When Men Change- Pain and Longing

          My divorce was one of the most painful times in my life. Though I was not legally married and facing legal and financial issues, the emotional ones were as daunting as those of other men I have heard from. And there was a child involved which amplified the heartbreak many fold.

It was at this time I felt incredibly vulnerable and raw and spoke with people at a level of honesty and realness that broke with the usual everyday movements of carrying out the business of my life.

It was this pain point that had me re-examine what was truly important to me, searching for new ground to stand on, even a redefinition of who I was and why I was here. It involved taking a hard look at old patterns and behaviors that were not serving me, my default ways of operating in the world programmed from boyhood on about what it meant to be a “real” or successful man.

In the licking of my wounds, a new “call” emerged from the pain and within that call was a longing for something more and bigger. I could not fully know at that dark time I was actually in a chrysalis and about to emerge into a whole new life with new people who would become friends, family and community, all that I would need to grow new wings and fly.

These days when I work with other men at these points of life transition, I realize I am working with myself, the men mirror my past pain and longing for an expanded life of greater joy and fulfillment.

The biggest obstacle facing so many boys and men today is isolation, a lack of societal support for growing up in healthy, purposeful and productive ways that provide deeper meaning, a sense of personal mastery and belonging for each developing boy and man at every stage of life.

Fortunately, there is a worldwide movement whose leaders understand that it takes a village to help break through the isolation and raise a man. It is called The Mankind Project, (MKP) is 35 years along in its evolution and spans several continents and countries. The signature experience provided by MKP is a powerful weekend rite of passage for young men and older that recognizes the Hero’s Journey given higher profile in our modern culture by the great mythologist and educator Joseph Campbell. Over 60,000 men have experienced these powerful weekends, supporting men to begin defining purpose and success on their own terms.

Now in it’s third year the MKP sponsored Man On Purpose course provides a seven-week teleseminar that builds real community for men with virtual technology that can enable communication and heartfelt connection across continents. The course attracts men acknowledging and courageously taking a risk to doing something about their pain and longing.

My role in this Man On Purpose community is to work with its instructors/facilitators to provide the men who enroll in the course an introduction to the power and ease of the Passion Test, now the number one tool used in 52 countries to help people get clear about their passion and purpose and support them to live their life based on what most brings them alive and feeds their souls, as well as their pocketbooks!

My team of five men Passion Test facilitators living in North America, the Caribbean and Australia work with men in or close to their home regions or time zones to get clear about and decide to live their passions fully as an integral part of the Man On Purpose course supporting men on their hero’s journey toward a greater sense of passion-infused purpose. Some of these course participants have recognized it is a part of their greater life purpose to serve other men on their journey out of isolation and are choosing to become certified Passion Test facilitators as a powerful complement to other processes and tools they can use in their lives, professions and businesses.

If you know a man in pain or longing for more, there is something you can do. You can visit www.mkp.org to find a local or regional presence of the global Mankind community. There are men willing to talk to that man if he is even a little open to having a conversation with someone who understands what he is going through or is longing for.

And you can talk to me about how men can access the Passion Test and global family of facilitators that is growing daily. Randy@thepassiontest.com

The women’s movement began with leaders naming a problem with no name, and then taking bold leadership to change the world. The men’s movement has named the challenge as well and in partnership with women is making life better for millions. It is sometimes painful for me to know we have not reached everyone yet and I long for the day when we’ve ended men’s isolation and created communities everywhere that make a real difference in men’s lives, helping those men make a difference in their worlds and the lives of others. 

How We Make Bullies

       It all began with a conversation about hats or rather stories about hats, one about a hat that was yanked off and stolen. Soon, one after another of us starting talking about our place in the pecking order and bullying when we were boys. In our men’s group its “cool” to talk about this stuff, giving each of us more perspective on our own lives and drawing us closer to one another.

       Though we were focused on our victim stories, when do we—any of us-- actually talk about who bullies are and where they come from?

       The anti-bullying movement in some schools and communities is well underway. It can often seem like all the other what I would call “Just Say No” efforts (e.g. drugs, sex) this one largely and importantly tending to the needs of the harassed and abused. Certainly helping young people stand up for themselves is critical. Where in this whole perpetrator-victim dynamic do we more fully address the root causes and the perpetrator as well so that we actually can begin to stop it at the source?

       In my sometimes desultory rummaging around for information, I occasionally stumble onto something or someone that addresses the heart of the matter and brings it home, literally home.

A parenting educator by the name of Ashley Trexler is spot on with going beyond the usual suspects in the creation of a bully, notably, overly permissive parenting, violent video games and abuse. She observes that even well meaning parents may be sabotaging their own efforts to raise, kind, caring kids through unconscious modeling and behaviors. She asserts bullying starts and ends with an imbalance of power and that bullying is simply a means to gain more power.

       In her piece, 8 Ways You Might Be Helping To Raise A Bully, some of what parents, grandparents and even non-parents bring or don’t bring to the lives of children reap some counter-productive rewards. Here are the eight in summary.

Gossiping:

If you want to raise a mean boy or girl, act like one. Ashley Trexler shares about her young daughter mimicking her after she was on the phone presumably talking trash about someone, which she equated with no better than outright bullying. How often do we do that in the presence of younger people thinking it’s harmless or just as bad, not thinking at all? They watch our every move.

Too busy:

When we don’t have the time or make it a point to tell our partner or family members we love them in front of the children or express affection, they miss out on learning about intimacy. When you show them you care, they learn to show others they care.

The hates:

You hate your job, are dissatisfied with your home or finances or body but do little to change it. That makes us look pretty helpless in the eyes of the young and when we are their heroes but demonstrate powerlessness it can make them feel powerless. They may act that out elsewhere to reclaim power through bullying behavior.

Mini-me syndrome:

Trexler says that today’s culture encourages us to treat children as mini-adults sometimes fully disclosing financial burdens, family illnesses and work issues regularly such that we add more stress to our children’s lives. Bullying can be an outlet for their stress.

Over scheduling:

Another pressure some add to their children’s lives is getting them to participate in everything for fear their children will end up being disadvantaged. Out of that fear they fill their children’s schedule with non-stop extra-curricular activities even though the damaging effects of full schedules are now well documented. Over scheduling can produce anxiety, anger and aggression, paving the way for bullying behavior.

Inconsistent rules:

A parent’s job is often a stressful one and constant enforcing of lots of rules can be a part of that stress, putting the parent in the role of cop. The more rules, the more likely the cop will slip, sending mixed messages through inconsistency. What can help both a parent and a child is to have just a few ground rules that are consistently enforced. Then giving children freedom within those boundaries can foster a healthy sense of power and independence.

Wincing and watching:

When we observe bullying behavior as a bystander and do nothing to intervene while our children are watching, we send them a powerful message that this behavior is okay. Of course we don’t want to be in harm’s way or place our children at risk. But there are different ways to react other than turning a blind eye and how we respond teaches our children much about how to handle this part of life.

Forcing kids to share:

Trexler talks about sharing as a learned skill over time. Forcing kids to share by taking something from them and giving it to someone else, a toy or anything can backfire. Talk about, share about and teach sharing by loaning something they may want to explore, offer a bite of your dessert or help with a difficult chore. Forced sharing results in a feeling of powerlessness.

She says, “Be the person your kid wants you to be, so your kid can grow to be the person you want them to be.”

And by that, I believe she means the kind, caring, sharing, giving, compassionate and collaborative person we as adults may aspire to be. Now that sounds like a hefty insurance policy for doing our best to avoid the making of bullies to me.

Ashley Trexler is dedicated to debunking parenting myths and helping parents raise kind caring kids. She can be found at www.LiesAboutParenting.com

Another resource is Sarah Hamaker, a leadership parenting coach and blogger at www.parentcoachnova.com She is the author of 10 Ways to Help Your Kid Be A Conversationalist

Who Would You Be Without Your Story?

            Who would you be without your story that you as a man should do this or that? Who would you be without your story about what you need, what it should look like? Who would you be without your story that begins with “I’m just this way” or “I’ve always been this way?”

One of the things I seem to continue to bump into are my stories, read beliefs, about who I really am and what I am here on earth for. Some of my current personal narrative, quite a lot really, is about helping myself and others lead a passionate and purposeful life. And getting to do exactly what I want most of the time, and on my time. That all feels good and I want to keep that the main theme.

There are other stories and beliefs though that when they arise trigger unwanted feelings with physical contraction and tightness I can call pain. And when these stories continue looping through my brain, the pain and suffering can be prolonged.

Often these stories consist of characters in my past and present I feel at odds with or have judgment about, situations where things just did not go well and continued in that direction. Since the past is no more, it’s only my thoughts about and interpretation of a situation, right or wrong, real or imagined that continue to haunt me and steal my energy. Other stories are about what may happen in some future. In this kind of story or thought train I am anticipating a negative or destructive future that just does not exist.

That puts me in mind of the famous American humorist and author Mark Twain who was quoted as saying, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

So how does one keep that kind of thought train from pulling into the same station time after time, spewing toxic exhaust and making noise in one’s life?

Recently I spent nine days with Byron Katie, originator of a process she developed to pull herself out of a deep depression and misery. Katie co-wrote Loving What Is and I Need Your Love, Is That True? as well as other literature helping people all over the world question their thinking that is causing them stress, pain, suffering and separation. Three times a year she teaches a course called The School for The Work, a school she says is the school of “wonderful wonderful YOU.”

There, with a couple hundred other participants, I spent time completely immersed in the process known as The Work, questioning my thoughts and thinking about different aspects of my life and personality that irritate, provoke or trigger irritations, resentments, disappointments and expectations that have plagued me over time. When engaged in with an open mind, this inquiry process provided us a power lift up and away from the old nags, a remarkable and transformative return to who we really are when we take the time to examine these thoughts that can separate us from or cause us to lose sight of our essentially loving, whole, exuberant, enthusiastic, creative and curious selves.

And like other profoundly powerful processes I use, it is amazingly simple and accessible to anyone with half an open mind. Beginning with a particular belief statement, one asks four questions:

“Is it true?” Yes or No. 

Can you absolutely know it’s true? Yes or No.

How do you react and what happens when you believe the thought?

Who would you be without that thought?

After answering these four questions yourself or having someone else ask you, you look for the opposite of the belief or statement you are working with and explore whether there is any truth or evidence that would suggest it is true or truer than the original statement.

Here’s an example of a statement I was recently questioning with one of my co-graduates of the nine-day school.

Belief Statement: Sylvester (name changed to protect the innocent) treated our friendship as a burden

1.)  Is it true Sylvester treated our friendship as a burden. Yes or No?

2.)  Can you absolutely know that Sylvester treated our friendship as a burden? Yes or No?

3.)  How do you react and what happens when you believe the thought that Sylvester treated our friendship as a burden? How do you treat them? How do you treat yourself?

I get a constriction in my throat. I feel anger, sadness, and frustration. I don’t make an effort to communicate and separate myself from Sylvester denying him my friendship. I judge myself as less than evolved for not getting over it and for judging him as the perpetrator when I am just as responsible for the break.

4.)  Who would you be without that thought that Sylvester treated our friendship as a burden?

If I never had that thought I would be free to focus on what was good about the friendship. I would not hold my friend in contempt and might make an effort to reach out. I’d be emotionally light and open.

After the four questions, one looks for a “turnaround.”

Sylvester did not treat our friendship as a burden.

I looked for and found many examples for how that was true or truer than the original statement that Sylvester treated our friendship as a burden.

I treated our friendship as a burden.

I looked for and found some truth to this one as well.

I treated me as a burden.

Some turnarounds don’t immediately make sense until one recognizes that one’s own thinking can be a burden and in this case my carrying around this thought about Sylvester was truly weighing me down. I was burdening myself!

I can truly say that I felt differently and thought differently after just this one session doing The Work. Whether I take some action or not is almost beside the point. The point, as Katie says, is this.

You can take all this to your grave or you can use inquiry (The Work) to lighten your load and more fully enjoy every inch of your life, being open to what Reality actually presents to us, rather than holding on to and continuing to react to painful images of the past, or anticipating a scary or negative future that has not happened.

I strongly encourage any man open to it, to explore the possibilities of doing The Work to gain greater freedom and flexibility in life. Boys, as well as men can be assisted in this process too as another way to question the notions of masculinity that cause harm and destruction in their daily lives.

For more information about The Work, simply search

thework.com

You can watch the remarkably clear and loving Katie doing The Work with others and download enough free materials to get you started.

Man-A Woman's Best Friend

I know a man that for 20 years has been a faithful friend to his wife, staying by her side through breast cancer, an auto-immune disease making it extremely difficult to walk, sometimes affecting vision and the use of her hands, more breast cancer requiring surgery and chemo, a broken hip; year after year of countless doctor visits and treatments, some very painful. With all that, their lives together have also been wonderful and magical in so many ways-- the love and committed friendship, the wife will tell you, has meant everything. They live far beyond mere survival and enjoy a quality of life unimaginable but for that deep and abiding commitment. It’s been a beautiful thing for me to witness up close.

There are so many examples of men as friends, allies and partners with women in intimate relationships, work relationships, co-operating in extreme adventure of all kinds and quality; from war to space exploration, parenting to politics. Old tropes about a battle between the sexes is not only outdated, it never was true. There has always been a “partnership society,” even in the midst of bigoted pedagogues, oppressive patriarchal regimes and distorted religions that would have it otherwise. I am talking about partnerships that do not place anyone above another on the basis of gender and exhibit a deep honoring of each other’s strengths and gifts.

That said, those regimes and distorted religions have much to do with why partnership societies are far from universal in the 21^st century. The idea that men are superior and women are inferior is still a mental virus afflicting significant portions of populations around the world. The symptoms of the disease; sexual harassment, rape in war, the military, universities and elsewhere, domestic violence, the large scale sex and slavery trades, genital mutilation, female infanticide, wage inequality and others must be treated along with implementing the cure.

Among the many allies and friends of women is a 90-year-old man whose efforts are among the most widespread, thorough and often effective on a global scale. He was the 39^th American President, and the only one that did not start or maintain a war but used what political influence he had to wage peace. He is Jimmy Carter and with his equal partner in life Rosalyn and his team of 175 at the Carter Center established in l983 works tirelessly to eliminate disease, injustice, inequality and violence in dozens of countries.

And while doing so, Jimmy Carter now writes passionately about his chief mission in life—to end violence against and discrimination of women in all forms with a particular emphasis on examining the abuse of religion that becomes a tool for justifying discrimination. A biblical scholar and teacher for life, Jimmy Carter works with other religious scholars who agree that there is no authentic basis for discrimination in religious texts, only out of context and distorted references that speciously support dominance and control, a sense of male entitlement and privilege that has no basis in reality and would not be approved of by the original founders or the source of inspiration for the creation of world religions.

Jimmy Carter's new book A Call To Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power draws attention to the symptoms I mentioned above and provides the impassioned but calm, balanced and fair treatment of the problem with a perspective that all men could benefit from, as men also suffer when their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and communities are diminished or destroyed by this discrimination that affects everyone.

"It's not a so-called woman's issue," Jimmy insists. "All of society is affected by what is both an injustice and a tragedy.

In reading the book I have to admit that with my erstwhile background in rape and domestic violence education and men’s role in family planning and parenting notwithstanding, there are staggering statistics that took me by surprise. Case in point, there are more slaves today than before the US Civil War, most of these women and tens of thousands passing through Carter’s native state of Georgia, USA!

If statistics seem cold and aloof, Carter’s reach for collaborative solutions are anything but. I was inspired and encouraged to learn about how many men at high levels of leadership care and are involved in doing larger scale systems thinking while generating and delivering solutions on the ground in partnership with women. Carter is a member of an international group of men and women called The Elders, many of them former leaders of state. The men in this working group have either recovered from the mental virus that still helps drive isolated, marginalized and disenfranchised young men to a movement like ISIS or they were fortunately exposed as I was at an earlier age to the truth about gender equality by select families, teachers and communities.

So, what then is the cure for the ongoing violence and discrimination? Running with my epidemiological metaphor a bit longer, we need an anti-viral agent. And as with most diseases the cure often comes in the same package as the disease, or the solution is contained within the problem.

The virus we want to spread is the news about boys and men being inherently good—I’ve never known a male baby to go to war or rape someone. We begin as whole human beings, malleable, but whole. One powerful protein in this positive virus is parenting. How we cuddle and talk to boys, the messages they receive about their inherent worth and lovability is not turning them into something they are not to begin with, it’s maintaining and further nurturing their strong sense of self and humanity. We need to root out sometimes invisibly different treatment boys receive in school that fosters bad or anti-social behavior and see to it that any and all kinds of sexist references in media are eliminated. We need to help boys discover and live their passions and talents with teaching and mentoring that supports their passions and sense of purpose.

One of the strongest proteins in this pro-virus are the men who are consciously building strong communities to provide women-respecting role models of what it means to be a man as a partner with women, modeling that at home, work and in public in a variety of ways and scales.

Having worked with former gangbangers creating new lives for themselves, I know that much of the violence they were forced into perpetrating is simply a distorted means to receiving attention, recognition, a sense of belonging and even love. And that they were usually first violated in some way before they violated others. From gangbangers, to campus and military rapists, to tribal warlords and ruthless despots, under these distortions of maleness is the need for human closeness and friendship that remains constant. It is possible for every man to learn how to be a woman’s best friend. Let’s join Jimmy.

Read more here: http://theelders.org/article/jimmy-carter-womens-man

Become aware of and join the larger global movement called 1 Billion Rising Revolution now joining together people and partnerships across all nations

Please click this link: http://www.onebillionrising.org/rise-raise

Men and Worthiness

It felt like a dam had broken, behind which debris had gradually collected slowing the flow to a trickle. Such a relief, such a renewal to finally blast through the seemingly impenetrable mass that had lodged itself in my heart and loins for far too long.

What am I talking about? I am referring to what I call the “dam of shame.” And no doubt most men and boys can relate.

It’s become clear to me over the years that lack of self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, self-love lies at the root of any darkness, any shadow, any violence done to self or others at the hands of men, from the bedroom to the boardroom, from addiction to depression to suicide and homicide. I learned this on my own personal battlefields as a boy and as a man and could see it clearly in those I worked to help liberate from the confines of their isolation, protection and defensiveness in the face of societal and self judgment about one’s worthiness.

What I’d not yet taken full measure of in myself though was the depth at which the silt had deposited behind this dam of shame. And that shame is by quality and degree a different animal that strikes at the very soul of a man and his sense of worthiness…. deeper than guilt, deeper than humiliation and embarrassment.

With the help of social work professor and author Brene Brown whose work with shame is groundbreaking in this generation, I’ve come to understand that shame is a feeling that cuts you off at the knees because it gives you absolutely no where to go. Unlike guilt which is about something you did being bad, shame internalizes the message that YOU are bad and unworthy of love or belonging. Unlike guilt, with shame there is no bad behavior to stop or change. It’s all about you. As Brown says, “Shame corrodes the sense we can do or become better…..You need a platform of self-worth to change.”

What’s shaming for me may not be shaming for you. In my case, earning less money at some point or having less intimate connections than what I expected of myself as a good provider and a good lover gradually slowed the flow of generative and sexual energy. It was that continuous crippling self-judgment drawn straight from the blueprint for a man’s success referred to in my previous post that began the construction of the dam of shame.

The question is, how does one tear it down, releasing the debris and allowing the larger flow of life, lightness, creativity, love and connection to course through one’s life again?

Brene Brown speaks about the concept of “shame resilience.” Two characteristics that come up in definitions of resilience are “toughness,” and “elasticity.” In neuro-science resilience depends partly on communication between the reasoning circuitry in the brain’s cortex and the emotional circuitry of the limbic system.

Deconstructing the shame dam takes some mental toughness, only established by repeated rejections of any idea that I as a man am anything less than lovable and worthy just for who I am. Yes, my actions matter, my deeds count but they do not justify my existence. My existence needs no justification. I am here and I belong or I would not be here. That’s the conversation the cortex needs to have with the limbic system to pull apart and defuse the feeling of shame.

Sometimes the shame dam can only be pulled apart one chunk at a time. Once the first chunk is removed though, it can become easier to pull out more chunks until it feels as though the whole thing can finally come tumbling down.

One way to begin for me was to share with a non-judgmental friend these unwanted messages and dreaded feelings, in this case another man who is well aware of the damage and incapacitation of shame. Someone who cannot only listen but also encourage and cheer me on.

I found it essential to face the beast and name it out loud for starters. Literally say,
I have shame about_______________________. Interestingly the moment I did that, just that alone, the monster immediately downsized.

This was after listening to the two one hour recordings of Brene Brown disclosing about her own shame, how to understand and deal with it. And considerable soul searching on my part.

Then, I finally felt prepared to talk to the person most affected by my shame other than me, my life partner. We had a heart to heart that I know had been a long time coming.

In my case, the results were pretty immediate. Breaking open the dam meant that I could get a bunch of that energy flowing again, into my creativity and into our intimacy.

I felt like I had my mojo back! Cause for celebration.

Another ring of support was my ongoing men’s support group, more great guys that care enough to share and share what’s most important in life.

In years past I recall joining circles of men, sometimes men and women around a fire to perform a “banishment ritual.” In that ritual ceremony one writes down on a piece of paper something that no longer serves them that needs to be released in order to move forward in life. Then each person says out loud or keeps silent what needs to go and tosses the paper into the fire, watching that shedding of the old go up in smoke.

The deliberate intention, heightened emotion and group solidarity involved makes ritual a powerful agent of release and transformation.

I am not going to say it’s easy, it’s not. I do believe and can testify that the benefits of deconstructing and releasing shame are enormous. If you can commit to that kind of "tough," I know you can achieve the ultimate elasticity and gain or regain your most shame resilient self.

Highly recommended up close and personal talk by Brene Brown:

http://www.soundstrue.com/store/men-women-and-worthiness-2911.html

A Man's Success

True or False?

A man’s success is determined by his net worth.

A man’s success is measured by how well he provides for his family materially.

A man’s success is equated with how much power and influence he wields in the world.

A man’s success is based on how much he produces.

A man’s success depends on how smart, formally educated and clever he is.

How many of these did you answer true? How many false?

Beyond arguments of right and wrong for any of these statements, which statements have had the most impact in your life? Which ones most influenced your decisions about how you’ve spent or are spending your lifetime?

I believe that our ideas of what constitutes success literally become the blueprint for how we make our life decisions and lead our lives. The blueprint formed by the statements above is one that becomes programmed early in a boy’s life and for most men becomes the very basis of their lives. I know these statements have had an impact on how I view myself and other men.

Is there really any other way to look at what makes for success in a man’s life?

In the film, Bucket List, with death knocking at their doors, two older guys conspire to do what they had not yet done, the list mostly consisting of physical feats and things, stuff they may have put off while busy following societal scripts for success and being responsible adults.

In contrast, a palliative care nurse in Australia discovered a different kind of bucket list when she counseled dying patients in their last 12 weeks on earth. There was no mention of more sex or skydiving. Instead she asked about and heard common regrets. Among the top regrets for men was, “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

Here are the top five regrets in a nutshell.

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

"This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.”

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

"Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."

If this retrospective laser clarity can appear at the end of a man’s life, why not sooner, why wait until it’s too late to realize real fulfillment? Why not define success for yourself now and live that at whatever age you are?

The most profoundly simple and powerful process I know for that is The Passion Test. It’s given me deep confirmation of what is most important and what brings me the most happiness in my life. It then gives me a baseline from which to begin living that way from where I am, one step at a time. It has given me and tens of thousands of others a way to define success on their own terms in the face of old blueprints, old scripts of what others have told them about success and how their worth is measured.

The question is: Are you ready to trade the “comfort of familiarity”, old stories, patterns and habits referred to by palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware for a life filled with even more happiness and success (on your terms) than you may have imagined?

I welcome you to join me for an hour of that self-discovery. I have my wife and business partner Karin Lubin take me through the process at the end of each year and beginning of the next. And I do the same for her. Having someone ask you questions so you can listen to your own heart’s answers is profound.

And finally this from the new book by 88 year old pop and jazz singer Tony Bennett, Life Is A Gift: The Zen of Tony Bennett

"Shed the idea of competition, and of being the best. Instead, desire to improve only by being yourself."

"If you follow your passion, you'll never work a day in your life."

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Bronnie Ware recorded her patient’s dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose by Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood   (a NY Times best-seller that has stayed at the top of Amazon lists for years)

NEW! Your Hidden Riches: Unleashing the Power of Ritual to Create a Life of Meaning and Purpose by Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood with Sylva Dvorak, PH.D  Recently released and already a NY Times best-seller Your Hidden Riches reaffirms the value of the principles and process of The Passion Test inside a treasure trove of rituals for making your ideal life come true one ritual at a time.

True Friendships Among Men

I was having a hard time of it. Really struggling to keep my head on straight and emotionally spent. A friend called just to see how I was doing.

He did not share his opinions.

He did not try to give me advice or win me over to seeing things his way.

He did not start talking about all the things my situation reminded him of.

He did not start talking about other people.

He did not do much talking at all.

In that moment, what he did not do defined as much of what I consider authentic friendship as what he did do.

So what then did he do, this friend?

My second sentence from the top is a giveaway.

He just called to see how I was doing--- with no other agenda.

After he asked the question, he listened. Really listened. So well I could tell he was not quietly constructing the next thing he was going to say. He was present for me.

Many men today have a difficult time doing this. I’ve spent years learning it and am committed to getting better at it for the rest of my life. I’ve come to see not doing it can leave me and other men feeling isolated, lonely, friendless and depressed.  Learning and practicing this has provided me with untold benefits, surprises and treasures. You may have heard the expression, “if you want friends, be one.” Well here is a pretty good place to begin. When was the last time you called up a man friend just to see how he was doing….and then listened?

With the kinds of training and conditioning boys and men receive that pits them against each other in the competition and comparison game, the homophobia that only more recently is beginning to ease up in some cultures, and the epidemic problem of depression in both young and older men, men are often challenged to find models of true friendship, and further to create and sustain their own. Many men carry a big load of hurt from absent, neglectful, emotionally distant or abusive fathers or father figures. And from an early age we’ve been separated from other boys and men by ruthless competition. It’s no surprise that many men only feel comfortable being close and vulnerable with women, or more particularly with one woman. That dependency comes with it’s own problems for both men and women.

What do I mean by “true friendship” with other men?

I’ll begin with two elements that the great American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson believed formed the backbone of his closest relationships with men. I believe they form mine as well.

Emerson said that these two elements were equally important.

“One is truth. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and so equal that I may drop even those undergarments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another….

…The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and trifle—but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed and we so pure that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal of fortune.”

There are most certainly as many ways to express friendship as there are actual friendships, and the language with which we express our truth and tenderness can vary in form.

I so appreciate the work of Gary Chapman and his series of books beginning with The Five Love Languages. Gary talks about how people have different preferences for the way they both receive and give love in relationships. The way they prefer to receive and get most filled up is generally the way they deliver it to others, usually not recognizing that their friends or partner may have a different preference. The five languages are:

Acts of Service

Words of Appreciation

Physical Affection

Gifts

Quality Time

My top two love language preferences that are pretty much guaranteed to fill me up are Quality Time and Words of Appreciation.

One of my great passions in life is to spend quality time with friends, which can range from a half hour phone call to a multi-week outdoor adventure. Because it is so difficult for many men to initiate that, I often find myself to be the one to do so and am so thrilled and grateful when others initiate, even if I have to decline an invitation to talk in the moment or get together right away.

The important thing to understand here is that when you learn the love language preferences of your friend, new or old, you are taking another step closer to true friendship by speaking their language instead of just your own. 

For example, if I get that my friend’s preference for receiving love is helping him work on his car, house or boat, (Acts of Service) I offer to help. It’s also a pretty good fit as my preference is to spend Quality Time, which could really be doing most any activity as long as we are hanging out together.

There are many more aspects to the art of friendship and many reasons friendship is so important to me and others. My hope is that every man will in his life have close true friends, not to do what he can do for himself, but to reflect the best in him in order for him to be his best.

Another man I respect shares this about true friendship.

With every true friendship we build more firmly the foundations on which the peace of the whole world rests.  --Ghandi

Like what you’ve read here? Let the author know about your interest in the forthcoming book:

Lone Ranger No More: A Guy’s Guide to Making, Keeping and Letting Go of Friends

By Randy Crutcher

quantumrandy@gmail.com