Men

Men are in many ways under attack in today’s world.  We can use the rate of heart attacks among men, suicide, addiction and violence as metrics.

I am acutely aware of the challenges that countless individual men face as men these days, and have lost men to these inner and outer battles.  But it’s not just the pain I feel that has me passionate about working with and defending the lives of men.  There are at least a few men alive today, who thank me for the fact that they are still alive and that their children have loving fathers in their lives.  I know if I keep working, there will be more.

If you know of my work, you likely know me as a facilitator of co-ed groups, such as my iStands.  Or for the work I did for a few years with women in groups and individually.

I have a deep passion for understanding and becoming masterful with human dynamics, in particular those related to self-authorship and facilitating myself, others and groups towards peaceful and powerful self-authorship: inner guidance, inner conflict, interpersonal conflict, interpersonal conflict, etc.

My greatest passion, however, lies in working with men.  And finally, over the last several years, I have been turning a lot of my attention and creative efforts towards men and the challenges and crises that individual men face in today’s world.

I grew up in a very religious Mormon family with a very strong sense of my identity and unique responsibility as a man, in particular as a Mormon man in the last days of the world–and just like other Mormon men, a son of the almighty God chosen for the last days of the world.  Becoming a man, for me, could have been as simple as faithfully following the traditions for males of my people, the teachings and expectations of my father and mother, the teachings of men of authority in our tribe, and the voice I heard as that of my Heavenly Father.  The first big conflicts I faced as a young man in life were about being true to myself in the face of:

• the temptations of “the devil,
• the every day challenges of being a man in today’s world,
• all the religious and spiritual training, conditioning–and love–I’d received from my parents, men of authority in the church and my Heavenly Father.
• and my own inner guidance.

After breaking from the Church and the expectations of my tribe and family, I bumped into the training, conditioning and expectations of culture–in particular, my American culture.  For me, being a man required confronting the conflicts of what my culture asked and expected of me, and what my mind, body and heart asked and needed from me.

The offerings I have for men that are coming soon are a reflection of my personal quest for freedom, honor, strength, courage, vitality and a life worth living as a man in today’s world.