Do you need to shift how you play at life to something more creative. Do you need to build something more dynamic, creative, something more exciting in your life.

Do you need to feel more energized in your life.

Would you like to become more creative and passionate, would you like your life to become more creative and passionate?

Understanding change will enable you to move towards your vision and live life at full potential. You will get a new approach to life that will steer you towards success, success in business but more importantly success in your relationship, success with your woman.

How would that change your life if you knew that you could wake up every morning to this new, exciting, creative, passionate relationship? How different would your life be? How much more thrilling would your life be?

Living a life of purpose leads naturally to the question of change. Developing your purpose in life and finding a way to live it means facing the issue of change.

How you’re going to change, to follow your purpose.

Change is something that’s constant in life but something you may shy away from. Natural change means you grow older and shift your viewpoint of life. Conscious change however can be traumatic or it can be liberating, it depends how you look at it. Are you a towards or away from person? Do you look forwards or backwards? Will conscious change for you be traumatic or will you allow it to be liberating?

A vision gives you a target to move your life towards; it encapsulates the process of change you’ve built into your life. The question, though, is does it create the change that is most beneficial to you? Is this change conscious enough to deal with the issues you have so far identified?

It’s important that the change you seek is to yourself, not to an outside situation or another person. The Serenity Prayer is always used at Alcoholics Anonymous, and other 12 step groups.

“God grant me the courage to change the things that I can, to accept the things I can’t and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The ability to see that change is about you and not someone else or something else is crucial, essential. Don’t misunderstand this plea for change. You’re not going to go out and change the world, you’re going to go out and change yourself.

Passion is ultimately what drives change.

When we feel passionate about our life, our career, our relationship, or anything else we are able to change in order to drive our life forwards. Passion creates a towards movement because we want to fulfill the objectives we’ve identified in our vision.

“Change, is it necessary” you ask? “Isn’t it easier to stay as I am?”

This is in the minds of many men and may well be in your mind. It’s taken so much to get where you are, do you really need to go further? Of course not, if you just want to keep doing the same old thing. It depends what you want, where you want to go, what you want to achieve?

If you want to open up your life and inspire others then change is just the starting price. If you want to see change in others you have to start with yourself. If you want to see the world develop and grow and you want to see action on the problems in this world then change is absolutely essential.

Change in yourself, change of yourself is what empowers others. You should see yourself, always, as an example to others, as an inspiration to others. You should see your life as being one that people see and respect and admire and want to follow.

There are many ways to achieve change. Sometimes complicated and often off putting for men. I was recently at an event in Las Vegas where I learned about rewiring my neuro-pathways and Ericksonian Hypnosis. This was so I could deal with some of the more complex issues of change. Many men, though, want life to be more simple, they just want to become what they envision. Is that what you want? Do you just want to become what you envision or do you want more. Do you want life to go further?

I’m sure at some level you feel you want more. The issue many men face is how to achieve this simplicity of change. You can make the mistake of thinking it’s just the outward world that needs to shift whereas it is internally the work really needs to happen.

Even simple change needs to come from inside, needs to come from the heart.

How are you changing?

Men can feel caught between the need to be men and the perception of abuse. It stems from the man’s lack of certainty about himself and his ability to deal with male sexuality and polarity. Male sexuality is a potent force that needs to be understood and integrated as part of a man’s personality rather than simply controlled.

Here is a short video clip taken from the course:

Many men have difficulties in their physical relationships. Despite the talk of male sexual dominance, in a relationship the opposite is frequently the problem.

For a man to be potent is for him to be strong, powerful and fully in charge of his sexuality in his physical relationship. This is the ideal, but how can it be achieved in the daily stress of living with his partner?

The course ‘How To Love A Woman’ will reveal the answers.

It’s ugly and it’s typical, in many ways, of how many men dominate women.

His post talks about how he has changed and how he is in recovery. Of the past he says,

“For many years, I’ve said that my behavior on and before June 27, 1998 was unconscionable. I was an active alcoholic and addict who caused great pain to a great many people. I was fortunate indeed never to be arrested. [...] I did have consensual sexual relationships with female students in the two years prior to my last drink, something which was profoundly unethical and immoral. Even when I wasn’t high, my behavior during those years was compulsive and frequently destructive.”

and that’s it…

Oh, he was asked to write the rules for the college he taught at to prevent anyone else doing what he did. Wow! That taught him didn’t it?

It’s important, and brave, that he stood up and admitted his shame and owned up to what he did. But is that enough? Should he be praised for his honesty and courage and left to get on with his life, doing what he did before?

Lisa Hickey, editor of The Good Man Project, said in ‘In Defense of Storytelling: A Hat Tip to Hugo Schwyzer‘,

“I respect Hugo and all he has done on his path to restorative justice. I hope that others will let him continue that path – openly, honestly, with the grace and compassion he deserves.”

How should you deal with shame, how should you make amends, can you just move on with your life?

Lisa Hickey thinks that being able to tell your story without shame is what’s important, she said,

“Abuse plus silence paves a path for more abuse. If we’re ever going to put a stop to abuse of all kinds we have to let people talk about it. We have to let people tell their stories.”

Yes, we do, but we don’t need to praise someone who was a perpetrator not a victim. We need him to take responsibility for his past as an alcoholic, as a drug addict, as an abuser.

The twelve steps of AA are a good place to find the answers to this dilemma. Step 5 says,

“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

So that’s telling your story, but it refers to the exact nature of your wrongs. It means owning up to to what you did, not publicly, but truly and in detail.

Steps 8 and 9 contain, for me, the crux of the matter,

“Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

“Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

Making amends is where most people trip up. Does it just mean saying sorry, admitting your shame or disgrace and hoping that suffices. For me that is not enough. What’s behind these steps is the concept of taking responsibility for your actions now and in the future.

There may be personal acts that are needed, that’s for a person to decide, but there are public acts as well. One of the first an alcoholic makes is to stop drinking. I think there are times when other equivalent public acts are required.

In the case of HS much of what he did involved the female students he taught about privilege, domination, patriarchy and all the ways men dominate through their gender. But he is still there, still teaching, still dominating. He argues that the sex was consensual, isn’t that what all rapists argue? Isn’t rape about domination by men who are in positions of control over women?

How is he making amends for this, other than by talking about it?

In Britain you cannot work with children in any way until you have been through a Police check to show that you have no history of child abuse. That’s as it should be, children need to be protected. But what about young girls who are no longer children but may still be vulnerable to a powerful, respected man in a position of control over them. Should that man, if he has a history of abuse, even if he claims it was consensual, be allowed to stay in that position.

The simple answer for me is NO.

What do you think making amends means?

“I’d argue that perhaps the only thing that garners more suspicion than a father being affectionate with his daughter, is a father being affectionate with his son!”

I am a man and I have two sons who are now in their thirties. They are perfectly normal, well-adjusted men and we hug and kiss in public. This is not some overt display of family emotion: it’s just something we do. Am I supposed to worry about this, about what people might feel? Am I supposed to feel guilty and see the finger of suspicion pointing at me?

Last year I was working in a small church in Ireland, re-designing the lighting. I was in a design meeting with the architect and the priest (it was a Catholic church) and I found myself intrigued by some of the work that was proposed.

There was the re-design of the confessional that put a glass door in the front. There was the building of a mezzanine floor in the sacristy so the choirboys could change separately from the men and priests. I enquired about these, to be told by the priest that these were now a requirement because of the revelations about the terrible misdeeds of many Catholic priests.

The priest was quite unconcerned about the needs for these changes; he felt no personal guilt for the terrible happenings but recognized that the Church needed to feel a sense of public recognition, even guilt, for the situation. If strategic architectural changes meant the life of the Church could continue, then that was okay.

The problem with this is that all it does is feed people’s paranoia. It does nothing to change what individuals may or may not do.

I feel the same about how I behave with my boys, and with others in my life. If I stopped showing my affectionate feelings I wouldn’t actually change anything: it would just feed people’s paranoia. If I really were a sexual predator I hardly think that I would call people’s attention to it by such public displays.

I think that we help people to come to terms with their emotions by showing them that can display them openly. Here, I am talking specifically to men.

So many men are brought up to believe that showing emotion is a feminine trait. So many men fear how public displays of emotion might be interpreted by others. Instead of hugging, men slap each other’s backs in a show of “masculine” bravado. Men shake hands with their boys, fearing sexual tension if they bring their bodies together.

I openly kiss women and hug men—no back-slapping—and I put all my emotion into it. I rarely offend people. I kiss my gay male friends without any connotations or confusion.

Where, I wonder, does the guilt come in to such innocent displays of love? It’s clear that if men have taken things too far and crossed boundaries,then they should feel guilty. If men have taken advantage of their sons or daughters, then they deserve our despising of them. But love between family and friends: should that create guilt?

Perhaps men are confused by the feelings stirred by close physical contact. Perhaps they find their daughter attractive or find they have a response to the physical power and strength in their son. That’s understandable to me. I feel the power and energy in many people I have contact with, even my sons. I recognise them as men and enjoy the physical intimacy.

But I know the difference between close, warm physical intimacy and sexuality. I know when I am sexually aroused and when I feel intensely close to someone. I know the power of sexual polarity and I respond to it.

I feel strong sexual polarity with my wife, not with my family and friends. I know the difference.

Maybe that’s where the guilt comes in. That’s what causes the confusion: when men have not learned the difference between sexual polarity and strong emotion they get confused about what’s going on and feel guilty. Where people in general get confused about this they see things that are not there and start accusing people.

I love sex and I feel sexual emotions powerfully. I am in a relationship where I can express these emotions and thoroughly enjoy my sexual urges. How would I be if I didn’t have this?

Are men, as they are often presumed to be, just sexual predators who will prey on anyone they meet, including sons and daughters? Do men need to fill their sexual urges somehow? Are men incapable of controlling themselves?

For me the answer is “no,” to all of these questions. Sex is a powerful drive in men, but it can be controlled. There is no reason why men need to fear what they are going to do. Self-control does, however, require strength and maturity. It requires men to feel strong in themselves and proud of themselves as men.

I think this is achieved through emotional strength and authenticity. So I openly hug and kiss my sons so they can express their emotions and feel strong in the process. If I succumbed to feeling guilty and drew back, I would create in my sons the very guilt that makes people draw back.

In the end it’s a generational issue. If, as men, we show our emotions we clear the air and allow future generations to be open and authentic. They will no longer need to feel guilt.

Don't Look Back

One of the biggest issues they identified was the inability of many men—and I mean many men—to stay true to themselves and their strength.

They step up… and then… they step back.

Much of what I write about in Male eXperience is encouraging and helping men to step up. To step up and be a man is what so many men want. They feel weak or inadequate, or they feel fear of over-stepping the mark. They are seeking how to find, and live in, their own strength. They are looking for their Personal Masculinity.

The two ladies I was talking to have experience of helping and encouraging men to find their strength in their own lives. They have done this because of two important female qualities.

The first is that they can sense, and almost see, the capabilities of the man they are with. This is nothing to do with deciding what the man should be or what he should do, but is everything to do with seeing the man’s capabilities. Often the man is unsure of himself but the woman is very sure of what he is capable of.

The second is the intuition a woman has about where the man is at any moment, in terms of his capabilities. They know, instinctively, whether a man is in his strength or not. This has nothing to do with what he says or does, it is about the energy he gives off. A woman senses that energy even when the man has no idea it exists.

There are men who just don’t reach their inner strength, no matter what they do. They often have issues they need to work on, blocks they need to remove.

What upsets the women, in particular the two I was talking to, is the men who do step up… and then step back again.

This is more common than I realised. This is the man who finds his strength, his masculinity, his sense of himself, and then finds he is incapable of maintaining it. He becomes frightened of it. Maybe it sets off alarm bells in his consciousness, reminders of lessons from his mother or father, maybe it triggers memories of when it hasn’t worked in the past, maybe he fears ridicule, maybe he just can’t stand the responsibility, maybe he doesn’t like the uncertainty. Whatever is the issue, he withdraws from his place of power and seeks confirmation that he is OK.

Well, he isn’t!

Men. you have to understand that women want to see you in this place of power and strength. It’s not power over them, it’s power over yourself.

When you find it, hold it and build it.

Feel the energy of it and celebrate it.