Living with your heart open is a rich, unexplored part of the path for most men. Many men keep their heart closed their whole life, never opening up even to their spouse or intimate partner.

I was that guy until about age 30—walking around with a puffed out chest and a closed heart.  At the same time was heart was closed, I longed for a deep connection. Little did I know that it was up to me to make the first move.

So, why bother opening my heart?

First, let’s ask it this way; why not open your heart? Ask yourself “what is the worst thing that can happen?” It gets broken? You get hurt again? Many of you already have had a broken heart.

For me, I had a long list of really good reasons why I was not opening up to my girlfriends and why I kept my distance from my male friends. Mostly, I would blame others. “Well, If I knew she was the one, then I would open up to her.”

Believe me, I know it’s painful and it can even sting, but try this on–feeling into your broken heart is the way back to your own aliveness and your freedom.

Then what do I do?

Here are four practices to experiment with opening your heart at home.

Practice 1: Breathing exercise. Deida has a great breathing exercise in this paragraph taken from chapter two:

“The superior man practices opening during these times of automatic closure. Open the front of your body so your chest and solar plexus are not tense. Sit or stand up straight and full, opening the front of your body, softening your chest and belly, wide and free. Breathe down through your chest and solar plexus, deep into your belly. Look directly into the eyes of whomever you are with, feeling your own pain as well as feeling the other person. Only when the front of your body is relaxed and opened, your breathe full and deep, and your gaze unguarded and directly connected with another person’s eyes, can your fullest intelligence manifest spontaneously in the situation. To act as a superior man, a samurai of relationship, you must feel the entire situation with your whole body. A closed body is unable to sense subtle cues and signals, and therefore unable to act with mastery in the situation.”

Read the rest of chapter 2 of Deida’s book here:  The masculine Heart blog post

Practice 2: Stay connected to your balls

A lot of men think that if they feel their heart or show their feelings, they are weak and less of a man. Just because you are being asked to “feel your feelings” doesn’t mean you need to lose your manliness, direction & power by cutting off your balls.  The saying in some men’s circles is “balls and heart.” The two together make you more attractive to women and trustable to other powerful men.

Practice 3: Take some space

Next time you get in a fight with your partner or spouse, take 5-10 minutes alone by saying something like, “I’m too heated right now to respond. I need some space. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Then do practice 1. Really breathe into that hurt place in you and feel it fully, rather than being in your head, justifying all the ways she’s wrong. Stay with your breath and your body sensations. This is the way out. Fights with our lovers are always opportunities to open our heart further.

Want to up the ante and really challenge yourself? Try the next one.

Practice 4: Find another man to be your practice partner and practice being witnessed

Since most men struggle to be genuinely open with another man, this might be a great edge for you to explore.

Next time you are hurt, try telling this man about your hurt. For example, let’s say you just lost your job and you it brings up feelings of worthlessness and fear. You then say to your practice partner, “I lost my job. I feel worthless and afraid right now.” As much as possible feel it and be seen.

Many men would rather keep their pain to themselves. This is a good strategy if you do not want to experience the depth of love and freedom that can come with sharing your heart with another person.

But if you want deep love and connection, sharing your pain builds trust and intimacy. Granted, sometimes when we open up, the other person wants to “fix it” or they try to make you feel better. Skip that approach. It does little to help you open your heart. Attempt to find someone who will just be there and validate your experience.

Ask yourself what kind of relationships you want? To be a revolutionary (superior) man, it is not good enough to stay shut down with a closed heart. As always, don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself and see what happens.

Retweet or email this post along. The world could use more fierce, open-hearted men who can express themselves. Will you be one of them?

Report back to us below or in the facebook group

Please join our tribe of 8 men as they begin the process of going big and going deep. Stay tuned each week as I blog our progress and give some instruction. Want to change your life and become the man you are supposed to be? Then join us.

Starting May 2, 2009, eight lucky men will join me for an intense 108 day personal development training. Get ready to change your life in a radical way. The purpose of this Training?

The purpose of this 108-day rite of passage is five-fold:

1. This training will address the 5 Pillars of Being a Revolutionary Man (Chances are within these areas, you are holding back in some way. I will tailor the course to address your strengths and weaknesses. )

• 1.    Self Mastery/ Self Knowledge
• 2.    Service
• 3.    Leadership
• 4.    Fun/Play
• 5.    Community (relationships)

2. To nudge you to your edge. When a man is at his “edge” he’s alive and growing.

3. To challenge you to step up in your life and take specific action to be bolder, badder and burlier as a leader, father, son, husband, boyfriend and as a man. I am challenging you to change your life in a big way.

4. Having received the training, you will be a Man who will make a massive difference in others lives.
5. Help you find the personal freedom that some of  you are looking for.

Stay tuned each week as we dive further in to ourselves, our purpose, our power and our freedom.

For the past 5 years, I usually spend two days to two weeks alone somewhere in the Colorado mountains in a retreat cabin. Doing what? Sitting with what is.

“What is” is often just my thoughts. Thinking is how I typically spend most of my time while on retreat (retreat is intentional time spent with your own state of mind. It’s different from a “vacation.”). But for some, their “what is” might be an experience of peace, emptiness or emotions such as fear, paranoia, joy, grief, anger, hostility, anxiety, dread…I could go on and on.

In all seriousness, I experience everything from utter freedom to terrifying nightmares. Even when I’m “thinking the whole time” I come to valuable insights about myself. For me, many critical, gut-wrenching decisions have been made about my life’s direction while alone in a cabin or alone in the woods.

The idea here is not to “get away from” your stress, but to gain a deeper understanding of your stress.

I notice that when I first arrive at the tiny cabin and make it home, I can’t wait to get started. Then a few hours into it I wish I were somewhere else. It all points to how my ego would rather not be present and I drift off to fantasies about eating chocolate & coconut bliss in the comfort of my own home, snuggling with my wife and newborn son.

If you stay for the length of your retreat (whatever amount of time that is, from 2 hours, to 2 days.  Some folks do it for 20 years!) a lot of teachings can come through about how you are and about how you operate. It is very helpful for this journey we call life.

Even if you don’t meditate, the stillness and solitude of the wilderness setting can be very healing and transformational. Why can’t you just do it at home? You can. However, I don’t know about you but I get way too distracted at home. It’s not possible for me. I have to leave and really unplug from everything.

I’ve done retreats where I don’t bring books or even a journal. I just sit there with no distractions and be with myself and my experience. Other retreats have been more relaxed for me. I give myself permission to read, write and even go on exploratory hikes to places I’m not supposed to go.

For you, it might be an interesting experiment to just commit to a single day or a weekend. No need to get crushed by a two month-long retreat right out of the gate.

I did my retreat at DKD in Gardner Colorado although there are other good ones elsewhere such as KTTG in Crestone Colorado, where I have also done retreats. There are retreat cabins all over the world in fact.

If you want more guidance about what kind of retreat is best for you, start by considering why you are craving it in the first place. Is it to escape? get away? or to get more in touch with what is up for you in your life right now.

Meditation is a tool that can assist you in being with “what is.” If you choose to do formal meditation, it is essential to get some basic meditation instruction. You can also do a group retreat where you sit quietly with your own mind and occasionally hear a teacher talk about life, meditation, philosophy and spirituality.

A great group retreat site and teacher is the Dharma Ocean foundation under the guidance of Reggie Ray. But there are hundreds if not thousands of other programs and teachers to explore.

I’m sure you have a lot of good reasons as to why you cannot afford to take a whole day off, but I challenge you to do it and see what happens. What are the consequences of giving a whole day to yourself to be alone with zero distractions?

I’d love your comments.

As an entrepreneur, I can work constantly from 7am to 9pm and everywhere in between.  I’m inspired and motivated about bringing consciousness to manhood. However, I have to admit that I’m a little neurotic at times in my work ethic. I can overwork and try to “achieve” too much.

Having a new son, I had this idea that I’d still be able to work a lot and get the things done I wanted to get done. Boy did I miss the mark. My wife went back to work this week and it all came into focus.  We share the parenting responsibilities so when she’s at work, I watch my boy and visa versa. I would catch myself as I tried to squeeze in work hours even while holding him. After my wife gave me some honest feedback that I was “less available” to her, it hit me.

Underneath my anxiety and neurotic work behavior was a lot of grief. I realized that the life I had prior to my son being born, is now over. The “me” that could do whatever, whenever is now gone. The more I try to ‘hang on’ to the “me” that I once new the more suffering I create for myself. The more I tried to ‘hang on’ to getting my work load accomplished, the more I was suffering.

This morning I had a beautiful connection with my son and with myself. Why? Because I let go of the need to work and get anything accomplished. I just let it all go. I found myself with my son in my lap on the rocking chair, gazing out the window, rocking together, and being grateful to be alive and have the opportunity to be there to watch him grow. Moreover, I’m now more connected to my wife.

As for work? Contrary to my own popular beliefs and neurotic work ethic, the work that truly needs to get done will get done and, when I work my commitment is to come from genuine love and inspiration as opposed to fear.

What to do?

So, I invite you to surrender your trips and find the thread that is happening right now in your life as opposed to what you want to happen. Surrender the need to get something accomplished and be with what is right now. Check in with yourself and see if you are in fear or anxiety, or stress. Notice what is driving your behavior. What is underneath your neurotic work ethic? Then take a few breaths, feel your feet, and find the inspiration. From there, act. Notice if you are more productive or less.

Then comment and share your expereience with us.