What is a "real man"?

What is a “Real man?”

I’ve heard the phrase real man thrown about as a way of trying to define masculinity, but I think its a phrase that shames men because it creates this pedestal that they are trying to live up, instead of actually discovering what it means to be a man in relationship to being themselves. So what is a real man? A real man is…

A man who is in touch with his emotions, cries like a man and is able to share his moments of vulnerability with people he trusts.

A man who is honest with BOTH his intentions and his actions, who follows through on his word and takes responsibility for his choices, while making space for how people respond to those choices.

A man who listens to his deepest desires, his mission and purpose and finds a way to follow through on them in a way that honors himself and the other people in his life.

A man who cultivates awareness of himself and others, recognizes the impact of his actions as well as the intent and is able to learn and improve himself.

A man who is willing to do his inner work, father his inner boy, and hold himself accountable, even as he holds other men and is held by other men in accountability.

A man who is in touch with his sacred essence and revels in it. A man who isn’t ashamed to be a man, while also acknowledging that men need to do their work and transform who they are in relationship with themselves, the people in their lives and the world around them.

A real man can also be a father, son, uncle, nephew, grandfather or grandson, self identify as a man, and be involved in a variety of activities, professions, etc., without overly identifying with any of them.

Are you a real man? No one else can tell you that…but being a real man, whatever that may be isn’t about adhering to toxic notions of masculinity. A real man is a man who recognizes he is part of this world and recognizes he wants to leave the world better than how he came into it.

How to recognize and release shame

The feeling of shame is a feeling that can root itself in your body and prevent you from being present with yourself. It is a feeling that you can struggle with, because it is a feeling that says you are bad. I discuss how to recognize shame and what to do to release it from your life.

Why its important to learn how to receive

I’ve never been comfortable with receiving praise, compliments, or acknowledgement from people. When someone has praised me I have either tried to praise them back or dismissed what was shared. It’s not even for a reason of false modesty. Rather its for the reason of being uncomfortable with praise. Recently, however I’ve been working on receiving compliments that other people share with me.

It’s a work in progress, but I realize that allowing myself to receive compliments from other people or something else they want to share with me is actually a form of confidence. When I can receive what someone shares without having to respond beyond a genuine thank you it shows that I am comfortable with accepting that someone has something to share with me.

I don’t know if this issue around receiving praise is universal for men, but I do think its important to learn how to receive from other people. If you find yourself deflecting or downplaying what someone else says to you, it might be time to look at what the real motive is. You also may want to consider how you might actually be hurting the person who has shared their praise with you.

In my case, my girlfriend shared that my downplaying of her praise makes it harder for her to offer that praise. When I heard that it helped me realize that I needed to spend more time listening to her, and less time trying to either praise her back or downplay her. However it also caused me to reflect on why I was resistant to praise.

I realized part of it was a resistance around being recognized for my efforts because in the past I had not been recognized for when I accomplished something. I was only recognized for what I had not done well. It felt odd to receive recognition from someone for something I was doing well and in a way I felt put on the spot. When I recognized this about myself it helped me also understand that I needed to change this particular limiting identity for a different one that recognizes and appreciates myself and allows other people to also recognize me.

If you find yourself encountering a similar difficulty around receiving praise from other people, you may want to look at the root of your resistance and consider how that could be undermining your confidence in general. I know that once I began to accept and acknowledge praise I also have begun to feel more confident in myself because I am recognizing I have worth in how I show up. Learning to receive is helping me learn to accept myself and what I have to offer. You can do the same in your own life by taking the time to hold space with what someone shares about you and accepting it as a genuine appreciative expression how you show up in their lives.

The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine pt. 9: Embrace your pain and make it your ally

Men carry pain with them and more often than not they don’t know how to express that pain and sometimes they may not even be consciously aware of it. That pain ends up defining our lives in ways that aren’t always healthy.

When you become an addict to alcohol, drugs, sex, or porn, you are acting out that pain.

When you become emotionally or physically abusive with someone else, you are acting out that pain.

Reading this doesn’t give you a justification to act out the pain. If anything it indicates that you need to zoom in on that pain and discover what it’s really about.

A man grounded in the sacred masculine can hold space with his pain and learn from it, and turn it into an ally.

Your pain can become your ally when you learn how to listen to it and enable it to transform your life in a real and powerful way.

Get curious about your pain. It may bring up some trauma, so be careful and kind to yourself, but get curious so you can learn more about it and deprogram the triggers. when you deprogram the triggers you can change the pattern and as a result you change your life.

Why Doing Men's Work Requires Other Men

Men need other men when doing the inner work they do around masculinity. I break down why this is so essential and why you don’t have to be alone in order to do this work.

The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine pt 5: Master your mind, move your body, Grow your spirit

Stop stagnating in your cubicle. Get up and move! A man who isn't moving is a man who is dying on the inside.

Stand up, shake your legs, do some exercises and if people look at you weird, ignore them. This isn't about them. This is about you getting in touch with your body and accessing your primal strength and being.

Master your mind. You might have thoughts going off in your head and emotions rattling you all over the place, and if you let those thoughts and emotions control you then you will always be at their mercy.

Meditate, go to therapy, do your inner work to master your inner reality and create the external reality.

Grow your spirit - What are your passions? What is your purpose? What meaning gets you up and excited. You have to grow your spirit and you do that by discovering and living your mission and purpose.

Be a well rounded individual - Pursue your hobbies, do meaningful work and cultivate deep relationship with yourself and others but most of all master yourself so you can master your life!

The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine Pt 4: Honor the fellowship of other men and make it part of your life

The men in your life create the container of safety for you to become a stronger man.

For most of my life, I didn't trust other men. I had a couple of male friends, but with other man I perceived them as competition on every level and as a result I might be friendly, but I distrusted them.

I didn't realize how this attitude was inculcated by patriarchal thinking. Patriarchal thinking tells men to compete with each other and a result it causes men to lose out a sacred and significant aspect of relationship:

The fellowship and brotherhood that all men need with each other.

I started trusting other men when I discovered how many other men were in similar situations like me. I started trusting other men when I saw other men doing the kind of internal work I was doing, because they wanted to show up in their lives in a different way. I started trusting other men when I recognized they were just as lonely and unhappy with their lives as I was.

Now I trust other men that I know are doing the work. I've got their backs and they've got mine and there is something so empowering about being able to open to another man and connect on every level, knowing there is an essential trust and brotherhood between us.

Men need friendship and brotherhood with other men. When you connect comfortably with other men you know those men will help you no matter what the situation is. You also know you'll help them no matter what the situation is.

When I started connecting with other men authentically they brought a level of accountability into my life I needed and pushed me to be true to my mission and purpose. They helped me transform my life in a way where I have become more driven and focused than ever on what really matters to me.

And I'm doing the same for those men I am in fellowship.

You are your brother's keeper. Watch out for your brothers and they will do the same for you.

The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine Part 2 - Unleash your wild man

The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine Quest part 2 Honor the wild man within you. Be proud to be a man

Being proud to be a man is almost unheard of these days or the assumptive association is that being proud to be a man makes you a part of toxic masculinity. You may even be questioned for being proud to be a man because it’s not a choice you’ve seemingly made, but what that question forgets is that each person makes a choice to be whoever and whatever they identify as everyday.

We ought to be proud of who and what we are, because it is a choice we are making regardless of what is or isn’t swinging between our legs.

However being proud to be a man doesn't mean you ignore the history of patriarchy or the privilege that has so often come with masculinity. If anything it means challenging it, because the patriarchal, privileged man is a man out of touch with his own inner wildness and his sacred masculinity and as a result he is out of touch with everyone else around him.

To waken our connection with sacred masculinity we have to connect with the wild man within us, the wildness that leads us to our fundamental mission and purpose and speaks to the depths of our heart and the ascension of our creativity.

A man in touch with his wildness is a man unconstrained by the norms of society. He seeks his own path instead of sticking with the rate race. He's in alignment with his vision and purpose and strives to turn them into reality.

He also creates his own life, a life of adventure, joy and passion. He knows what his life is worth and as a result he makes the choice to create a life on his own terms.

Be proud to be a man, but don't let that pride blind you to the realities of how men have shown up in the past and how some men still show up. Instead take on an informed awareness that helps you channel your inner wildness and show up with presence and awareness.

When men are ashamed to be men that's when they seek refuge in patriarchal thinking and privilege and then act them out as a way of guarding their own woundedness. They stop being present with themselves or anyone else and the result is a man who is frozen on the inside and out of touch on the outside.

When a man is in touch with his inner wildness he can show up with the presence for himself and other people that enables genuine and authentic relationship and communication.

How Rites of Passage help men grow up

One of the challenges that men face is around rites of passage, and specifically around the lack of rites of passage that are available to them. We live in a society where meaningful rites of passage have fallen away and what has been left are empty gestures and unhealthy behaviors that don’t really convey a sense of earned masculinity to the people involved.

Getting the license to drive or being able to vote can be important, but there’s not a sense of depth conveyed with either experience. Being allowed to officially smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol is a joke given how many people start smoking or drinking before they are legally allowed to do so, nor does indulging in either vice convey a sense of adulthood or healthy choices.

In my own experience I didn’t have a meaningful rite of passage in my life that opened me to the men’s mysteries until much later in life. Even so, having such a rite of passage still brought me to a place of growth and transformation that was meaningful for my life and at the same time helped me understand how much there was and is a part of me that craves and wants meaningful rites of passage in my life. It is not enough to go through life and achieve specific outcomes and results, if we have nothing that marks those outcomes and results or marks the evolution of our being.

A rite of passage is a mark of transformation. When you undergo a rite of passage, you are experiencing an initiation where you move from your old identity to a new one. That evolution of identity is marked by specific processes you undergo in the initiation and it challenges you to face something within yourself that needs a change. It’s a change from you are, to who you can become and what that change brings with it is a change in consciousness.

Recently, at the Kung Fu studio I practice martial arts at, I took my test for my yellow belt. This test was also a rite of passage. I had to demonstrate to my Sifu that I knew the required knowledge but I also had to show him that I had learned something else, which was a level of responsibility and awareness that could tell him that I was ready for the yellow belt. At the end of the test I had my rite of passage and I felt different as a result. I had graduated from one belt to another, but I had also transformed who I was into someone new. It was a profound and moving moment that helped me appreciate how much I had changed since I had started practicing Kung Fu with my Sifu.

Each time I’ve gone through a rite of passage I have recognized that it is an initiation into mystery. The mystery isn’t always focused on the masculine, but it is always focused on developing awareness, which in turn leads a person to growing up. And that’s something that men need more than ever.

A rite of passage offers a man an opportunity to come into closer relationship with all aspects of himself, heal his inner wounds and transform his life. When a man has a rite of passage in his life he has a path to walk that brings him to meaning and purpose.

If you’re looking for that meaning and purpose, I invite you to check out my upcoming class Sacred Masculine Purpose, where we’ll be exploring among other topics, how to use rites of passage to help you discover your meaning and purpose.