There’s a dangerous idea floating around our world like poisonous spore that masculine leadership means simply: “man leads, woman follows.” This ideal obviously runs deep in many patriarchal religions, but you’ll also run into it in the world of “conscious polarity” where often charismatic teachers insist relationships work best when a ”man is in his … Read more
As I drove out of fire-ravaged Los Angeles this morning, I felt unusually heavy, sad. Normally, I love hitting the road for a long road trip (especially when leaving LA). This time was different. My wife & I have been in a prolonged season of loss, grief, upheaval, and looking for home. I’m driving 20 … Read more
A lot of men find it challenging to feel fully alive when in a long-term committed intimate relationship. Some men, who perhaps enjoyed being single, who felt lively & dynamic without the responsibilities a relationship brings, may struggle to maintain that vitality while settling into long-term relationship. Being in a two-person system (relationship) requires different … Read more
Earlier this week, my wife showed me three photos of young children, two girls and a little boy each maybe 3 or 4 years old, that she’d made using an app that combined her image with mine. This is what our children might have looked like, children we learned not long ago we are biologically … Read more
As I sit in the serene quietness of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, the memories of these past five days flood my mind. Our annual ELEVATE Men’s Retreat has ended and everyone is returning to their lives, yet the electric energy of countless profound moments linger in the warm summer mountain air. This retreat was … Read more
This week, I’m off to the ancient Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina for my annual ELEVATE Men’s Retreat. It is an unspoken epidemic – with unfathomable repercussions – that so many men do not trust other men. For when a man cannot trust other men, it may reflect in the struggle to fully trust … Read more
“We are so connected the word ‘connected’ doesn’t even make sense.” ~ Rumi ♦◊♦ For over thirty years I’ve been tenaciously throwing myself into the transformational fires of intimate relationship over and over again. For I began a romantic, believing in the popular songs and fairytale movies of my 1980s youth that all promised a … Read more
“When someone comes to you with their pain, they’re not asking you to decide if their experience is valid.” ~ Silvy Khoucasian ♦◊♦ Through all my adventures in intimacy, I spent way too much time evaluating the validity of my partners’ upsets and frustrations – often deciding they are NOT valid, especially when directed at … Read more
For years I couldn’t feel my feelings, and my intimate relationships suffered awfully as a result.
♦◊♦ In 2010, I spent 12 months in a purple SUV Dodge Durango crisscrossing North America on the most wondrous adventure with five other men, five brilliant musical shamans forever my brothers. That purple Durango – which anyone not color blind (like me) would always insist was blue – held us safe as we made … Read more