The video on the page below, Categorizing Emotions, does just that, lending a psychological perspective to emotions as they are perceived in a multicultural context. The MKP Journal is grateful to New Warrior Training Adventure leader and professional Diversity Trainer Andy Towlen for posting this link on the MKP New England Talk List.

Categorizing Emotions appeared on the Education Academy Portal website.

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It was with this in mind, and the prospect of reading more to him as the months and years pass, that I contacted Barefoot, and they were kind enough to send me a generous sampling of their publications for review. Each one of these story books is beautifully written and exquisitely illustrated, with a real feel not only for the culture they represent but also for content that teaches, without sentimentality or preaching, the values of kindness and compassion, awareness to the world and its natural beauties, and sensitivity to living beings of all kinds. These are the kind of things that I myself have come to value most in life, and the gift I would most like to pass on to little Luka if I am given the opportunity.

The stories are produced for children of all ages, and Luka is certainly not ready yet for these Indian tales, but one day, perhaps when he’s seven or eight, or a little older… The stories themselves are culled from the great wealth of Indian mythology and literature, and are delightfully told in simple language, without fuss or condescension. They originate in a spectrum of different regions that spans the sub-continent, and each story is preceded by an informative passage that describes the geography and special culture of the region — from the distinctive foods and flavors to the manner of dress and furnishings, the dances and social customs as well as the religious beliefs. I myself learned a lot I had never known about India from my afternoon’s reading!

The illustrations, too, are a delight: richly conceived, thoughtfully interactive with the stories, and with a clear reference to the literary and artistic traditions from which they spring, they benefit also from an awareness of the diversity of contemporary artistic expression. A glance through the other books that Barefoot sent is evidence that Indian Tales is no one-off success story. I’ll be writing more about those others in a future post, with special attention to their Buddhist content. In the meantime, I apologize for what seems like a rather weighty way of writing about something as innocently diverting as a children’s book; but believe me, if you have children of any age in your family to entertain and teach with a purely pleasurable reading experience, Barefoot Books is worthy of your attention. They also do CDs and puzzles, and much more.

Many years ago, a long-time AA member I knew introduced me to the Shit Fairy. The Shit Fairy is the little voice on my shoulder that fills my ear with shit–bullshit, horseshit, and chicken shit. If I listen to this long enough, it turns my life into shit. What I say is bullshit, what I do is horseshit, and I am a chicken shit–a coward to the bone. Everyone who knows me, knows about the piles of shit in my life. They tiptoe around them and don’t say anything, but they know they are there. I’m not going to live a shit-free life. But what I can do is turn this into fertilizer.

I have been mission coordinator in New England for over a year, and encouraging mission is central to my own mission. What this says about me–my truth–is that at bottom I am a very selfish man. It’s all about me. I don’t give easily. I don’t give to charity, I walk by the homeless people on the street muttering a story to myself about how they are lazy addicts, and I don’t give my time away easily, even to my own kids. (That one hurts to admit). I am always keeping track of favors I give, waiting impatiently for others to pay them back. I am staunchly selfish, and I justify the selfishness easily through years of practice: I’ll do it later, I’ll give at the office, I’m already doing plenty, I can’t afford it, I’m too busy, etc. If I ever do give anything away, I expect a Nobel prize. I have shame when I speak this truth to you, that I’m basically focused just on me, and that I give up my life energy only when they pry it from my dead cold hands.

When I say my mission, I am lying. I believe that is true for every man. “I create a world of peace through giving.” Yeah, right. “I create a world of love by loving others and myself.” Yeah, sure you do. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.

When I say my mission, I am also defining my life work. C. G. Jung, in talking about the work of psychotherapy, borrowed the alchemical phrase the opus contra naturam, the “work against nature.” My work in life is working against the given of who I am, working against my personality. I also believe that is true of every man. I believe that a central purpose of the Mankind Project is working against personality in order to develop character.

Personality is different from character. A man’s personality is his primary emotional programming, his temperament. It is “what comes naturally” to a person. It determines whether he tends to react to life with a pleasant smile, a sense of foreboding, a fatalistic shrug, or a defensive posture. Personality is something that is a given in a person’s life, the product of genes and environment. These are well-worn ways of understanding and responding to events. Personality seems ancient, natural, and automatic. It is a first-responder in every situation—quick and efficient. For instance, my first reaction may be to distance, or to get mad, or to empathize with others, or to tough it out alone. These first reactions seem to happen prior to thought or planning.

Character is a second responder. It is Plan B. It is not something I am born with, not something that develops naturally. It is something I must build, a moral achievement. It has a close relationship with personality or temperament, because personality is the earth from which character emerges. However, building character means that I work against my natural response to things, and choose a direction that matches my highest principles. Character is not built directly. If I set out to build character, I build ego. If I set out to build character, my primary concern is not what I do or what I am, but rather how I appear to others, or what I have to gain. I may achieve success and fame and admiration, but not character. Character is a by-product of the decisions I make in the world. It is the by-product of my battle against my personality, my primary programming.

Building character begins when my primary programming begins to run into problems. I may have detected some flaws in the primary programming long before, but generally I need to run aground, to crash and burn many times, before I really get it. Generally, the logic of a young man when Plan A has crashed and burned is this: It’s just bad luck, I’ll try it again and have better luck next time. Or: Just a small tweak in my plan will make it work. Or: If only he hadn’t gotten in my way and blocked my view, I could have made it. This blithe persistence is admirable and necessary in a young man. If I have a son, I want him to keep getting on the bike after he wrecks, to keep his chin up, to bounce back after he has lost the game, to take failure lightly. I want him to stay hopeful so that he can go beyond what he thought his limits were. But my deepest desire for him is that he learns what I may not be able to teach. I want him to learn to search within the wreckage of his life for what is really valuable, to fix what he has broken, to hear a voice within that can lead him to something richer, to start over again after he has lost what he believed he couldn’t live without. And I can’t teach him these things because I’m lost in these woods myself. And perhaps, no man can teach these things to another.

It takes several crashes of Plan A before the realization begins to form: Plan A is not working. The problem is not bad luck or other people. The problem is Plan A—my personality. The work of character-building begins on the other side of the failure, after I realize I have squandered my birthright, blown the inheritance, fucked everything up. It starts when the program has crashed, and I recognize that the flaws are not incidental, they are basic. It hits me that I must shape my life. I start to rebuild, to cobble something new together out of the ashes and debris. This is the humble, hard, day-to-day work of shaping myself as the man I want to become.

As we come to the realization that Plan A is not working for us, we open up the opportunity for Character – Plan B, to come into its own.

Steve Simmer, for those of us privileged to know him, lives his life in the midst of the constant stream and theme of mission. Appropriately enough, one of his formal mission statements is that he “creates a world of freedom by encouraging men with my courage to do all that they can be and to be all that they can do.” By profession a psychotherapist, he works continuously to inspire men to actively find and engage in their own mission in this world. Dr. Simmer completed the New Warrior Training Adventure back in 2001, and has never been the same man since.

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Stereotypes abound. They’re a convenient way for me to pigeon-hole people when I don’t want to take the time to put myself in their shoes. Stereotyping makes me feel smug, superior and part of the “in” group. We (I) often express stereotypes in jokes, as if that excuses them. The problem with stereotyping is that we (I) can slip, without noticing it, into believing our own stereotypes, enforcing prejudices we need to examine … and probably abandon.

Along with obvious stereotypes about race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, our society loves to engage in gender stereotyping. Jokes and prejudices about women by men are so common that they often go unnoticed (the proverbial sea we swim in). It’s an unspoken part of the ‘The Bro Code‘ to draw women (and the the world) in broad, and often inaccurate, brush strokes. In reaction, this meme about men’s lack of discernment has given rise to a stereotype of men which has some serious, and sad, consequences. This is the notion, that, when it comes to the domestic side of a relationship, men are usually well meaning, but fundamentally stupid.

This stereotype has unexpected impacts, for both men and women. Just as someone who holds a racial, ethnic or sexual orientation stereotype is as much a victim of that stereotype as the “minority” member portrayed, so both men and women suffer when they view each other through the distorted lens of a stereotype, no matter how “innocent” the joke, slur, or condescending remark may appear to the speaker.

One such consequence arises in the perpetuation of gender stereotypes in the mass media.

While portraying women as ‘ditsy’, silly, incompetent individuals in popular culture often, quite properly, invokes swift condemnation from concerned men and women, portraying males in this fashion, often passes almost unnoticed.

An area where this has shown up dramatically lately has been in media presentation of ‘house husbands’ and stay at home dads. Companies marketing products to women have tired to take advantage of this stereotype to sell their products at the expense of a laugh about the supposed incompetence of men in doing traditional women’s jobs in the home.

An interesting article on this topic appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail (Canada’s leading national daily newspaper) on May 3rd 2012. The article pointed out that for years, advertisers have depicted “dads as bumbling morons, or not at all”. This is just bad marketing practice. Canada alone contains 60,000 ‘stay at home dads’, triple the number from forty years ago. The United States must have many times that number, especially in the light of the current long term economic downturn, when unemployment is generally lower among women.

Hopefully, this misrepresentation is changing. “Recent campaigns indicate a shift is under way to speak to men as competent caregivers.”

‘It’s a ridiculously untapped opportunity’, said Rebecca Brown, founder of Toronto-based agency Rec Room , which consults with marketers about how to speak to families with kids. Her clients include Gap Inc. and the Toronto International Film Festival. “The traditional slant of advertising and fatherhood is to portray how inept dads are. That doesn’t speak to dads. Savvy companies are figuring that out,” Ms. Brown said.”

Dispite several early missteps, such as a controversial diaper commercial , other firms marketing to families have shown a more nuanced perception.

“Procter & Gamble Co., which counts Pampers diapers among its many products, has launched an online men’s magazine aimed squarely at fathers: ManoftheHouse.com , which offers household and parenting tips, hosts dad blogs, and promotes “the real man revolution.” The image is shifting in popular culture as well: the NBC network comedy Up All Night , features a stay-at-home father who cares for his infant daughter and retains his masculinity.”

We at the ManKind Project are all about empowering men to effect the change we want to see in the world. Part of that empowerment, a crucial part, is to work towards ending damaging stereotypes about men AND women afloat in the world. Our job is to replace these with true images of both men and women as fully powerful, fully competent beings able to create a world which will be safer and better for everyone, for generations to come.

You can read the original Globe and Mail article in full “Papa’s got a Brand New Brand” here .

Chris Callahan – Assistant Editor

Chris Callahan holds a BA in religion and a Masters degree in Library Sciences. A New Warrior in the ManKind Project; Chris is a teacher, librarian and writer. He has spent 30 years reading and thinking on politics, sociology, ethics and history. His Journal sobriquet is Ravenspen. Chris completed the New Warrior Training Adventure in 2010.

In a past relationship I got some feedback on the way I came across to my partner as a 30 year-old, powerless child. At the time, I thought I was being vulnerable and sharing openly about my feelings.

She told me something I will never forget. “I have no problem with you telling me when you’re going through a hard time,” she said. “It’s just that you sound like a child when you’re talking.”

She was right.

I recall complaining to her once about how I wasn’t getting the salary I deserved. Anyone listening to my tone might have thought they were hearing a 10-yr old mope about the low grade he got from his teacher at school. Not good for the partner sharing her life with me, and not good for me—the young man who so desperately wanted respect.

I’m not saying there’s no room to let that young part of me be seen in relationship. I am saying, I do want to be conscious of who in me I am talking from. My partner can’t always be my go-to shoulder to cry on, and thankfully, there is an alternative.

For the sake of this article, let’s say there are a few parts of me like:
- my child self
- my adult self
- my higher self

I got laid off a few years ago and the child self said to me, “how could they do this to me? I don’t know what I’m going to do!” Can you feel the blame and fear in those statements? The potential for depression? Then, shortly thereafter, the adult part of me said, “okay, I am concerned about this and I need to take action. Let me see how I can gather some support.” Rational and relational, the adult recognized that the time had come to take care of myself by reaching out for help.

My higher self is the boring one. Only because it pretty much says the same thing—probably because I keep needing to hear it to stay on my path : It says something like, “no matter what happened yesterday, what happens today, or what happens tomorrow, you are worthy of having a good life.” And, “anything is possible, just keep following your heart, rest in the not-knowing, and don’t forget to find a way to have fun every
day.”

Pretty nice, huh? All possibility, ponies, rainbows, and not so much focus on crisis.

I used to share with my past partner as my child or my higher self. Whining like a baby with a bloody tooth or preaching from on-high like a pastor with no worries. However, what she and I were both missing was an adult self that spoke with love.

“I want you to share yourself and open up,” she would say. “But just do it like a man.” Those words have guided me to have a better impact on myself as well as my current partner. The simple approach I eventually allowed myself has helped me become more confident, happier, and more adventurous.

In the getting laid off example, I felt those depressed child feelings come up really strong. I even did a little journaling to release the initial charge of it all—to distance myself from that voice so that I could really hear it instead of being overwhelmed by it. When I talk with my current partner, I know I have a choice about my presentation—which voice I am speaking from.

For the sake of the distinction, let’s imagine how the following phrase could be uttered as a child or an adult,… one at a time.

Child
First like a child moping, head hanging low, chest caving in, mumbling slowly with sagging lips, a low monotone volume and barely alive who says, “honey, to be honest I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I don’t think I could do that job again even if I could find that job. So I’m planning on talking to some friends and colleagues about what I can do next.”

Yup — that’s how I used to do it. That approach felt terrible to me and to my past partner.

Adult
Then again, imagine the same statement coming from the adult part, with a straight back, enunciating words crisply with a little more volume, and conviction, “honey, to be honest I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I don’t think I could do that job again even if I could find that job. So I’m planning on talking to some friends and colleagues about what I can do next.”

Same words, different feel altogether.

That’s how I’ve been learning to do it. This way of speaking still requires some conscious effort on my part because it’s not always my default. Sometimes, the child in me wants to be held, cuddled, and told everything is going to be all right by my partner, even in the midst of a lot of unknowns. There are times that I might actually feel so broken by the world, that I feel I can only muster that sort of opening up. And I do want that option with my partner. Letting the other be totally vulnerable is a way we feel very close as well.

Other times, I choose to let the child’s fear and depression exist while another part of me perks up.

It’s not that one way is better than the other, it’s simply that I want choices. I want to be able to get into my child at times and I want to get into my adult at other times. If you used your imagination in the example above, you have a sense of that distinction: opening up like a child or opening up like a man. It’s subtle, but it goes a long way.

One is giving up responsibility and the possibility of self-empowerment. The other is taking responsibility, taking care of your self and those you love, including that child inside. This is not just about how you come across to your partner. It’s how you come across to yourself and how willing you are to be with that child in you.

To let it know that the adult in you is going to make everything okay even in the midst of a lot of unknowns.

Questions
How do you relate to that child and the adult in you? Have you made one wrong and the other right? Can they co-exist? How do you choose the voice you share with and which part it is coming from?

In co-creation,
Matthew Alexander Sloane

Matthew Alexander Sloane, is the author of Tulie’s Garden, an illustrated story about authenticity, vulnerability, and the dark side of being a man—as revealed through his personal experience. Matthew became a New Warrior in June 2009. His mission is to create peace by sharing his inner world. His website can be found at Tulie’s Garden

He sent out the following exciting news on great work doing real mentoring in a powerful way.

Last weekend we had 26 of the leading lights of Teen Rites of Passage work gather in Oakland to share common challenges and victories, and to probe for ways forward as a collaborative community. Many of the hugely varied modalities of ROP practice were represented, from indigenous traditions thousands of years old to the latest innovations in public school programs. It was a rich weekend of sharing, a deep exchange of bold visions from a collective five hundred plus years of experience, a sustained opening of fearless hearts.

Frederick Marx
Change Agent

Teen Rites of Passage Meeting

This powerful piece comes to us from the author’s You tube link Spoken Word.
Rob writes of his work: “My Poems range from Love, Break-ups, Depression, real life issues and so on. I write from my Life, friends or families life or just by imagining how I would feel in a particular situation and writing about it. I feel I have my own unique style and I’m hard to put in a box.”

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To me, one of the greatest goals that I hear a lot of people, from adolescence on, tout as a key objective in their lives is to find their “dream relationship,” or “dream partner.” When I ask them what such a thing, or person, would look like, there has often been a list given that is both Hollywood-ized, to a degree, but also tends to be all about what that other person, or the relationship, is going to provide them. Having that Mr. or Ms. McDreamy is going to make their life SO much better. In such a scenario, an inordinate amount of power gets given over to that other person and/or entity.

This is an almost certain recipe for failure; even if the relationship itself lasted, it would be choked off of it’s passion and juiciness potential by what would be an ever-growing haze of co-dependency, marked by an equally ever-growing resentment that always builds when someone on whom we depend to take care of our needs doesn’t get the job done.

A much healthier set-up is when we first develop the relationship with ourselves into which a person can step in a way where they are not being seen as a power source, but rather as a kind of amplifier…someone who amplifies that relationship we have with ourself, and adds new components. This synergy can create a separate, inter-dependent entity that – in my way of feeling anyway – would help weave a love partnership that reflects the truest Soul qualities of each partner and mirrors, in form, the fusion of Heaven & Earth…mind, body, and Spirit, that the picture here (painting at left copyrighted by DJ Sie) represents for me.

In noted Spiritual Teacher and Author, Mary Manin Morrissey’s book, “Building Your Field Of Dreams,” she offers five questions that we can use to “test” our dreams…to see, in my read of it, whether what we think is a dream we have for our life is, at the very least, in alignment with our Highest Good and the highest and best available learning our Spirit wants for us.

Again, though, the health and success of any relationship is inextricably woven with what the health or dis-ease is in our relationship with ourselves. So, I am sharing these questions with you and inviting you to go through each one of them in the context of your love for, and relationship with, yourself first. Then, if you are currently in a love relationship with a partner, see what answers emerge in regard to your partner and relationship.

Doing this will allow you to both more deeply appreciate yourself, your partner, and your relationship (or not), and serve as both a preventative and healing tool in those relationships. Why? Because it will reveal how much of a burdensome, unnecessary weight your love relationship is carrying…the burden of of projected needs and expectations that a healthy, thriving love for yourself would provide in a far more lasting and enduring way, no matter what’s happening in your relationship with your partner. When we can “catch” that, we can take such projections off our partner (or any external relationship) and re-true our relationship with ourselves…that then frees up our love relationship to be of a totally different (and healthier) purpose.

Here are the questions…take your time going through them, and answer them from your heart far more than from your mind. Any question that yields a “No” response is an indicator that you probably would be well-served to then ask yourself what you would need to do and/or adjust within you (not your partner) to be on track towards a “Yes” answer:

• Does/will the relationship/dream enliven me?
• Does/will the relationship/dream align with my core values?
• Do/will I need help from a higher Source to make this dream/relationship realized?
• Does/will this relationship/dream require me to grow into more of my True Self?
• Does/will this relationship/dream ultimately bless others?

Be sure that, if you take on doing this “test,” that you pay attention to whatever feelings come up as you ask yourself each question. Notice how the feelings may differ when you’re applying it to your relationship with yourself versus applying it to a past or current love relationship that was extremely important to you. By the way, this is really applicable to every relationship…I think this is a great test to apply to how we hold and interact with our relationships with co-workers, our children, our family, etc.

I would really love to hear what comes up for you when you do this exercise, both out of my obvious attraction to the exercise, but also as part of research I’m doing for an upcoming book and class on relationship I’m in the midst of creating. If you would be willing to share what came up and what you learned with me, and would want it to be anonymous, please email me at laughtoncoach@gmail.com. If you’re willing to have your experiences be of more immediate use and support for others trying to figure all this relationship stuff out, I invite you to post a comment or a note, to my Living Your Spirit Now Facebook fan page (click here: Geoff’s Fan Page).

I hope you enjoy, and get illuminated (maybe even a bit uncomfortable) by, doing this exercise…and will seriously take on using whatever you learn to continually deepen, align, and expand your relationship to yourself – and your Beloved – towards the limitless places of connection and expansion that I feel are totally possible to live in.

Geoff helps couples get the relationship back with each other that they’ve been dreaming of instead of continuing to live the one they’ve been settling for.
Geoff is a Master Relationships Recovery Coach who has spent the last 15 years guiding individuals and couples worldwide in re-energizing and re-inventing their relationships – with themselves and others – before they get irreparably damaged. This, combined with his 29 years as a loving husband and father, has provided Geoff with the real-life experience needed to guide others in rescuing and renewing the relationships into which so much time, love, and energy have been invested – and need not be wasted.

by Eivind Skjellum

Blood Diamond is an interesting and inspiring to me, less so because of the very real struggles around the sales of illegal diamonds, and much more so because it embodies to me what this website is talking about… masculinity.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays a white African called “Danny Archer” and in my opinion has a very real and deep sense of himself as a self-assured man.

Danny Archer is a self-made man and diamond smuggler. While little is given of his past, it is mentioned that he had a rough one… seeing his mother raped and murdered as a child and his father hanged. He also served time in the military and is very skilled on the land as a tracker, fighter, shooter and generally solid survival skills and connections.

He seems to hold no illusions that he is doing something grand, he simply wants out and away from all the violence and bullshit and conflict that he has experienced all his life and is waiting for his big score that can get him out of Africa…. which is where the story starts as he hears of such a diamond found by a black slave laborer and goes to any means to get that diamond.

What really gets me about this movie is DiCaprio’s character is so damn cool. He absolutely and resolutely stands up for what he believes in regardless of those around him and at the same time as the movie progresses is able to open his heart and allow his beliefs to expand and grow without compromising his sense of self or purpose.

Many scenes stand out for me, one in particular is when Danny is in a bar and sees an attractive woman sitting there. He proceeds to talk to her and as she starts to ask him questions it dawns on him that she is a reporter.

He asks her “so you are a journalist?” to which she affirms and immediately Danny returns with “piss of huh” regardless of being very obviously attracted to her and walks off.

She follows him out asking for help in exposing the blood diamond trade asking if he can help her “off the record” to which he replies “well off the record I like to get kissed before I get fucked” and departs.

The movie follows a blossoming romance between these two characters as Danny seems to be inspired by her resolution and dedication to really making a difference while Maddy (the woman journalist) seems to be increasingly impressed by his determination and unwavering commitment to what is right, for him, and watching as he seems to evolve and begin to question his own beliefs and embrace the idea that it is possible to make a difference.

Right towards the end of the movie, before the wrap up, there is a final interplay between these two characters which shows, to me, right up until the end Danny is a hardcore man and will keep her safe even with his last breath…. and I’m not gonna talk too much about this last scene.

Danny Archer’s character is one of my favorite characters I have watched in any movie and I cannot write enough words to explain how I feel when watching this movie.

I highly recommend this movie if only as a man to watch this kick-ass embodiment of masculinity.

Enjoy!

Eivind Skjellum, is the founder of Masculinity Movies, where this originally appeared in his blog. Eivind completed the New Warrior Training Adventure in June 2011. Read about his experience HERE.