Bowing In

When you’re in your practice, as they say, everything else becomes easier. There’s more time, more money, more intimacy, more trust, more flow.

Welcome to all of the new subscribers! Honored to have you here.

Whether you arrived via reading my piece, Breaking the Cycle, over at The New Fatherhood, or elsewise—thanks for sitting around the fire with me.

I do my best to publish weekly posts which explore the intersection of men’s work and psychedelics. My goal is to offer an accessible path toward what could be some of the most important work you may ever do, whether you’re a father, partner, leader, or simply trying to find your way.

While this work may not be for every man, I have yet to meet a woman or child who would prefer that their male partner or parent not do his work to cultivate his depth, become more aware of his internal obstacles, and become more able to navigate his emotional and relational realms in a clear, trustable way.

After all, what would you have wanted from your father?

If you’re like most men, it’s probably a deeper sense of his presence, curiosity, connection, and love.

Real talk: that’s all this work is about. Cultivating those things in your body, and in your life. It’s not even about learning new skills; it’s remembering our natural state, and practicing.

When you’re in your practice, as they say, everything else becomes easier. There’s more time, more money, more intimacy, more trust, more ease and flow.

There’s more space to hold your partner, kids, and loved ones in their own big expressions without your taking it personally, pulling away, or shutting down.

Challenges and deadlines at work begin to offer energy instead of draining it.

Even conflict, pointed feedback, and shame become easier to work with and to move through simply because there’s more space in your body to let them move.

Which begs the question, what is the practice?

Practice is the core of what I offer in my men’s medicine retreats and 1:1 work with men.

Formal practices like Qi Gong, breath work, men’s circles, and psychedelic ceremony—and also less formal ones like walking in the woods and breaking bread together, and having the opportunity to be witnessed in your own experience, whether of hardship or celebration, and everything between—will bring you to your edges, with enough time and space to explore, poke around, back off and come back, and to play.

When you can begin to play while at your Edge, your life will begin to shift and change in meaningful ways. This is where ease and flow floods in. This is where intimacy becomes more available, and juicy. This is where deep trust lives. This is how we become more productive in our lives, not just at work.

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Going a layer deeper, bowing in and out of any practice is one way to develop a sense of sacredness for that time and space you’re taking to cultivate yourself. The bow does not have to be dramatic or formal—or even physical—it is more about taking a moment to step in and commit to the practice, and then, upon completion, to honor the time, space, and yourself, to bow out, and go about your life.

Try it. Notice if it’s awkward at first, and also notice what changes when you bow in and out of any given experience, a meal or a shower, or work.

Curious to go deeper?

Two seats just opened up in my upcoming annual Fatherhood Retreat, 7-10 November, near Portland, Oregon. Over a long weekend, a small group of men will gather in a beautiful riverside cabin near Mt. Hood, and we’ll build a container that may just change your life.

If this work calls to you and you’d like to join us, apply here. Or reach out with any questions.