Depression is one of the greatest of human tragedies. Often dismissed, trivialized and misunderstood, a cloud of pain in the mind of someone in the grip of depression is no less overwhelming than an acute physical discomfort is to an injured individual. Depression has wreaked whole lives, making its victims unhappy, unproductive, miserable and even suicidal. It has profound negative effects on the friends and family of someone who is suffering from depression. It is also terribly misunderstood.

So it is exciting to hear that a recent study performed in the UK is working on helping people cope with this grave condition.

Recognizing that “People suffering from depression have a tendency towards unhelpful abstract thinking and over-general negative thoughts, such as viewing a single mistake as evidence that they are useless at everything”, the authors of the study, which was conducted at the University of Exeter, developed a technique they are calling Concreteness Training (CNT) in the hope that by using CNT practice exercises, this tendency can be shifted directly by the depression sufferers themselves.

The technique is based on teaching individuals to keep their difficulties in perspective by reflecting more specifically on the set of problems arising in the episode of depression. It is thought this method will improve problem solving and reduce worry and brooding tendencies.

Study participants took on a daily exercise, focusing on a recent upsetting event. Using first a therapist and then an audio CD with guided instructions, they worked through a set of steps to examine the event and see how they might have been able to influence the outcome, rather than just accept the results.

“CNT significantly reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety, on average reducing symptoms from severe depression to mild depression during the first two months and maintaining this effect over the following three and six months. On average, those individuals who simply continued with their usual treatment remained severely depressed.”

As Professor Edward Watkins of the University of Exeter notes: “This is the first demonstration that just targeting thinking style can be an effective means of tackling depression. Concreteness training can be delivered with minimal face-to-face contact with a therapist and training could be accessed online, through CDs or through smartphone apps. This has the advantage of making it a relatively cheap form of treatment that could be accessed by large numbers of people. This is a major priority in depression treatment and research, because of the high prevalence and global burden of depression, for which we need widely available cost-effective interventions.”

Depression adversely affects many people on a regular basis, and probably the majority of human beings at some point in their lives. It is an issue of men’s health in particular that is underplayed in a world where “guys are supposed to tough it out”. This dismissive denial has cost parents their sons, children their fathers and siblings their brothers. It has given friends tragic pain and loss, and cost the world the very lives of some men at the height of their creative and productive power.

As men affirming the physical and mental health of each other, we take the issue of depression very seriously, and are heartened by any new and promising approach to healing this age old scourge of the human mind.

The Penn State story has been a constant headline in my local paper. I live in eastern Pennsylvania, so this coverage is certainly not unexpected. Often times, I cannot read all the details of the alleged events that took place in “Happy Valley.” My heart goes out to those boys, because if true, many were selected and groomed as victims due to their socioeconomic status.

I attended college not far from Penn Sate. I loved the bucolic countryside, the friendly people, and the slowness of life that seems to come with distance. Like most small towns, there is not much that happens on one side of the street that the other does not know about, even in State College, the home of Penn State. I find it hard to imagine that this was news to many who lived in the area – particularly those involved with both the football program and charity with which this man participated.

At some point the question must be asked, “Where were the adult men and women in the lives of these boys?” The answer that comes to mind is absent or hiding, or just not there. On further reflection, I ask, “To whom or what did they give away their power, their obligation, to protect our most important and vulnerable asset, our children?” If the stories are true, this man was a serial and sinister sexual predator wrapped in the protective blanket of the “program.”

In the case of Penn State the program was college football, but in a more general sense, the “program” can be any organization or idea to which one surrenders their voice.

Over the past year MKP USA has developed a membership program. The goal, like many other non-profit organizations, is to enroll and invite members to help support their mission. I believe in the MKP mission of creating a safer world by growing better men. We’ve been supporting men to become the best of who they are for over 25 years, and we have impacted hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. MKP USA directly serves nearly 7000 men across the USA every week, providing a safe and challenging environment to confront the tough issues and find new tools for success.

We need men standing up for children and not remaining silent when bad things happen. I know that I have learned a lot about how to stand up for myself and those I love doing this work, and I see a lot of men around me doing the same.

When I see a man find his voice on a New Warrior Training Adventure, I have hope in my heart. When I see a man and his family so utterly connected at a homecoming celebration, I have tears of joy in my eyes. When I see a man remember who he really is and why he is here, I am humbled and speechless.

I am a member of MKP USA for all these reasons and more. I’m not expecting anything in return as a member. I am a member because I believe the world needs the work we do. As I continue to read about all the silent suffering throughout the world today, I long for empowered adults who when witnessing or encountering such events will stand and exclaim, “No! Not today. Not on my watch.” I believe this is happening right now because MKP-USA has invited each man to peal back the blanket of lies and illusions that may have kept him quiet.

My invitation is to join me in supporting this noble mission. I ask that you, as a powerful man, stand with me and plant your flag in the ground and become a member. Your voice is welcome. Our grandsons are waiting, our granddaughters are watching.

Doug Eadline
Still Dancing Lion
Philadelphia, PA

Shaman walks into the circle of Initiaties. Staff circle is around inner circle of men doing the training. Shaman walks into the inner circle with a large Canadian goose wing, a bundle of white sage tied with red ribbon and burning sage in his left hand. He quickly smudges the heart chakra area of the new men in a sweeping motion, while making intense, close eye contact with each man as he moves quickly around the circle.

There is silence. Some men are crying.

“Men, my brothers, this is the moment you have waited your whole life for. This is the moment you will choose to take the longest stride of soul you ever took. You will do it now to heal yourself. Amen.

Dark and cold we may be. But this is no winter now. The frozen misery and pain of centuries, cracks, breaks, begins to thaw. The thunder is the thunder of the floes, the flood, the Upstart Spring!

Thank God our time is now when Wrong comes up to meet us everywhere.

Thank God our time is now, when Wrong comes up to meet our everywhere, until we take the longest stride of Soul men ever took. Affairs are now soul sized. Our enterprise is exploration into the human heart. Where are you making for? Where are you making for? It takes so many, many years to Wake.

But will you wake for Pity’s Sake?
But will you wake for Pity’s Sake?

Men, my brothers, you have spent your whole life in the Wasteland. Generations of men, our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers have lived their entire lives and died in the Wasteland.

Mircae Eliade, the great Romanian mythologist described the multi generational plight of men and hear him well:

‘ The single great affliction to ever befall the human spirit was the Fall into Modernity.’

Yes, brothers, the fall into modernity. When we left the land and lost our sacred connection to the movements of the sun and moon and stars. When we forgot the magic of the milky breath of the great buffalo on the High Plains of the West. When we humans left the land, and moved to the great urban centers, we lost our connection to our extended families, we lost the elders, we lost the ability of our sons and daughters to be mentored by the red tailed hawk, the raccoon, the bear, and the squirrel.

Our loss is catastrophic. Make no mistake. We are deeply wounded men.

Fifty Thousand men across the world have spilled their guts on this magic carpet before you. Spilled their guts to “win back” their life personally, and to “win back” what we have lost over hundreds and hundreds of years in the wasteland of post modern “civilization”.

Who are these men? They are men of Valor and Undaunted Courage. Men of all races and ages. Former WW II submarine commanders, Marine Platoon leaders from the fields and mountains of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, movie stars, sports figures, dads and grand dads. Men who have been raped and sodomized. Men who have been tortured by older brothers or priests or clergy. Men who have killed other human beings to protect our nation. Young men who came to this as a court mandated training rather than go to prison and get raped by other men and to avoid becoming career criminals.

Our circle is vast. We are straight, gay, bisexual and transgendered men. Men dying of bone cancer and protate cancer. The men who have spilled their guts on this magic carpet are men who have done remarkable things and we expect no less of you.

There is no cheap grace here. You go deep and you get to the key piece that is choking your life force.

Repeat after me. “I will go deep.” “And I will get the piece that is choking my life force!”

As General Patton said to his troops before the most epic battle of their lives: “The American people love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. This is why we have never lost a war. Now today, all of you proud sons of America will be victorious. You shall prevail”.

Every staff man here has done his Guts Work and is here to help you and be your champion. Remember, brothers, Fifty thousand men have stepped through the Gates of Hell and taken on their own deepest shadows.

Men, this is the moment of the Hero’s Journey.

And each one of you will be your own champion and Hero today.

“The road ahead is well marked by the millions of men who’ve gone before you.”
All you have to do then is to follow the thread of the Hero’s Journey.

Now men, Listen to Joseph Campbell’s rich wisdom here.

“Where you had thought to slay another, you shall slay only yourself. And where you had thought to be alone, you shall find yourself one with all the world.”

As I said when we circled up, you have waited your whole life for this moment. This is perhaps the key process, the key event for you of this weekend Adventure. Be here. Be now. Be present. The Now is Everything. The Now is all there is.

Take three deep breaths. Drums!! And the first man on the carpet is …………?

Dedicated with profound respect to all the valiant
deceased brothers of The Mankind Project

— An Elder Brother on the Way

The human mind, is, above all else, a storytelling mechanism. Because of this, many people retreat into story when the world of objective facts overwhelms them. They want to perceive reality in a way that makes sense to them. Rather than insisting on dividing story from fact, one novel concept is to use story to present facts, providing real information in a comforting context. This approach has been used by Dr. Zachary Meisel and Dr. Jason Karlawish of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

In an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the two professors argue that “scientists should be telling narratives to explain their findings—stories with a beginning, middle and end—rather than simply relating data.” As physicians, the two men regularly use this narrative technique to connect with patients about their illnesses. Meisel and Karlawish reason that if patients can link up personal experience with scientific data, they are in a better position to “put the information in context, and act on it” However, the doctors also see a larger application. Stories that help people engage in wise choices are also “a necessary weapon against stories that encourage bad decisions.”

Recent celebrity-led campaigns that claim vaccines cause autism have resulted in a “noticeable effect on childhood vaccination rates”, resulting in new outbreaks of a once all but eradicated childhood ailment. To counteract this, scientists have relied on pointing out flaws in Anti-vaccine “studies” and relating the data to population statistics as a whole.

But this approach is no match for emotional sob stories about parents who claim to have noticed autistic behaviors in their children shortly after receiving vaccination. To counteract this approach, Doctors Meisel and Karlawish suggest that their colleagues should use stories of their own, pointing out the suffering and danger children can encounter by NOT being vaccinated against measles. This personal approach, through the medium of story, is one which people unable to relate to scientific and medical data can put in a context which makes sense to them.

The human mind loves to tell stories. Using stories to explain how the world really works, complex counter-intuitive facts and reality can be framed in a way which makes sense to some people who find themselves otherwise overwhelmed by data they find too cold and unfamiliar to contemplate.

This may yet be the most effective way of resolving multiple conflicts in areas of popular misperceptions around issues like evolution, global warming, and even certain socioeconomic fallacies.

If humans need stories as a way of encountering truth, then let us find them the stories they need.

Erik Erikson – Developmental Psychoanalyst

But as we reflect on our past, some of us may become bitter, regretful and despair at what we accomplished or failed to accomplish within our lifetime.

I’m contrasting these words about one’s intention in older age with my experience as a Hospice Volunteer Visitor.
I’m also, of course, listening to these words about intention in older age with my 66 year old ears thinking about them with my 66 year old brain.

As Forrest Carver points out, people are three times more likely to live past 90 than a generation ago, and I’m sure that is true.

My wife Ruth and I now care for her 94 year old dad, a man who is physically well but has major memory limitations. We go to church with a 100 year old guy who only recently stopped being able to be in church regularly. Our church community includes a dozen or so folks who live in a very nice assisted living center. They are all in their late 80′s and historically were the core of the church we joined 20 years ago. So we are in touch with 90 year olds on a regular basis.

Ruth and I currently are jointly responsible visitors for a 94 year old hospice client who has kidney failure but has elected to not get started with kidney dialysis. This decision means she will probably die in the next four or five months. She has lived in an assisted living apartment for the past 12 years. During that time she has lost most of her sight and a lot of her hearing, has developed significant arthritis and congestive heart failure. About the only thing that works well for her right now is her mind. She is really quite together and able, I suppose, to think about her life, her accomplishments and disappointments pretty clearly. But her options in terms of future plans are pretty sharply curtailed.

She is surrounded by folks who are much less together mentally than she is. She confides that the three other women who sit with her in the communal dining room say exactly the same thing at every meal. She has learned to nod and pretend to listen while she has thoughts of her own – and that works well since her hearing is so bad that she really can’t listen very well anyway. Maybe these women were able to review their histories and accomplishments and consider their future when they were in their 60′s and 70′s.

I experience that we need yet some other kind of way to talk about the lives of those in their 90′s. They are not planning the future. They are living in spite of. In spite of having lost a spouse (sometimes like our client having lost a spouse three decades ago) in spite of multiple medical problems, in spite of having been “retired” for more years than they actually worked during their whole career, in spite of no longer having a house or neighborhood that they identify as “my turf” , and in most cases in spite of having lost contact with their church community and mostly lost track of their biological family. They are carrying on in spite of these multiple losses. They get up and shower in the morning and make sure their hair is groomed. They do as best as they can with email given their limited vision and slow finger movement. They dress and often put on a little perfume for dinner. They maintain pleasant conversation and pleasant interactions. But they are not making great art. They are not organizing philosophical conceptions. There are many hundreds of such folks living in the “supported living” apartments of Champaign and Urbana and I suspect many other midwestern towns. They are not planning the future – although they are not cutting off the option of a future either. If we are going to “invent” new categories or names for states of life, those are the ones for whom we need to come up with a name and a way to think about what it means for our “humanness” that so many of us end up thus.

Ken Gilbert

Frank Grindrod, a New Warrior from Western Massachusetts, part of the New England Community and a Member of one of the two longest running men’s groups in New England (the Special Boys) was featured in a spot on a local TV station WWLP 22 News with information on what to have and what to do if you’re stranded in your car this winter.

Frank has been working with children and adults for a number of years teaching survival and tracking skills through his business, Earthwork Programs. He also regularly puts on survival programs that help ‘everyday’ folks gain confidence and skills for handling tough situations that arise unexpectedly, and in Massachusetts, this has been happening a lot.

Frank is one of a large number of men in the Northeast who are helping people reconnect to the natural world and protect, sustain and improve our society. The New England ManKind Project community has become a hub for engaged men of all ages to align the ‘outer’ work that they do with environmental sustainability, nature awareness, survival skills, tracking skills and more with the ‘inner tracking’ work that we have been doing for nearly 3 decades across the USA and around the world. It’s a perfect fit.

Thank you Frank for stepping out into the world to share your gifts!

Boysen Hodgson is the Editor of the ManKind Project Journal and the Marketing and Communications Director for the ManKind Project USA. Boysen graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English Lit. and completed 2 years of Design coursework at Cornell University. He owns H2O Marketing, Inc., a Graphic Design and Marketing Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. He’s a dedicated husband. Boysen completed the New Warrior Training Adventure in 2004.

The makers of the movie Happy Feet Two spent significant effort on the facial expressions of the animated penguins. According to the animation director, “There i’s incredible detail put into the micro-movements around the eye, —the movement of the eye itself, the dilation of the pupils, the movement of the head, and the slight pursing of the beak; —just to tell you “Mumble” is a thinking character.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 19-20 November 2011)

The movie team obviously knows about the importance of face reading for us humans. So should leaders.

Dr. Frank Salter has been studying faces and the link to human dominance hierarchies for most of his career. Dr Salter recently left the prestigious Max Planck Institute in Germany to return to his native Australia and I interviewed him for this newsletter on the implications of facial expressions for leaders.

Dominance

Hierarchies are a characteristic of social animals. “Dominance is a way of facilitating group living,” says Dr. Salter. “A dominance relationship does not mean aggression, though aggressive signals can be used to establish dominance in the first place. In fact, cooperative living in humans groups is characterised by peaceful, friendly relationships, but with individuals within the group sorting themselves into a dominance pattern.”

For social species there are benefits from a pecking order for both high-dominance and low-dominance individuals. For the dominant individuals there is preferred access to valued resources (such as food and water) and mating. For subordinate individuals there is the advantage of group living where, without the group, they would be more exposed—. While less well off than the dominant individuals, this is still better than being alone.

But life can be complex for social species. We need to read others’ intentions. Signals help.

The Face

“The face, Dr Salter says, is a specialised signalling site for sending complex social messages. “For starters, our flat faces make the human face the most revealing of all species.”

There are patterns of facial expressions that tend to display relative dominance. Dominant individuals are more relaxed (as shown by uncompressed lips) and are happier (as shown by a higher frequency of smiles).

Lower-ranking individuals tend to display their submission by facial expressions such as nodding, downcast eyes and slight nervousness in the face. There are, of course, wider body-language signals, often specific to cultural traditions, such as letting the high-power person enter the lift first and standing when a high-power person comes into a meeting room. In all cultures, and in other primate species, the dominant is the centre of attention. In meetings most glances are toward the dominant individual, with people assessing that person’s mood and preferences.

There is a payoff of this interplay for both parties. For the dominant, the submissive gestures result in a spurt of pleasure chemicals in their brain; —it’’s rewarding. For the subordinates, peace and harmony is maintained and they continue to enjoy the support of the dominant “alpha”.

Dr Salter makes the point that in a well-functioning hierarchy, there should be no contest. With a stable pecking order and the dominant individual secure in that role, individuals can get on, living in social harmony.

Aggressive Displays

But problems occur when the leader is domineering and aggressive— with a dysfunctional use of dominance. Dr. Salter explains this over-dominance occurs when the boss expects overt shows of submission, and in situations of fault finding by the boss including perhaps yelling and screaming. When they are being dominated in this way, subordinate individuals have the undesirable choice of submitting to the tyrant or fleeing. A third strategy is that of counter-moves by subordinates. It is not only humans who engage in cheeky or even manipulative behaviour, often just to antagonise the leader.

The greater payoff for group living is when dominant individuals are relaxed, friendly and affiliative. These leaders still receive the submission payoffs and do so at no real cost to the subordinates. The boss receives maximum loyalty, creativity, and effort.

Tips for Leaders

When a dominant person speaks, the attention of others is fixed on that individual’s face. What do you want people to read from your face? A reminder to those who wish to lead is to communicate a complex combination of traits, including the “absence of arrogance, over-bearingness, boastfulness and personal aloofness,” and, at the same time, “espouse a combination of unaggressiveness, generosity and friendly emotions.”

How is this portrayed by our face? Since the face reflects our inner emotions it’s pointless to try to fake it. Here are some tips, beginning with a distinction to bear in mind.

The simple rule of “Leaders reassure, followers appease, makes an important point. Confident and benevolent leaders takes care to avoid giving offence by throwing their weight around. The established hierarchy already magnifies the impact of every gesture, every word. With all that power it is easy to create uncertainty and thus anxiety, even fear. Reassurance neutralizes a supervisor’s threatening presence. Reassurances can be positive (smiles, praise, some jokes, signs of respect) as well as negative (avoiding emitting inadvertent threats). Some specifics include:

• Don’t compress the mouth; —a compressed mouth conveys a threat signal.
• Don’t stare – —which is also a threat signal.
• When talking to a subordinate, tilt the head even by just 5°, —which breaks the threat content of gaze.
• Smile— – which reassures a subordinate that punishment is not pending.
• Raise eyebrows in combination with relaxed mouth, —which indicates a non-threatening intent.

Apart from a few leaders at the very top of the pecking order (chairs of boards, owners of businesses) most leaders are also subordinate to someone else. What are the tips when in a subordinate relationship?

• Show mild appeasement but not grovelling. For example, when speaking with a superior, refrain from interrupting frequently —let him or her lead the conversation unless you need to make an important work-related point. But grovelling is out. Minimise self deprecation.

• Nodding of the head is an appeasement gesture (although cultural differences apply here).
• When replying, take care to leave a dignified silence after the boss has spoken. Even just a split second delay helps avoid the appearance of impertinence.

• A smile from a subordinate usually signals a willingness to cooperate if it matches the mood of the boss. However, smiling at the leader’s anger or frustration is anything but cooperative!

• A subtle form of appeasement is to follow the leader’s positive moods (friendliness, humour) and react appropriately to negative moods.

• The general rule is to avoid taking the lead in a way that challenges the leader.

If appeasements should be used sparingly by subordinates, they should be positively avoided by leaders because they signal deference. On the other hand, assertiveness is occasionally needed because all hierarchies are challenged sooner or later. When personal assertiveness cannot be avoided, for example in reprimanding or firing an individual, it should be delivered with authentic emotions – —a mix of sternness and perhaps regret that such action is necessary. Appropriate facial expressions should be displayed by the leader.

As you become more aware of reading other people, take a moment to reflect on your own expressions and the messages you are conveying. And enjoy the film Happy Feet Two. My wife is on a mission of seeing all seventeen species of penguin in the wild. So far we have seen fourteen.

(For references to Dr. Salter’’s work see: “Taking Leaders at face Value” in Politics and the Life Sciences March 2009, Vol 28 No 1 or his book, Emotions in Command, Transaction Publishers, (USA 2008)

Andrew O’Keeffe is the author of Hardwired Humans and The Boss. He is an associate of three of Australia’s leading business schools. Andrew’s background is in senior HR roles with IBM, Cable & Wireless Optus, SKM and Hewitt Associates. He studied Economics and Industrial Relations at The University of Sydney and started his career in industrial relations in the mining and manufacturing industries. In 2011, as he did in 2008, Andrew joined with the chimpanzee expert Dr Jane Goodall when she was in Australia to speak to business audiences about the implications of our social instincts for leadership of organisations.

I took part in a workshop recently: about 18 women and 12 men played in a very interactive, energetic inquiry as to the nature of sexuality and how it lives or does not live in each of us.

In one moment, our brilliant facilitator noticed that there was a “men vs. women” dynamic showing up in the conversation, so she invited us to make it more real and play it out. All the men stood on one side of the room and all the women on the other. “Let out all the judgments you have about the other sex — say it to the people across from you now!”

A flurry came from the men, angry and pissed. Pent up rage being given permission to be expressed.

One woman grabbed a tennis racket and began pounding a pillow, screaming a wild, ”Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!”

I got annoyed. This felt like a battle and I judged her as weak.

And I faced a part of myself as I remained frozen: the nice guy. The little boy who wants others to be happy and safe and have their needs met, often at the expense of my own.

Is that all true? The nice guy who doesn’t believe anger accomplishes anything because it’s destructive and wrong and a waste of time. He thinks there’s fallout from anger that requires too much clean up, so why go there in the first place?

“Is that all true?” I asked that part of me. And I decided to take a risk.

I grabbed another racket, staring at the screaming woman and pounding on my own pillow yelling, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

That was in me! I couldn’t believe it when it came out so ferociously. I really wanted to tell that woman to shut up and I did.

She kept going. And without much thought, I paused, and went back to the pillow.

I’ve heard that every act is one of love or a cry for help. She wasn’t wrong in her expression and neither was I — and at the same time, something was missing. I picked up the racket again, and went back to my pillow, facing the “Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!” coming my way, and towards all the men.

My hands slammed the racket into the pillow as I heard myself shouting, “I love you! Shut up! I love you! Shut up! I love you! Shut up!”

She paused and turned to a woman next to her. “What did he say?” she asked. Her sister-friend told her.

“Oh,” she replied. “No problem.” And she put her racket down, seemingly pleased at the results — much like me.

Now I’m not condoning this as a method of expression suitable for the home or life in general.

It worked in a workshop and it might work for some people, under a set of clear agreements, in certain spaces. But what fascinates me is how blending my anger with love felt so clean and powerful and connected me to my entire body, as well as connecting me to this woman’s need: to be loved. And what did I feel? Alive! I felt my vigor! My truth!

I’ve always made my anger wrong. And I often hear from women that they need and crave men’s anger. Not acted out as violence, but rather expressed as outrage for a boundary being crossed. The energy of resolve that can be used to stand up (with words) for what is sacred and deserves protecting. The energy of fierce that is so beautiful in all of us when we defend our dignity and the dignity of others.

Women crave this in men because men who don’t allow their anger to be expressed unconsciously ask someone else to carry and express for them — often the women in their
lives. So when men own it themselves, women can relax and not feel the need to be BOTH feminine AND masculine in the relationship.

The gift of anger I believe anger expressed without permission from the receiver can be felt as an attack. And it’s still a gray area for me as to how and when I can allow my anger with those I love as well as strangers.

At home, when expressed with permission, it can be a gift. I have experienced this and it is magical to feel the shift from anger to love that occurs. Especially when the expression of anger is preceded by “I love you. I want to be with you. What I’m about to say is mine, not yours. Let it wash over you and only keep what feels useful, if there’s anything for you.”

Outside my home or workshop settings, I don’t really know much about anger because I’ve not often gone there.

How about you? What examples of healthy anger have you experienced in yourself or witnessed in others?

In co-creation,
Matthew Alexander Sloane

Matthew Alexander Sloane, who once said of himself that “I create a world of violence by shutting off my anger” 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

“Agape is more than romantic or aesthetic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is creative, understanding, redemptive good will for all men. It is an overflowing love that seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that this is the love of God operating in the human heart. When one rises to love on this level, he loves every man. He rises to the point of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. I believe that this is the kind of love that can carry us through this period of transition. This is what we’ve tried to teach through this nonviolent discipline.” ~ December 18, 1963, the Speech at WMU

One of the core values of the ManKind Project is Multicultural Awareness, often referred to as inclusiveness, or more simply, as diversity. It is something we strive for personally and institutionally, a value that we believe in and that we have dedicated significant resources to. We have created and offer a number of trainings directly addressing the ‘isms and issues’ that stand in the way of effective cross-cultural connection and partnership.

We integrate, at the highest levels of the organization, tools to create a safe dialogue that distinguishes multiple levels of communication and bridges the gap between differing belief systems. We don’t try to use a hammer to cut glass. We don’t try to use Interpersonal Conflict Resolution to solve Institutional or Cultural Problems – but we strongly recognize how personal and interpersonal issues impact our Institutions and our Culture. Learning to hear, recognize, and act from a place of multiple intelligences has revolutionized our work, and has forever changed the lives of thousands of men.

We pursue this value, and continue to integrate it into every aspect of the organization by creating spaces where men and women have the opportunity to engage ideas about the ‘other’ and simultaneously examine their own lives and the circumstances they were born into, or grew into. For many of us it means seeing clearly the many privileges we have, and letting go of illusions about ‘rugged individualism’ that have so hindered our society from making significant gains in equality and human rights. We meet men where they are in their lives and invite them to take a step, and then another, toward self-awareness, integrity, responsibility and emotional authenticity.

It is in our circles, through personal connection, that we begin to see and feel the weight of the systems and structures that function to keep some in places of power and others without it. When we connect with one another with our hearts, eyes and ears open, the fog lifts and our fears lessen. The illusion of us and them fades. We begin to see how each of us, in so many ways, are the same. We also see, in jarring reality, how deeply embedded systems privilege some over others. And it is through brotherhood that we develop the trust and commitment to make a difference, personally, institutionally and culturally.

Martin Luther King Jr. is beloved as a hero in the United States, and yet the significance of his message — the vision that he held for our culture to awaken from a poverty of mind and love — are far from realized. To awaken, we must look into the shadowy depths of both personal suffering and systemic injustice, and develop the right tools to heal both. Taking full responsibility for ourselves and the realities of our world, as ‘New Warriors’, means that it becomes harder and harder to ‘stay asleep’, to blind ourselves to the suffering of others and the systems that create it.

“It is simply this, that through our scientific genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood. Now through our ethical and moral commitment, we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools. This is the great challenge of the hour. This is true of individuals. It is true of nations. No individual can live alone. No nation can live alone.”

In the ManKind Project, we acknowledge Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of the ‘New Warrior’, someone willing to stand on the cutting edge of risk, fear and change, and take powerful action to create a better world for all of us. It’s going to take a vast army of ‘New Warriors’ to create a sustainable and just world. The men of the ManKind Project are part of that army, and we have spent the last 27 years helping men wake up to a purpose beyond themselves, a unifying reason for being, as Martin Luther King Jr. did. We invite you to join us, to work with us as partners and collaborators, in making the dream more real for our children and grandchildren.

Boysen Hodgson is the Editor of the ManKind Project Journal and the Marketing and Communications Director for the ManKind Project USA. Boysen graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English Lit. and completed 2 years of Design coursework at Cornell University. He owns H2O Marketing, Inc., a Graphic Design and Marketing Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. He’s a dedicated husband. Boysen completed the New Warrior Training Adventure in 2004.