The pro-porn argument lacks any valid weight, “Hey man, nothing’s wrong with masturbating to hot women, what’s your problem?” Right.

I have nothing against sexuality, masturbation, or sexual aliveness. But porn has co-opted our sexuality and is now dictating the rules of how men and women are supposed to be with each other intimately. And, if I’m not paying attention, porn will teach my son an incredibly narrow form of sexuality.

In my own life, porn was a big distraction. A distraction away from my feelings, my body, and my experience. Along with other “checking out” behaviors, it served to relieve me temporarily from my suffering. Quickly, shame and guilt would settle in, as would more behaviors to hide it all. I was never an “addict.” I never paid for sites or spent hours online. I would get in, get out, then hide. Even still, it felt like shit.

It wasn’t until I was able to talk openly with my male friends about it, that I began to gain some power, control, and choice around the matter.  Through my connections to my male friends, the shame virtually went away and we discovered that nearly 100% of the time, we surfed to avoid something, typically discomfort, pain, or unwanted feelings.

The cost? It took me away from the very thing I wanted — intimacy with Self and other. And that’s what I’d argue it’s doing to the male psyche.

I see male clients who eventually get to their “porn issue” which they have often underestimated as having any impact on their life. Surfing porn in guy culture is very common which is its main justifying argument as to why a man can keep giving himself permission to use. “Hey honey, all guys do it, it’s biology, it’s normal.”

But sooner or later a man will begin to feel the internal or external cost of his porn behavior. It might start out with a lowered sex drive for his partner or wife. Some men will begin to experience some kind of sexual dysfunction such as premature ejaculation, delayed ejaculation, or erectile dysfunction. For other men, it furthers their sense of isolation and moves them further from what they claim they want—more love. For others still, it destroys their marriage and leaves them feeling even more alone. Porn use can have some women feeling pissed, alone and longing for a real man to show up.

One of my former clients shares that he has a really hard time connecting with his real girlfriend’s real body. Another man shares that sex feels dirty, wet, sweaty, and the parts don’t look the same as the videos. He reminds me that actors on a screen have trained him, over and over. So when the real thing comes along, he is challenged. Another guy struggles to get hard and stay hard. His partner is feeling the impact and wondering how to navigate it all. One man prefers the online stuff because the “real thing” is too complicated. Still another man hides his porn use from his wife because it might be a deal breaker.

What is your experience? Comment below please.

Outside my personal opinion and experience is growing research that suggests more porn = more men suffering.  Here are several examples:

*According to Psychology Today, it’s a growing problem for men and their rates of sexual dysfunction are increasing.

*According to this amazing site: http://yourbrainonporn.com/ there is significant impact on the brain and how men train their brain through porn (This site is AMAZING and full of solid resources).

*If you don’t want to spend a ton of time on the above site, the site’s author Gary Wilson wrote a good piece for The Good Men Project’s called: How Porn Can Ruin Your Sex Life and Your Marriage.

*Here’s a good one from Naomi Wolf summing up some of the research on how porn is impacting the male brain called Is Porn Driving Men Crazy?

*Here’s a scary one about the developing adolescent brain. So vulnerable to addiction and heavy porn use. The cost of porn on the adolescent brain.

*Then there’s an interesting project called the Social Cost of Pornography where a group collaborates to publish what looks like a solid book on the subject. http://www.socialcostsofpornography.org

*I found this great article in the Washington Post called The Cost of Growing Up on Porn. The author even finds “research” suggesting that contrary to popular belief, porn isn’t hurting men at all.  He debunks it and reminds us that porn is indeed hurting a lot of us.

*And lastly, since parents (specifically Dads) are or unable or unwilling to educate their sons, most teen boys are learning about sex through porn. The average age boys are exposed to hard core porn is 11. Many get exposed at 8. Once again, we can find the roots of this growing problem in the good ‘ol boy code and bro code. It’s no surprise then that when we don’t teach boys about sex, they’ll learn about it somewhere else.

So, could porn really be killing the male sex drive? For some men, yup. Does Porn have the potential to leave embodied women starving for men who can relate to their real bodies in real time? Probably. Is porn training men to be less and less available lovers? Most likely.

When men are in pain, disconnected from their bodies, and stressed out in their lives, porn offers instant, easy, ongoing relief. Porn is also one of the most accessible, seductive distractions to take a man out of his center. Men and adolescent boys who have rarely ‘worked on themselves’ hardly stand a chance against porn. With few effective tools to engage this fight, a man will often loose. What will he loose? His center, which is the core of his integrity. Shame will fill the void. He will be run by shame and instead of owning it, will posture over it like Beowulf until he chooses to face it.

What is the cost to women? To our children? What happens when we let a money making machine teach us about the most sacred and beautiful part of who we are?

Finally, now that we can begin to see the problem, how will we each address it in our own bodies, homes, and communities?

For men who struggle with porn and are willing to do something about it, I have three simple, but unconventional recommendations amid the hundreds of options out there. I understand this is a very complicated issue and healing this will be different for every man.

1. To start off, Your Brain on Porn offers what appears to be an awesome “rebooting” program to help men wean themselves off porn and begin the journey. But this is only the start. A man must be willing and committed to getting his center back. Like Beowulf, he must choose to slay the dragon he co-created.
2. Connection to Self. In order to get back in his integrity, he will have to occupy his body and learn the way of embodiment. When men are in their bodies and connected to themselves, their heart, and anchored in their center, porn doesn’t stand a chance. Stay tuned for a tele series with me and David Cates as we expand further upon this and offer practices to support.
3. Relationship. When we prefer intimacy on a screen over real human touch, we have certainly gone astray, but given our tech culture and our conditioning, it’s understandable. I’m with Gabor Mate in seeing addiction as a relationship issue, not a biological one. The way out of porn use then, is through relationship. This can mean groups, therapy, attachment work, etc. Bottom line? Very intimate, sensory, real, raw relationships with other real human beings is the way out.

We are here to practice being who we are. We are here to occupy who we are. Let’s take our seat on the stallion within us that’s waiting to be ridden. Let’s explore the deep, sacred masculine together.

This experience is about getting in our bodies, our hearts and the present moment using relationship practice and music.

Friday, Jan 20th. Doors open at 7pm. Doors close at 730pm sharp so we can all get on the same page in terms of context for the night. You are free to leave whenever you want to.

**FAH REALS, doors will LOCK at 730pm. If you arrive after 730pm, you will miss the event.**
So get yourself there on time, masculine-style.

What’s available:

• *Truly seeing and being seen
• *Belonging and feeling connected to a dynamic community
• *Laughter and play with no filler or bullshit
• *Circling, clearings, feedback, relationship practice
• *Deep somatic and musical experiences

Our loose outline:

First half of the night is relationship practice, dyads, and small groups. Second half of the night is an open-ended, improvisational music and movement experience (a “tribal pod”).

Facilitation provided by Jayson, Tom Daly, Robert MacNaughton, Joshua Levin, Reuvain Bacal, and maybe a surprise guest or two.

Our first BME got the ball rolling with a big turn out of 43 men. Awesome! Let’s keep seeing and savoring what happens when conscious dudes gather on a regular basis (outside of a formal, closed men’s circle) with bold intention and fun facilitation.

Cost: $20, (feel free to pay here ahead of time)

What to bring: an intention for the nite, 20 bucks, a drum if you have one, any other musical instruments like shakers, flutes, rattles, whatever.

Please RSVP here. And invite your bros if they’re not already invited. This is an OPEN event!

Will be held every month in 2012. Next BME is  Feb 24, then March 16th. Save the dates.

While many men are struggling big time and remain very locked up, others are breaking free of their conditioning and taking balanced, conscious action in their lives.

To celebrate this masculine expansion, and to go further, I’m organizing the Boulder Men’s Experience. At the core of this event is the sacred masculine.

What is the sacred masculine?

I’m not really sure, but from the guidance I’ve received thus far, it is simply what’s available to us men when we connect to our bodies, our hearts and the present moment. Because this is where the sacred masculine lives–in the now.

When we men do this, we live more full engaged lives. We stand empowered to laugh, love, and serve. If I choose to live in this way as an embodied man in contemporary culture it is a privilege and a massive responsibility, worthy of pristine care and respect.

As some of you know, I have taken a break from “men’s work” for a while. And now, I’m slowly coming back to engage in a more sustainable, inspired way. I’m also listening to the fact that my leadership is needed in the masculine realm and because I have a son, the masculine conversation is one I’ll be in for the rest of my life.

So, I’m taking a stand for the masculine and in doing so, I take a stand for the feminine. I’m committed to owning the sacred masculine within me as if it were the sheer, raw power of a great, wild steed in need of a good rider.

Stoked.

Brothers–let’s unite. Let us gather, laugh, cry, and clean up the space in our own bodies so that the sacred masculine has an open home to occupy. One way to do this is getting together in men’s circles or locally at the Boulder Men’s Experience.

Photo By Joshua Levin

As many of you know, I have been in a massive surrendering process for almost two years now.

My habitual “push” is getting less and less air time and my willingness to surrender and trust is becoming more of a daily reality.

My ongoing softening process has been facilitated largely by my children. They continue to chisel away at my defenses and blocks, opening me to more and more love.

I’m also getting support from my wife Ellen, Megan Eggers, David Cates, meditation, and the occasional ayahuasca dive.

More support recently came from an experience at the Authentic Community Leadership course led by Decker Cunov, Kendra Cunov, and Bryan Bayer of Authentic World.

I helped facilitate small groups throughout the weekend around the subject of community leadership. Yet, largely the weekend was about relationship practice—seeing and being seen.

I got to work alongside new and old friends and a few folks from Authentic World team, mainly Decker, Kendra, and Bryan. I learned a lot from them and it felt so awesome to be humble enough to learn from my peers. I am pretty much the only facilitator not trained in their modality of “circling,” yet they trust me enough to do my thing (more evidence that I’m okay just as I am).

And, on the very last night with two hours to go until we closed, my brother Adrial Dale, a guy who I’ve never met, who has been following this blog since its inception, shared with me how I have changed his life.

With tears in his eyes, he recounted how he judged the shit out of me three years ago. Then how over time he slowly grew to respect me. He gave example after example of how I have touched him and inspired him to put himself out there. The exercise was supposed to be about him and somehow the tables turned and he just kept firing love bombs at me. Slowly, with no defensiveness, or deflecting away, I let his love in.

My whole body was buzzing, tears welled up. Something in me just kept saying YES to his honest, vulnerable truth. A near total stranger was seeing me, really seeing me.

I let his love in completely. And, it shattered me into pieces.

I cried. I laughed.

The photo above is me lying on the floor after Adrial sliced me open with his love.

Wow.

More new and old friends moved in to just witness me and hold me there. I must have been on the floor (in the middle of the room) for a good hour while the workshop kept going. I couldn’t get up and it felt soooo good to just lay there in a puddle.

I deeply received his experience of me. Receiving love has been a major edge in my life and this experience was very affirming at the progress I’ve made. Whew.

And this is what can happen in community and when we dare to be ourselves and share openly with others how they have impacted us.

More please.

Photo by Josh Levin

Been a while for sure.

I continue to get stripped down by Life.  The dying process is nearly over (I think–famous last words).

I’ve spent the last year dying and then dying some more.

It’s all very helpful.

My whole orientation is fresh, new, unfamiliar, tentative, like I have new, soaking wet, virgin wings, uncertain of how to fly, but willing to flap.

I feel tired from the dying process. Worn out, beaten up, exhausted.

I have no more gas to do things the “old” way (my habitual neurotic 3-ness)

Exhaustion is an understatement.

38 years of push, drive, and willing my way through life.

On top of that, two plus years of parenting one, now two, little tiny kids. Sleep deprivation and non-stop parenting while being a devoted husband and going through the biggest rite-of-passage of my life for over a year now.

So my tank is beyond empty, but, I’ve been known to run on fumes before, and I won’t be surprised if I try and push my tired old car a little farther.

The great thing about an empty tank is that I am open to receive now.

What a concept–receiving.

In addition to running on empty, I have been choosing for many months now, not to read any books or listen to any MP3′s by teachers of any kind. Last fall, I told my main mentor, “thanks for taking me to the edge of the forest, now I must do the next part alone.”  I even left my men’s group after 6 amazing years! I haven’t even sipped the sacred tea of Ayahuasca for over seven months.

Me and the enchanted, uncharted forest.

My main guru now is…..

<<<my own experience>>>>

It’s terrifying really.

But what does that mean “my own experience is my guru.”

Well, I have spoken about this for years but I see how I was giving this lip service in an old blog post. Ouch.

I’m now learning, and more importantly experiencing, what it really means to trust my experience. I understand that having no formal teachers right now might be a phase but it feels so absolutely right on for me.

My prayer everyday is to help me deepen my trust in myself and what I know deep within me.

And…the emerging light is coming. I can feel it and taste it.

A new vision is coming through and I am eager to share it in a new way.

In the past, I would have “shot my load” in a very premature ejaculation-kinda-way.  And, I would have done it months ago and it would have had the same result it always has had—disappointment.

Now though, I keep remembering to relax, there is no rush. Keep listening, keep receiving. I can take my time making love to Life and being made love to by Life.

I can practice trusting the divine timing of things, the natural way.

I’m giving birth to some wonderful new work that inspires me deeply. Work that has new life force slowly seeping into my veins, despite my utter exhaustion.

I’m rolling out a whole new website in the coming weeks as well as some fun new events.

What’s the main theme?

<<<Relationship>>>

Specifically, the practice of relationship and intimacy.

Funny enough, everyone, everyone I meet and am “in relationship with” is a teacher for me. Interesting.

Stay tuned for much, much more…

Why are these feelings so often underneath the mask many of us wear?

Your Facebook posts might be chipper on the outside, but underneath, if you get honest, you probably struggle like most of us. You probably have a low grade hunger or longing for something deeper, for a more real, raw connection.

You might feel alone or separate because you’ve been burned in relationship. You might feel a longing because whatever you are currently doing isn’t satiating you.

I keep seeing how everything we do in life comes back to one word:  relationship— relationship to self, other, and to whatever we believe in.

It’s likely that most of us have experienced the intense pleasure and heartbreaking pain of relationship.

Relationship is often the source of much our longing. We long to love and to be loved. We long to be connected, not alone, and deeply held. We long to go back to our roots, to the earth, to a simple way of life. What is your longing?

Consider the possibility that you are not alone nor are you separate, even though that might be the experience you have.

Many gatherings are going on right now around the world to address your longing.  Many people are coming together to put their attention on what connects us. People are getting real about community. And, a community is only as strong as the relationships that bind it.

So, what if we make relationship a foundational practice in our lives?

Here is an offering to begin to address the longing in each of us and to begin to practice together in a conscious way. If you live in Boulder, please join us. You can RSVP on facebook here.

A GUIDED SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

designed to address our longing for human connection

(This experience is kinda like a guided yoga class to music, but instead of asana, it’s all about RELATIONSHIP! It’s all about getting REAL, together, telling our truths, being witnessed, seeing and being seen.)

Do you want to get honest about connection and explore what’s possible with new and old friends?
Do you notice how your meditation or yoga practice only get you so far with your intimacy challenges?
What is possible when we make relationship a foundational practice on our spiritual path?
What happens when we relate, move, dance, pray and get real together?

During this dynamic two and a half hours, we will explore the primary ways we open and close to love and to the basic nourishment of connection. Through guided movement, music, meditation, mindfulness and experiments designed to connect you to yourself, experience how you find your way into and out of connection, intimacy and relational contact.

• cut through the new age niceness and social rules
• see what’s in the way of the love and connection you claim you want
• see and be seen while having fun
• learn how to use any relationship in your life as fuel for your own awakening

You will be allowed and encouraged to move at your own pace.  Your broken heart, your open heart, your tentative heart, and your full truth are welcome.

Note: you do not need to be in an intimate relationship to participate in this experience!

When? Friday May 6 7-9:30
Where? Solstice Center
How much? You choose $10 — $30
Contact : Email info@jaysongaddis.com or call 303.818.8411

About the facilitators:

Megan Eggers MA, CMT, CST, CCSP  is a healing arts practitioner devoted to facilitating soul connection  through the of integration body, mind, heart and spirit. With over 12 years of deep study in various energy work and somatic therapy modalities, Megan is most interested in supporting the bodymind’s natural capacity to heal and the true nature of each individual to shine. www.meganeggers.com

Jayson Gaddis, MA, LPC, CGT is a psychotherapist and healer devoted to helping people awaken through relationship and intimacy. Jayson is passionate about helping individuals and couples learn to relax into who they really are. He’s helping foster in a new paradigm of family, mature monogamy, and deep relationship. You can read more on his personal blog at www.jaysongaddis.com.

Artwork by Bryce Widom

Have you noticed lately how much talk there is around real, authentic, community? The word community is gaining momentum and it appears that many folks are ready and hungry to belong to new kind of community.

Here are some important questions for all us to consider when thinking about community:

• What does community mean?
• What kind of community do you want and what is its purpose? What end will it serve for you?
• Is a real, authentic, conscious community even possible?
• What the hell do words like “real,” “authentic” and “conscious” even mean?
• Is it possible to live in a community free of shame and guilt?
• Can we create communities where when we hurt one another (because we will), we are able to stay in relationship, clean it up, and work through our differences?

I don’t know the answers to these questions but I do have a HUGE bias coming from a relational perspective.  I’d like to hear yours below. (For example, Robert masters wrote a long-winded piece on the subject of “authentic community” that is well worth the read. Alexis Neely asks a solid question in her latest blog post here.) Share other community links please!

For the sake of this post, let’s talk about the word community as a verb, not as a noun. Because if we talk about it as a fixed destination, we might perpetuate the trap of magical thinking mentioned below. So, community is a process, much like an fertile garden, a means to an end.

We will likely be more fulfilled in our lives if we find a community that supports our deepest, truest Self, one that serves to undermine our habitual patterns, desire for approval, and other defensive games, and one that allows us to give our gifts fully. To me, this is the kind of community I am a part of and one I want others to have. I feel grateful to have found a deep community I love that that feeds me emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and socially.

In a nutshell, my community serves to help me awaken to who I really am. For now, I’m playing with the term “deep community.”

Healthy Inner Family = Deep Community?

What if a real, conscious community was an attempt to recreate an ideal family? If we are not mindful, this will likely happen. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Since most of us grew up in dysfunctional families, we long (consciously and unconsciously) to be in a safe (emotionally, physically, spiritually) environment where the big talk of love actually matches the behaviors. A place where we were free to be ourselves, completely. Where we were accepted and embraced for who we are. A place beyond shame and shutting down one’s emotions or essence.

Does such a place really exist?

What if, in order to create the ideal family or community, we must first grow up the fragmented family living inside of us? In other words, if we want a functional community on the outside, we must practice each day to “clean up” the dysfunctional family on the inside.

This is certainly true in my marriage and with my two children. In order for my kids to thrive in my home and feel safe and loved, I am constantly attending to the dysfunction occurring inside of me and working to heal myself.

We also need to be mindful of the traps inherent in attempting to create an ideal community (outer family). Here are three main traps I see:

1. Magical Thinking

If we are not careful, we could answer the questions above from the perspective of child that lives within us. In other words, let’s acknowledge that the little boys and girls in us want the perfect, omniscient, safe, “place” where we feel good all the time and no one ever gets upset or hurt. Those young parts also want ideal parents that make everything safe for us. “If we only had ________ then ________.” This line of magical thinking is ultimately disempowering and a trap for ourselves and other.

We also might hope for a community free of conflict, pain, judgment and suffering. But if we look around, namely to our own experience, most of us will agree that suffering is unavoidable in life. Not only that, it’s part of what makes us human and always gives us the opportunity to grow

What if, rather than making us feel accepted or “good”, the entire point of a community is to help us become a separate, yet connected, integrated, whole human being?

And, any time we think the ideal set of circumstances will make everything okay, we are back to magical thinking.

2. Cynicism and Judgment

At the same time, if we dismiss the possibility that it is really attainable to create a conscious, sustainable, high-functioning, loving community, then we risk becoming jaded and cynical and might lose a real opportunity to be in genuine relationships for the long haul where we really are free to be ourselves, enter conflict and challenges while staying in relationship being intact, and still feel love and connection.

3. Being Rigid or Vague

Another risk of course is being so exclusive we miss the helpful mirroring people we may not like provide for us. Of course, we also get to choose who we like and who we don’t. Following the natural chemistry can make all the difference.

For example, I’m not a part of an “intentional” community, a spiritual group, or any formal group really. My community has naturally arose from years of making connections with people I have natural chemistry with. Liking and loving folks in my community is a personal preference I get to have.

For now this works wonderfully and I love my circle. At the same time, I can, and likely will, go further with my community (living together, sharing food, gardens, shared childcare, shared currency, and perhaps going completely local as consumers).

Or let’s say we don’t really know where we stand or what to do, so we become followers that get whisked away in a community that might not really serve our greater good. Or what if we are so “open” we claim we don’t need structure, a container, or accountability. Then we are back to creating fertile ground for a shadow element to take hold.

Failure inevitable unless…

Our most noble attempts will fail if the two points below are not taken into consideration. My experience is that if people are not willing or able to work out their differences, any brilliant vision will fail, people will leave feeling hurt, blamed, shamed, and egos will be bruised and shaken, and rifts will widen.

In my own community we are not living together, many of us several miles apart, but the one thing that holds us together is a shared language and a willingness to work through our inner family dynamics and our external differences.

Even though we are not living together in the community I’m a part of, my kids feel “safe” with everyone in my community to the point where I would leave my children for days with nearly every friend. That’s a good sign because the kid inside of me feels safe in the same way (inner family).

We all long to belong and be a part of a tribe, a real family where acceptance and love are actually practiced and not given lip service due to everyone’s neurotic limitations. And because of this longing, we must not expect the community to save us or make us feel better.

In conclusion, if we want to create a deep community we must:

1. See community as a verb—a living, breathing organism that is constantly changing. It is a vehicle to return to the experience of wholeness.
2. Acknowledge that we have a dysfunctional community (our inner family) living inside of us and commit to using the external community (outer family) as THE place to heal that fragmentation and become whole again.

If we strongly consider these two points as foundational, I think we’ll be well on our way.

Sure, there are hundreds of structural pieces well beyond this post, but a basic foundation is everything. Plus, I’m not the architect. I’m a relationship guy, one who helps those wanting to mature and deepen their connections thus strengthening their communities.

Your thoughts on this community stuff?

I feel tremendous gratitude for those that hire me to work with them. To anyone who has ever hired me or worked with me, I offer these words of gratitude…

Thank you.

Thanks for being human  and acknowledging in yourself that something feels “off.”

Thank you for not knowing and having the courage to ask for help.

Thank you for allowing me to come into your life and trusting me with what is most vulnerable and intimate in your life.

Thank you for trusting me to help guide you.

Thank you for letting me bare witness to the truth unfolding and emerging in each moment with you.

Thanks for searching, for longing, for seeking.

Thank you for being willing to look in the mirror and get brutally honest.

When the door shuts, I enter your private world and am asked to be a guide. I step into that role with great humility, respect, and honor.

Human intimacy is what we all long for.  And our relationship is an intimate one. If nothing else, we are practicing the art of intimacy.

I feel close to you only because you hold the key and let me in.

Keep risking. Keep asking for guidance. Keep acknowledging whatever is true in your body, heart, mind, soul.

And I have a request when you are ready…And only when you are ready…

Please begin to risk being all of you out in the world, beyond our time together.

My son and daughter need people like you to be real. They need examples of an actual human being walking through the world, warts and all.

They do not need you to be one way here and another way there unless you own that’s what you do. They do not need to you be polished, put together, nice, or fabricated.

They need you to take off the mask and be as you are. They need your raw, uncensored self. It will give them confidence to not build a big fat mask.

I want them to have you as an example of what a real person is.

The shadow of personal growth work is only a shadow when you and I keep our personal and spiritual growth a secret. It only remains in the darkness because of our unwillingness to talk openly about our FULL range of human experience.

So please. Risk being your FULL selves………everywhere. And when you feel scared to do that, then talk about how scared you are to be yourself and then offer compassion to that part of yourself.

When you risk your being in this way, you blaze the trail for my son and daughter to follow. They then have living examples out in the real world of real people willing to be as they are.

With love,

Jayson

I remember only a year ago saying to my wife when she tried to put a light colored shirt on my son, “Honey that’s too feminine.” WTF? After her calling me on that, I realized what was driving that comment— me being trapped in the gender code of “boys wear blue, girls wear pink.”

Below that code was fearing my son would be labeled gay or feminine. Wow. Misogyny all over again. It was subtle, but that was my disdain for the feminine in me.

I had pushed down that “feminine” part of myself so far that it went underground. When this happens we let other people and our culture dictate what is true for us. From the unconscious we have little choice.  So I began to shine a big light on MY feminine.

Over and over, we are taught from a very young age (even birth and in utero), how to be a boy and how to be a girl. Don’t act like this, don’t act like that. Wear this color, don’t wear that color.

Over time this traps us in a boy code and a girl code. Behavior outside the “code” is not acceptable as one may face ridicule, judgment, rejection,  insult, and abandonment.

As adults, it doesn’t change much. Women, you need to act like a woman, and men, act like a man. Men, don’t act gay, weak or feminine and don’t rage. Women, don’t blah, blah, blah (women, need some help here, comment below?)

But ‘acting like a man’ implies that I need to adhere to behaviors that are acceptable within that person’s definition of “man.” Trust me, I tried that one for a while with “act like a good man or a revolutionary man.” And again, it is just another box.

The only way for us to break free from the boxes that we subscribed to long ago is to rewild ourselves as humans, outside of gender codes and scripts.

It’s time to be free and stop giving our culture, peers, parents, and society power over us by letting them dictate how to be a man or how to be a woman. There is no one way, and in reality, there is no fucking box. We just have to know that, and have the confidence to explore how big and vast we really are.

The boxes have only created more confusion and led to the separateness men and women feel toward each other. In fact, for the past six years, I have solely hung with men, pushing away my female friends (and hence the feminine in me). Now, I’m tired of that separateness and instead am seeking women friends to deepen with.

Conscious men and women are doing fine getting wild within the context of their own gender. I suggest we all dig deep and explore both our inner masculine and inner feminine and then do the same with men and women we know. It’s time to take the lid off the old notions of man and woman.

Men and women are different, of course. Let us celebrate and embody those differences fully but do so individually, in a way that honors who we uniquely are, not who we want to be, think we should be, or how someone else is doing it.

What is going to happen as men and women consciously come together? I don’t know, but I want to go there.

It’s time to create spaces where we can learn to tell the truth, be wild, and be free together. C’mon PEOPLE!!!! Let’s do it!

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Here is an example of something we men and women can do together, done locally in Boulder:

My dear soul sister Christiane Pelmas and I have created an event to bridge men and women and help us go deeper together. It is going to be a blast.

Men and women coming together to tell the full, uncensored truth and heal the hurt, so that we may see one another fully without filters. Let us be seen and witnessed in our rage, our grief, our joy, our desire, our laughter, and our full power.

This is a private event flyer below. A public one will be offered soon.

ReWilding Men & Women

An Uncensored Truth-Telling Experience

A weekend exploration facilitated by
Christiane Pelmas of The ReWilding and Jayson Gaddis, Men’s Leader
by invitation only
~ October 28th, 2010 ~

Moving beyond the workshop setting into a co-created ritual space, this weekend is designed to bridge
the masculine and feminine in a raw, clean, and conscious community that includes movement, council,
dyads, and more. Our purpose is not to fix anything. It is simply to speak the truth and be witnessed, so
the reality of what we experience in our daily lives can be honored and healed.

Men, in this two-day ritual you will have the opportunity to:

• Learn how to tell the entire truth in the face of the feminine through conscious and uncensored expression
• Show up and live as a more conscious man within community
• Experience your hunger, desire, and longing for the feminine and own it as yours
• Hold space for the feminine no matter what she brings – without taking it personally
• Discover how to create deeper intimacy with both the masculine & feminine
• Cultivate your power as a leader who is bringing more consciousness to the masculine/feminine dance

Women, in this two-day ritual you will have the opportunity to:

• Learn how to speak your truth in front of men and women – no matter what your truth is
• Feel the fullness of your fierce, provocative beauty & power, through the witness of community
• Discover the deep stories that govern your relationships – the ones that serve and the ones that don’t
• Learn how to more fully cultivate, and stay with, your authentic female expression in the face of masculine desire or fear
• Learn how to stand safely in the face of masculine rage and desire
• Cultivate your power as a leader who is bringing more consciousness to the masculine/feminine dance

This is for men and women who:

‣ Feel there is a larger conversation going on, between the Masculine and Feminine, that longs to be supported
‣ Hunger for a deeper more truthful conversation with the opposite gender
‣ Are in a relationship or single
‣ Have cultivated the art of skilled self-reflection and can receive honest feedback without distancing or projecting
‣ Inspired to make conscious, the stories and blocks that are covertly running your intimate partnerships

~ Limited to 8 women and 8 men

A deposit of $25 will hold your space. The evening tuition is $75. Pay what you can, and consider paying more, to help others who are experiencing economic hardship.
This experience will take place at a location to be provided upon your registration. It is our desire to maintain a gender balance for this evening.

This is my quick take on the new masculine paradigm that is being born right now. The question is, will you step into it with me? This one is going to take serious balls and a big, wide, open heart. Let’s do it!

I can feel freedom and liberation seeping into my pores! Finally the kind of freedom I have been yearning for.

After watching the video above, watch the one below. This is me right after one of my meltdowns during the Men’s Leadership Training that I was leading recently. Yes, I said “meltdown.” You know, crying, sobbing and drooling on myself in front of 24 other men. It was a huge step in the right direction for me. But not just feeling. Being transparent and open whilst staying in the captain’s seat. I am finding a middle way here and I’m freakin’ pumped about it.

It was a liberating experience.

The world needs more men willing to be completely who they are, completely and utterly authentic and genuine, warts and all. My commitment is to “show you” how to be yourself by leading by example. This means that I continue to reveal more about who I am on this blog.

Be sure to read my previous post on WTF is happening to me for more information. Remember the two key lessons are 1) make mistakes and 2) be transparent and congruent.

I LOVE NOT TRYING TO BE SOMEBODY!!!!