By Tristan Girdwood 

Presence of Men 

For a man to come alive, it takes facing into the parts of him which are dead, and letting the greatest show of his life burn down to ashes, where the gentle, rich, wild, delicate, roaring presence of Man can emerge.
 

Some shows of Men 

The admired man. Putting on the show that everything is ok, hidden behind endlessdoing, valued for what he can do and how many people look up to him and
listen to him. On the surface he appears successful and confident, and
beneath the surface he is a ball of repressed fear, sadness, and anger. He is
owned by his status. Deep down he knows his value is empty. His repressed
emotions leak out in addictions, or punishing his family, or constant dramas, or
endless work, or...
 

The lost man. Commitments are like sand sifting through his fingers. You can feel thebeautiful big heart, but in front are so many barricades that as your being calls
out to him you just hear a deep echo in his soul. His expression can be so
blank, so hard, so dead, it gives you no chance to get close.
 

The depressive man. He sinks deep into the sticky, depressive, swamp, where noinspiration, no passion exists. There you can not reach him, and he can not
reach you. He is a safely depressed zombie.
 

The nice man. On the surface his smile is attractive, but he lacks substance. He cannot take a stand, or meet you with the force of his presence. He learned early
that as a good boy he was safe from blame or fault, and that people would feel
relaxed and unthreatened around him. His authenticity is trapped behind the
prison of having to be nice and friendly.
 

The scattered man. His attention is like a leaf blowing in the wind. He makescommitments all over the place, and loses them as the wind blows him in
another direction. Projects stay open and unfinished, and all his energy leaks
away with them. He chases his own tail and is unavailable for steady
connection.
 

The ‘Men’s Gathering’ man. He has learned to love and wallow in the sound of hisown voice, his problems, his childhood stories and emotions. He acts evolved,
but he continues re-living his childhood in his relationships. As the same old
conversations happen in his Men’s Group, he resorts to activities like going on
magic mushroom trips with his brothers to break free of the repeating patterns.
It works for a few times, and then even that becomes boring. He would rather
continue story-telling and having cathartic episodes than step into his Initiation path. 

The head-centered man. He just can not get out of his head. Everything has reasonsand logic. He can intellectualise anything, including every feeling you express
to him. Every attempt to connect with him, to feel him, runs maddeningly into
his intellect like a dead end brick wall.
 

The down to earth working man. He is a hands-on man, practical and with a mindfor common sense. He chugs along like a work-horse, getting things done. He
could spend most of his life on the farm, or under the car, or hammering nails.
After a hard day’s yakka he is ready for a beer and the TV. He keeps his
numbness bar high this way, so that he does not have to feel the pain of his
loneliness and deep lack of heart connection in his life.
 

The sex-driven man. When he is horny, his penis takes over his life. Women becomethese incredible curvy, juicy objects. Nothing less than ejaculation will satiate
his hunger. As his hunger is relieved, he relaxes, and can carry on with his life
again. His Woman is left feeling used, because she was. The void in him is
temporarily filled, until next time.
 

The joker. He is popular in gatherings and parties because he provides greatentertainment. The kids love him. He offers his skills as a joker and entertainer
so that the other people can feel comfortable / not feel the fear of actual
intimacy! There is deep sadness in him, because really he is avoiding his own
fear of intimacy.
 

The adrenaline junkie. He hides his emotions behind high intensity hobbies likeflying planes, surfing, rock climbing, white water kayaking, driving fast cars,
base jumping, partying, tinder-dating, trading on the stock market, joining a
motorcycle gang, taking drugs, creating start-up businesses, etc.
 

What is a man hiding behind these shows? 

He is hiding his Underworld. The hidden emotions lie just beneath the surface of hisfacade, emotions that are not allowed to express in a culture that does not know how
to handle them.
 

“Don’t be sad... it’s ok”
“No need to get all angry about it!”
“Don’t be scared, you’ll be fine...”
“Big boys don’t cry”
“Scaredy cat!”
“Calm down!”
 

These are the messages you probably got about your feelings as children, and theystuck.
 

Just as impactful, if not more, were the unspoken messages about your feelings;Sadness = complaining, whinging, being a victim. Fear = cowardly, something to be
fixed or pushed through, unmanly. Anger = for dominating, fighting, attacking,
defending, not nice, you get punished for being angry. Joy = you’re supposed to be
happy all the time, because it is the only good feeling. But not too happy or it is
annoying, then you need to be brought back down to reality.
 

Emotion is energy, and energy does not disappear, it is meant to be transformed, tochange form similarly as the stored energy in wood changes into flames and heat as
it burns. Imagine all the stored knots of energy in a man’s body that he has not been
able to express through his living years.
 

Where does all that knotted energy go? 

A man needs a huge amount of energy to keep his walls and his facade up. All theknotted forces of his unexpressed feelings and emotions are used to keep his
mechanical show going. He uses up almost all his energy in keeping the knotted
emotions unexpressed, unfelt, unseen.
 

A man carries years, decades and ultimately generations of unfelt emotions, he hasno energy left for him, for his life, for his relationships, for his true work. It is all used
up to keep the emotions unconscious and the facade up. It is no wonder that a
woman might have the impression of living with a ghost, a dead machine.
 

How does a man buried under such a mountain of incomplete emotions andcommunications even start coming back to Life?
 

The transformation of man to own his Underworld does not and cannot happenthrough positive thinking. Transformation is a death and resurrection process. Before
a man can be resurrected, he first has to admit that he is dead. He is dead because
he is completely unconscious about his purposes and his commitments. A man has a
chance to come back to life when he is radically honest about his hidden purposes
and hidden competing commitments.
 

What do the results in your daily life reveal about your hidden purposes? 

The level of sensitivity to even consider this question is out of reach for any man whostill lives in Modern Culture. Modern Culture is designed so that there is always
stimulation and you never have to lower your Numbness Bar enough to consider if
there is anything beyond surviving.
 

If you are begging for your life back, if you are so desperate to finally haveconnections that are nourishing, alive, and real, here is a wild experiment: STOP.
 

Stop the TV.
Stop fighting.
Stop complaining.
Stop drinking.
 

Stop watching porn.
Stop scrolling social media.
Stop over-working.
Stop procrastinating.
Stop over-eating.
Stop going on holidays.
Just Stop.
 

Any one of these behaviours has kept you numb so you could bear to be a cog in themachine that is Modern Culture. As long as you stay a cog, you will create what cogs
can create: a well working machine.
 

The experience of stopping your numbing behaviours is that you will finally get to bewith yourself where you are. I am warning you, it is not a pretty sight. You will discover
that where you are is an entanglement of opinions, judgements, conclusions,
prejudices, assumptions, expectations, resentments, ... held together by a mesh of
repressed emotions justifying your survival strategies.
 

As you begin feeling again, you will come face to face with your own ‘map’ that youhave been using to navigate the territory of feelings.
Your survival strategy will say; “This is bad!” “This is dangerous!” “Turn back now!”,
knowing full well that feelings were dangerous territory in the past.
 

Your job is to stay curious about this voice, and these newfound energies moving inyour body, and to discover what is actually recorded in you about feelings. Why are
anger, sadness and fear not ok? And surprisingly, why is even joy not ok? Just as in
the past we used the flat map of earth, this is your ‘Old Map of Feelings’. The
possibilities available to you using the Old Map of Feelings are limited to staying numb
and living as a cog.
 

And even as your survival strategy freaks out, let the curiosity of your Being have itsown voice; “Why did I need to suppress this? Surely there is a way to live with
feelings... Surely feelings are not a mistake of nature...”
Ask yourself, what are these energies actually? If you drop all of your old assumptions
about what feelings are, including that they can be negative or positive, what is left?
What are the sensations? What could you use this energy for?!
 

Just like fire can be used consciously to cook and stay warm, or unconsciously to burndown the village, so can feelings be used unconsciously or consciously. If you are not
using them consciously, you are using them unconsciously. It is time to get real about
that. Step by step you will discover your ‘New Map of Feelings’.
 

As your gentle heart reveals itself, your next step will be to learn how to take care of itwithout the facades, and to nurture it. To keep it warm without the walls. To hold safety
for it while looking in the eyes of your Underworld hell. To bear the unbearable as
magic emerges.
 

How does it go? 

Maybe surprisingly, it is your feelings themselves that give you the resilience andelegance you need to move in the world with an open heart.
The clarity of your anger is used to distinguish between conscious and unconscious
purposes, Upperworld and Underworld, for creating clear boundaries, saying yes,
saying no, taking action, staying open and connected even when your survival
strategy wants you to shut down.
 

Your fear is for staying awake, alert, noticing. It brings questions and impulses directlyfrom your intuition.
Your sadness is for connecting, letting go, being in love, ‘being with’ life just as it is,
accepting.
 

Your Joy is for celebrating the abundance and magic of life. It is a thrumming force inevery cell in your body that can never be taken away from you.
As all your feelings come online, Joy ignites all by itself without needing any reason.
 

You are now an inner-world Explorer, and if you have read this far it is time to createyour team of Explorers by your side. This is just as wild as setting sail on the open
seas to discover new lands. You are stepping from familiar ground, into unfamiliar
groundlessness.
 

Those emotional knots will need to be unknotted, which happens in safely heldtransformational spaces such as Emotional Healing Processes, in Rage Clubs, and in
multi-day immersions such as Expand The Box Training and the Inward Men’s
Gathering.
 

Having your 3-cell or 4-cell by your side, people who you can meet every week or two,and be in touch with whenever needed, will change your life.
Being in a Men’s Circle or Possibility Team that meets weekly and is willing to go to
the edges with courage, clarity and care will keep you afloat as the winds of feelings
ebb and howl.
 

As your emotions and feelings course through your body, you will finally be sensitiveenough to notice the hidden purposes you have been serving in your life. You will
finally ‘get it’ how it is possible that most humans go about actively or passively
consuming and destroying life on planet earth, even though the results and
consequences are spelled out in giant bold font in every direction you look. Results
reflect purpose. We live in a radically responsible universe where what you have is
what you created.
 

What you create is born from your purpose. 

To let the true horror of your hidden purposes sink in, so that they can burn to ashes,here is an experiment for you.
 

In your 3cell, your Possibility Team or your Men’s Circle, create a death andresurrection space. Each man partners up with every other man, one at a time, and
puts his hidden purposes on the table directly to the other man, using the following
sentence starters.
 

Let the full impact of the words touch your heart, let the full force of your rage, yourgrief, your fears, move through your body with all the sounds and movements. Stay in
connection with your man, who is there to listen, to hold space, and to let your words
touch his heart.
 

“I can’t commit to you because...”“I judge you by...”
“I resent you for...”
“I compete with you by...”
 

“I put you in this hierarchy of...”
“I assert dominance over you by...”
“I play inferior by...”
“I go behind your back by...”
“When no one is watching I...”
 

As the waves of grief wash over you, as you radically honestly own where you are andwhat you have been creating, let new words, new commitments come from your
Being. Let your partner know:
 

“I want you in my team because...”Be bold. Be abundant.
 

It is part of your Initiation to stand in the horror of your hidden purposes, and let it burnyou from a cog in the machine, to ashes. Only then will something alive be able to
emerge from the ashes.
 

What is left of me behind the facades and hidden purposes? 

This is a scary question to consider, especially as you realise how huge the facadeshave been in your life. Take a moment to look around at all the beautiful souls around
you. Even with all the numbness in our culture, the beauty of everyone’s soul is visible
whenever you care to notice. So is yours!
 

Your inherent value has nothing to do with what you do, or what you have... you bringcertain gifts and qualities just through your presence. These are your Bright
Principles, forces of your Upperworld that have been flowing through you your whole
life.
 

If you would shine Love through a prism so that it separates into all its aspects, youwould see the multitude of colours of Bright Principles such as Courage, Clarity,
Integrity, Presence, Joy, Community, Connection, Initiation, Transformation, Evolution,
Simplicity, Oneness, Abundance, and many more...
 

Which unique forces work through you? 

You can distil your Bright Principles in a held Initiation space. This is a huge step ingaining a real choice about which purpose you serve in every moment; your Bright
Principles or your Shadow Principles. Your Upperworld or your Underworld.
 

As the magic of your Upperworld emerges, name it, put a stake in the ground andclaim these new maps of Life. Keep going, there is so much to discover.
 

Your Upperworld has the information of your Lineage; your place in the Village. Thesoul work that you were born to do, that turns you on, that nobody would need to pay
you for because it pays you back 100 fold just by doing it. Yet people do pay you for it!
Whether with money or not, because they want you to keep on doing it, they need
your unique services in the world.
 

Your Bright Principles and Lineage will have projects for you that are bigger than you,and instead of a walking survival strategy, you will become a walking space for your
Bright Principles and Lineage to do their work in the world.
 

Your Village will come together as you encounter others who are also committed to lifebeyond survival. Together you discover and co-create the culture you want to live in.
An Archiarchal culture with roots in Radical Responsibility, where Men and Women
are willing to own their Underworlds, and use them as never-ending compost for being
their Upperworld in action.
 

Who are you in Archiarchy?