Men healing men healing men healing men…

For countless generations we men have been led to assume that the game to play is survival of the fittest; individualism; pecking orders; hiding our shame; emotional distance; acquisition; comparative measurement, compliance or gaining power over each other.

Within such a constricting paradigm we men can feel engaged in a constant struggle, frozen in a low vibrational mode of caution, detached from our latent potential, in relative ignorance of our co-creative power — and essentially alone.

Since the early 1990s, a pivotal movement has been stirring that challenges this toxic mythology. Men have begun to develop conscious practices to challenge cultural assumptions and emotional restrictions to become far more self-aware.

Worldwide, men’s groups and men’s organizations are springing up, offering engagement in all kinds of activities, providing valuable spaces and experiences for the men attending.

Ever more men’s groups are forming around a range of activities, all practicing openness and acceptance with the intention of supporting each other.

Although our paths are diverse, what unites these various groups is men’s passion to heal, to be whole, to step into life more powerfully and to engage purposefully beyond just making money to survive.

Men are healing themselves by learning to heal each other, realising that genuine power lies in openness, interconnectedness, and introspection, and that far the best way for any man to initiate such healing and self-actualisation is through and with other men. As our hearts open and men work together more, communities are re-shaping themselves.

We are finally realising that the bewildering path of becoming self-aware requires a community, and that healing processes are best conducted in small, caring, trustworthy community settings. To be able to recognise ourselves clearly, we need to be mirrored by others. We all need authentic adults, teachers, initiators and elders to guide us along the way and to help us understand what it is to be whole and fully human.

At the same time, there is an ever-increasing lure to “numb out”, to look away, become distracted or even addicted. Men’s mental health crises and suicide rates are spiralling and younger men in particular are increasingly pacified by technology and pornography. The draw towards apathy, to withdraw and lose ourselves in superficial entertainment, is ever-present. We face an epidemic of loneliness and so the imperative for healing and connection is more pressing than ever.

What do men need?

Men certainly don’t need more old-style patriarchs: intellectuals, politicians or experts dictating their opinions to us. Rather, we need containers to heal the restrictions and falsehoods we have inherited and been force-fed all our lives, to break free of the constraining patriarchal influences that impacted our fathers and grandfathers and to be able to access what resonates as true for ourselves.

Men need safe human interactions to unfreeze from our arrested development and grow into men willing and able to support each other.

We need the mirror reflections and witnessing of other men to break the spells we have been under, and develop our leadership, conflict management and relationship mastery.

Healing within group process and engaging in heart-based communication brings an increasing momentum of positive change and is often the basis of lasting connections and congenial friendships.

So, the Facilitation Dojo aims to raise the bar of competence and confidence for men wanting to facilitate and support each other by providing a training that provides a range of simple, but powerful tools and techniques that can be easily learned, practiced and passed on.