Photo by Josh Levin

In my humble opinion radical personal development has one powerful process and its core.

Knowing and living this one gem can be the difference between the relentless self-improvement project and experiencing true joy, abundance, and fulfillment, especially for men who are habitually geared toward “improving” and “being better.”

So, what is this process?

LOVE.

That’s right. Love in every form. From self-love, to loving others, and even loving things.

“Loving” is the process by which we transform, evolve and open to greater and greater aspects of ourselves. Typically the process of loving happens within the context of relationships, a major pain and pleasure experience for most men.

If you are a normal man, you have struggled in the realm of relationships. Perhaps you have had your heart broken, been betrayed, or maybe you have experienced great pain in losing a loved one.

Love shows up in our “relationship” to family, friends, pets, co-workers, race, politics, money, the environment, and of course, our relationship to ourselves. And, like most men, you might attempt to tackle your relationship problems with more doing, acheiving, trying harder, and more problem solving. But if you desire more fulfilling relationships, try setting aside your current masculine approach and lean into loving as your “way.”

If amazing relationships are your destination, loving (adjective and verb) is the path to get there.

Pour genuine love into just about any kind of relationship and you will get results you were not getting before. Learn how to open your heart in your relationships and your relationships will evolve and deepen. Give some love to yourself and you will find over time that your personal blocks, issues, and challenges transform. Love your demons, your fear, and the parts of yourself you don’t like and something powerful begins to occur. Love is what transforms your judgments of others (which are disowned judgments of yourself) into acceptance.

I’m here to purport that love is the greatest medicine in personal and spiritual development.

As Carl Jung says,

“Love is the dynamism that most infallibly

brings the unconscious to the light.”

Try it on that you are either opening to love or contracting away from love. Anything else is an ego-building project. More status, money, fame, power, are all just another ego trip.

Love is who you are at the most fundamental level. It is the main food you survived on during infancy and childhood, and the teaching you likely delivered to your parents during that precious time.

This concept is something I thought I understood for years. I remember when I was 21 listening to the Samples song about loving myself. It made sense. In that moment I realized I kinda loved myself. Looking back, I had no idea about what that really meant or what was possible with love. I had layers upon layers of self-protection that were unconscious to me and I was pretty unhappy.

If I am honest with myself, I spend most of my time in subtle levels of contraction. However, slowly over time that is shifting. Parenting, my men’s group, my marriage, and my life keep pointing me toward greater love. As any of you parents know, a new baby in your life can crack the dam open pretty wide. It continues to crack, some days it bursts open and my love comes ripping out like a mountain torrent. Other days my love is just a trickle, and some moments, my love is well hidden far behind the dam, which, in those moments seems impenetrable.

Loving is changing how I work with people and the view I take on the personal development path. I know there is an endless well of depth and profundity to me experiencing love. I’m suggesting the same for you.

So, I’m here to challenge you to join me in opening to greater and greater love in the context of your relationships and your life. Why not? What do you have to loose? Think about a world where you and others exuded love most waking hours?

To me opening one’s heart is the hardest practice of all. Much harder than climbing big peaks, going to med school (so I’ve been told), being lost in the wilderness, or even starting a business. A man’s relationship to his work, his family, his partner, his guy friends, and his environment can all be enhanced with serious and frequent doses of love.

Since, loving might just be the hardest practice, here are some basic tips to love more and more.

First, get honest and think of your relationship to love. How much do you feel love? Do you know what it feels like? What is more of an edge for you– giving or receiving love? Big picture in life and with your intimate partner or lover.  For many men receiving love is a much steeper path. Receiving love is largely a feminine process and most guys are simply not in touch with the feminine aspect of themselves. I struggle with both but my greater challenge is in receiving love.

Here are some signs that you could use some help receiving love:

• You always have to be “on top” during sex.
• You are great and helping others and being there for friends, but you never ask for, or need, help.
• You blow off compliments and affirmations with a compliment back, without first taking a breath and letting what the person said sink in and impact you.
• You like to be in control and be the leader.
• You have a hard time relaxing and doing nothing.

Signs that you are challenged by giving love:

• You resist giving a genuine compliment to a co-worker, lover, or friend.
• You hoard things in your life such as money.
• You are territorial
• You say things to yourself like “I am not going to drop the “L bomb” on her until I really feel it.
• You withhold your love for the “right relationship.”
• You judge, hate, blame, shame, and make fun of others.
• You believe that gays are bad, criminals should be locked up forever or killed, and you think anyone who doesn’t believe what you believe is going to hell.
• You see giving your love as someone potentially taking something from you.

Now, on to the practices.

I am practicing most of these daily. I suggest that you choose the ones that fit you and your life.

Warning: Only do these if you want to experience more love in your life. If you prefer contraction, being shut down, or have a stronger allegiance to your fear, please skip these practices and see if you can genuinely love where you are at instead of judging yourself. Seriously.

Practices toward greater love

1. Practice connecting to your own love. Close your eyes, meditate, relax and breathe into your heart. Imagine someone (or something) you love deeply. See if you can feel the love in your body, not just think about the concept. What does it feel like and where do you feel it? Can you expand it?

2. Live love daily. Commit to showing at least one person love every day. Strangers, friends, co-workers, and even yourself.

• Self-love. Stand in front of a mirror. Talk to that guy in the mirror and let him know by saying things like “I accept you” or “what I love about you is…”
• Love others. When you are at the store, a coffee shop, an elevator, or in your building at work, just make someone’s day by opening to them and loving them. Tell them directly what you appreciate about them in that moment, or show them with your body language and your smile without saying a word.
• Notice when you showing love is genuine, forced, or faked. All are find, but notice the difference and what it takes to drop in to a genuine expression of love. Faking it helps you see where you are holding back.
• Find an accountability partner. Send your accountability partner a text message every night, letting them know you showed love to someone that day. If you forgot, or didn’t do it, practice in the mirror, or, directly with them via text by letting them know you love them. Send a TM that reads one word: love.

3. Express gratitude. Do this verbally with someone or in your journal every day. Use a service such as gratitude log or just let yourself know 3 things you are grateful for prior to going to bed. “I am grateful for A, B, and C.”

4. Set the tone every morning. Every morning for 10 minutes do practice one and commit to love today. Choose love over stress, being grumpy, or complaining.

5. Own your fear and contraction. Remember that we are either opening to love or closing down to it (fear). Own your fear, own how comfortable you are in judgment and contraction.

6. Make a list of everything you get by keeping your heart closed and withholding your love. Share it with another man.

One of the first things you might notice by doing these practices, is that you will begin to bring awareness to how often you are closed down. No need to judge this, just open to the truth of your experience and love that.

Now, why the hell would you do this daily? Well, simply because most of us claim we want to feel better, be happier, be more at peace, or experience more love in our life. If this is true for you, I challenge you to commit to this for 1 month and see what happens. Find another man to do this with. Why another man? Because it is harder of course. Okay fine, a woman friend is good, but at some point, man up with another man and practice together. As my mentor David Cates likes to say, “If a man can’t love other men, he can’t love the man in himself.”

And finally as Pema Chodron says so eloquently:

“If your everyday practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the poeple you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that–then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you’ll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.”

Stay tuned for part 2 of this post in a few days when we discuss how the yoga of self-acceptance might impact a guy like you.

For now, let’s here your thoughts.

In reference to attending my leadership training, a client said to me, “Can’t be selfish at this time in my life.”

He’s in his mid-thirties and has been miserable for years. Not happy in his marriage, not happy as a father, not happy in his job. The guy is in a ton of pain. Recently, he had some big breakthroughs and started to get honest, admit everything above, and begin the work toward a different life.

My client’s statement is not new and one I know well. I remember when I first started working on myself–going to therapy, evolving and growing. I was going through a ton of intense shit and no one in my family and none of my old friends understood or could relate. The label they gave me? Selfish and self-absorbed.

There was even bitterness in their voice. Many said it to my face with an extremely judgmental tone.

Wow. Here I was finally taking a look at my habitual, neurotic patterns that caused me, and others a ton of suffering, that might just make me a better person, and I received zero support or validation. Ouch. It was a painful time. For a lot of you, this attitude is what you are up against.

So, I want to settle this once and for all with you confused men out there that think to work on yourself is selfish and that that is somehow a bad thing. It’s understandable why you might be confused because in our culture, we get conflicting messages about what it means to be selfish.

On the one hand, there is permissible selfishness. If you are on a plane and it is going down, you are supposed to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before your child. You can’t save someone’s life if you don’t save yourself first.

On the other hand if you rush to the front of the line, you are selfish. If you talk about yourself a lot, you are selfish. If you don’t give to charity, you are selfish. If you spend money on yourself, you are selfish.

It seems what’s valued in this culture is acting “selfless” and hiding your selfishness, even though you can be selfish much of the time. In other words, you put on your mask in social situations by being a do-gooder.

For example you might put others first, even though deep down you don’t want to put someone else first. Maybe you are judging them, irritated by them, and in your heart, you may not really care that much about them. But you put on your happy face and act polite.

My client’s attitude is not uncommon. He believes that by helping his family and co-workers (most of which he said he didn’t like) while ignoring his own needs, everything will be okay.  For example, he believed he should spend no money on himself and direct it all to his family.

Some 12-step recovery programs can have a similar attitude. The saying goes that if you are feeling shitty, just help someone else and it will help you feel better about yourself. But ask yourself if you are drowning, do you want another person who’s drowning to be helping you?

The irony here is that once your basic needs are met, the more you can spend money on yourself (I’m not talking about superficial “stuff” like fancy shoes or a new car) such as your personal and professional development as a man, the more you will be available, open, and generous in other areas of your life.

There are a few ways to look at this. Let’s come at it from 2 different angles.

The conventional, mainstream view

The conventional, mainstream view is that working on yourself is selfish. Okay, so freakin’ what? Who cares? My response to this attitude? This is what I found myself saying a few years back and trying to convince my family and friends that I was doing the right thing…

“Good. It’s about time I started giving a shit about my own happiness. If I can figure that out, perhaps I’ll be much more pleasant to be around and perhaps more effective in helping others.

You say I’m a selfish SOB because I want to work through my blocks? I’m selfish because I finally am taking a look at some unfinished business in my life that I’ve suppressed, stuffed, and avoided? I’m selfish because I know that if I work on me, I’ll be a better man, lover, and friend? Great, call me selfish then.”

In this case I had to react, push back, and rebel against someone’s else’s view of me being selfish. At the time, it felt good.

The new view–redefine the term selfish

So, in the grand scheme of things, if you honor yourself, who cares what someone else labels you? Who cares if they call you a self-centered pig? If you know in your heart, you are doing your best to be the person that you know you are capable of being that is to be celebrated!

So, practice redefining what it means to be selfish. The new view is that by turning your attention inward and liberating yourself, you can liberate others. By loving yourself fully, you can love others. By attending to the garden of your own life in an ongoing way, you can give the fruits of your hard labor away for all to relish in. By judging yourself less, you will become less judgmental toward others. And on and on. To know this is to be free of another person’s judgments about how and where you spend your time, money, and energy.

But how to I put myself first if no one supports me doing it?

• Redefine selfishness as stated above.
• Begin to notice and evaluate all the ways you abandon yourself and what you want because you have some idea that you are “putting others first.” Pay attention to resentments you might have as a result.
• Have the balls to tell your loved ones why it is paramount you put more stake in YOU.
• In other words, take full responsibility for your life and put you FIRST. Go after what you want.
• Give yourself permission to take good care of yourself and be kind to yourself first and foremost.
• Consider that the more you put yourself first, the more happy and fulfilled you will become.
• Read the next post on Idiot Compassion versus True Compassion (coming in a few days).

The good news about my client? He’s more on track than ever to putting himself first and negotiating that with his family.  What about you?

Tibetan Meditation Master

I’m always on the lookout for men who inspire me. Yet, I look around and see very few men that call forth the best in me. These days, with the current political, cultural and social challenges we face, I can become cynical, discouraged, or just want to quit.

Sometimes I have to look to the past for inspiration.

According to one of my teachers Reggie Ray, this is common on the path (of life). We try so hard to change things and make a difference but to no avail. So, we may shut down, check out, or just become comfortable bystanders.

Then, I remember stories I’ve heard of Khenpo Gangshar, one of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s main teachers in Tibet. Both men were fierce warriors for spreading truth and change. They advocated that in order to change things we don’t like, we have to change ourselves. Rinpoche, as many of us know, was fearless about being himself.

Khenpo Gangshar was a great Tibetan meditation master and is considered one of the main forces driving Trungpa Rinpoche’s unconventional style.

In Tibet these men lived as monks, teachers who taught meditation and principles of Buddhism to a huge number of followers. Trungpa Rinpoche often credits Khenpo Gangshar for inspiring him to go beyond the rules and to be himself. Khenpo advised Rinpoche, “study what you are, don’t lose yourself.”

Gangshar’s approach most of his monastic life was to follow the rules and to be a “good” student. He could recite anything on the spot from the scriptures.  One day he fell ill and soon was given up for dead. They put his body in a cell and days later he suddenly sat up much to the astonishment of the monastery.

From that day forward others said he was a different man. Khenpo soon upset a lot of conservative monastic types and many in his community were afraid of him. Many feared him and he became quite the unconventional, revolutionary teacher.

Remember the time. Around 1957, the Chinese had been putting ever increasing pressure on the Tibetans. Monasteries began to be destroyed, many people killed and the country was slowly being taken over.

Since radical measures were needed, Khenpo took two actions that inspire me and that we as modern people can learn from:

1.    He reached out well beyond his known group
He opened up the teachings to laypeople. He invited anyone that wanted to come and hear the dharma to come. He began to teach Buddhism to anyone that wanted to hear his message. And, according to Rinpoche, he even continued to open his heart and doors to the Chinese up until the end.

2.    He had a vision and took bold action
He went up to the high mountains of Tibet, where men had taken vows to meditate their whole life in a cave and he asked them to stop their solitary life long meditation retreat and get down to the villages and help the people. Many were understandably upset and interestingly most came.

The result? Many lives were saved and many, many people heard the teachings he delivered and were able to carry forward in a new way, despite the circumstances.

So, what can we learn from his way of being? Read the rest here

2009 is the year to Man Up to your vision and goals. But how? Let’s say you have a big dream and big plans for this year. But you often lack follow through or fail to achieve your goals. By now, a few days in to 09, you should be able to gauge if you’re being realistic with your goals.

Here are 5 key strategies to not backing down from your new year’s goals.

Step 1. Get honest. Be very, very honest with yourself. Just by acknowledging that you are NOT 100% behind your goal can help you achieve it. Is the goal you set coming from a “should” place?

For example, I’ve never been a “goal guy.” As soon as I set a goal, especially if I think I “should” do it, some part of me wants to break it. I have an inner rebel. It is likely that you do too. When this is happening, I have to admit I’m not totally on board. So, I change the goal, rather than stick with something I can’t get behind.

Most guys sabatoge themselves becuase they are not %100 bought in. Let’s say your going to hit the gym 5 days/week. You start out strong and within a few weeks, you loose steam and fall off the horse. So, while it is true that you want to achieve your new goal, it is equally true that some other  part of you wants to do the opposite–wants nothing to do with the gym, working out, and could care less about getting in shape.

Most of us are blind to the sabatour inside of us. If you keep coming up short, try a new strategy. It is likely that you have a big, unexamined blind spot in you.

Being honest with yourself, also means setting realistic, doable goals. Tony Robbins says change your “shoulds” into “musts.” This requires strategy number two>

Step 2. Have a clear vision and be relentless about it. Most guys don’t have a clear vision. They think they “should” get in shape as opposed to having a vision about why and what it would look like to be in stellar shape.

Sometimes, you may set a goal because you will get the praise of others. Let’s face it, other people have a lot of opinions about what is best for you. But ultimately, you are the boss of you, so set goals that work for your deepest inspiration as opposed to “shoulds” or other’s opinions.

Shoulds need to be examined thoroughly. Maybe behind the should is some wisdom that you need to listen to. Or maybe you just are not crystal clear in what you want.

Step 3. Micro-goals. Once you have a clear vision, set micro goals to help you achieve your bigger goal. If your overall goal is to run a marathon, obviously you need to work up to 26.2 miles, right? Set weekly and monthly goals, check them off and check in with your Man Up buddy.

Step 4. Accountability. Ask a friend to hold you accountable to what you say you are going to do. This is your Man Up buddy.

We let ourselves off the hook much too often and we often have great reasons why we don’t need to hit the gym today. A good trustworthy friend won’t let you off the hook and your commitment to him or her can be the factor that gets you off the couch and will have you keeping your commitments. This in turn leads to others trusting you and respecting you. You are walking your talk.

Go even further by committing in a group, make it known that you are Manning Up.

Step 5. Reward yourself. Each month or every so often, acknowledge your wins. Celebrate by having fun, taking a day off, partying or whatever is “celebration” to you.

What are your goals in 09? Who is holding you accountable?

My challenge to you as always is to stop holding back and make 09 a year of stepping up!

Allright guys,

As some of you know, I recently picked up boxing. What the? Why the? I’m not much of a fighter. Never have been. My first and last real fight was in the 6th grade with Corey Miller. My friends told me that it was a tie, which I think meant that I lost. Doah!

However, as a man I want to be able to protect my family. With what? My fists. But more importantly, and realistically, I took up boxing is to get fit.

For the past year or so I’ve been slacking in terms of my own fitness. I get injured a lot so I can come up with clever reasons for not staying with a regular  exercise program.

Those days are over for me. Taking care of my body and health is a top priority now. Boxing has been amazing for my level of fitness. I haven’t been this fit since high school when I was on a ski team and we did hours and hours of dryland training drills to prepare for the racing season.

My question to you is, why are you not pushing yourself in every area of your life? It doesn’t have to be fitness, but pick one area where you are holding back and do something about it.

I’d love to hear about your commitments and wins! In the meantime, check out this short video we made at the boxing gym.

In our previous post on Men’s Health, I discussed how some triathletes might not be as healthy as they appear. In this post, I discuss why making a buttload of money does not guarantee success or happiness. Most men know this one, but many try anyway.

Many “successful” men I work with admit they are not fulfilled. They achieve a lot of material wealth, feel great temporarily and eventually the “dread” slowly bleeds back in.

They have “outer” wealth, but lack “inner” wealth.

These guys might look like successful guys on the outside. They dress nice, act confident and bold, but on the inside they are wrought with tension, anxiety and even dread.  They cope by achieving more external gains such as more money, a trophy wife, or other “things.” The worse they feel, the harder they try to mask the pain inside.

Like the uber athlete, these high-achieving men, dominate their field (the business world etc), but struggle intensely in their personal relationships. They have made their inner world “off limits.”

High achieving guys who’s inner world is foreign territory will seek happiness and joy by looking for it outside themselves. So long as you just focus on outer wealth and neglect your inner wealth, you will be misaligned and only achieve half of the results you are looking for.

So, what are some signs of a man with fragmented inner wealth? Here are five:

1. you look for relief in the form of a dream vacation, masturbation via porn, a new lover, drinking a lot, or by making more money

2. you don’t let anyone “in”

3. you place all of your value on material things

4. you work constantly so as to avoid the rest of your life

5. you have some kind of health issue: heart, lungs, colon, prostate etc.

If you can relate to any of these, you lack inner wealth.

If you want to be healthy, feel at peace, and find true happiness, you MUST work on your inner wealth. You must be okay with who you are on the inside, including your faults, flaws and fumbles.

What’s the medicine then? If a “successful” guy is not fulfilled, then what should he do?

• First, ask yourself what does it mean to be  “successful.” Is it material wealth? Inner wealth?
• Next, ask yourself if you have any interest in getting your inner wealth tuned up and in line.
• If you are a yes to achieving inner weath, many more resources are coming your way.

If you want to have a bigger impact and have success on the inside as well as the outside, stay tuned for more…

Years ago I was a bit of an extreme athlete.  My body was pretty ripped and I pushed the limits, hard. I ran up and down mountains, climbed tall overhanging cliffs and mountain biked by moonlight. I made a ski movie and jumped off 60 foot cliffs often after my morning coffee.

On the outside I was a pretty in-shape dude. I got lots of praise for being so “fit.” But inside I was a bit of a mess. Every time I found myself in an intimate relationship I would bail out for a variety of superficial, lame reasons. Moreover, the harder I pushed myself, the less fulfilled I was. And the joy I felt never lasted.

What was missing? I was fit externally, but unfit internally. My “inner world” was foreign territory.

The future of men’s health is psychological health–”inner world” fitness.

Most men think being healthy means having a 6 pack or “eating right.” Most men also think that if a guy wins triathlons, he is a really healthy guy. But why is it that some triathletes are zombies emotionally. These guys could be just as pissed off or shut down as the guy who never exercises. I have worked with many uber athletes who are completely incompetent when it comes to relationship, just like I was.

This “common guy” approach to fitness is fine, but ultimately it’s pretty limited. If you want to be healthy and feel at peace overall, and you really want happiness and fulfillment, you MUST work out your inner psychology.

Men who’s inner world is foreign territory will always think that happiness and joy comes from the outside and will therefore always be looking for it in all the wrong places.  Dudes that are cut-off from their inner world are a bomb waiting to explode.

So, what are some signs of being psychologically out of shape? Here are four:

1. you are not that open to feedback from others

2. you are easily defensive or resentful

3. you are pretending to be happy

4. when someone asks you how you feel, your standard answer is “Fine”

5. you place all of your value on external wins and appearances

If you can relate to any of these, you’re out of shape psychologically.

So, what should you do?

• First, ask yourself if you have any interest in getting your inner world in shape. Is that of any interest to you?
• Next, ask yourself what is the impact of me being out of shape psychologically? For example, if you are indeed out of  shape internally, maybe that has an impact on your co-workers or partner. Moreover, it is likely that you surround yourself with people who support your psychological “out-of-shapeness.”

If you want to have a bigger impact and be a game-changing Man, consider working your most out-of-shape muscle of all–your inner being, otherwise known as your heart.

More tips to come in the following days…