by justin | Feb 22, 2022 | Brotherhood, Community, Spirit, Wholeness |
Benevolent, Brave, Aware, Loving, Bold…
Many words can be used to describe what it means to be a healthy man in today’s modern world.
The one that speaks to me most though, is Brotherhood.
The importance of men joining together during these times is unquestionable. For far too long we’ve been divided and in that division, toxic attitudes and beliefs have spread like a virus upon our planet, communities, and relationships.
As the world around us continues to unfold, evolve, expand, and change, even the best of us often face adversity, challenge, and even lose their way.
I know I have more than a few times…
Being in Brotherhood can be challenging and confronting for many of us who grew up without masculine accountability. I now believe it is a vital aspect to an integrated and loving future for everyone.
Through men’s development work, I’ve been able to ground a sense of connection, stability, and inner strength deeply within myself. I’m grateful for the meaningful relationships with men and elders who light the way towards the best aspects of myself.
The things I want to change, my brothers show me reflection.
The things I want to release, my brothers keep me accountable.
The things I want to challenge, my brothers give me support.
Our world is stepping into higher levels of consciousness, and there is much work to be done. It’s vital men move towards cooperation, and away from competition with each other.
As we bring more awareness to these ideas, I believe the illusion of separation and isolation so many men feel will be washed away with the support and presence of other men doing the work.
As each man does the work of bringing forth the highest aspects of themselves, we create a world where healthy, benevolent men stand in the wisdom, strength, and love.
A world where women feel seen, held, and free in the fullest expression. A world where the depth and intimacy all humans crave is cultivated, celebrated, and nourished through the harmonizing of our masculine and feminine energies.
We’re stronger together, and the time is now.
by justin | Feb 22, 2022 | Community, Empowerment, Heart, Inner Work, Spirit |
Ancient text, and many modern ones, speak to the idea of having our hearts open.
But what does that even mean?
I believe opening our hearts to ourselves, others, and to Life itself is a continuous and courageous process.
Sometimes our hearts close, sometimes our hearts open. The practice of awareness and gentle aspiration towards a heart that is open more often than closed is a worthy and meaningful endeavor.
I believe opening our hearts is an ever unfolding, and natural, process that, like a recipe, is best when it has some essential ingredients.
It begins with a willingness and desire to practice awareness. Even something as simple as our inhale and exhale can be a sufficient pathway to the heart, when done with intention.
As with any repeated action or awareness, returning again and again to our heart creates a familiar path that continually leads us to more presence and love in how we engage and interact with ourselves and others.
It is towards this subtle wisdom of our hearts that we re-attune ourselves. I believe the soft language of the heart is somehow fundamental to understanding our human puzzle and as such, has an important role that we are only now beginning to rediscover. This requires presence, stillness, a desire to listen, and a willingness to be surprised.
On a very practical level, it can be simply asking ourselves the question, What does my heart feel like in this moment? Often when we ask this, the heart may be silent. This is ok.
By creating a graceful habit of being in the inquiry of how our hearts feel, we begin to learn its gentle language. When we can understand the heart’s different flavors of yes, no, and stillness, we can begin to truly follow our hearts.
The language of the heart can be said to be sensation. It doesn’t speak in words, or even a voice. Instead, it speaks in colors, images, and sensations. When we begin to listen to the language of the heart, we will notice that its sensations can be both subtle and pronounced.
Sudden rushes of passion, the way a song can move us to tears, the gentle kiss of breeze across our skin, and the heartbreak that often comes with goodbye are all included in our expanding experience of the heart’s mystery.
From conscious awareness, we move into the body. When we practice yoga, chi-gong, and other practices that holistically engage the body, we rediscover a heightened awareness. As our physicality and energetic bodies are tied together, a supple, strong, and open chest allows us to become efficient and effective beacons and antenna of love.
The final and crucial aspect of opening our hearts is what some would call faith, imagination, belief, or even magic.
The road to becoming good stewards to our heart and the wisdom it contains often leads us straight through the unknown. We don’t have to believe in a higher power or even that ‘we are all one’ to be well, connected, and open in our hearts, it only requires we believe in the goodness of ourselves and humanity (tough as nails as that can be sometimes).
It is from this courageous belief that we draw from when there’s too much debris between our heart, and each other. The belief that leads us to our daily practice with devotion and intention, even when we don’t feel like it, feel anything, or feel everything.
As we begin to feed this seed of belief with nutrients of care, attention, deep breaths, and silly smiles, what blossoms is an inner fire that begins to burn away what is in the way of an open heart, and each other.
by justin | Feb 3, 2022 | Empowerment, Leadership, Mind, Mindfulness |
Growing up, I remember how much a part of me enjoyed playing games where there were rules.
Games like dodgeball, checkers, and even tag seemed to have plainly understood rules and guidelines on how everyone would play together.
As I’ve grown up, I’ve realized how little the structure and contained experiences of childhood games represent real life.
In the big game of Adulting, the stakes are often bigger than we can anticipate, the variables or even who we’re playing with are unclear, and how both “winning” and “losing” seem to come with risk and consequence.
Worse is how often the guidelines, metrics, and rules we’re asked to play within are confusing, seem to conflict with each other, or are even completely ignored by other players.
How do we play the Game of Life in a way that includes both infinite possibilities and the present moment, which seems to call for definition, attention, and benevolence? It seems especially challenging in our modern age where there is seemingly always someone unhappy, upset, or unsatisfied with what we did, how we said it, or what we stand, or don’t stand, for.
Often when I’m presented with a decision or a crossroads of character, I have my initial reaction or response.
Sometimes that response is pure, connected, and aligned with my inner relationship.
Sometimes, and most often, I’m not quite sure.
Is my initial response coming from my mind, heart, gut, wounds, bias, shadow, pressure from others, culture, or expectations from my friends or family?
While that seems like a long list, whether it happens in a split second, a few moments, or over a night’s sleep, in those moments when a decision is being asked for, all those voices want to be heard.
How can we keep ourselves from being overwhelmed?
I’ve found it helpful to remember that while all things in my life are on a continuum, the only thing that matters is what’s happening at this moment. This situation, this challenge, and this relationship are what I have influence over, and my action or inaction in these moments is all I can ever gauge my performance by, even more so than the result.
Over the years, I’ve found three frameworks that have helped me immensely in how I approach decisions and how I’ve found and created more peace and stability for myself in the process.
The first, and what we’ll be diving into today, is Effective Perspectives. The other two are Values-Charting and Even-Overs. We’ll touch on those two in later sharings.
“Effective Perspectives” is a framework that I learned from Cairo Rha of Self Craft. If you’re into learning how to blend spiritual principles with heart-led leadership and practical coaching methodologies, I highly recommend checking them out.
Essentially, an Effective Perspective is anything that is
* Good for you,
* Good for others, and
* Good for everyone (the collective/world).
While this perhaps seems overly simplistic, it’s also profoundly revealing.
More often than not, due to the fast-paced, demanding culture we live in, we either swing towards doing things that are only good for us with no regard for others, or do only the things that are good for others and everyone, all while completely forgetting about ourselves.
This does not create the balance or harmony the world desperately needs right now.
At the same time, perfect harmony is difficult, if not impossible.
If we were only to take action when something meets all three of the criteria, we’d probably be waiting around for a long time! (and there’s a lot to be said about inaction as the right action)
I’ve found it more realistic to approach Effective Perspectives as a helpful framework, not an absolute.
Instead of approaching decisions based on the push and pull of my often egoic mind, subjective feelings of my heart’s wisdom, or external demands, I focus on how conscious or intentional I am about what is or isn’t fully aligned.
Sometimes, what needs to be done may lead to it being not so good for me, such as helping a friend with a task, which leads to me having to stay up a little later studying for a test.
Sometimes, what is seemingly needed leads to things being good for me, perhaps even others, but not so good for the world, such as mass agriculture and our culture’s affinity for plastic.
We may never truly know if our decisions and actions were the most holistically sound for everyone involved. The invitation is to inquire if the costs or tradeoffs we are constantly asked to make are made with clear heads and steady hands.
Rather than assuming what’s possible, judging ourselves for what we did or didn’t do, or allowing others to influence our inner knowing, we can instead choose with Effective Perspectives which path to follow.
This way, once the game has been played, the dice have been cast, and the cards are on the table, we can rest peacefully knowing that win, lose, or otherwise, we played well for ourselves, others, and the world we live in.
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