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.

What is the role of spirituality in sacred masculinity?

One of the questions I’ve been asking myself lately is what the role of spirituality is within sacred masculinity. I’m asking this question because while I appreciate the deep psychological work that happens with men’s work, what I’m also finding is that there’s something missing. It’s important to be in touch with your mission and purpose, and to develop a better understanding of how your wounds are showing up in your life, with yourself and other people. All of that is essential work for men to do.

But I realized there was something missing, a deeper level of connection, a spiritual level of connection. This spiritual level of connection could come in many forms. It’s not limited to a specific religion or spiritual system of belief, but it is something that puts men in touch with the spiritual essence of masculinity and allows them to express it, either in a positive or negative way.

We see this expression in a negative way through patriarchal expressions of the spiritual dimensions of masculinity. This comes in the form of attempting to control other peoples’ bodies, controlling the expression people have, and in the hierarchical inequities that are built into patriarchy for almost everyone. It also shows up in how the environment and nature is treated as a disposable resource to be conquered. This spiritual expression of masculinity creates a toxic pattern that is ultimately harmful for all involve because it glorifies an unbalanced perspective of masculinity as a dominant expression of life.

We see this expression in a positive way through expressions of masculinity where the feminine is recognized as equal (and also distinct) and in the recognition that we have a place within the world where we share the world with other life, instead of trying to dominate and control it. We see the positive spiritual expression of masculinity found through collaborative brotherhood and finding ways to work together and support each other, but we also find it in the exploration of male mysteries.

What are the male mysteries?

The male mysteries are spiritual processes that lead men into a deeper and healthier relationship with their masculinity. They are the rites of passage that help a boy transition to manhood and allow men to transition through the aging processing. The male mysteries connect us to the sacromasculine essence that all people have. As with anything else, this essence isn’t inherently positive or negative.

Within the healthy context of sacred masculinity work, the focus of the male mysteries is on developing a balance within ourselves where we learn the fundamental skills of how to create boundaries, develop awareness around our mission and purpose and create grounded presence. But the male mysteries is also a journey of self discovery around the sacred sexual mysteries of masculinity, the connection to the land and other aspects we have lost touch with through the advent of modern culture.

The choice to work with sacred masculinity isn’t just a choice of working on yourself as a man and how you want to show up in the world. That work is important and it’s the initial step men must take when they recognize how they are embodying toxic patterns of masculinity in their lives. The sacred masculinity work takes place once we have achieved a healthy relationship with our masculinity. At that point we can ask ourselves how we can draw on the sacromasculine essence to connect with powers of the land as well as do deeper work within ourselves in relationship to the divine masculine.

How to recognize when you aren't in integrity with yourself

Integrity starts with yourself. If you aren't in integrity with yourself, how can you be in integrity with anyone else?

I am out of integrity with myself when I bury my truth in favor of people pleasing, don't speak my truth, and otherwise behave in a way that isn't in alignment with who I want to be.

You can be in integrity with yourself most of the time, but all it takes is one moment of weakness to put yourself out of integrity.

I share how to recognize when you are out of integrity with yourself and what you can do about it.

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 8: Stand up for your wants, needs and desires…no one else will

You have needs, wants and desires. Don’t fool yourself otherwise. You must be honest with yourself about what you need and want for your life. The more you repress your own needs and wants, the more you do yourself and everyone around you a disservice because you can’t authentically show up the way you need to show up for anyone, when you can’t show up for anyone else.

You have sexual desires, but those are just the tip of what your needs and wants are.

You have the need to go out and get physical with your body in some form or manner.

You have the need to exercise your mind, your spirit, your emotions, and your body.

All of these needs are essential and when you put them to the side or repress them you set yourself up to be a nice guy. Give yourself something better than that: Be honest with yourself and others by advocating for you needs and wants.

And watch as your relationships change because you are standing up for yourself.

Why #metoo matters

I share why #metoo needs to matter to men and making the effort to acknowledge the pain of sexual assault is an important step in the men’s work that men need to take in order to heal themselves as well as others. I also share my own experiences of sexual trauma (Trigger warning) and how #metoo can be a powerful call for recognizing our own pain and experiences.

The role of systems in Creating Habits

If you want to create habits you need systems. Your systems supports your habits. I share why and discuss how you can make positive changes to your life as a results of the systems you put into place.

How to Handle Criticism

One of the most important skills you can learn is how to handle criticism. I share some advice on how to ground yourself and be present with criticism that comes your way.

The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine pt 7: Seek your purpose and mission and make your life over in your own image

Do you know your purpose and mission for this life?

or are you wistfully looking out the window of your cubicle, wishing you were anywhere else than where you are right now?

Most men are in the latter situation. They have no idea what their mission and purpose is. They are toiling away at a job they don’t like, trying to compete with each other, and feeling frustrated, over worked, and out of touch with the most essential part of themselves.

What they are out of touch with is the part of themselves that is telling them about the mission they are here to accomplish, a mission that is profound and life changing. They’ve given up on listening to that voice because of the fear of how following that mission will stretch them.

Most men have made their wives and partners the most important part of their lives, yet the feel like something is missing.

What is missing is their sense of purpose: What they are here to do to make themselves and the world better. When they place someone else above themselves they let their purpose wilt away and with it their sense of pride and accomplishment.

The sacred masculine man is in touch with his mission and purpose. He knows who he is, why he is here and what he needs to accomplish. He is in alignment with the deepest parts of himself as well as the with the world around him and he is willing to do whatever it takes to create an amazing world as well as improve himself as a person and man.

The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine Pt 6: Be embodied in your sexuality with yourself and your lovers.

So many of us check out with our bodies and our sexuality.

We get caught up in trying to perform toward expectations around how sex ought to be.

We get caught up in trying to reach a specific outcome, without appreciating the experience leading up to that experience.

We get caught up in the value judgments we make about ourselves in relationship to our sexual performance and the fear we have about how others will evaluate us.

And in the midst of all that, we lose touch with our actual desires, wants and needs.

A man in touch with his sacred masculinity is in touch with his body, in touch with his sexual desires and is able to embody all of that and be present with himself and his partners without having to perform or measure up.

We embrace our bodies without feeling shame and accept our sexual desires without judging them. We honor ourselves and our partners and take joy in the intimate expression of sex.

The Power of Habits and How to Apply them to your Life

Our habits make or break us. These are patterned choices of life we make and each time we choose a habit it either supports us or takes us down. Learn how to apply habits to your life.

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 3 - Know your shadows to know your wounds

We all have shadow aspects of ourselves. These shadow aspects of ourselves are informed by our trauma, by the pain we have internalized and carried from our earliest experiences to the present. We can continue to let our trauma define us, our pain to control us, or we can make the choice define us, transform our pain and discover our gold.

It takes work...a lot of work, but doing that work helps us become the kind of man someone else can feel safe around, because that man knows himself and is centered, balanced, and grounded. He is aware of his pain and trauma and although he has moments where he may struggle with it (like anyone else), he also knows himself well enough to recognize when he is struggling and do the work he needs to do to get back to balance while also taking care of himself.

 When you know your shadows, you also recognize your own toxic patterns. These toxic patterns are informed by the behaviors you learned in order to protect yourself in situations where you were helpless and didn't know what else to do. Nonetheless these behaviors can also cause pain and harm to yourself and other people. You may not intend to harm anyone, you may be doing the best with what you know, but once you recognize your shadow behaviors then you take on a significant responsibility to change those behaviors and change yourself.

It is the responsibility of any man, when they recognize their shadows, to do the work on themselves to change the behaviors, so they no longer perpetuate the cycle of toxic behavior, in their own lives or the lives of the people around them.

When you heal your shadows you heal your relationship with yourself and with the other people in your life because you start putting those relationships on your terms, instead of continuing to let them be dictated by the shadow aspects you live with. How you heal those relationships is up to you, but what's most important is that you do this work so you can also bring yourself genuine healing and release from your shadow.

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.

The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine Part 1 - Love

I’ve been working on developing an Ethos that describes the vision and work of the Sacred Masculine. In this next series of posts I’m going to share with you what that Ethos is and why its significant to the work all men need to do to transform their lives.

The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine Quest - Part 1 Love

We have been taught to give away our love to other people and also been taught that the only love which has value is love that is given to us by other people.

A man in touch with his sacred masculine power knows better. He knows that love starts from within. He might experience someone else loving him, and he might love someone else, but until he learns how to love himself he will not be able to fully show up for anyone else.

Love yourself unapologetically, choose yourself unapologetically, Respect yourself unapologetically and the world will fall in love with you, choose you, respect you and open the doors of possibility and opportunity for you.

Love another person but balance that love with your love of yourself. You deserve the best from yourself and you cannot give your best to anyone else until you value yourself.

You are worthy of being loved by yourself. You are worthy of being valued by yourself. You are worthy of saying I have value and I choose to value myself.

I have loved others and given them my heart and my soul in a way that put those people on a pedestal and put myself in a place where I could be stepped on.

I am not doing that now though. I'm not doing that ever again...I know my worth and I choose to let go of the pedestal, the objectification, and also the diminution of all involved.

I love myself and I give myself my heart and soul and hold it in sacred keeping for the person or people who honor my heart and soul and recognize the precious gift I give of presence and passion, love and desire, devotion and honor.

They may share in the warmth of my heart and the light of my soul, the creative depth of my intelligence, the spiritual energy of my magic and the fierce life force of my body...and know what a gift it is to be in presence and power with me.

Even as I know in turn, they are also giving me the gift of presence with their heart, soul, intelligence, spiritual force and life fire.

Self love is the magic that continually transforms my life and the way I show up boldly and bravely for myself, my purpose, my missions, my passion and for the depth I bring to the world around me.

Love yourself my brothers and the world will open its heart to you and reveal its mysteries and secrets.

How to recognize when you love someone too much

Can you love someone else too much? In this video I share why its important to balance the love you feel for other people with love for yourself and share how to recognize when love is unbalanced and can actually harm the relationships you have with other people.

How I'm using Tarot to set the intention of the day

Picture copyright of Taylor Ellwood 2023

I recently got a new Tarot deck and one of my practices around learning the deck is drawing a card for the day and allowing myself to be open to the experiences of that card, as a way of getting to know the card. I’ll pull the card, read the booklet and then contemplate the imagery of the card, asking myself what comes up in my consciousness around that card. Then I consider how best I can embody that awareness and work with it for the day.

I find that this can be a good practice to take on in any aspect of your life, including your exploration of your masculinity. Pull a card and use that card to help you focus on a particular aspect of your masculinity that you would like to learn more about. For example, I pulled the Hanged Man in the picture above and use it to consider where I was feeling blocked in my life, as well as what perspective I could cultivate to help me with those blockages.

A one card pull will provide you a variety of cards over time and I would invite you to explore the relationship you have with each of the themes of those cards in a curious and open manner. For example, you could pull the Tower card, which is a card that indicates disaster and the upending of the world as you know it. Naturally this isn’t a card people want to pull, but it invites us to explore our relationship with disaster and the upending of the world as you know it. Spending some time contemplating this kind of experience can help you understand how you would actually handle the experience and how you might use the insights of the Tower card to help you work through whatever disaster comes up.

Likewise you might pull the death card. The death card isn’t an indicator of death so much as its an indicator of transformation. Pulling the death card might be useful for contemplating our relationship with death, but it could also be useful for contemplating our relationship with change and transformation and how we handle when change and transformation shows up in our lives.

How to inspire confidence in yourself

One of the challenges many men face is a lack of confidence and self-esteem. We end up looking for it in all the wrong places, hoping that if we please other people enough, if we make them more important than anything else we’ll get liked, but this has the opposite effect. We lose the respect of other people when we become people pleasers and in the process we lose respect for ourselves. In this video I share how to inspire confidence in yourself and stop relying on other people so much.