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.

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In SMG 2.0 we all began with Mankind Project as a model for doing the transformational work in our meetings and at least initially for the form of the meetings themselves, following their model for an I group.

Later we adopted and incorporated David Deida’s work principally by requiring the reading of Way of the Superior Man. Deida’s work has given us more guidance or direction to our understanding of what masculinity is.

Recently I have come upon another source for inspiration in our work as men, Dr. Robert Glover. Glover is a psychiatrist that gravitated to men’s work. He spent 6 years writing his book No More Mr. Nice Guy. It is the culmination of work he has done personally and in his No Mr. Nice Guy men’s groups.

He has been leading these groups for many years, often 3 nights a week and clearly has vast experience with the work. From my reading I find what he has to say foundational to the work we need to do as American or Westernized men. Much of the book I found as familiar, the work I have been doing for the last 2 years and in many ways took me further.

The metaphor I have for reading the book is like reading the travel guide after the trip and realizing 1. how much easier it could have been if I had the guide book and 2. I want to go back and catch the sites I missed. I am recommending this book to all of the men in SMG 2.0. It talks to many of the concepts that we already use, and some ground we already cover and I believe that it will clarify and focus the work we have to do, particularly for the men who are joining the group and new to the work.

One particular awareness I received from the book was the idea of monogamy with mother. I became aware of my essence in my childhood being married with my mother. No masculine influence ever came in to sever this connection, the purpose of traditional rite-of-passage experiences. As a result I can see how I have looked to women for my affirmations. This has showed up in all my relationships with women, and of course women would tend to affirm my feminine qualities and values. By severing this connection with mother and being in the presence of men I am now receiving my encouragement and affirmations from men and expressing my masculine with the women in my life. I am more confident, expressive and powerful.

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I noticed during the day how observant he was. I noticed when I talked to his mom how he would disappear out of the room sometimes and suddenly we would discover him watching us. It reminded me of myself. As a boy, I was always watching. Trying to learn. Trying to understand whatever it was I longed to know more about.

He and I talked about a lot of things. Sometimes he got fascinated at my stories and opened his mouth and stared at me. He would put down the pliers and the leather needle and just listen. For awhile he did this after each stitch. He drew me into my stories even more because he paid so much attention. I had to bring our focus back to the next stitch each time. He was hungry for one-on-one time, stories and sharing. I recognized that hunger. It is a hunger that still burns in the boy part of me.

It was the next morning that I woke and couldn’t get back to sleep after 4am. I kept remembering this boy quietly watching. Soon I found myself sobbing for 90 minutes from the boy inside of me. I remembered watching my parents the whole time I grew up. I never saw them once hold hands, kiss, hug, or touch each other. Not in eighteen years. I always wondered whether relationships were real or fake. Was it an act? A role you are supposed to play? Part of me wanted it to be simply real, true natural friendship. But I never saw healthy touch. Not once. No physical expression of love. I knew something different must happen in the bedroom but what was real to my heart was what I could see. Laying there in the morning crying I so wanted my parents to show me.

Grief leaking that morning from the deepest wound in my life. I questioned myself a lot growing up. What was wrong with me? Am I really a man? Painful tears at my self love. True intimacy was a empty blank spot on my map of life for a long time. I was lost. I didn’t find my way into intimacy until well into adulthood. I worked in communities where healthy intimacy was modeled by peers. Sharing shoulder rubs was a daily exchange. It could all be real. Nothing less.

Suddenly I found a second wind of crying. Like the boy listening to my stories, now I was the little boy so hungry for Dad to pay attention to me. How I wish my Dad would have come told me stories where I would forget everything and listen. I wanted his attention. I knew the hunger in the eyes before me as we made moccasins. Every second of giving him attention was healing the boy inside me. Sure enough, 4 am the next morning that trapped grief was freed. I look forward to the continuing the moccasins.

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