more people you know so the people that I trust the most in
leadership the ones who have earned the most responsibility are the ones who are so dynamic and going back and forth
between those different energies so feminine masculine right if we’re just talking about the traditional single
focus warrior make stuff happen logical masculine versus the creative formless flowy feminine being able to access
different parts of that and what really helped me to fully accept that was um my
dad is a very masculine guy right and he’s he’s just becoming interested in a lot of these these topics and so I
remember uh when I asked him early on in my my journey of fatherhood I said dad you know what does it take to be a
father and this really masculine provider type of guy he said “You know I
reme I realized that sometimes I needed to be mom and dad because my mom also
had cancer and she was really sick for a couple of years.” He said “That’s when I learned that sometimes you needed be me to be mom when she wasn’t there.” And
the way I interpreted that was he he learned he needed to also learn how to soften Yeah for me so he could really be
of service to me as his son in that moment not just make it about where he’s comfortable in his masculine and so that
for me is is what it takes to integrate those things and the practice of it right exploring and trying yeah i think
it’s a big I think it’s a big piece of it’s a big piece of what I teach is like let’s let’s practice being in flow let’s
practice being expressive let’s practice being uh you know kind of just really
filled with tender love then let’s practice being you know absolutely still
let’s practice you know accessing fierceness and drive and consciousness and and let’s and then let’s see what
happens when we bring them together in this sort of unified stream of energy
what does that do and and and so but what I’m seeing with so many men coming
into my work is that they’ve sort of over cultivated what I would call their
they’re feminine and I’m not saying it’s not in a bad way they’re just they’re much more comfortable in flow they’re
much more comfortable in expression they’re much more comfortable in emotion they’re much more comfortable but they
haven’t cultivated these things that we started our conversation with very well and so you’re finding this whole new
generation of men that is very comfortable in flow and very comfortable in you know ecstatic dance and all of
those things and not there’s nothing wrong with that nothing at all not at all and what they’re what they’re
finding is part of their who they are as men has not been touched yet because
they haven’t really felt what it’s like to be totally [ __ ] still as consciousness or or to or to sit in a
desert for 4 days and really just face the stillness and the silence or you
know what I mean so I think I’m I’m I’m hopeful that these things are now kind
of you know readjusting the pendulum is kind of coming back and there’s now this real talk about in um integration and
range as you described it capacity to be super tender and the capacity to be super fierce and you know which I think
is our job as leaders is to model that and demonstrate hey you can be a really
kind compassionate I can open my heart and show you my heart in a moment but you can also count on me to kick you in
the ass too and to do it from love not to do it from anger or aggression or frustration and if that does come online
if I do get frustrated with you then I’m going to look at you and I’m going to say “Hey I’m sorry.” Yeah i went too far
that that anger that’s mine not yours that that’s the whole range is and for
us as leaders is to model that and to to be it to be it and show guys hey you can
you can be all of these things i’ve noticed that people are trusting me way more when they see and experience these
different features of me they get they see me as a father or they get to I welcome them into my home and I I
integrate my family in a lot of the work that I do and that my my kids my wife they’re around a lot of the stuff my
kids my my son is been around men his whole life and the work and so they get
to experience this full range of who I’m becoming not who I am but who I’m becoming and it lets them see oh I could
do that too you know so I feel so so much more hope for the generation of
children coming up now you know with parents like you and Carrie you know Preston and Alexi you
know I just really I really see a new generation of parenting that is so much
more conscious and so much more whole and so much more aware of you know the
kind of environment that they’re creating little these little humans so you know we might have less population
on the earth but I think they’re probably going to be better than than many of the previous ones i’m optimistic
too yeah yeah yeah so what’s one question you would leave men watching this with like what’s what if you wanted
to just if if they just showed up to this podcast just because it’s you know they wanted to discover more and you
really wanted to give them something to reflect on what’s a question you would offer them uh when you close your eyes
just close your eyes for a moment and see if there you can imagine a big canvas in front of you like floor to
ceiling wall to wall just a big white canvas and you imagine that it’s telling the story of your life what do you see
when you look at the story of your life on this big canvas what do you imagine
for yourself giving yourself full permission to see what’s there what’s
true and explore that as much as you need to that’s that would be the question okay i
I would encourage any man who wants to deepen as a man to start with what he
has been avoiding what is what responsibility has be have you been avoiding taking on but you know is the
right one what feeling have you been avoiding fully feeling and sharing with others in your community because you
know it’s in there um what sort of self-reflection have you been avoiding
what um exploration have you been avoiding and to really take your um full
intentionality and all the energy you have and go into what it is that you
have not wanted to look at at this point in your life we’ve done our job i think
so yeah so good to have you man really really good to have you and just really love your work how can how can people
find you uh Instagram okay uh Risingman Movement is the organization um
jetteduma is my personal risingman.org is where all of our work and opportunities to go out and fast and
join yeah and you take people out two three times a year right more actually i mean like there’s many opportunities
yeah and more and more are coming in the next in the next couple years so love it yeah the man.org go check it out yeah
yeah no I would strongly recommend you get out there and you know for those of you who are just wanting to supercharge
your journey into manhood it’s a great way to do it yeah thank you John thank you Jedy thank you man yeah
