Articles – Page 2 – Wholehearted Masculine

What Experience, Idea, or Dream Would You Share If You Knew Someone Would Truly Listen?

Ever had an epiphany so brilliant that you gave yourself goosebumps? Or an experience so magical that no description could ever do it justice? What about a dream so vulnerable that you’d never dare share it with the world? Or a spontaneous insight so well articulated that it almost seemed to channel through you?

I’ve experienced all of these things, but I’ve spent a lifetime subconsciously pretending that they aren’t real and that they don’t matter.

Why? Because I want what pretty much every other person wants: to feel a sense of love and belonging in the world. And I fear that revealing these deeper experiences, ideas, and dreams will make people think I’m naive, at best, if not downright crazy. I fear being misunderstood. I fear being ridiculed. So I keep it to myself. Most of us do.

Why are we so afraid to speak the truth about our experiences? Why does it feel so dangerous and vulnerable to ‘go deep’ in conversations and share from our hearts? What are we missing out on when we don’t share our deepest visions, most radical ideas, and most sacred experiences with one another? How might our lives – and the world – be different if we did?

What I’m finding is that fear and shame are often the main blocks on the path toward this deeper level of connection. I fear the innate vulnerability of speaking my truth without filters, qualifiers, or escape routes. Yet what I’ve found when I do go deep with people is that they are hungry to go there with me.

Once we get past the inevitable nervous laughter and dismissive language, we usually find ourselves connecting on a level that drops below the surface in some incredibly healing ways. And the friendship and camaraderie that come out of these interactions always feel stronger than what I experience with folks when we keep our conversations at the surface level.

Going Deep

Chances are you’ve tried sharing with people on this deeper level. Maybe you’ve found one or two close friends who can meet you there. Perhaps you’re even fortunate enough to explore these areas with a partner or family member.

Or, maybe you feel totally alone. Maybe you have no one to talk to about what matters most. Perhaps you long to be met in this way by someone. Or maybe you’ve never even considered the possibility..

Wherever you are, consider that you may have barely scratched the surface of a vast inner pool of wisdom – of visions, ideas, and dreams – that exist within you. Consider that you are not a machine made of flesh and bones, but a living and ever-evolving human organism made up of trillions of cells, co-conspiring to be you in this moment.

So why is it so scary to believe that we are born worthy of love and belonging and that our stories and dreams matter more than we can even imagine? As Marianne Williamson once wrote, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most.”

Practicing Healthy Vulnerability

Sit for a minute and consider what experiences, ideas, and dreams you have hidden, for fear of being called idealistic, foolish, or crazy. Pick one that you wish you could share with someone. One that feels deeply true to you, but that you’re concerned that no one else would understand or believe.

Now, if it feels right to you, consider sharing it. You might start by writing it down in a journal. Then, perhaps, try sharing it with a trusted loved one. Be sure you share it at a time when both of you can be present and undistracted. Allow yourself to stay present and stick with it, even through all of the nervousness and vulnerability. Don’t let your fears stop you! Be sure not to try to convince the other person of anything – just share for the sake of sharing.

Once you’ve spoken, invite them to meet you in that deeper place by holding the silence and/or asking them a question like, “is there anything you ever wished you could share, but thought no one else would understand?” Don’t demand that they share their darkest secrets! And don’t be attached to the outcome; they might not be ready yet. It may still feel too vulnerable or unusual for them to meet you in that way.

No worries. Healthy vulnerability is like a muscle; the more we practice using it, the stronger and more flexible we become. And the more comfortable we become with our vulnerability, the less power our fears have over us.

How would your life be different if you allowed yourself to truly be seen?

With fierce loving compassion,

Dan

by admin

Articles

Why Don’t You Cry About It? Part 2: Unlocking the Power of Tears

In my last post, Why Don’t You Cry About It? Part 1: The Fear of Letting Go, I talked about how I took-on the belief that men aren’t supposed to cry, I outlined the many ways that my defense mechanisms have kept me numb, and I shared a call to action for men all over the world to wake up and re-learn how to express and release our feelings.

Today’s post is about how I am actively unlocking the power of tears in my life. It’s about what’s at stake if I choose to stay numb, and what’s possible if I choose to re-awaken my senses and feel the world again.

I invite you to read my story, knowing that each person’s path back to authentic emotional expression is unique. Yours might look very different from mine. And there’s no right or wrong way to do it. But it all begins with having the courage to be willing to push your boundaries and try something new.

My Story

I arrived at a little movie theater on Whidbey Island just after the sun set on a clear, brisk winter evening. Down the road, I could see gusts of wind shaping the cresting waves of the great Puget Sound. Soon, the new moon would rise above the swaying pine trees just beyond the village.

I walked up to the old ticket booth and caught eyes with the woman behind the glass. The film I had come to see was 12 Years A Slave, and I had chosen to come alone. I bought my ticket and walked in. Sitting down, I remembered all that I had heard about this film. It was “intense,” “overwhelming,” and “difficult to watch,” friends had told me. “But really important to see,” they had added. The lights dimmed.

At various moments during the film, I felt angry, sad, frustrated, ashamed, and overjoyed. By the end, my body was charged with all of these different feelings. When the final scene faded to black and the credits started rolling, I could feel my heart beating loudly. As the lights came up, everyone around me started talking with one another, standing up, and moving toward the exit. But not me. I was frozen in my seat.

My Choice

Sitting in that chair, I knew I had a choice: I could jump back into my head and let my defense mechanisms deflect and diminish my feelings, as I’d always done before. Or, I could slow down and stay present to the feelings that were alive in my body. for once, I chose to stay.

I could feel tears welling up, heart racing, body shaking slightly as I released into sensation. And yet, my mind’s defenses were right there talking to me the whole time, desperately trying to pull me out of my body to ‘protect’ me against the vulnerability of my emotions. Again and again, I consciously chose to remain present to what I was feeling.

The more I breathed deeply, the more the feelings amplified. When I looked up again, I was suddenly alone. The theater was totally abandoned and silent. The melodic music from the credits had long since faded. I took one more breath as I slowly stood up, walking down the long aisle, out the old wooden doors, and into the black night.

Making it back to my apartment, I opened the door into the cold, empty living room. It was 55 degrees inside, but I didn’t turn on the heat or flip on the lights. Instead, I lit a small candle and sat in the middle of the room gazing into the silent darkness. I allowed myself to stay in my body, letting the feelings build up within me. More breaths, this time from a deeper place within. Suddenly, I felt a drop on my hand and realized that it was a tear.

As I continued to breath, I opened my mouth and started allowing myself to create sound. It felt forced, at first, but soon I couldn’t stop. I was giving voice to the feelings inside. Then I sort of naturally began exhaling sharply from my stomach, mimicking the felt-experience of weeping. Before I knew it, I wasn’t faking it anymore. I was there. Tears flowed down my face as I wept, kneeling in the middle of my living room. And they just kept coming, like waves crashing against the shore. I couldn’t control them, and yet I remained calm and present.

I cried for a long time, before finally opening my eyes and slowing my breath back to a normal rate. My whole body was humming, vibrating with sensation. Grounded. Powerful. I felt alive like never before. And something was lighter. So much of the tension in my chest that I had become accustomed to had lifted. I felt as if I had been holding my breath for years and that now I could finally breathe again. And I remember feeling a sense of absolute fearlessness.

My Discovery

In that moment, I was so clear about my life’s purpose and so grounded in the wholeness of my physical existence that I felt a sweeping sensation of love emanating from my core; literally overflowing out into the room around me. It was a fiercely passionate, fiery kind of love. The kind that is concerned with fairness, justice, and freedom.

The kind that enables a person to stand up for what they know is right, no matter how dangerous the circumstances. The kind of love that cherishes the audacious beauty and grace of humanity in the midst of the most inhumane circumstances. And the kind of love that is at the core of the man I aspire to be in the world; at the heart of who I truly am.

It felt really damn good to finally awaken that sleeping dragon within me, once more. To give it space for its fullest expression. To learn to trust my body and open my heart. I was born to transform this great fire in my chest into powerful, creative, healing work in the world. We all are. We’ve just had the shit beat out of us by a society that normalizes violence and necessitates emotional numbness and physical disembodiment.

Waking Up

It’s time we look within and remember who we truly are. We are powerful, sensitive, brilliant, embodied beings, capable of extraordinary feats of strength, intelligence, beauty, and creativity. These capacities are already within us, laying dormant beneath layers of ancient defenses that have kept us living small. Locked away with the feelings we learned to imprison deep inside us.

The key to unlocking the fullness of who we are lies in the power of our tears. It is rooted in our willingness to explore our personal edges, let go of our need for control, and just be with our feelings. As we begin the long journey of returning to our senses – of feeling the world again – we must also learn to move our feelings in healthy ways. Otherwise, the tension that builds within can throw us right back into numbness. Or worse.

It’s a scary thing to start feeling again. There is so much pain in this world, it can bring us to the very edge of our sanity. But there is also beauty. All around (and within) us. Beauty that gives meaning to our existence. Beauty that we cannot see when we do not feel. Beginning to rediscover this beauty, now, is one of the most incredible experiences of my life. And, as I continue to reclaim the power of tears, I know I’ll be able to navigate the pain that inevitably accompanies it.

But right now, all I am present to is a deep feeling of joy humming in my heart, just like it was that night in my dark apartment. The joy of knowing that I am unlocking more passion, more confidence, and more love each time I choose to stay present with my breath, with my body, and with my feelings. The joy of feeling alive again.

I would never have guessed that these tears, which i’ve associated with so much pain, would also be the source of my greatest power. But it’s real. I’ve experienced it. And I’m never looking back.

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With fierce loving compassion,

Dan

by admin

Articles

Why Don’t You Cry About It? Part 1: The Fear of Letting Go

As a kid who experienced bullying in school, I learned quickly that vulnerability = weakness. Like so many teenage boys, I was bombarded with messages like “stop crying,” “man up,” and “don’t be such a pussy.” I was told that I was too sensitive and that I had to learn to be a man. I didn’t know what it meant to be a man, so I absorbed ideas of masculinity from movies, music, and my peers.

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Honestly, I still crack up watching that clip. It’s funny! But the reality is that it also contributes to the subtle but pervasive cultural shaming of male emotional expression. And hearing this kind of message over and over is how I learned that crying was something that strong men never did. The way real men expressed their emotions was through anger, violence and rage. This allowed them to maintain their sense of power and control, rather than breaking down and crying like a girl.

Man Up

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It seemed that men proved their manhood by belittling and harassing those who they deemed were not man enough. Most of the time, however, the men I looked up to never even showed signs of feeling much at all. I hated being bullied. So I tried being like them. And it worked: The less I showed my feelings, the less I was bullied. The more I kept it all inside, the less anyone could do to hurt me. But I never realized the harm I was causing within myself; I never realised the huge sacrifice I was making.

“Something missing within” was a self-description I heard from many men…[a]gain and again a man would tell me about early childhood feelings of emotional exuberance, of unrepressed joy, of feeling connected to life and to other people, and then a rupture happened, a disconnect, and that feeling of being loved, of being embraced, was gone. Somehow the test of manhood, men told me, was the willingness to accept this loss, to not speak it even in private grief. (p.15, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, by Bell Hooks)

The Fear of Letting Go

Over the years, I cried less and less. And I began noticing that I was more and more numb to my feelings and to my physical body in general. My mind took over, because it was the only ‘safe’ place for me to be. My body became nothing more than a machine to accomplish my mind’s bidding, rather than the incredible source of power and wisdom that I now know it to be. The only tears that I remember shedding in the past 15 years were associated with painful moments in my life: moments of shame, disappointment, and loss. I didn’t want to feel that pain anymore. And I didn’t feel safe expressing it. So I stored away all of the anger, sadness, and fear in my body.

This seemed like a great strategy until this mass of unreleased energy reached a boiling point and overwhelmed my system with tension and anxiety. It got to a point where I felt like I was going to explode. I just wanted to scream and punch something. I was angry and frustrated, but I didn’t know why. I was a long way from causing any violence, but I could see how the feelings I was experiencing – when left unchecked – can eventually spiral out of control to cause the kinds of stories we’ve been hearing on the news.

But the feeling I was most aware of was sadness. I could sense a deep sadness, like an ocean flowing just beneath the surface – waiting to pull me under, where I would be crushed and lost forever in tides of uncontrollable emotion. I was literally scared to death of what might happen if I ever actually allowed myself to ‘let go.’ To sit with my sorrow. To really feel what was within me.

Defense Mechanisms

This fear and frustration continued to build for many years. As I got older, I started to hear about the healing power of tears and how crying can release pent-up emotion and create a feeling of freedom. This sounded like exactly what I needed. And I was desperate.

For the past 4 years or so, I’ve actually been trying to cry. And finding myself unable to do so. I understand this may sound totally ridiculous to folks who find themselves in tears quite often, but it’s real. And it’s not just men who are stuck in this emotional deadzone. It feel like I’ve actually ‘forgotten’ how to cry. I just can’t seem to go there, even though I’ve tried many times.

My defense mechanisms are too damn capable and well-trained. Here are a few of the ways that my defenses have ‘guarded’ my heart from the vulnerability of emotional expression:

Close my eyes when I felt myself tearing up
Cross my arms to protect my heart
Avoid eye contact with people in order to stay a safe distance away
Lose sensation in my neck and jaw and become unable to talk

These protective defenses have impacted my everyday behavior in many ways as well:

Work long hours to distract myself from my feelings
Isolate myself in order to avoid the vulnerability of intimacy
Under-commit and over-perform in order to avoid disappointing anyone
Compete with and compare myself to others in order to prove my worth
Beat myself up in order to preempt potential criticism from others
And try to control everything in my life in order to avoid feeling pain

I still engage in many of these behaviors today. They are a constant nagging voice in my head that tells me to play it safe and live small by avoiding intimacy and emotional expression. They are part of an old story that I have unconsciously allowed to define my life. But now that I can see this clearly, I have the opportunity to write a different story than the one I’ve always believed was inevitable. So what will it look like?

Writing A New Story

The first step in writing this new story is to reconnect with my tears, to re-learn how to express my feelings. I know I need to release all of this buried emotion in order to free my body of the enormous tension and anxiety that has found a home there for far too long. I know I can’t bottle it up any longer. It’s killing me. And it’s negatively impacting every part of my life. But how do I do it?

These are uncharted waters. I have no idea what will happen next. And it’s bringing up a lot of fear within me. But I know that I am ready to take the leap..

Men: We need each other. We can’t do this alone. We need to talk to about our feelings. We need to stand up and share our fears, our failures, and our dreams. I don’t care how vulnerable that feels at first. It will get easier with time. And fuck what society tells us about “being a real man” and how we can’t cry. It’s time we grow up and stop letting our fears and insecurities define us. I don’t know about you, but I am done with feeling numb and disconnected. That is not the man I want to be in the world. That is not the man I truly am.

So my invitation to you is this: Let’s lean into our fears and find the courage to try something different. To explore new expressions of masculinity that no longer keep us boxed in, silent, and ashamed. We are meant for so much more than this numbed-out, defensive bullshit. We have the potential to be whole, integrated, emotionally-connected men: Clear, conscious, strong, and compassionate. We are those things already. We just have to drop the facade of who we think we’re supposed to be and allow our true selves to be seen. It’s time we rise together as wholehearted men. Will you take the leap?

With fierce loving compassion,

Dan

(Read Next: Part 2: Unlocking the Power of Tears …)

by admin

Articles

Transforming the Culture of Violence: Empathy Starts From Within

Yesterday afternoon, a 26 year-old white male gunman shot 4 people at Seattle Pacific University, just minutes from where I am staying in Northwest Seattle. One of the victims, a 20-year-old man, is dead. And another, a 20-year-old woman, is undergoing surgery for her gunshot wounds and remains in critical condition. This shooting comes less than two weeks after a guy named Elliot killed 6 students on the UC Santa Barbara Campus in California.

Why do these shootings keep happening? A broken mental health system? Insufficient gun control? Misogyny? Entitlement? These are each clearly part of the puzzle. But they don’t explain what I believe is at the root of it all: Numbness, shame, unreleased tension, and loneliness – all passed down through our patriarchal culture of masculinity.

Mark Manson wrote a post about the UC Santa Barbara shooting that got a lot of attention, in which he stated that the missing ingredient was empathy. The definition of empathy is: “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” It is only by doing our own work – by reconnecting with our own feelings – that we can learn to cultivate true empathy for others. As men, we rarely have any safe outlets for expressing our emotions. So it boils within us until it explodes.

What will it take to transform this culture of violence? Men like me need to re-learn how to express our feelings in safe and healthy ways. We need to actively seek out and create positive spaces for the release of emotional tension – tears of sadness, fits of rage, fear and desperation, loss and loneliness, shame and guilt – we need to bring it all to the surface in healthy ways. This is men’s work. And it is literally life or death.

It’s time we, as men, break through the facade of patriarchal masculinity and reclaim the feelings that are our birthright. Our bodies are not mere machines built to do the bidding of our minds. We are emotional beings. Sensual beings. Born fully capable of expressing what is in our hearts and caring for the feelings of those around us. And we are resilient; capable of feeling hurt, angry, sad, afraid, alone, ashamed, you name it – and bouncing back stronger than before.

We don’t need to hide anymore. The world cannot afford our numbness any longer. It’s time we open our hearts and remember who we truly are.

With fierce loving compassion,

Dan

by admin

Articles

What I Learned From Telling 100,000 People About My Porn Habit

This is the story of my journey as a man – moving from shame, silence, and secrecy to a powerful place of integrity, courage, and connection. A journey that will last a lifetime. I share my story as an invitation for each of us to sit with our fears and discover our own path toward a life of deep purpose, empathy, and authenticity. It’s time we step up and begin the challenging work of transforming our culture of violence into a culture of love, starting from within our own hearts.This is a call for the rise of wholehearted men.

Sharing My Story

I published One Man’s Journey: How I Quit Porn and Why I’m Not Going Back on my friend Jamie Utt’s blog two days before Valentine’s Day. I had struggled for weeks to work up the courage to write and share such a personal and vulnerable part of my life story, but in my heart I knew that it had to be shared. But damn! I was nervous. On that quiet February morning, after a few final edits, I finally took the leap and posted it on Facebook. I could never have prepared myself for what happened next.

In just a few hours, over 40 of my friends had shared the post on their walls and conversations about pornography, sexuality, and addiction were springing up all across my network. I was surprised that so many people were willing to host such a tough conversation on their facebook walls. Over the next few days, dozens of shares turned to hundreds, thousands, and soon over 10,000 shares on Facebook.

The conversation caught fire and spread quickly, and it seemed everyone had a position on the issue. Soon, other blogs took notice and the post was republished on The Good Men Project, Everyday Feminism, and YES! Magazine. Several weeks later, over 100,000 people had read it. I couldn’t keep up with the comments, and stories started pouring in from people all around the country and the world. One of the most prevalent themes that was emerging was shame.

Navigating Shame & Hypocrisy

Pornography, as a topic of conversation, is largely shrouded in secrecy on the one hand, and yet culturally normalized on the other. “Boys will be boys” and “everyone watches porn,” I’ve often heard people say. What I’ve found is that there is rarely ever space within this narrow dichotomy for any real, truthful exploration of the impacts of porn on our lives and relationships. And this astonishing absence of authentic communication with regard to such a prevalent and painful issue seems to create a feedback loop of normalization, dismissal, and ultimately addictive behavior, which is spiraling out of control on a massive scale.

This pattern appears to be supercharged by a society that mixes puritanical notions of sexuality with gender-based shame to create a perfect storm of sexual guilt, fear of intimacy, and unexpressed sexual energy that desperately needs an outlet. I was driven to consume pornography partially as an outlet for the enormous inexpressible tension that I felt in my body. But expressing my sexuality in this way actually took me out of my physical body and, over time, created a barrier to true intimacy.

This escape from intimacy was really just one more defense mechanism to ‘protect’ me from the inherent vulnerability of true connection. At times, watching porn certainly felt like a safer way to express my sexuality than having to navigate the emotional complexity of an actual real-life partnership. But I always felt that something was missing.

After my year without porn, I realized that what was most painfully missing was my sense of integrity. The domination, objectification, and sexism that I was witnessing in many of the porn videos was not in alignment with my personal values. And feeling my porn habit moving further and further out of my control made it difficult for me to love and trust myself. I fell into a subtle depression, marked by a general numbness and lack of joy in my life.

I began experiencing a sort of spiritual cognitive dissonance, a trance that held me down in a dark place of shame that fueled an addictive behavioral cycle in my life. But I couldn’t even see any of this at the time. I just knew something didn’t feel right.

I had to face the fact that what I valued and how I behaved were, in the case of pornography, painfully incongruent. The truth was, I was a hypocrite. Regardless of what I wanted to believe about myself. And, let me tell you, there is nothing in this existence that has ever pulled me deeper into shame than being called out as a hypocrite. That’s the worst.

And yet, paradoxically, owning that reality was the key that unlocked the door out onto this new path of integrity and wholehearted living. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. And I couldn’t have done it alone.

Asking for Help

Secrecy is what sustains shame. And shame fuels addiction. Open and honest conversations are the antidote to shame because they give us space to speak the truth about our experiences, to see that we’re not alone, and to reach out for support.

There is no way I could have achieved my goal of 1 year without porn if I hadn’t asked a dear friend of mine to hold me compassionately accountable to that goal.

If I ever felt that I was on the verge of breaking my personal commitment, I knew I could call him. And, because I shared my goal with a person who I deeply respect, I knew that I would do whatever it took to stay the course.

This combination of fierce accountability and compassionate support gave me the strength to make it through the year, and beyond – I’m grateful to say that I’m still porn-free today. And, it all started with the vulnerable act of identifying the problem and reaching out for support.

I had to look at my shame before I could transform my addiction. I had to admit to myself that there was a problem before I could begin healing, re-sensitizing, and reconnecting with the man I truly am. I had to allow myself the chance to speak the truth, and not let that truth pull me even deeper into shame. I had to practice compassion. And I had to celebrate my successes along the way, to keep the momentum – and my commitment – strong. This combination of honesty, self-awareness, commitment, and celebration helped me transform my life. And it all started with having the courage to be vulnerable.

Vulnerability = Courage

By putting myself out there in such a raw and vulnerable way, I had anticipated experiencing what Brene Brown calls a “vulnerability hangover” – where I would experience some kind of nervous breakdown and then never be the same again. And, while I never experienced that breakdown, I can say with 100% certainty that I’ll never be the same again.

Instead of experiencing a hangover, I felt a pulsing sense of joy and fulfilment in my heart unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I felt powerful, capable, and alive – as if every cell in my body was screaming “Yes! THIS is who you truly are!” I was living my life’s mission full-out and it felt incredible. I was no longer bearing the weight of secrecy. I had nothing to hide!

For the next 6 weeks, I felt high pretty much 24/7, riding a wave of abundant love, gratitude, and joy – grounded in a deep sense of alignment with my life’s purpose. I can only describe it as a feeling of electrifying joy, grounded presence and peaceful contentment, rippling into every part of my life.

I sit in a men’s circle with about 10 guys from my community where we hold space for one another to share our feelings and life experiences in safe and authentic ways. For months prior to sharing my story with the world, I remember often coming to the circle with feelings of sadness and numbness.

Now, all I wanted to do was scream for joy at the top of my lungs. Seriously, I could barely even contain myself during our meetings; all I wanted to do was jump up, give each of the guys a big huge hug, and then run off into the streets to proclaim my god-given right to love and be loved! I was on fire. And it all started when I was willing to admit to myself that I was out of integrity with the man I wanted to be, and when I was willing to trust – without any guarantee – that a deeper, more authentic life was waiting for me on the other side of my fears.

Transforming Shame Into Power

In sharing my story, I discovered that I could take one of my deepest, darkest, most shameful secrets and turn it into an unprecedented source of creativity, connection and personal power in my life. How fucking awesome is that?! I felt as though I had been re-born, reawakened, alive again for the very first time. And I couldn’t wait to share it with the world!

And so I am. By living courageously from my vulnerable truth, I stumbled into what may well be one of my life’s greatest callings: To activate and support the rise of wholehearted men – learning and leading by example. I’m launching this blog as a home for this unfolding life work – a laboratory for the practice of wholehearted living. Let’s share our stories, question old cultural norms and explore the incredible power of healthy vulnerability.

I’m calling for you to join us. I’m calling in a whole movement of us rising up together to transform our shame into personal power, connection, and authentic expression. Where our stories disintegrate the barriers between us and open up space for the healing that is so desperately needed in our world today.

Imagine what we will do together from a place of collective integrity, when we are willing to be honest with ourselves and others. When we are able to feel perfect in our imperfections, knowing that every hidden fear within us can become a bridge to connection with others. Simply because our vulnerability makes us human. It makes us who we are.

What will life look like when we awaken all of our senses to the untold beauty and abundance of our existence? As heros of our own journey, ready to take the next bold step in our lives. Ready to collectively write the next chapter in the coming-of-age story of humanity.

Let’s make it happen..

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Thanks for reading! What can you do now?

1. Add a comment below (what did this post bring up for you? What do you plan to do?)

2. Share this post with friends on Facebook and Twitter (let’s grow the movement!)

3. Set a goal for your own life (how will you experiment with healthy vulnerability today?)

4. Learn more about ‘men’s work’ (I recommend checking out the ManKind Project)

5. Is porn impacting your relationship? Send me your story! And I may include parts of it in a future blog post (names kept private, of course). Your story could help others dealing with these same issues. Together, we can overcome the silence and transform the shame. Together, we can build a world of fierce love, connection and authenticity.

Send your stories of failure and success to: [email protected]

With fierce loving compassion,

-Dan

by admin

Articles

Interview with Evita Ochel: The Rise of Wholehearted Men

[stag_video src=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAWjGPnyibw&list=UUeH8mev1ccLtrZvv5l1zyNg&feature=share”]

(All text below is copied from her YouTube Channel)

EBTV presents host Evita Ochel (http://www.evitaochel.com) with special guest Dan Mahle (http://wholeheartedmasculine.org) in a dialogue about challenges for modern men and the rise of wholehearted men.

Dan is a group facilitator, program coordinator, and occasional blogger on the topics of masculinity, vulnerability, and wholehearted living. His writing has been featured on various popular platforms, including The Good Men Project, Everyday Feminism, and YES! Magazine. Dan designs and hosts community gatherings, transformational group experiences, and leadership workshops in the Northwest.

General topics covered in the video include:

1) Dan shares his story of growing up as a young man in today’s world and how he came to do the work he is doing today. (1:40)

– the role of vulnerability, fear and control

– the importance of authentic expression

2) The challenge of porn addiction and sexual expression for men. (4:34)

Link to referenced article by Dan: http://changefromwithin.org/2014/02/1…

– pornography’s role in sabotaging healthy sexual expression

– Dan shares about his personal addiction and how to understand addiction

– Dan shares the benefits he experienced in his life after breaking the porn addiction

3) The connection of pornography to violence against women in everyday life. (11:50)

– understanding the spectrum of violence perpetrated by porn for men and women

– the hyper-sexualizing of women and loss of present being

– subject-subject partnerships versus subject-object fantasies

4) How porn may impact the quality of men’s relationships with others and themselves. (16:38)

– the importance of examining our stories and beliefs about ourselves

– the paralyzing nature of shame

– the importance of vulnerability

5) The importance of questioning cultural norms on our journey of understanding ourselves. (21:09)

– the difference in life quality when we live from a place of integrity and self-worth

– the importance of questioning the patriarchal system

6) What being a “wholehearted man” means. (24:15)

– how to deal with shame

– opening up to our innate capacity to love and be loved

7) How to bring out the wholehearted man. (26:50)

– the importance of connecting with other men

– the importance of mindfulness

– the importance of confronting our deepest fears

8) Dan’s advice for the wholehearted development of teen boys and young men. (32:00)

– facing the challenges of belonging

– the difference of patriarchal masculinity

9) Dan’s closing words for living and being a wholehearted man. (37:25)

by admin

Articles

One Man’s Journey: How I Quit Porn and Why I’m Not Going Back

NOTE: This post was originally published on Change From Within – February 12th, 2014.

I remember when I first discovered internet porn – I was 17 years old (1). Fascinated by this world of unleashed sexual expression and fantasy, I couldn’t get enough of it. As I grew up and began exploring my own sexuality, I discovered just how different watching pixels on a screen was compared to the intimacy of making love with another human being. I thought I’d outgrow my porn habit over time. But I never did.

I didn’t know it then, but porn had become an addiction. And, like most addictions, it was a behavior that I was ashamed to talk about or even admit was a problem. “Yeah, everybody watches porn,” I remember hearing. It seemed so pervasive and culturally accepted that having an actual conversation about it was a total non-starter. So I kept it to myself.

I thought I had my habit under control. I thought I could quite porn whenever I felt like it. I even tried to quit a few times and then rationalized my eventual return to the addiction.

I didn’t realize how much watching porn manipulated my mind, warping my sexuality, numbing my feelings, and impacting my relationships with women. And I was not alone.

According to a recent study, more than 70 percent of men ages 18 to 34 visit porn sites in a typical month. And it’s not just guys watching sex online. It is estimated that 1 in 3 porn users today are women. Now, I want to be clear here that porn use extends beyond the male/female gender binary, but for the purpose of this post I am sharing my experience with porn from the perspective of a heterosexual, cisgender, White man.

Let me also state clearly that I don’t think all porn is bad. I’ve seen some great videos of couples engaging in intimate and respectful sexual encounters – of course, these are often only found on feminist porn sites or in the “female friendly” category (It’s interesting to note what the category name “female friendly” implies about all the other categories). But I’m not here to judge anyone else for what they choose to watch. I’m simply sharing the impacts that porn has had on my life and what has changed for me since I’ve stopped using it.

To me, what is worrying about porn is not how many people use it, but how many people – like me – have found themselves addicted to it.

[stag_video src=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ya67aLaaCc”]

Impacts of Porn (2)

A lot of studies have been conducted on the impacts of porn on men and women in society. Of all of those impacts, three most resonated with my experience:

1. Violence Against Women (3): This includes an obsession with looking at women rather than interacting with them (voyeurism), an attitude in which women are viewed as objects of men’s sexual desire, and the trivialization of rape and widespread acceptance of rape culture – fueled by fake depictions of women in porn videos often pretending to desire violent and abusive sexual acts.

2. Numbness & Disembodiment: This can include erectile dysfunction, inability to orgasm when not watching porn, detachment from your physical body, emotional unavailability and numbness, lack of focus and patience, poor memory, and general lack of interest in reality. Furthermore, these outcomes in men have been linked to boredom with their sexual partners, higher levels of sexual promiscuity, adultery, divorce, sexism, rape, abuse, and suicide.

3. Fear of Intimacy: Watching porn contributes to many men’s inability to relate to women in an honest and intimate way despite a longing to feel loved and connected. This is because pornography exalts our sexual needs over our need for sensuality and intimacy; some men develop a preoccupation with sexual fantasy that can powerfully impede their capacity for emotionally intimate relationships.

Why I Quit Watching

I always felt like a hypocrite watching porn. Here I was, a man who is striving to be an ally to women, perpetuating the very culture of violence and misogyny that I was ostensibly trying to fight. The reality was that most of the videos I found online had titles that included words like “bitch” or “slut” and showcased controlling behaviors that were rooted in a culture of subjugation and objectification, where women are nothing more than sexual bodies to be exploited and dominated by men.

When I am deeply honest, I have to admit I was both intrigued and disgusted at the same time. By that time, my mind had been socially conditioned to find aggressive, misogynistic, and even non-consensual sex arousing. That is a difficult thing for me to admit. But it got to a point where I felt physically ill watching the videos, and yet I kept watching. That’s when I realized I was dealing with an addiction.

What I’ve discovered is that there is a whole spectrum of addiction, from a feeling of compulsion on one end to an intense addiction on the other. My porn addiction seems to have been pretty mild, since I did not experience any serious withdrawal effects. For some people with more serious addictions, professional support may be needed.

Last February, after a decade of use, I decided to quit watching porn for 1 year. I did this, both for the challenge of seeing if I could do it, and for the chance to see how life might be different. Now this may not seem like a big deal, but it was actually a radical commitment to uphold.

Today marks my 1-year anniversary of life without porn. It hasn’t been easy, particularly as a single guy, but what I’ve learned about myself through this experience has transformed my life forever.

Life After Porn

Life has shifted in some pretty powerful ways during my year without porn:

1. Integrity & Love: Since dropping porn, I have restored a sense of personal integrity that was missing. Regaining this integrity has allowed me to move through a lot of my shame and find myself in an incredible new space of deepening love for myself and others. I’ve also noticed that I am often able to stay more present with women now, rather than projecting fantasies onto them. This was hard to do when my mind was cluttered with images from porn videos. This newfound presence has also allowed me to begin to dismantle some of the subconscious sexism that I’ve held, helping me work toward becoming a better ally to the women in my life.

2. Embodiment & Emotional Expression: My year without porn has helped me reconnect to my body and begin to transform my emotional numbness into healthy emotional expression. I’ve begun to expand my sense of self by learning how to move out of my head and into my heart. After many long years void of emotional expression, I’ve reconnected to my tears. This release of suppressed emotional tension has unlocked a lot of joy in my life. All of this has helped me begin to shift my sexuality from mental masturbation and physical detachment to true intimacy, presence, and embodiment.

3. Creativity & Passion: Over the past year, I’ve started feeling more comfortable in my own skin. I’ve become much more willing to let go of control, to improvise, and to accept people’s differences. I trust myself more than I ever have and, as a result, my sense of self-confidence has soared. I wake up every morning grateful to be alive, clear about my life’s purpose, and passionate about the work I am doing in the world. My life today has a depth of authenticity and power that I never felt before.

Stepping Up

This week, many folks in my community and around the world are engaging in conversations about ending the sexual violence and abuse that directly affect over a billion women across the globe today. Of course, women and girls are not the only ones hurt by sexual violence. I’ve heard stories from a lot of guys who are also affected by cycles of violence and abuse that got passed on through generations. It is important, however, for me to recognize that far more women than men are victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse, and that men account for a vast majority of all perpetrators.

As Richard Rohr says, “pain that is not transformed is transmitted.” And this pain is often transmitted in the form of violence. So how do we, as men, break this cycle of violence? It’s clear to me that we will never transform our pain within a culture of silence. It is only by bringing our shadows to the light that we can diffuse the power that they hold over us.

Over the past several years, I have heard a lot about inequality, sexism, and violence against women. I believe it is vital for porn to be a part of that conversation, particularly amongst men.

If we are serious about ending violence against women, then we must be willing to have open and honest conversations about how porn is impacting our lives.

I am committed to a world of love, respect, and safety for all people. I’m sick of all the shame, numbness, and secrecy surrounding porn and addiction. I’m saddened to hear about all the guilt people feel (from churches, parents, teachers, etc.) simply for wanting to express their sexuality in healthy and authentic ways. And I’m outraged by all of the violence, degradation, and exploitation of women and children. Enough is enough!

The only way we can transform the culture of violence is to make it transparent by speaking the truth about the ways that we consciously and subconsciously contribute to it. A culture of love and healing can only be built on a foundation of radical honesty and integrity, built from the ground up in our own lives.

Will you stand with me? It’s time we start talking about the things we’ve been afraid to talk about, knowing we’re not alone. It’s time we begin transforming our pain into love, by opening our hearts and reconnecting with our bodies. It’s time we, as men, step into a more mature masculine: one that recognizes the sacredness of life, one that creates intimacy and cultivates authentic connection and healing, one that is unafraid to love and be loved.