🔥 Men, You May Now Enter The Elevate Dojo 🔥

For the men who’ve decided that merely surviving life is no longer an option … I have something epic for you. For the last 6 years through my Elevate Men coaching journeys and retreats I’ve supported men through brutal relationship breakdowns, helped them turn toward the shadow parts of themselves, and confront the cynicism, isolation, […]

The 4 Words That Broke Me Open in the Desert

I’ve been fully estranged from my father for 3 years. Until a few days ago, I thought I’d made peace with his absence. I’d worked through a lot of rage towards him in therapy rooms and at men’s retreats. I have confronted him directly with my truth and with my vulnerable desires for our relationship […]

A Guided Meditation on … Death (You’ll Love It!)

This morning as I awoke reflecting on the new year we’re stepping into (and my big plans for it), I thought of Death. Which isn’t unusual, for I think of Death often these days. Stephen Jenkinson, author of “Die Wise,” observed that we live in a “death phobic and grief illiterate” world. Our dominant culture […]

When A Man Doesn’t Trust Other Men

♦◊♦ When A Man Doesn’t Trust Men … He uses women to soothe his loneliness. He forces women to hold him accountable, which he then resists & resents. He makes women the source of his worth & well-being. He isolates. He endlessly compares himself to other men. He can only look down on other men, […]

Men Don’t Need a Woman to Heal Them (They Need Other Men)

Few men realize they have daddy issues … until they step into deep growth work exclusively with other men. This is when men start to see just how much they project their ”father anger” and/or ”father hunger” onto the whole world around them. Ten years ago, in one men’s group I was part of, another […]

Why women are (reluctant) catalysts for many men to begin the real work …

“Women often become the unwitting ritual stewards in relationships with men – the ones who become the initiators of men into mature manhood. Which is not their f*cking job. So much hostility arises between men and women because, on some level, we men crave the initiation yet know it’s not a woman’s job to offer […]

When You’re Carrying An Invisible Grief

This past weekend, my wife and I just moved to a new home for the 9th time since 2022. You ever heard the term, “ambiguous loss”? It describes that kind of loss that defies closure, that can be hard to explain, not only to others but even to yourself. In the past 5 years – […]

Why Power Struggles Are Vital For A Healthy Relationship

First, I’ve got huuuuuuge news: My wife (Silvy Khoucasian) and I just signed with a literary agent to write a book together. Yeah. We’re super pumped. While not a literal baby (if you’ve been following my work a while you might have thought/wished that the big news), but it is .. *ahem … a literary […]

Tell Better Stories, Have a Better Relationship (Part 3)

Part 3: Beyond Right and Wrong .. and Betrayal. “Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there’s a field. I’ll meet you there.” ~ Rumi Many years ago, I discovered a powerful practice that helps couples tell better stories in their relationships. Whether of past painful breakdowns, or happy memories they remember differently, this simple […]

Tell Better Stories, Have a Better Relationship (Part 2)

Part 2: Relationship Isn’t a Real Thing. If you’ve experienced someone close to you – a sibling, parent, old friend, or intimate lover – hold (tell) some story about you in a way that felt harsh, one-sided, dismissive of your actual experience, or perhaps ignorant and devoid of curiosity, or simply lacked generosity in how […]