What does it mean to love yourself?

If we want to be loved, we must learn how to love ourselves. One of the challenges many men face is that they look for love and validation from other people, but there will never be enough love and validation from someone else, if we don’t make the choice to love and validate ourselves. I get real and share some of my own journey around this work.

What does it mean to be responsible for yourself?

If we want to be safe we have to take responsibility for ourselves. I discuss what it means to take responsibility for yourself and share some ideas of what responsibility can look like both with yourself and in relationship to other people.

Do you feel safe?

This is one of the hardest questions men never ask themselves, but it is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself. What does it mean to feel safe? What is safety? How do we find it in our lives? Let's go on a quest and explore these questions!

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.

What is your Definition of Success?

Men are raised to be competitive and to strive for success, but what is success and what does it mean to be successful? Many of us live in a rat race world, always trying to get ahead, but can there be more to life that that? I bust open the myth of success and share why living a meaningful life isn’t about how much money you make or how hard you work. I also discuss what real success can look like.

How to become detached from rejection

Everyday you face rejection. Whether you're asking someone out on a date, getting an idea rejected, or dealing with criticism at home or work, you are getting rejected. If you can learn how not to take rejection personally, you can discover how to persevere and get what you really want from life and from the relationships you are in, and develop self love and acceptance in the process.

Why your purpose must be greater than your relationships

In this video I share some thoughts on what it means to live a purposeful life and why men need to define their purpose as something other than their relationships. I also discuss why men have been indoctrinated to focus on relationships and how this can create a nice guy, people pleasing dynamic that keeps men from their sacred masculine purpose.

Why Men must learn how to choose themselves

Photo by Mental Health America (MHA): https://www.pexels.com/photo/smiling-man-looking-at-himself-in-a-mirror-5543538/

One of the practices that I learned last year was a practice of self-love that I began to apply to myself because I recognized how much I didn’t love myself. What I didn’t realize at the time, but have since come to recognize is how this lack of self-love is ingrained in us by a belief that we have to find love somewhere else and that the love we find will somehow redeem us for being who and what we are.

The myth that love is redemptive is a dangerous myth because it causes us to look for a mythical other in the belief that this mythical other will somehow save us from ourselves. But there is nothing to be saved or redeemed. We are whole as we are and if we can embrace that truth it can allow us to learn how to choose ourselves instead of positioning ourselves to choose someone else, and in the process losing our self respect and identity because we orient toward people pleasing that other person, who also loses respect for us because of the people pleasing.

The truth is that no person wants to be put on a pedestal or made the center of someone else’s universe. When we make the fatal mistake of doing so, we lose something significant in the process, the sense of identity that is essential to living a good life. And perhaps someone who puts someone else on a pedestal never really had that identity. We aren’t taught to value ourselves and when you aren’t taught to value yourself it is very easy to ascribe any sense of value toward someone else.

So how do you learn to value yourself?

First and foremost recognize that your partner cannot fill in the gap of emptiness in your life. If you put that pressure on them it creates a tension that hurts your relationship and causes them to lose respect as they recognize that you don’t have the capacity to take care of yourself.

The person who fills the gap of emptiness in your life is yourself. This starts with learning to love and like yourself. One practice I do is say I love myself out loud. Another practice I do is to say aloud a vow I’ve made to myself, and in the process remind myself what is really important in my life.

Another way you learn to value yourself is through the associations you make with other people in your life. Instead of just focusing on the primary relationship of your life, it’s good to branch out and connect with other friends. I go to a Kung Fu studio three days a week and connect with friends there. I go for hikes with friends and spend time with other men, in particular because it creates a a system of support that enables me to flourish and reinforces the self love I feel for myself…and also allows me to love other people in a way that doesn’t put them on a pedestal but instead celebrates the relationship as a reciprocal one where value is shared in the activities we do and the ways we support each other.

Choosing yourself also means choosing to pursue the life you want to live. So often we will sacrifice our deepest desires and wants on the altar of relationship or family, but that sacrifice is not worth the ensuing misery that occurs when you are trying to please someone else in the hopes of getting something they can’t or won’t provide you.

When you choose to live your life unapologetically, you are choosing yourself. When you choose to pursue what brings you to life, what excites and inspires you, you are choosing yourself. We have to learn how to choose ourselves and then continually choose ourselves and what brings us purpose and meaning. When we do that, we give ourselves the love and respect that provides a healthy foundation for any other relationship we may choose to have, because we will always remember that any other relationship must come secondary to the relationship we have with ourselves.

One Year Anniversary Retrospective

It’s been one year since I made the spiritual commitment to work with the sacred masculine. I share what I have learned in this last year, talk about the experiences I’ve had and discuss how I’m moving forward with this work in my life.

What is Shadow Work?

I discuss what shadow work is and why it is essential to sacred masculinity. When we learn how to work on our shadows, we free ourselves from the repressed emotions, attachments and other behaviors that are keeping us from living our very best lives.

A creative approach to shadow work

Picture courtesy Taylor Ellwood

One of the practices I’ve integrated into my own men’s work and a practice I share with my clients is shadow work. Shadow work can come in many different forms, but regardless of what form it takes, it is absolutely essential for calling out the shadow within ourselves. A shadow is a behavior a person engages in that sabotages them. Shadow can show up in many different ways.

For example, one of the ways that shadow can show up is in how you communicate. If you make passive aggressive comments your shadow is coming out. You aren’t speaking up for yourself in a clear and transparent way.

Another example of shadow would be choosing to engage in deceptive behavior, where you are saying one thing, but doing the opposite behavior, or choosing to act on a behavior but not being honest about what you are doing. When we act on shadow behavior we undermine our relationship with ourselves as well as with the people around us.

So how do we draw the shadow out and work with it so that we can transform it into gold and improve our lives in the process?

image courtesy of Taylor Ellwood 2023

There are different processes that are available to help you work with your shadow. One of the processes I like to use involves creating a shadow mask. I have one of my shadow masks, for passive aggressive communication depicted here. I paint the front of the mask with the face I show to the world. I make the back of the mask a collage, where I share what I tell myself to justify my behavior.

I take these masks and place them in my office where I can see them each day. I reflect on them each day and reflect on how my behavior shows up each day in my interactions with myself and other people. The masks call on me to be honest with myself and honest with others. They call out my shadow behavior where I can see it and make it visible to me, even if no one else sees it.

I have a ritual planned for the masks, when I recommit myself to the sacred masculine work. In the meantime, they keep me company and call me to accounts.

The Purpose of Anger

I share what the purpose of anger is and discuss why anger can be a healthy emotion to feel and express, provided we do it in the right way. Sign up for sacred anger.

What does it mean to lead?

What does it mean to lead in your life? Why is it important to lead? In this video I explore the question of what it means to lead and share some thoughts on why leading yourself is so important if you want to truly get in touch with your sacred masculine core.

Sign up for the Sacred Masculine Leadership: https://www.inneralchemycoach.com/sacred-masculine-leadership

How to be Present and Grounded with your partner part 2

Breath is a portal for slowing down and becoming present. When we take deep breaths we invite in perspective and give each other a chance to slow down. When we look into each other’s eyes, we gives ourselves a chance to see the other person.

3 best practices for handling moments of weakness

I’ve never handled moments of weakness well, yet I’ve had many such moments in my life. Early on in life I was taught that I wasn’t supposed to show emotions and so I learned to bottle them up. This didn’t work very well…in my early 20’s my emotions came pouring out, demanding to be felt and experienced. It was and still is an overwhelming experience. The feeling of emotion isn’t a weakness but I was taught that it was…until I learned it wasn’t.

Shame is easily the hardest emotion I struggle with. I’ve gotten the practice of beating myself up down to a fine science and its only been recently that I’ve finally begun to learn a different approach that is allowing me to heal my shame and even so I still struggle. Tonight I’m writing this article because I am feeling shame around a few matters in my life, and I am reminding myself in the writing of it what my own best practices are but I am also sharing them with you because I hope they help you, in a perceived moment of weakness to help you reorient yourself and get some healthy perspective.

So what are the best practices that I use when I am feeling moments of weakness that crystallize into shame?

1. Journal early and often. Keeping a journal on hand, whether a pen and paper or electronic journal can help you express what your feeling and work out what’s going on in your head and heart. I recommend keeping the journal private because its a place where you can be completely unfiltered but also express whatever is going on in a way that lets you make sense of it and put it into context. I find that when I externalize my thoughts and emotions it helps me make sense of them. What I write isn’t necessarily the conclusion I come to, but it is a way for me get a lot out of my head and heart and put into a place where have an objective record to look at. When I can see an objective record, it helps me recognize that whatever I’m expressing isn’t larger than life.

2. Practice self love each day. When I started learning how to love myself I discovered that it helped me counteract the moments of weakness I was feeling, because it allowed me to realize I was lovable no matter what the experience was. For a long time whenever I’d feel weak or ashamed or something else, I would also feel I wasn’t worthy of love. When I started my self love practice and applied it to those moments of weakness and shame it helped me start changing the underlying narrative around moments of weakness and shame. I became compassionate and forgiving toward myself and this also extended over to other people. You can do this as well.

One practice I do involves saying “I love myself” to myself in the mirror until I believe it. I will look into my eyes and state this phrase as many time as it takes until I genuinely feel love toward myself. Try it. Go to your bathroom and close the door. Look in the mirror and say, “I love myself.” You may feel awkward or weird initially, but saying it again and again will help you normalize this experience and make it easier for you to start believing yourself.

Another practice I recommend is making a vow to yourself about the life you want to live. Say this vow aloud to yourself in the morning when you wake up and at night when you go to bed. By saying this vow you are reminding yourself of what a life of self-love looks like and you are directing your focus and effort toward manifesting it. And it works. I created a vow and stated it each day and my life has changed significantly by continuously making the effort to state what my life of self love looks like.

Finally, I recommend asking yourself the question, “If I truly love myself, would I allow myself to have this experience?” This question can help you check in with yourself about experiences you are having and help you make conscious choices around whether or not you want to continue having these experiences. It has helped me get clear on who I want to spend my time with and the activities I want to do and it motivates me to continue to change my life.

3. Normalize the simple fact that we all have moments of weakness. We all have moments where we feel shame or weakness. What helps me know this is attending men’s groups where I can share my struggles and hear the struggles of other men. While what we share may not be exactly the same, oftentimes the emotions and challenges we deal with are similar. It helps me realize I’m not alone and helps me accept that the moments of weakness are normal…I don’t have to always be a strong man. I do want to be an honest man, and normalizing the hard moments of life makes it easier to be honest and also opens the door to genuine change.

Find a man you can trust and start sharing your experiences. If you don’t have someone like that in your life, I encourage you to connect with me. I coach men on these very issues and I am more than happy to be an accountability partner and coach that helps you take the next step on your own journey to sacred and powerful masculinity.

How to be Present and Grounded with Yourself and Your Partner

Learn how to be present and grounded within yourself and with your partner in any situation that may arise.. Learning these skills can help you become a grounded man who is comfortable in his ability to show up and lead.

How to recognize and release shame

Shame is at the root of toxic masculinity. I share how to recognize and release shame so it no longer keeps you in a disempowered relationship with your masculinity.

How to be a better listener and ask good questions

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-red-polo-shirt-sitting-near-chalkboard-3779448/

One of the frequent comments I hear from both men and women is how men aren’t good listeners. From women what I sometimes hear is that the men in their life will start trying to problem solve for them, instead of taking the time to listen and from men what I’ll hear is that they’re told they’re not good listener and in general I find that to be true. For many men the challenge comes down to learning how stop problem solving and actually make time to be present with what their partner is sharing with them.

I used to have this same difficulty. When I would be confronted with a partner’s sharing about their day and challenges I would react from a place of thinking that my partner wanted me to solve their problem. Aside from being a reaction to what my partner was sharing, that reaction was really rooted in a place of selfishness. I wanted to fix whatever the perceived issue was and get on with whatever I was focused on. It was incredibly insensitive on my part, but it also rooted in what I had learned about masculinity, which is that a man is supposed to “fix” problems. What I didn’t realize at the time was that what my given partner likely needed was for me to listen and hold space with them. They didn’t necessarily need or want a solution from me and likely I didn’t have one for them anyway.

When we listen to problem solve we are shutting down the conversation and the opportunity to connect from a place of curiosity and awareness. We’re so focused on trying to find the solution, to fix the problem, that we end up missing the connection and the chance to establish a safe container to explore whatever is really going on.

So how do you stop listening to problem solve?

First, it’s really important to recognize that how you respond to someone can indicate the way you are listening to them. Here’s an exercise you can do that can help you recognize the way you listen to people. For the next week, carefully observe how you respond to each conversation you enter into. What is your initial response? If your initial response is to offer a solution, you’re listening to problem solve. You likely feel the need to have an answer.

If you’re listening just to listen, without offering a solution, you’ll discover that you’re listening from a place of awareness and curiosity. You don’t need to have an answer. You take the time to really hear the person and let them fully share what is going on.

And here’s a secret for you…most of the time if you listen from that place of awareness, it’s all the other person really needed. When I make the effort to listen with awareness and curiosity and let the person share what they want to share, it provides a space for that person to be heard and more often than not they come up with their own solution and its the solution they really need.

With that said, I also want to share that its really helpful to learn how to ask good questions. When I listen to someone, I don’t come up with the questions until they are finished speaking. Afterwards I will ask questions and I ask them from a place of curiosity. I’m not trying to solve the problem. I just genuinely want to know what they are thinking and feeling and I know good questions can help draw out excellent answers.

When I ask a question I take a moment to be present with what I’ve heard and then I frame the question from that place of awareness. I’m not asking the question to fix the situation. I’m asking the question to learn something. When I ask a question to learn, I’m also inviting the person I’m asking to learn with me…because they may not have an answer to that question, but it gives them an opportunity to discover one. Good questions can help you listen better and help the other person get clarity.

Can I ever offer a solution?

I recommend that if you have advice to offer or a solution to share that you ASK the person if they are open to receiving advice. If the person says no, let it go! If the person says yes, then the situation is setup for them to receive what you want to share. A person who gives consent is much more receptive to a solution than someone you are offering a solution to, but without asking. It’s also important to remember that even if they choose to listen to your advice, they are under no obligation to follow it. I recommend not being attached to a specific outcome if you offer advice, but simply share it with grace and acceptance of how they choose to receive it.

Why actions matter more than words to your partner

One of the challenges that men face is an age old challenge that any person faces: Talk is cheap. What matters are the actions you take. I’ve been thinking about this truism in the last month as I’ve been considering how my words match up with my actions. When I look at my love languages, words of affirmation is one that easily comes to me, but words that aren’t backed up with actions don’t mean a lot, because what your partner wants to see is that you’ll follow through on whatever you say you’ll do.

My journey to sacred masculinity is a journey that has involved looking at what it means to truly connect with my masculine core. When I connect with my masculine core what I’m connecting with is a rooted presence that isn’t easily swayed by the circumstances or challenges that may come up. Instead that rootedness helps me ground myself in my masculinity and consider how I can show up with presence to follow through on the promises I’ve made, by taking specific action to make those promises become a reality.

What got me thinking about my own actions was a combination of feedback and several books I’ve been reading that explore sacred masculinity in relationship. Reading those books on the masculine in relationship has helped me understand that when I’m not inhabiting my grounded masculine core, I’m not fully in touch with my presence and as a result it is easier for me to slip up, even with the best of intentions.

One of the tropes that men deal with is the trope of being the problem solver. The problem with the problem solver is that a lot of times the person trying to problem solve is so focused on other peoples’ problems that they ignore their own and don’t recognize how this can create a distinct slip between words and actions. Having been a former problem solver, one of my deepest realizations is that by letting go of the need to problem solve, I became truly present with the people in my life. That may seem like an odd statement, so let me clarify it.

When I stopped trying to solving other peoples’ problems I came to realize that I used their problems to distract me from my own problems. When I re-oriented my awareness toward my own shortcomings, I came to realize that by working on those shortcomings I could also have deeper and more meaningful relationships. I focused on becoming a better listener, asking good questions, and changed certain life style habits so that I could focus on the mission and purpose I am working on in my life. I let go of problem solving and started to show up in relationships from a place of awareness that I had previously lacked.

This awareness recently came into play when I was given the feedback that I say a lot, but then challenged to show actions around what I said. The person who said that was needing to see that actions truly were being taken. I initially felt defensive, but I used the grounded masculine core I’ve been cultivating to help me see her perspective and consider how best I could show up in presence with her. The first action I took was to start saying a bit less and focus on taking action around statements I had already made.

And I observed something fascinating in making this specific choice.

When I took action, I found myself sinking into my sacred masculine core even further. I took specific actions around what I had stated I would do and the result was and is the manifestation of a deeper and more relationship with both myself and my love, because my actions are speaking louder than any words could.

I couldn’t have come to this realization if I hadn’t first changed my relationship with problem solving and secondly come to an understanding around how I could better cultivate my own sense of presence and awareness in such a way that I could also reflect on how I was showing up in the lives of other people. Its easy to say words, but taking action is much more essential and when you take action consistently it backs up the words you say and makes you more trustworthy because you’ve established you’ll follow through.

Look at your own life. Where can you be showing up better? What actions can you take to make your words have more meaning in your own life and the lives of the people who are important to you? If you need help with answering those questions, grab my free ebook below.