To Practice Fatherhood Together

As a young father, you will experience degrees of overwhelm, pressure, anxiety and/or activation that you have never before experienced before in your life.

These are the moments that, long afterward, men often say things like, “that’s how you find out who you are.”

This is bullshit.

Who you are is much further upstream than how you react in a difficult moment.

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Thanks for reading. Though I usually post on Sundays, I took last week off, and am late this week. It’s been a doozy in many ways, with an undercurrent of grief after a miscarriage. Thanks for your patience while I get back on track.

I’m also getting ready to lead my annual Fatherhood retreat, 7-10 November, in the Pacific Northwest.

Applications are open, and there are a few seats still available. Is one for you?

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How you react in a difficult moment is, by its nature, unexamined.

So the question becomes, how can you practice being less reactive and more responsive in ways that feel true and connected to your heart, purpose, and values?

One answer may lie in paying attention to what happens for you while practicing difficult moments, and being witnessed in your practice by other fathers. This practice can look like breathing deeper—literally expanding and opening the space within your body—and allowing more (air, life, feeling) to move through you.

The idea is to ground yourself enough that when you find the triggers, tripwires, and hooks, you can notice them—and your reactions—and stay grounded and aware.

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Fatherhood is the most powerful initiation that a man in the West can undertake. Ask any devoted, engaged father how he has been changed by raising children, and you are likely to hear of irrevocable transformation, and that it is at once the best thing he has ever done—and the hardest.

Being a father is not the kind of thing you want to do alone. And yet, loneliness amongst young fathers is legion in our lone-wolf/nuclear-family culture.

So, how can we build deeper connections between fathers that will foster better fathers, healthier kids, thriving partnerships, and more vibrant communities?

To quote Saul Williams’ dad in his son’s 2001 Amethyst Rock Star song ‘Our Father’: Men need examples. If your primary example of a man is one who was courageous enough to die but not to cry, in whose footsteps might you later follow, and what might you believe about how to be a father, or a man?

I believe that, especially as fathers, men must practice the courage and capacity to learn how and when to protect, how and when to be soft, and much between.

What benefit is there to accessing less than the full spectrum of life and feeling and connection and risk and boundary and love?

One powerful way to practice this skill set is to connect with other fathers: sit in circle, ask questions, listen to stories, be heard by others, and heal together.

To be witnessed in the loving peril of fatherhood is to offer the best version of yourself to your children, your partner, and your community. To remain stuck in protection mode is to teach stuckness, above all.

In order to be witnessed, especially as fathers of young children, it is important to take time to fill your own cup, so that you have access to your own deep reservoir of resource and nourishment when coming back into your roles as a father, partner, business owner, etc.

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In response to a need in the community, last year I began leading an annual men’s medicine retreat container designed specifically around Fatherhood. It is Into the Fire in real life, in real time.

During these weekend retreats, we practice engaging with the hard things in a loving, conscious way. We practice ritual, deep ceremony, relationship, and humor. We play, break bread, do our work, and connect. Past participants have said that these weekends have been some of the most powerful experiences of their lives.

If that sounds like somewhere you belong, apply here.