I often have inspirational thoughts in my head that I hope will help me have a better life. Sayings like “do one thing today that will change your life” or “speak your truth from your heart” or “listen to be heard”. The problem is most of these don’t stick. I suppose they serve their purpose and then fade away.

There are a few, however, that do seem to stick. And I am really aware of one of them right now in my life. My inspiration is “I will commit to showing up for a whole conversation in my significant relationships (and sometimes my not so significant relationships)”.

What this means for me is that whether it takes 5 seconds or a life time I will keep showing up until I feel connected and resolved. Specifically it means:

• I assume there might be more to say or hear even after a subject or issue has come and gone. Some issues just take a long time to resolve, if they ever resolve.
• There is always something more to learn
• If I walk away mad or with a grudge or sad there is more to say.
• That I have gained little in my life by not speaking my truth. Eventually it comes out anyway.
• I will have to wade through my fight or flight tendencies when I feel angry or unmet and make a choice to stay in for the lesson.
• I may not get what I want. The other person(s) in the relationship may choose to end the conversation early.

I figure most of its about me anyway and it ties to this other manifesto I have which is to have the courage to see myself more clearly, everyday. By staying in the conversation, by not leaving when I am mad, or fustrated, or hurt I give myself the opportunity to grow, heal and learn. In other words I get the lesson.

The beauty of the lesson? I do, for the first time in my life, consistently feel close to my spouse. We have had many of the traditional challenges of other couples who have not stayed together. There was plenty of anger, disappointment, sadness, etc. to go around. But we kept showing up. Neither of has yet said I am done. (Even though in my anger I really wanted too) I am also lucky my spouse Jody kept showing up too.

As an aside I have to give some credit to an old adviser Timeto. About 15 years ago he said to me, right in the middle of one of the most stressful times in my marriage, “you will know its time to go when you can do it with out anger and regret”.

Right now I am experiencing this with my men’s group. Something has shifted in our dynamics. What once felt safe, fun and really was something I looked forward too each week no longer was any of that for me. I still love the men in the group but I found myself not wanting to come.

We are talking about it. Its started several weeks ago and the conversation continues. It is hard and stressful and challenging and I want to stay home. If I stay home I don’t have to speak about my anger or judgments. Nor do I have to hear others judgments of me or feel their anger.

But I know if I did I would be walking away with sadness, anger and regret. I would not get the healing. And most importantly I would miss growing closer to men that I care about.

a

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

No, I don’t mean that kind of sweat. I am a guy and I can sweat aplenty. I mean sweat lodges. We just did one on Wednesday night instead of our normal group. Over the years I have probably done ten or twelve sweats. I often also choose to be part of the fire crew which means I get a double dose of heat from the lodge and the fire.

For the un-initiated a sweat lodge can be hot. I don’t know how hot but compared to a sauna they are hotter. The heat and accepting are the challenge. I have always felt challenged by the heat in the lodge but never so challenged that I needed to leave the lodge before the sweat was done.

My most common experience was it gets hot and I would use the heat as a metaphor for pain and breath through it. I would participate fully in each of the four rounds (prayer for self, prayer for others, what I want to let go of and what I want to receive) and clear a lot of stuff going on for me and call it good. I also would have a dehydration headache because two hours of sweating even while drinking lots of water can be draining.

This sweat last Wednesday was different. Half way through the first round I wanted out. It was hot and the heat was making me feel claustrophobic. My normal approach of working with the pain and fear were not working. I made it through the round but it was close. Mostly pride got me through it.

The remaining rounds were better but still harder than I can remember. Part of the reason that I feel like it was harder is we did it just with the men in the group. No guests. We have been together for a while and can generate some power. Mostly, though. I think it has to do with where I was and my emotional openness.

The next day I recovered really well but found myself asking why do I go in to the sweat lodge? Is it worth the work and suffering? I so what happens that is worthwhile? My first answer was I don’t want to do that again.

However, with some time I am again reminded of how much healing can take place in the lodge. The combination of the heat and the intent of the rounds can touch levels in me that are hard to reach any other way.

A lot of this is hard to intellectualize as I feel more than I think it. After the sweat I could feel this strong anxiety and sadness. The feeling was not located in a specific spot but just a general feeling.

The heat and staying in the sweat showed my shit. I realize now it was work I was avoiding. The heat brought it to the surface. Once it is up I can heal. That is why I sweat.

a

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The ManKind Project for 25 years has put on a weekend training for men called the New Warrior Training Adventure. Up to 60 men volunteers pay to assist up to 40 men experience the power of journeying through their own initiations.

I did the training 15 years ago and was immediately impressed with the quality of men who staffed the training. They were caring man who wanted to make a difference. Over the last 15 years, I have sent in some form or another 50 men to the training. Every one of them got more than they expected.

Last year Peter Clothier wrote a good article for Huffingtonpost on the training – check it out.

Many of the men in Sandpoint Men’s Group have done the training. It is not a requirement to be in the group. Men do the training because it works.

a

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Often we see a man in the group stuck in one of these or possibly bouncing between a few of them. We don’t consciously always use this model to work with the man, but we can go back to it for clarity.

What is your favorite player?

a

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This need can become an obsession to find your purpose so to be released, as David Deida describes in his book The Way of the Superior Man. If you get it right, then as a man you will feel this sense of accomplishment, being released from the burden of your work. The limitation of approaching life just for the release, or as some would say the kill of a predator stalking his prey, is the release is fleeting and ethereal. It is never enough.

True purpose is the why, not the accomplishment, not the content. I would say it is the how you are being and doing, the context. When reconnected to your purpose, the why or the how of your life now directs your actions, not someone else’s purpose. With your true purpose guiding you, your passion becomes the fuel for your life.

What is your desire, as Guy Sengstock asks in his podcast? What do you really want? I write about the importance of knowing what you want here. Discovering your want(s) is a multilayered process. In working with men and women, along with myself for over 30 years, I discovered that often what we think our purpose is, proves to be only the first layer. You may think you are working to make money, then you determine you are working also for recognition, then you find out you are working for something to do. This keeps going on until you hit the bottom – your purpose.

A man’s direction in life, totally related to his connection to his purpose – is what women are attracted to in a man. A woman instinctually wants a man who is living his purpose – you could also say, willing to die for it. She needs a man with purpose because he determines direction that allows her to align with something beyond herself, as my good female friend Chris says. I know, this sounds chauvinistic. It is not. We need women to ground our purpose and renew our spirit.

Years ago, I learned from studying with a shaman; men are the seed, women are the womb. Women take the seed to birth the baby. There is now greater honor than to be a mother of a baby or a man’s purpose.

a

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Healing Journey™

Have you ever asked yourself, why can’t I get over X or achieve Y? You’re smart, you make things happen, yet there are these X’s and Y’s that won’t move.

You aren’t alone. We all struggle with creating what we want in life.

The biggest things that get in our way are stress or trauma. I used to teach Mindfulness Stress Reduction to Type-A-personality professionals. Before the end of the 8-week class, these people learned how NOT to let stress take them out. Often they would surprise us with how their lives changed.

When one class began, I remember one woman, a VP for a large bank, bragging about how hard and long she worked. She claimed she often was on her two phones simultaneously. She didn’t take lunches or vacations and worked upwards of 60 hours per week.

Before the end of the class, she had removed her second phone, was taking lunches, and worked no more than 40 hours per week. What amazed her was not only how she was happier, but how she was getting more done.

Animals Do It

An old colleague of mine, Peter Levine, Ph.D. first taught me that wild animals don’t have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD); they naturally deal with trauma.

We all know we are hardwired to survive—fight or flight. Yet when we can’t defend ourselves or run away, we have a third option – we freeze. When a deer can’t outrun the mountain lion, she goes into shock and pretends she is dead. Hopefully for her, the mountain lion will believe she’s dead and leave to return for a later meal. Once safe, the deer comes to. She goes through recovering from the trauma, and runs away.

Stress and trauma progressively build in our body/mind from all those times we didn’t use fight or flight, and we just grin and bear it. However we can re-teach our physiology so it doesn’t default to freezing, but releases the stress. Then we’re back to behaving like wild animals.

But “releasing” does not mean we get into fistfights, or run down the street to escape stressful situations. In the vast majority of situations, it means we are breathing and speaking. To be able to release current stress, we often need to release the old stress and trauma.

The Quick Way

Many body/mind therapies indirectly remove the frozen stress response. The quickest could be a process called the Healing Journey™, developed for Sandpoint Men’s Group (SMG). In the course of 30 to 45 minutes, a man with the guiding of a trained facilitator travels back to the event(s) that created the trauma that was never fully experienced. The man physically experiences that frozen stress (trauma) as the block he can’t get over and possibly the cause of his PTSD.

We have a natural ability to regain balance once the block that prevented us from experiencing our resources is removed. It’s as if the stored energy converts into usable energy to move through our blocks. Beneath the block lies a hidden gift – a skill that was entrained as we learned to hide our trauma. The acceptance of our stress and traumas eventually leads to discovering the positive aspects of what the previous events created. Those gifts are powerful and only available if we journey through the trauma to our healing.

SMG and Sandpoint Women’s Group (SWG) use the Healing Journey™ developed by Owen Marcus as a way to expedite chang

a

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.