Positive Masculinity: The Power Of Embodiment | 063

Oh, Amir, I am excited to dive in with you

about the work that you're doing so beautifully with men. I want

to go back a bit first about your journey into this work that

it has to be me for you to change what you were doing in

your 20s and have a different relationship with self. Tell me

about meeting some of those men that had what you wanted.

Well, thank you first of all for inviting me to

have this conversation with you. I'm excited to go down whatever

alley you take us. So at the age of 22 I had pretty much burned

all my bridges, and I was standing to lose quite a bit,

and I saw an opportunity for and that was in the realm of drugs

and alcohol. So I got sober at the age of 23 and I was in the

AA program for almost a quarter of a century, 25 years. And we

can talk about why I chose to leave, if you want, at some

point. But as far as I mean, I pretty much stumbled and took an

opportunity that presented itself. I had enough wherewithal

to see it for what it was, and I stepped through a window that

was open, and that window afforded me into a reprieve from

the chaos and the darkness that I was living in, and the first

man that I saw on that path had gone to speak at a college, and

at that time, the person I was my fiance, at that time from my

previous marriage, was going to this health class. Saw this

person speak, gave me their number. I reached out, and he

said, meet me at Chili's in Northridge. This was 30 years

ago, maybe more. I was 23 I'm 54 so just over 30 years, and I

thought I was hips looking cool. I walked in my head long greasy

hair, but my face was caved in. I was neurotic. I couldn't sit

still for a moment in my own body. And here's this guy. I saw

him. I knew it was him, just an older man, probably my age, now,

sitting in this booth, and there was something about him. There

was almost a glow about him. There was something about him

that I did not have. I did not have a sense of self. There was

no settling in my own body. There was no comfort. And oddly

enough, his daughter worked there, and the way that his

daughter and him communicated, the exchange between them, the

tenderness, the openness, there was nothing I had in my life.

Everything I had up to that point was pretentious. I was I

was very distant from myself, to say the least. So this man had a

sense of self. The words that came out meant something had

weight to them. Yeah, and he was my first semblance to what it

means to be a man, to walk as a man, to speak as a man. And

subsequently, I met other men in that program that exemplified

what it means to walk around as a man. And I it put me on a

trajectory of self, self discovery, healing and

ultimately self actualization.

Yeah, so being, being a person, and I won't call

you a man yet before you, you always say, boys are born and

men are made in your community. So in your early 20s, what was

it in you that allowed that in what was it where you were able

to receive it? It

had nothing to do with me. It was the closest

thing I can say is some semblance of grace, where there

was a moment of clarity, where I did not want to live that way

anymore. That was not my road, and I knew that that would

ultimately result in death. I. It at what I was doing, at the

rate that I was doing it, yeah, and I didn't want that,

yeah. So growing up with being raised by a

single, you know, a mother, and not having those male role

models in your life to show you what a man could be, until you

met this mentor. What was it like stepping into the realm of

men? What was that like for you?

Well, I think I had to learn what it felt like

to trust men, I had to learn what it felt like to begin to

come to terms with the fact that most of my life came through the

prism of my Mother's lens. And that's why you know, that's why

initiations in indigenous cultures are so valuable,

because they bring attention community heart to a separation

that is natural that needs to happen for men. Men need to

sever their ties with their mothers and in order to be on

the road of self actualization, and all that really means is

that the dynamic needs to shift. The way they relate to each

other needs to shift. And for men that have father wounds

raised by women, most of most of us children, start taking on the

responsibilities of the husband. We be, we become the patient

ear. We become a source of solace, and we start to we're

completely inadequate equipped for such. It's not right, but we

want to mitigate the chaos that is happening in a woman who is

trying to survive and raise a child in this world,

right? And so what was that like for you, where you

had seen the world through the lens of your mother, and then

you enter this world, and then you you initiated yourself, or

you were initiated in a different way.

Well, it was self initiation through drugs and

alcohol. It's the best way I could describe it. It was, you

know, looking back, I can say that there was a part of me that

needed to make that separation. Didn't know how to make that

separation, and I did it in the in the worst way possible, where

I hurt myself and I hurt everyone around me, but it did

put me on the other side, and thus began my spiritual path at

the age of 23 and it put me on A road to work, to ultimately work

with men,

yeah, so take me into that. It has to be me,

where you had done a lot of work healing yourself, and then what

was that, that trajectory where you then claimed your role to

shepherd it for other men.

I think for me, I always there was something in me

that wanted to support men. I couldn't really understand it,

and I did it for a long time just through sponsoring other

men in AA. So that's that became kind of a template, and then

ultimately, other, you know, men's groups. And then I went

into martial arts, and I started mentoring through martial arts.

And I really always, I always did it as something that fed my

soul. I never got paid for it, and it wasn't until 2018 where I

was invited to teach at a men's retreat of about 40 men in the

desert. And I was also invited to participate, and I got a lot

more than I gave i i i in the receiving of some of those

practices. This is back in 2018 I had some somatic releases that

really, I think, were in the way of the clarity of the totality

of my purpose, or the second act of my life. It really all came

together. And up until then, I used to always. I used to also

be a professional actor. For 10 years. I came back from that,

from that retreat, I called my agent. I said, I'm done. Just

close everything. Close everything. And I couldn't

quite. Do that with the business that was paying for everything.

So I started to really move in the direction of birthing this,

this thing that that wanted to be birthed uniquely through me.

And I started to listen in a different way. I started to tune

into my heart instead of my head, and I started to begin to

walk in the unknown. Subsequently, I had walked away

from AA because that felt like a marriage that had completed, and

I was moving into the spiritual unknown simultaneously and

coming away from that rich retreat, I knew that, and with

there was a few other instances that crystallized this for me,

but I really understood my work in the world based off of my

history. And being in this moment, I came to a realization

that most of the pain that is caused in the tear in the fabric

of humanity in life is done by unconscious men. It's by it

comes through a level of disconnection and

unconsciousness, whether that's in relationship or running a

business or building an empire or running a country. It has. It

comes from a level of unconsciousness that gives men

permission to tear at the fabric of our planet, for example. And

I started to really move towards animism and shamanism, and I

started to become a practitioner, kind of a closet

shaman, for a practitioner for years.

Do didn't really go out of the closet a deep desire to share my

search with others on that search, and I found a teacher

that I studied with her for a year, and it was wonderful just

to come out and, you know, play in that realm and get feedback

and see things from different perspectives. And it just really

put me into into that space. And it, you know, shamanism and

animism have deeply impacted my my the way I work with men, and

it's brought a deep reverence to the manifest, to to the when I

say the manifest is to find the holy in what is already here.

Instead of trying to look out to find God, I found it by going

in. So I, I, I, that's what I do with the men that I work, we

come to terms with what is it that has captivated their

attention and that is disconnected them from

themselves, the dependencies that they have or that, or the

stories they bought into that they need to begin to

systematically let go of, to begin to free fall into this

relationship, into their heart. And I really believe that's

where the divine lives. It's it's in the chambers of the

heart. I believe that a sense of our higher self lives in the

chambers of the heart. So a lot of my work became about

connecting men to themselves and to the natural world. And all my

programs include, like, an hour of silence in nature as part of

the curriculum, you know, so becoming aware of the reverence

that is within and if it's within me, that's within you,

and if it's within you that I'm going to treat you with

reverence.

Tell me a little bit more about these somatic

releases that were so powerful out in the desert that invited

you to step into your role as a leader in this way.

Yeah. So one of the inquiries that was

suggested, invited for everyone to kind of ponder with was like,

Okay, well, what is it that brought you here? Now for me, it

was twofold. One, I was asked by my friend to come teach, but I

also said yes, because a part of me really was exhausted, and I

was exhausted, and I wanted distance from the immediate

women in my life. Now, I have been blessed to be around women

my entire life. I come from my dad's side of the family.

There's four siblings, tons of children. I'm the only boy I

have four daughters. I you know, the closest people to me are my

mother, my you know my wife, obviously my my children, my

mother and my sister. So it's just that's been my Eco sphere.

But I was like, I was asking myself, well, what? What is it?

I was just like. I need, I need a break. I need I need space. I

need space. And I was like, Well, why do you need space? So

I started to sit with the inquiry, and the inquiry was

like, Oh, I don't draw boundaries. I just say yes to

everything when it comes to these women, yes, right? So now

we're pointing back to the mother, right? Pleasing the

mother, making sure she's okay, and, you know, everything she's

holding now I'm playing it out in my immediate life. I'm

exhausting myself because I'm not honoring my own boundaries.

I'm not honoring my own yeses and nos in relationships. So

what is and then, you know, the inquiry kept going deeper and

deeper, until we stepped into this practice, and one of the

root causes that I felt responsible for my mother's well

being, her physical well being and her emotional well being.

And this is going to get a little intimate, but I'll share

it with you. My mother's second husband was physically abusive

to her, and I witnessed this as a young child, and I remember it

once my mother was pregnant with my sister or my half sister, I

called she's my sister, and I remember there was a fight, and

we were in Costa Rica at the time, and he started to beat

her. He started to beat her with a suitcase. And I, I was frozen

at that. I was, I was 12 years old. Maybe, you know, I couldn't

physically do anything about it. I couldn't say anything. I was

frozen. I wanted to freeze state. And in the somatic

practice, I, you know, we were sitting with the inquiry of,

well, what is it the what is what is it the root of this,

that this came up for me, this incident came up for me, and in

this practice, what the practitioners are invited to

experience is, in your you're in a group of five. So there's,

let's say me, who's going to be in the practice there's going to

be there are three men holding me. So there's one man behind

me. He's holding my holding me from the back. There are two

guys facing this way, holding my left and right arm. There's the

the fourth man is in front of me, role playing. The

stepfather. And the invitation is when I say, go, you go, you

say what you need to say. You scream, you go, you, you

everything that didn't come out. And I you get, you get an

opportunity to revisit and and finish that cycle. And I and I

said, I hope you guys know what you're doing, because I will

kill that. I if I get my hands on that guy who I know is here

to there's going to be a problem. Now, you got to

remember, by this time, I had three black belts. I had gone. I

was, I'm a trained martial artist. I spent all those years

of not feeling safe, making sure I felt safe in the world. Yes,

when I was seven years old, I used to have to, like, pretend

there was a force field around me, just so I could feel safe to

go to sleep. That's because there's no masculine presence in

the space. When there is a grounded masculine presence, you

feel safe. You don't even know why? Hmm. I said, I hope you

guys know what you're doing. They said, We know what we're

doing. And I and I went, I I screamed, I clawed, I went. They

had another person had to come support. And I, I even got

tricky. I said, Okay, I'm going to pretend. I'm gonna, like,

fall down that I'm done, and then I'm gonna go again. In the

split second I did that, they still grabbed me until I was

spent, until I was exhausted, and I was spent, and I

collapsed, and I laid down, and I looked up and I saw all these

men looking down at me with such love, with such love. So they

were pouring now their love into me as I was revisiting that

moment, because it felt the same. I was still frozen. I

couldn't move forward. I. But this time, I expressed

everything I needed to express, and I swear it was almost like a

prayer had been answered. It just took a long time, and these

guys looking down were like the angels that were like in that

moment with me again, and healing started to happen. And I

released that. I released that around him, my stepfather and

and, you know, everything that comes with that, everything that

comes with that. And I really believe, you know, clarity comes

from really cleaning up this temple body. And I, you know,

that's what I deal with. Man, we we clean up this temple body so

we can begin to tune in to what is our purpose here? Why are we

here? What are we here to do? So when we get to the end, we can

transition with ease, knowing we did, or at least we fully gave

it everything we had. Oh

yes to that. How do you help men open the pathway

to that?

Well, that that's such a great question, because

it's a mystery on what creates the opening and willingness in

one person and not in another person? Yes, it's such a

mystery, but it it's the men that take a step into the

unknown from that point of receiving that. We'll call it

Grace window, that window of opportunity that's showered in

grace. Those that take the window, those that actually step

through it, I don't know why I made it a window, not a door,

but here we are, those that take a step forward into the unknown.

That willingness is what brings men to my community and others

like it, and what they do from that point, it's all contingent

on their willingness to stop running away from shadows,

aspects of self, to stop running away from wounds, to stop living

altruistic lives that are unconscious to what's running

them to slow down enough and become willing to actually stop,

turn around and start facing these things. And in community,

we work on these things, whether it's through shadow work or

limiting beliefs or picking up tools and dealing with bringing

more presence and freedom of our attention to the table. I mean,

these are all aspects of what go into one of the programs that I

run.

Yeah, there's beauty in working one on one

with people, which I know you do. And then there's also beauty

in community work. So tell me about the power of what happens

when men come together in that intimate, trusting way.

Men. Men need men. Men Men need men, you know,

there's, there's a, there's a sharpness that we can handle

with one

another. Ooh, tell me about that.

When, when we are in a safe container, when it's

established that, like, this is a safe container. This is not

hierarchical, you know, and I really try incredibly hard to

make sure my space is that is a circle. And when there's trust

within the container, men can get really honest with each

other and how they show up and what it is that they're not

seeing other men can really come in and be like, Hey, Brother,

let me you know i i heard you. I hear what this, what you're

saying here. But let me tell you what I see. And men take that

really well with with each other. So that's one aspect.

Another aspect is when new men come into into men's work, they

are all over the place. They are erratic. They are their nervous

systems are shot. They're constantly people pleasing.

They're worried about what someone's going to think or what

they're going to say, like and just being around other men that

are alone. Little bit further along the path. The resonance

takes care of a lot of it. Being in community really does a lot.

There's a quick story I'll tell you about these, these

elephants, back in the I think it was early 80s, they there was

an African reserve where they were seeing some really weird

behavior from these teen elephants. Couldn't understand

that they were being incredibly violent, like nothing. There's a

stage they go into called Seth and but this was nothing they

had ever seen before, and they brought the specialist. And I'm

going to tell the story really quick, just to get to the point.

The specialist observed them for very just a few minutes, and he

said, Where are the bull elephants? They said, Oh, we

couldn't afford them when we bought them, so we just bought

the babies and the mothers. And he's like, Okay, I know what's

happening here, right? So these teens are on a rampage. So they

go and they bring, like, half a dozen bull elephants, and within

days, just by the essence and presence of these bull

elephants, these teen elephants self regulate. Yeah, they begin

to self regulate. So community absolutely right? Like

initiations should not happen in a vacuum, right? Like we need

to, we need to be a living example of what it means to be a

man today, like through and through. That's why, in my work,

also like relationship to the feminine is an incredibly

important pillar in our work.

Yeah, tell me about that you said before,

about the relationship with your mother and feeling responsible

for her safety. How do you respect the feminine, allow it

in and not feel responsible for the feminine energy of the

females in your life, like, how do you help men hold that

balance? Well,

I think first and foremost,

I think in order to answer that question, I have to talk about

power and men and men and power. When I say men and power, what's

the first thing that you think of like collectively,

toxic masculinity?

Thank you. That is that, that is, that is in the

collective unconscious or conscious, and it's a real

thing, because for for millennia, Men have abused

power, right? They've abused power, and they've abused, I

personally believe this gives them they, you know, they abuse

nature itself. You can see the unconscious behavior towards how

we relate to animals, to the natural world. The feminine is

the eminence of nature, the feminine is the Chosen vessel

for creation. Do you know how much power is in that that is

nothing a man can touch? So a man can either be in reverence

and awe to that kind of power, or it can begin to do what

patriarchal systems have tried to do for 5000 years, which is

try to control nature and control women.

Make sense? Yes, we

see it in religion. Put a burqa on it,

clip the clitoris, child wives. I mean, this is still going on,

so there is no men's work without be bringing into

consciousness what that is men need to learn to work with, and

as a result, many men that I work with don't want to have

fucking anything to do with power. They don't want to step

into their power, because that equals toxic masculinity. That

if I do that, then I'll be this part of my work is aligning men

to allow themselves to step into power, but not self generated

power, power that is aligned with their purpose, that is

designed for them to intrinsically take their

rightful place in the healing of themselves and this planet that

directly connects us to relationship to the feminine.

The feminine is to be not controlled. The the feminine is

to be witnessed, to be listened to their you know, men wouldn't

go to war unless the Oracle said it's a good time to go to war.

There is something. There's a lost art of the way we see

women, the way we see the the evidence of women and how we

hold them. Most women, from my experience and understanding,

try to tone down their brilliance and their right,

their their fire, because, you know, you can't have one without

the other, right? And there's, there's some movements in, in

in, in the world that I work in, in this world where only you

know, in the in polarity work, where it's like, oh, these

flavors of women, no man. Women are multi dimensional, like

seven headed dragon and Mother Teresa and like all of it and

your desire to try to cage that control that you're gonna lose

you ah, the grass will always grow through the cement.

Yeah, oh, I you said before about helping men

sit with themselves in all parts of themselves, whether it's

through shadow work and not running away from the sharp

edges and having that not necessarily have to be toxic

masculinity, that we can embrace our power in whatever form it

comes and be holding it with care so that we're using it in a

way that serves our purpose. If that's the right way to

summarize what you've been saying. For me, what I hear is

permission. So how do you help men give themselves permission

to have a full embodied experience with themselves and

then others and the world?

Perfect question. So for the past six years, once

a week. Men come from all around the world. On Wednesday nights

from six to 8pm Beau's been coming for six years. Our friend

Yes, one of the staples in our community, yeah. And men through

various types of practices that I bring from different

traditions and modalities get to experience the bandwidth of

their own pull from masculine pull to feminine pull. Masculine

essence, practices that cultivate depth, breadth and

depth of consciousness and presence, various types of

practices that we that, that I bring and feminine embodiment,

practices which are really geared towards men giving

themselves permission, for expression, for movement, for

sound, and ultimately, immersion into the field of everything

that is right, they begin to navigate their own inner

landscape. And as they do, they deepen their capacity for the

masculine pull they get to they get to overdo it. They get to

play. It's like being in rehearsal. You get to try things

that won't maybe work, but you get to try them right? And as

they, as they maneuver up and down this line, they come across

internally. Internal edges that they'll get to work with. So

growing up, let's say you were told as a boy, stop acting that

way. That's that's stop being so, you know, who knows like how

they were shamed as kids, right? You know, you a boy is dancing,

and his dad, like, says that that's boys don't, don't. Boys

don't do that. Or however, the shame came in. Shame is really

nothing more than a noose that tightens itself around life

force, energy. That's what shame is. So for them, in practice

sessions, they get an opportunity to be with that boy,

and they get to work in that space of I maybe I can open my

voice and just make a sound here. Maybe I can just move my

body, oh, my God. Like everyone's gonna think, like all

the stuff happens, and they're now working with that. It's a

lab

they're working on that to lab.

They're working, they're practicing. That's not

how they're going to go live. They you know you come and you

practice and you explore and you express and you confront and you

sit and you cry and you heal and you experience joy, and you're

expanding your capacity and you're, you're you're

identifying new depth of your of your reach, and we're building

community at the same time.

And what's that like for you, shepherding people

to the edges and the depths of places they have not explored

before, within themselves and by extension, you are also going to

those places with them. What does that teach you as the man

that you are now?

Yeah. First, of all, it's an honor to really be

in that field with men and to make sure that they're safe and

to guide them through these different practices. It's an

absolute honor, like for me, you know, I'm sitting there on a

screen, you know, every week, unless I'm in person, which is a

whole other amazing experience. And I see them. I see them going

into the crevices. I see them breaking apart. I see them

trying to gather themselves. I see them overcoming. I see them

sitting with grief. I see them sitting with loss, and I see the

transformation, and to witness that, and to be a part of the

fabric that is holding that because I am a part of the

fabric, I'm in the field with them, is incredibly rewarding.

It's incredibly rewarding. And I have to also remember this, you

know, I'm simply answering my calling, and that is enough. You

know, I can't let the ego get in the way. I can't, you know, I

can't be, you know, guru or teacher like and people will

want to project certain things to people in position that, you

know, I am a teacher. The position is different, so I have

to have a level of consciousness around that it can be a lonely

spot at times. Oh, tell me about that.

You know, I work a lot, and so I'm in this position, this

dynamic with other people quite often. And it's kind of like a

father, archetypal figure that naturally, the dynamic, the

dynamic, sometimes puts me in, and I just have to be also

cognizant of, like, you know, transference. I don't know if

you're familiar with that term. It's a union term, yes, yes. So

I have to be really cognizant. Like, sometimes, you know, we

have a large community, and there is a percentage of people

that also have, you know, stuff around their fathers that may

want to project it onto me. And I just need to be really

cognizant of the role that I play in people's lives, and it

doesn't give me a lot of time for friendships. To be honest

with you, I almost, I almost don't really, I see my my wife

is so good at being like, having friends like, she's just like,

you know, and I have people that are my friends that I can call,

and they're like, there for me, but I don't do a lot of, like,

small talk with people. I've gotten more private as I've

gotten older, and naturally, I think sometimes I just fall into

that archetypal. Position with people. So it creates a little

bit of like feeling feeling alone.

What does it stir up in you being placed in that

father or placing yourself also in that father archetype when

you didn't have it yourself as that little boy that was

screaming up against the abuser in the desert with those men and

revisiting that place within the work. So how does that rub up

against you while you're doing

I feel like I'm being fed. To be honest with

you, I feel like the fact that I am doing what, and yet it feels

lonely at times, okay, yeah, at times I and I've just gotten, I

used to be a lot more social. I've gotten a little bit

socially awkward, I think as well, I don't really know. I'm

still in flux

as as as we all are, I'm just, it's, it's, it's

of interest to me while you're holding space for others. I i

And we may find our way back to that in just a minute, when you

were speaking before about the divine feminine and and the

power of women and how it's going to win every time. What is

it like for you being an embodied male and exploring the

sharp edges of your and the beautiful places of your

masculinity and your and your feminine energy being in

intimate relationship with Carrie, who is living in an

embodied experience of the feminine, and the two of you

working together to shepherd that beautifully for other

people. How do you take up that invitation and hold that because

she brings a lot of power. And so do you what's that? What's

that like?

Well, you know, my wife and I definitely, the stars

brought us together, you know, because we have, first and

foremost, really awakened our gifts to one another, our coming

together. I was I was not doing what I'm doing before I met her,

I was doing versions of helping men on the side, and I was

running businesses. You know, I had different businesses

throughout my life. It wasn't until 2018 Carrie and I met 10

years ago, so I really believe we awakened our gifts. And she's

been a champion of, you know, I came to her, I said, Look, this

is what I'm doing. This is in the middle of, like, mortgages

and children, lot of pain. I'm like, guess what? I'm leaving

everything, ultimately, this other business as well, and, and

I walked away from the business that was paying for everything

after a year and a half, and she's like, she's like, Of

course you are. Like, like, yeah. And so she, you know,

she's, she's been, you know, a steadfast supporter and

believer. And in order to fully step into our power, our the

stuff that's personal, the stuff that we've needed to work on has

come up, head has has to come up. It has to come up like what

it triggers. It triggers around whatever my stuff is and

whatever her stuff is, like we perfectly match in a way to

bring the stuff that is keeping us from our self actualization

full expression, and we've had to really take a good look at

ourselves in marriage, and that's really hard, because it's

really easy to just be as long as you just, if you would have

just acted differently, I'd feel Different, right? If you just,

if you could just contain yourself, right? Me again trying

to like, if I was to like, she is a powerful woman. There is no

controlling that woman, and no there, nor should there be. She

needs. She my wife should feel free in every way that she

wants. Obviously, we have agreements about the garden that

we live in, right? I mean, we both have principles and like,

you know monogamy and certain, you know trust. But as far as

her, like, I should all she, I should be a champion for her and

she a champion. For me and we both should feel free in this

relationship, and we do,

yes. What does feeling free mean to you?

To be a completely, you know,

transparent myself and to reveal myself freely, to express my

needs freely without feeling a dependency on her, to to answer

those needs and to feel, feel, you know, feel safe to express

myself in any way that I want you know that I that I need to

and her as well, and not to take everything so personally, like,

you know what? Like, sometimes you just need to hold space and

let her rage. Let her rage. It's not about me, it's she. She

needs to rage right now, right? So, you know, for a guy who grew

up with feeling responsible for his mother's emotional well

being and physical well being and not paying attention to my

own boundaries, well you get a powerful woman like that, I'm

going to be called up to work. Yes, I'm going to be called up

so she raises me

Yes, and you to her, want to ask you about being

called up to hold parts of yourself that are more

challenging you spoke before about men wanting to people

please or to please society or meet the expectations of

constructions. As a female, listening to that, I think to

myself, gosh, I want to get inside of that a bit more,

because as women, we go aware always people pleasing the men

aren't. You know, that's typically the construction that

we attach to so take the inside of what men are feeling in your

experience and your own experience of of plea, wanting

to please, and how that gets in the way of you feeling free to

express yourself,

if you're if you're people pleasing you, you

are not tuned in to you, to the truth, Essence of Your

expression, right? You're you're more concerned about the impact

of the conversation and whether you can handle it or not, or

what are they gonna like you've completely left you. There is no

freedom without a sense of self. There is no freedom without the

ability to be able to express your needs, express your

boundaries. People pleasing robs us of authenticity, of intimacy,

fear, really.

And what is it in your experience of working with

men and also being on and in this journey with yourself, what

is it in men? And I know this is a gross generalization I'm

asking you to make, because we're all unique beings. What is

the construction or the attachment that leads men to

believe that they should be doing that.

Well, I really think society plays an unhealthy

role in shaping men. So when you don't have, you know, we don't,

you know, there's no village where the men can be examples,

really, right? There's this fragmentation and the very sad

reality that young boys are faced with, and young girls as

well, and in a different way, is, is you know through this

screen, you know this is what's raising them. And you know boys,

you know, are raised in porn culture, and girls think they

have to abdicate themselves and look a certain way to be

accepted. And. And it's just a perversion of connection, and

the end result is a deep disconnection from self and a

lack of fulfillment in life, or worse or worse, where it can

take where it can take teens. So I think society plays a big

role. I think our parents growing up play a role, and

there are no systems in place, really, to honor and witness the

transitions that we experience as humans in life. One being, of

course, you know the initiation for a boy, but you know when,

when a, you know when a, when a young girl begins her moon

cycle? And I mean there we've lost the essence like I $150,000

Bar Mitzvah has lost

the essence. Oh, my goodness, yes,

lost the essence.

How do you hold the essence of how you would

like to shepherd these young people in your life being a

father to four girls, how has this work changed the way that

you view that, that sacred duty in society? You spoke earlier

about looking at your mentor and the way he spoke to his

daughter. How does the work that you do with men continue to

inform the way that you speak to your daughters and initiate them

for one of a better word, into the being of of themselves in a

healthy way?

Wow, I really wish I had the same influence and

impact on my men that I do on my daughters.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You know, I was speaking to a man

today who was having just a really hard time with his 24

year old the first time I'd met him, and he was just besides

himself. And, you know? And I reminded him, I said, you know,

man, it's possible I could say the very exact same thing to

your son that you did a week ago, and he'll be like, Oh, my

God, this is profound. Yes. So So look, parenting, parenting, I

believe, is the biggest challenge we are handed in in

the path of love, patience, acceptance acceptance and

spiritual growth. And these four have certainly, in their own

way, made me the man I am today. I used to have long hair,

yeah, yeah, oh, gosh, that's so funny. I I want

to ask you about being alone and feeling lonely, you know, in in

the role of leader and in the relationships that you form now,

how does your private work with yourself and reminding yourself

to that you are in a safe place with yourself and the trust that

you've cultivated within yourself in your private

practice. How would you like that to develop moving forward,

so that you can feel less lonely sometimes in the work that

you're doing?

Did my wife put you up to that question? No such

a great

question. Moment, I'm such a curious myself.

Yeah, it's such a it's, it's a poignant question,

because historically, I I'm not batting well, not batting I'm

not batting Well, yeah, I Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. I tend to hold

beyond my capacity. I tend to, I feel that in you Yeah, take on

more clients. I tend to output more than I do. And listen, I

teach a facilitator training program that's like, we have a

whole thing on, like, you know, taking care of oneself and

energetic high. Machine, and there's, you know, those things

I do, but I'm not great at it. I'm not great at like, oh, let's

go. I'm gonna meet so and so for coffee, and then we'll go, I

don't know, bow and arrows or like, do I just,

yeah, no, I what I'm hearing, and you can correct

me if I'm not interpreting this in the way that you would like

being able to hold, hold your calling and what it means to you

in balance with your self care. Yeah, what I hear is that,

yeah, no, you're, you're, you're very on point. I

really, yeah, I hold what I do in the world as sacred

Absolutely, and I I treat it as such, and I tend to it as such,

the same way I do with my marriage. I believe what we have

is a Sacred Garden, and I tend to it in that way. And I'm

embarrassed to say that my own relationship to my own personal

garden, there's some weeds that need to be, to be Ooh.

Why? Why embarrassed? Because I would say

that we all have weeds in our garden, and we always have them,

because I've be Thank you. Thank you for that. I

really needed to hear that. I think, I think, you know, my

humanity sometimes gets lost in, in the shuffle of the position

that I hold. I want

to ask you about that is that, yes, because, and

I've been called out on it by my own community,

by the way, right? Like, look, they've been like, we want to.

We want to. We want to hear more of your heartache, we want to

hear like, you know, I have an estranged daughter. Like, that's

27 that is one of the most painful experiences of my life.

But I feel so responsible for these men and like, like, oh,

wait, you know they're, you know, they're paying like, I

It's my job to hold and like, but their number one complaint

was, Look, man, you're the one who said this is a circle, so we

need to be able to feel you too,

yes, and by revealing our pain, we give

others permission, yeah, to reveal as well. And also this, I

want to ask you about what feels like a masculine construction in

my body right now that I'm a man, I'm a leader of a

community, I am a wise person who's done all these practices.

I should have all the answers and have my shit together at

every moment and never display the cracks.

Well, I think I would say, like, I've had small

groups where I'm one of the men in the groups, like a small

men's group where we do that, and I've done that in my life.

So I don't necessarily have a problem bringing that to to

certain peers or my wife or beau, for example, yeah. But I

think the ask for my community was like, the community needs to

experience some of that from you. And I heard them the

following week on a Wednesday, when, for you know, I never

shared during the I'm always holding the circle. I said I'm

gonna go first, and I shared intimately about what I've been

holding and what I've been going through. And I think in the name

of reciprocity, in the flow of back and forth of energy between

humans, it's really important to be like, You know what? You

know, he's hurting, like in this area, like, you know, giving

people an opportunity

to love me, and also, what I'm also is coming up

for me is just a reminder to all of us that we're all in process,

continuing to do the work, yeah, and the work never ends, and

that's the juicy, delicious, messy, glorious thing that is

life. And what makes relationship with self and

relationship with others so delightful, and takes us to

places that we need to go, as you so beautifully put it in

your relationship with Carrie, that you have been able to

expand together and sometimes contract when it's needed. Oh,

thank you for sharing so openly and letting me into your garden.

To use your analogy I was saying to Carrie when I spoke to her. I

that being at that party with the two of you, I feel so

honored to have been a part of that, and watching you give and

receive love felt like I I got a master class in holding intimacy

was really very beautiful. So thank you for the work that

you're doing in the world. I could talk to you forever about

this. I always close every episode with the same question,

and I'm going to ask it to you, which is for someone that has a

dream in their heart and doesn't feel like they have what it

takes to make it happen, what would you say to them?

I would say that some of the most beautiful

breakthroughs come immediately after massive amounts of

turmoil, and I would encourage them not to leave before that

miracle happens. Um, reminded of the x1 plane when they the

Russians in the US were trying to see who would break the sound

barrier first, and every plane that the US would send out would

rattle and it would explode. They would eject. They lost

pilots. They finally brought, they brought the plane they

believed was going to do it, and they got the pilot they believed

was going to do it, which his name escaping me. It'll come to

me in a second. So he gets into this plane, the x1 and he starts

to he goes, he's pushing Mach one, same thing starts to

happen. The plane starts rattling uncontrollably. But

Chuck Yeager did something. Did something nobody. The others

didn't do. What do you think that was?

I don't know.

He leaned forward on the pedal. Instead of pull

back, he leaned forward in the most intense time. He leaned

forward and he said the moment he broke the sound barrier,

everything went still. Everything went still. He said

you could serve tea to the Queen up there. My message is just

because it's turbulent, just because it's dark, just because

it feels hopeless. Something is holding you. Something is

holding you, and right on the other side of this wound or pain

is gold for you to discover. So don't leave before that miracle

happens.

Oh, thank you. I needed to hear that today. Thank

you for the way that you show up in the world.

Thank you for having me and giving me the time

to chit chat with you. It's really enjoyable. Thank you.

You.