In this powerful episode of Sex Afflictions & Porn Addictions, I sit down with internationally respected men’s healer, bestselling author, and workshop facilitator Rick Broniec.
With over 35 years of experience leading men’s trainings on six continents through the Mankind Project, Rick brings deep wisdom on two of the most devastating afflictions facing men today: the epidemic of isolation and the father wound.
We explore why so many men lack meaningful friendships, how early programming blocks emotional intimacy, and how shame around “feminine” qualities suffocates authentic masculinity. Rick unpacks how men are trained to suppress not just their darkness—but also their gold.
You’ll hear why embracing the full spectrum of your emotional and spiritual self is essential to creating a healthy sexual life.
We also dive into Rick’s revolutionary upcoming Sacred Men’s Retreat in Brazil: a week-long ayahuasca-assisted journey of deep men’s work, spiritual healing, and connection, happening July 7–13, 2025.
This retreat is legal, safe, guided by skilled indigenous shamans, and held in a beautiful oceanside resort just outside Rio de Janeiro. If you’ve been called to plant medicine and feel ready to unlock the next level of your healing, this could be the path you’ve been waiting for.
🔥 Topics We Cover:
🔗 Important Links:
🌿 Rick’s Sacred Men’s Retreat in Brazil (July 7–13, 2025):
https://www.maravilharetreat.com/souldiscoveryjuly 📚 Rick’s Website & Books:
Power Tools for Men
Wisdom Windfall 📱 Connect with Rick:
Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn
📧 Email: rbroniec@gmail.com | 📞 Phone: 414-688-9580
With over 35 years of experience leading men’s trainings on six continents through the Mankind Project, Rick brings deep wisdom on two of the most devastating afflictions facing men today: the epidemic of isolation and the father wound.
We explore why so many men lack meaningful friendships, how early programming blocks emotional intimacy, and how shame around “feminine” qualities suffocates authentic masculinity. Rick unpacks how men are trained to suppress not just their darkness—but also their gold.
You’ll hear why embracing the full spectrum of your emotional and spiritual self is essential to creating a healthy sexual life.
We also dive into Rick’s revolutionary upcoming Sacred Men’s Retreat in Brazil: a week-long ayahuasca-assisted journey of deep men’s work, spiritual healing, and connection, happening July 7–13, 2025.
This retreat is legal, safe, guided by skilled indigenous shamans, and held in a beautiful oceanside resort just outside Rio de Janeiro. If you’ve been called to plant medicine and feel ready to unlock the next level of your healing, this could be the path you’ve been waiting for.
🔥 Topics We Cover:
- What real male connection looks like (and how to build it)
- The Classics framework: 8 traits of healthy masculinity
- The truth about shadow work (yes, even the golden parts we repress)
- Why so many men act out sexually—and how spiritual wounds play a role
- How intentional plant medicine work can open your heart and change your life
🔗 Important Links:
🌿 Rick’s Sacred Men’s Retreat in Brazil (July 7–13, 2025):
https://www.maravilharetreat.com/souldiscoveryjuly 📚 Rick’s Website & Books:
Power Tools for Men
Wisdom Windfall 📱 Connect with Rick:
Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn
📧 Email: rbroniec@gmail.com | 📞 Phone: 414-688-9580
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what's up everybody?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
You are listening to Sex Afflictions and Porn Addictions, a
podcast to help you create and sustain healthy sexuality and
a great life. I am your host, Craig Pera, and
we have a special guest today. As some of you know,
Michelle and I went to Loveland, Colorado for the Big
(00:23):
Tent Summit and we got to sit with and learn
from some incredibly powerful healers. They're the nonprofits. Anybody who
supported men almost was their nonprofits, researchers, experts, counselors, therapists, coaches.
And I met this incredibly brilliant man who so kindly
agreed to be on my podcast. And let me tell
(00:44):
you who he is. His name's Rick Bronick. He's an author,
he's a speaker, he's a men's coach and a skilled
workshop facilitator. I got a little taste of that just
meeting him. I could feel his space. He's been a
leader in men's trainings with the Mankind Projects since nineteen ninety.
He's facilitated men's personal growth workshops and fourteen countries on
(01:07):
six continents for thousands of men, which gives him an
incredibly unique perspective that he has on our issues, what
we need. He's an Amazon bestseller, The Seven Generation Story,
An Incentive to Heal Yourself, your family, and the Planet.
Book number two was a Passionate Life, Seven Steps for
reclaiming your passion, purpose and joy. In the book that
(01:30):
I'm reading now, Power Tools for Men. This is third
book focusing on men's healing work and is co authored
with his great friend Blueprint for Healthy Masculinity, published in
May of twenty three, twenty three, became an instant Amazon bestseller,
and you're going to find all his links down below.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Rick, Welcome, Oh Craig, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Alice. Feels like I wrote that introduction, I.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Know, right, can you imagine?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
But it's a good one to see you. It was
great fun being with you and Michelle at the at
the Big Tent. Great fun.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, it was so awesome and it was so great
meeting you, Rick.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And You've got a week.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Long Ayahuasca sacred retreat in Brazil that I want to
talk about the book, and there's a few things that
we're going to cover today, but I have to ask you,
how did you get here? Can you share a little
bit of background in your journey and what brought you
to this place.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Wow. Wow, that's a big question. I started doing men's
work in about nineteen eighty eight eighty nine, and I
did the Mankind Project in nineteen ninety, as you mentioned,
and that was a life changing experience. It just opened
me up to how little I knew about what being
a man meant. It opened me up to the deeply
(02:50):
spiritual work that men's work is for me, and it
gave me an opportunity and a venue to practice my
leadership and learn a lot about myself. I completely changed
my life. I mean, I've been in a men's group
NonStop for thirty five years, and every week just about
we get together, We support each other, we know each other.
(03:11):
Those are the men who know me the best. Those
are the men who don't take any bullshit from me.
I hope I can say that on your podcast.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You can, you can?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
And you know when I went to life changes, many
of them very significant, the terrible divorces, loss of a child,
loss of parents, for example, those men were there for
me one hundred percent. Came to my house, held me
while I sobbed, loved me up like you cannot believe,
and literally saved my life. I mean that's the depth
(03:39):
of the work that we do. I know you do
this similar work to it is phenomenal. Fast forward thirty
five years I moved from Wisconsin, where I was living
most of my life, to San Diego, which I just love.
Met this amazing woman who's a sex coach and a
expressive arts therapist and also like me, a retired public
(04:01):
school teacher named Michelle. Were only a little over a
year ago, so we're both married, wonderful women named Michelle,
and we just have this incredibly fabulous relationship. We travel
all over the world, including Brazil. As you mentioned earlier.
We just right before the Big Ten Conference. We were
in Costa Rica for two weeks and hooked up with
(04:23):
Chris Kyle, one of the founders of the Big Tent.
He's a good friend of mine, so he taught me
into comment and I'm so glad I did so. Here
i am thirty five years later, I am a leader
trainer in men's work. My wife and I worked together
in the realm of sexuality and relationships, coaching couples. We
(04:44):
don't get that much anymore because she's decided she wants
to retire and be a grandma. She had her first
grandchild in December. Loved doing that work. It's such powerful
put work. As you well know, I'm still in a
men's group. I still lead trainings for the Mankind Project
and around the world. I feel extremely blessed, extremely blessed.
(05:05):
So that, in a very short nutshell is the life
and times of Rick Bronic.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Rick, that's beautiful and I love that perspective you have
because you've been doing this for a while. Tell me,
what do you think are the deepest issues that men
face today?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Boy, that's a good question. Undoubtedly the two top ones
that I see is this epidemic of isolation. We talked
a lot about that at the Big Tent. How so
many men do not have close friends. They might have
friends they go to sporting events with and whack on
the back and when a new team scores a touchdown,
but they don't have men that they rely on, they
(05:43):
share deeply with, they're authentic with. So there's a deep
pain of isolation. I call it the epidemic of isolation.
And that isn't just in the United States. That's all
over the world. Men are acculturated to be loners to
to each other and not not cooperate with each other.
(06:06):
Like women are taught to be cooperative, men are taught
to be competitive. And when I'm competing with you, then
you're always watching what am I going to take from you?
So we don't have those close relationships in general, and
that leads to tremendous isolation. That explains I believe why
the suicide rate for men is about four times what
it is for women in the United States. But here's
(06:28):
a telling statistic. The suicide rate for divorced men is
ten times the suicide rate for divorced women.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I know that's a big wow, isn't it, And yet
we do almost nothing to support men in dealing with
these rather tragic issues. I think the reason for that
is is that men get when the divorce happens, they
get separated from their only support system, which is their
partner wife, and oftentimes they lose contact with their kids,
(06:57):
they lose their homes and so, and they have no
place selves to go emotionally and spiritually. So they become
despondent and many men and they and they end up
hurting themselves, which is which is awful. I hate when
that happens. I mean I love that, I love working
with men, and I don't like to see that happen.
The second big wound that men carry, the big issue
(07:19):
that men face, is called commonly called the father wound.
So many of us, Greig, haven't had a close, loving,
connected relationship with our fathers. I hear this constantly when
I'm leading men's traininges. My father never told me he
loved me. My father never told me he respected me.
My father never hugged me, never kissed me. And again
(07:42):
that breaks my heart. I mean, men need that as
much as women do. And for all of us out
there that are fathers, Love up your sons, tell them
that you're proud of them, tell them you love them,
tell hold them, hug them, kiss them, let them know
that they are so important to you, because that is
(08:02):
there's an epidemic of that also with men who feel
like they never really connected with their fathers. A lot
of times the fathers aren't in the household when this happens.
Sometimes they are present, but they're so involved in their
careers or in their own woundedness, their own whatever, that
they're not there for their sons.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And so is there something uniquely nefarious about the father
wound versus the mother wound. I think a lot of
us guys when we do therapy are pulled towards the
mother wound, and I guess everybody is different, but I
can only think of myself where that's where the physical
(08:43):
wounds were. There was actual wounds there, but it took
me a long time, and even having children, to appreciate
the impact of that disconnect and performance centric relationship as
well intentioned as it was.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Of course, of course, I mean, I don't blame my parents,
or I don't want anybody to blame their parents, because
they did their best. And my father didn't have any
relationship with his father at all. His father came back
from World War One a hulk, terribly terribly wounded physically
and emotionally from the war and never recovered, and he
(09:23):
died when my dad was only fourteen. So my dad
had no guidance, he didn't know, and I honestly I
don't blame him, and he and I later in life
developed because of the work that I was doing reaching
out to him, developed a very very close relationship which
was very very sweet. Most men don't have that opportunity,
I believe them. Father wound is more poignant because men
(09:46):
looked at their fathers to see what being a man
is all about. I want so many of us who
are five, six, seven years old and we want we
look up the dan and say, oh, I want to
be just like that. And of course what are we taught.
We're taught the man box from so many of our
father Don't be emotional, don't don't acknowledge your pain to anybody,
(10:07):
Just tough it out, and all those things we've talked about.
And that's so, that's what men pattern themselves after their
own fathers. And if their fathers are distant or not present,
then they become distant and not present for themselves, for
their kids and so forth, and it gets passed on. Unfortunately,
(10:28):
now with the mothers, the wound is very different. The
wound from mothers is you know, we spend nine months
in our mother's bellies and she gives us life, and
then we're born and either were breastfed or left or
fed by her. She gives us life, and we spend
the next thirty years trying to break away from our
dependence on the female. And many men cold that is
(10:51):
that the feminine is trying to hurt them or hold
them back or contain them, not my mom. They broaden
it to all. So if I am angry about femininity
and I want to break away from that, then I
can hurt women in my life as well, or I
can hurt own my own feminine side, the part of
me that can be feminine. They can be lovering and
(11:12):
generative and sweet and connected. So it's a different wound.
I think. I see I do a lot of work
with men in both fatherwood and the mother would. I
think we all have work to do with both parents,
But it's quite different in my experience, at least from
the perspective of men's work. I'm not about interested well.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
In one of the statistics that I read, Rick that
the single greatest particular of incarceration is the presence of
a father. So when you extrapolate that as it may not,
God Blessed, doesn't apply to all of us, but it
says something really unique about the leadership that comes from
a present father.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And then there's an example of his absence.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Absolutely right, Craig, And not only incarceration, but the level
of violence that happens with men who are are not
having close relationship with their father. They act out, and
they act out on themselves by drinking, drugging, all the
other addictives things that we do, including a correspondent and stuff,
things like that, and they act out on others in
violent ways, and again it perpetuates this nail myth that
(12:17):
that's how we're supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, you mentioned something that I heard for the first well,
at least it rekindled in me. I don't remember hearing
it before the Man Box, And so I looked that
up and I saw some of the beliefs that are
in the man Box, like real men don't cry, suck.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It up, you should be able to take care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
If you don't stand up to someone who's picking on you,
you're weak. If you're not a heterosexual, you're not a
real man.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
And the list goes on and on.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Is it fear where that's the misogyny and the brokenness
and the unhealthy cultural norms and values that is that
the man Box?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I believe so absolutely. Misogyny is definitely a result of
that kind of thinking and what we do Craig as
a society. And of course i'm making the broad genitalization here.
I'm not saying everybody does this, but as a society,
we tell men that their feelings don't matter. We tell
men that if they're hurt, they have to suck it up,
be tough, pretend they're okay. And if they don't do that,
(13:23):
then we label them as feminine by calling them things
like pussy, gay, whatever it is. And for many men,
hearing those majorative terms, especially when we're younger, is akin
to death. It's like it's like, I'm afraid to die
in here. And so men very quickly learn to suppress
all the feminine generative parts of themselves because they fear
(13:47):
that other men are going to take it out on them.
If they see that that they'll think they're weak or
gay or whatever and not a quote real man. So yeah,
that's that man box is stultifying it. It took me
a long damn time to break out of it, let
me tell you, because I was in it pretty deeply
(14:09):
when I first started doing my men's work.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh it's so deep, It's so deep, Rick that in
my podcast early on, it was easier for me to
tell listeners that I got a hand job at the
adult bookstore and I did.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
All these horrible, horrible.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Things, but I didn't share that I happened to like
the cartoon My Little Pony. You're right, right, right, And
it came to me at a very very low point,
and what it represented for me Rick was reclaiming, not
just reclaiming the feminine and redefining the masculine because it's
(14:50):
a soothing show.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
It has good values.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
When i'm you know, my parts are freaking out and
I want something to.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Dial it down.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
But it was easier to say all those things, and
it was to say I enjoyed this TV show because
I hear that voice, that that fag, you know that
that that word that's so toxic. Let me be clear, listeners,
I'm not like you hear, and it's very subtle, and
I've learned to hey, this is cool, okay, right, we
can do this and it'd be notnehing other than us
(15:20):
liking as show in terms of parts work. But what
you said reminded me of that, and I think that's
how deep it is.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Oh absolutely, man, it's terrifying for many men. I'll tell
you something else that really breaks my heart is little boys.
When you see little boys. First of all, if you
ever held a newborn baby, you know how precious they
are and how They're like a tabla rosa. There's no
programming yet they are free. They're joyful, and they let
you know exactly what they need as loudly and clearly
(15:48):
as they can. When they're happy, you see this look
of joy on their face. And when they're when they
have a need, they't cry whatever. Little boys tend to
hug each other, kiss each other, play with each other,
just like little girls do, until about the age of
five six years old, suddenly it stops. Our wife is
a kindergarten teacher, and she said she could see it
(16:09):
happening before her eyes. By the end of that kindergarten year,
those kids boys in her class stopped touching each other,
hugging each other. It became anathema for them to do that.
It was just unbelievable, and I think we all suffer
from that. All our men suffered deeply from lack of
(16:31):
healthy men or with women. All we know is sex
sex only we can get our touch needs met, and
that's sad when we can't get that from other men
in healthy ways, and other women for that matter.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And fathers hug your sons.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Your sons, and your hug of course your daughter's too,
because that might that probably comes more natural to them,
but we and I remember I was the person that
introduced hugging into my father and grandfather relationship when I
was thirty.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Me too, Me too. It wasn't done in those days.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And it felt like I'd climb Mount Everest exactly. I'm
going to give you a hug now, Is that okay?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah? And it was shaking hands.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
So hug your son's fathers. And so we've got loneliness
in the father wound. How do you speak to those
in your book Power Tools for Men, a Blueprint for
healthy masculinity, tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Thanks. First of all, I love this book. Leonardshim Check
is my co author, is a wonderful man. He's in
my men's group. Were in the men's group together. We're
very close. We tell each other, we love each other
all the time. I love it, You're always hugging kiss.
He's just a huge, fantastic human being. And we wrote
this book over a five year period. We rewrote it
(17:56):
three times as things happening in the world, COVID and
so forth happened. We realized we had that we had
to adjust what we were doing. That's why it took
so long answer your question. We came up with what
we think is a beautiful acronym called classics. It stands
for eight behaviors that we invite men to emulate, to
(18:17):
begin to practice, to get out of the manbox, and
to start becoming the whole, precious, generative, beautiful men that
I believe we were all meant to be in this planet, Craig.
That was one of the fun things about being at
the Big Ten, being with a lot of men who
were doing that work, and you could just see how
connected people were, how joyful they were, how anxious they
(18:38):
were to connect with.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Other men, and Rick, if I may, how beautifully we
were able to disagree, Yeah, exactly. That was very special
to me to see that because as a lawyer, competitive,
you know, I got that training in me, and to
see such healthy disagreements and to see men whole, that
(19:01):
compassionate space for differing opinions was actually beautiful to say.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
So.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
The Classics is the acronym that stands for connection number one.
First behavior, loving with the big open heart is the L.
The A is authenticity and accountability. The first S is spirituality,
the second S is sexuality. The I stands for intention,
(19:28):
which is all about mission and purpose in life. The
last C is for community, and the last S is
for sovereignty, stepping into our full, fully developed kings. So
notice the very first thing we advocate is connection, both
connection with our own selves, starting with our own selves,
like what is my feeling? What does my body feel
(19:50):
like when I'm angry and when I'm sad? Most of
us don't know because we've never been taught that we
are allowed like one feeling for men, right, and that
of course everybody knows that anger men could be angry.
Yes we really need to. We can be racheful, but boy,
if we're if we're sad, then we're pussy's. If we're
if we're afraid, we're pussy's. If we're joyful, who do
(20:13):
you think you are? You know? And so everything's cut off.
We're allowed one feeling, and so connection with ourselves means
learning what feelings I really have. Of course we have
the same feelings women do. We have the same feelings
everyone else does. We just record them and we find
(20:34):
them in our bodies. Oh, when I'm angry, my goot
cletches and my job gets tight, or when I'm sad,
I might get tears in my eyes, you know whatever.
So and then once we get that connection with ourselves,
then the invitation is to connect with other men. And
that's done, frankly, most easily in men's groups. All kinds
(20:56):
of men's groups out there. Could be a twelve step group,
it could be a church group. I really don't care
where you go, but go find a group of men
to sit with and be honest with. Tell the truth.
Tell it feels good. There's nothing scarier right than telling
the truth about yourself.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
As you said, as your secrets, right exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
I'm only as sick as my secrets. And I find
that when I disclose my secrets, the shame about them dissipates.
Over time. They no longer hold me back, because you know, shame.
The antidote to shame is is sunlight, Bring it out,
bring it in the open, talk about it, and those
things disappear. So connection is number one. So that is
(21:40):
number one antidote, in my opinion, to the isolation men
learning to be honest with other men. Look other men
in the eye, hug each other, be honest with each other,
tell the truth to each other, hold each other accountable.
I mean, we men can be slippery on their on
their accountability, on their kind of can Oh, it's it's
(22:01):
terrible how and we let each other off the hook
constantly because it's the cowards bargain. If I don't call
you when your shit cray, you won't call me online.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
That's right. I like that.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
It's the coward's bargain. And the opposite of that is,
of course I call you on your stuff lovingly because
I care about you and I don't want you to
get away with stuff that will keep you from growing,
and you'll do the same for me. And a big
part of that, of course, is what I call shadow work,
is about noticing the parts of myself that I hide, repress,
(22:34):
and deny that I don't want to talk about, that
I want to pretend aren't there. And even though I
don't want you to know that, I can see your
shadow parts real easily. And so when you're in a
group where you're you have permission to do that, to
help each other see each other's shadows, both gold and dark.
I have golden shadows, two beautiful parts of myself that
(22:55):
I hide, repress, and deny that I was told when
I was a kid who do you think you are
or you think you're so special, or you think you're
so smart. I always ask, man, how many of you've
heard those things? And every hand goes up, everybody, everyone,
And so we start repressing our beauty. Our gifts are gold.
And I was really really smart in school, and I
(23:15):
learned early on that if other people found out about
that how smart I was, I'd get cut off that
Paul Poppy syndrome and got isolated because you think you're
so smart, or you think you're smarter than me, or
whatever it was. And so we begin to repress those
parts of ourselves. We repress the parts of ourselves that
(23:36):
are precious. We repressed the parts of ourselves that are
that we decide are dark, dangerous, are shameful. And so
what does that leave us? Again, this very narrow range
where we can we're allowed to be. I want a
huge range for myself and for you and for every
other man. I want you to able to stretch and
expand and sometimes be ugly, but do it, do it
(24:01):
with some awareness of why you're doing it, and sometimes
be beautiful and precious and generative, sometimes live by a
mission and go out in the world and do great
works to help people grow and learn and survive, sometimes
be selfish and stay at home and take care of myself.
(24:21):
So I have this range of expression and experience, and
we advocate for that a lot in the book.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
In the work I do beautiful, Beautiful, What's next? No,
before you get there, Rick.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
One thing I wanted to highlight for you guys listening,
do you notice the broader definition of shadow work that
a lot of people typically hear. It's not just what
the quote unquote bad stuff that's being suppressed. There are
good quote unquote, and my listeners, we do parts work
(24:56):
so they know there are no bad parts.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
There are good parts there that you repressed.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
For example, my love of this cartoon which brought me
joy but made me feel like I wasn't a man
because I liked it.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
For simple example.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
It's a simple example, but it's a good one. Here's
the sad thing. In my opinion, we repress our gold,
the precious things that were capable of doing more deeply
than we do our shadow It's easy for me to
talk about getting a hand job in a thirty book store. Well,
I noticed that on my menus group early on, we
(25:31):
guys would talk about the most dark, what would consider
to be horrible things that they had done under the
guise of trying to heal. But when I said one time, hey,
let's talk about how beautiful our love lives are and
what we really enjoy about sexuality, there was a dead silence.
I mean, and these guys have been together for years
(25:52):
and years already and we were very, very close. I
realized that hit some nerves. And I've come to believe
that the golden parts of ourselves, our golden shadow, in
other words, is more deeply repressed for most of us
than our dark or lead in shadows, if you like.
And the the alchemists the work of in men's hearts
(26:13):
is to convert that leaden shadow into golden shadow.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
M beautiful, thank you, thank you for that gift. I
love it. So what's next?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
What's next? For what? For me?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Love? So we went through connection and okay, love was
there was there a little bit you wanted to say
about each or pick a couple that really jump out
to you. The healthy sexual life, I definitely want to
focus on that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Why don't we go there, tell me a little bit so.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
You know my guys, right, they got caught with a
secret sex life, porn ai, girlfriends, only fans, massage parlors.
The list of possible secrets that we men can keep
is growing by the day. There's a new medium somehow
to hide that's not going to stop.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Tell me about that. Building a healthy sexual life.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
That's a tough one because it is so craig. In
my opinion, sexuality and spirituality are so deeply connected that
it's hard to separate them. And when our spirituality is
shamed or belittled, or made or put in a box like.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
This, demonized, right, demonized too, you know, evil devil, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Then our sexuality gets wounded deeply as well. I believe
there's a spiritual wound that it goes completely unacknowledged, and
it's particularly pernicious. I believe in Western countries where where
there's such a split between religion and spirituality, and get
(27:53):
confused a lot. And if I believe that my sexual
energy is somehow hurtful or wrong or bad and personally,
I got deep messages about that from both my parents.
Both my parents were rape survivors and never received any treatment.
Grik wow. So I was born, I was getting and
(28:16):
I'm the oldest of six kids, So I was getting
these messages, particularly from my mom, about how my sexual
energy wasn't okay, it wasn't acceptable, It's dangerous, and it
was dangerous exactly, And honestly, it took me a long
time to unwind that. It was a huge wound for
me and for my siblings too, And it actually took
(28:39):
me to get with my current wife, Michelle, who's the
sex culture, and we did some amazing healing work. I mean,
she was so patient with me to unwind some of
that stuff. But if we if we can connect with
our spirituality, then our sexuality becomes so much more generative
and beautiful, you know, especially when we're with a partner,
(29:03):
a committed partner. We can ask for what we need.
We can be playful, we can try stuff out and
see what works and what doesn't work for each of us.
We can we can talk openly about our sexuality, about
what we what we want, what we don't want, what works,
what doesn't work, and something magical happens if the connection
(29:23):
runs deep and we find ourselves trusting and connecting at
such a deep level. Honestly, it blows me away. It
brings tears to my eyes to have to feel that
deep connection with this woman that's my wife. It doesn't
matter if you're gay, bisexual, street, I don't care. Anybody
(29:47):
can have this by doing the deep personal work connecting
with your spiritual self and then noticing how that influences
and impacts your sexual.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Well, that was so powerful, Rick, and it's a perfect
jumping point to the retreat, because when you talk about sexuality,
there are a few things that are as deeply wired
(30:23):
in us than our sexuality. Exactly how we were bathed,
how we were changed, comments around our body, like things
that you.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Know, we can't remember.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
And because it's so deep, there's been a lot of
progress in plant medicine helping people unlock that.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
So let's look. Look, and I want to acknowledge too.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I know I have listeners that are really excited to
talk about this topic, and I know some that are scared,
and and some that might even be a little frustrated
a little bit more with me talking. But I have
to be clear, if I've learned anything in thirteen years
helping people professionally, is that different people respond to different things.
(31:10):
And I can't ignore the incredible results that clients have
had on these retreats, and so I want to talk
about them. Let you decide, as the customer, as the listener.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
What's right for you.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
But please, please, please make no mistake, this is the
right path for some Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I've been using plant medicine for some time under the
auspices of a shaman, a person indigenous person who's been
trained from early on in their lives how to use
these these substances. I never do it recreationally. I don't
do street drugs at all, but I have used mushrooms,
some heart medicine, and samiyahuasca to open up my own
(31:53):
wounded sexuality to do some healing and wounded spirituality for
that matter. I mean, it is very, very opening for
me to imbibe these medicines, to be with other people
who are also on a spiritual quest imbibing those medicines,
and to notice my connection to the divine just becomes
(32:15):
so clear, Craig, connection to the divine becomes so clear
that I'm not just this body, I'm not just this mind.
I am a soul. I have connection to something far
greater than myself, and I can experience in that under
the influence of this medicine, and then from there, like
my wife says, we can have conversations on medicine that
(32:37):
we could never have in person, because there's no resistance.
When your heart is wide open and you're connected to
the divine, I can talk about anything. I have no shame,
I have no resistance to discussing whatever it is it
may be between us momentarily in our relationship, for example.
So I like, I can't do this much in the
(33:00):
United States, but in Brazil, all these medicines are legal,
and in Brazil there's ready access to indigenous shaman, amazing
men and women who can lead this work. So I
have a dear friend who is also at the conference.
Chris Wakeman is his name, and he owns with his
Brazilian wife, Mara, he owns this beautiful resort just outside
(33:23):
of Rio dejian Ero. It's a gorgeous place. They just
remodeled it. It's on the top of a hill overlook
in the ocean. It's a five minute walk from the beach.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I'm taking a dozen men down there for a full
week and we're going to do a deep dive into
men's work, using my book and Leonard's book as a guide,
a lens through which you look at men's work supplemented
by two amazing ayahuasca journeys facilitated by shaman that works
down there. I can't wait. It starts July seventh, twenty
(33:58):
twenty five, and it's on the thirteenth. There are a
few slots available. Some of your listeners are interested, they
can contact me. I would love to fill it up
all the way. It's about half four right now, and
we're gon we're gonna do some deeply transformative work while
we're down there together as men with men by men.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
That is so awesome.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And I know so if you're listening and you're thinking, Hm,
this Craig thinking of me, you know there's a good
chance that I might be.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And I know you know you clients are listening.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
To this podcast and this lesson too, so you can
reach out to me.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Directly, give you the four to one one on Rick.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I you know, you guys know this is a sacred
place and my connection with Rick was real, it was powerful.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
And when I heard he was doing this retreat.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
The Kuanadero, which is a shaman in Brazil, also brings
along musicians to play this really beautiful, incredible music to
bring you into the state. All of that comes together,
and we do some fasting before we start. We don't
eat a big meal and then take some myahuasca. And
it's never done recreationally. It's done with intention. It's done
(35:09):
with the specific intention of growing spiritually and so and
that's what the shaman's after. That's all that shaman is after,
support each of us in what needs to happen. So
called bad trip can happen. I'm not saying it can't.
And what makes it bad that you bumped up against
(35:33):
some really dark shadow stuff that you've been avoiding.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Or exactly right.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
In the long run, that may become your best journey ever,
you know, because you go, oh shit, I've been holding
back on that stuff for all my life and suddenly
the medicine puts it in front of me. And it
isn't comfortable, it isn't fun. And that it was comfortable
or fun, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
It's what I feel like.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
That which I stuffed down came up in my recent
IFS training, So I've already made that connection.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
And yeah, the intention is critically important.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Men in the container having a facilitator who knows what
they're doing, who can lead you on that journey, and
I want to kind of issue a strong recommendation against
not taking these things into your own hands. It's easy
to do now than it was years ago because of
the online but please, please, please, the risks are great,
(36:40):
aren't they, Rick, They're so great.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Well, they're great for an individual who is not doing
the work that needs to be done. And as you said,
the bet trip can be terrifying. And also sometimes you're
so opened up psychically and spiritually that you come up
against an egoist state, which is like where am I?
I've disappeared? And that's terrifying for many people. For Buddhists,
(37:04):
that's that's Nirvana's I made it, Yes, I made it exactly,
but that it can be very, very terrifying. So having
the facilitator there who's right there next to you, watching
your body, watching the energy, their energy readers, watching what's
going on, and supporting you is really really important in
my opinion. Again, I wouldn't dream of doing any of
(37:26):
these things just recreationally without that kind of support.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah, no, I respect that advice. Okay, So how do
people get involved in this retreat? It's coming up soon.
Share those dates with us again, Rick, and let guys
know how they can contact you and what I want
everybody to know. This will all be in the note.
So you're going to get the links to the books.
(37:51):
You're going to get a way to contact Rick. You're
going to get a link to his websites, his social media,
everything that you want, and also a link to the retreat.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
But for those listening, what do they do well?
Speaker 3 (38:04):
The quickest way to get a hold of me is
either by email or or give me a call. I
don't mind, I'll talk to anybody. My email is you
have it in the listen you want me to say
it a loud.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, no, I'm going to put that in the liner
notes too, and I'm gonna put I'll put your phone
number there.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
That's okay too, number there, call me, text me, email me,
say rook, I'm interested. I'll send you flyers or information.
And they're run up to this training. We're having meetings
with the group of men. They're getting to know each
other really well. They're getting to set their intentions for
the whole week. And you know, getting travel arrangments made
that kind of thing because it's not easy to travel
(38:40):
to reauditionero. You know, it's a twenty to twenty eight
hour flight.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah, oh man, that sounds so exciting. This is not
my time, but I know my time will come. Parting
words for the men listening to this rig what are
you inspired to share with the people's whose voice we've captivated.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Here's what I'm inspired to share. I don't believe there's
anything there's such a thing as toxic masculinity. I believe
that men, when they're given the chance, are beautiful, precious, generative, constructive,
connected beings who do amazingly beautiful things in the world.
I believe there's men that haven't done the work they
(39:23):
need to do. They're damaged, and they do some hurtful things. Yes,
I'm fully aware of that. I've done it myself. I
still do it from time to time, not very frequently anymore,
but you know it's in me. But I want men
to hear that I believe in you, and I know
you can change. I know you can grow. I know
(39:43):
you can become more successful in your life. Not financially.
That's not when I'm after myself. It's successful in relationships
and connecting deeply and authentically with the people in your life,
your partner, your children, and if you have them. I
have six grandchildren I get to play with, and other
(40:05):
men and women in your life. Don't miss that opportunity
to do the work to bring you closer to yourself
and bring you closer to other people. It makes a
profound difference in my life. I know what William news here.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Wow, guys, did you feel that like I felt that
right in my heart? Man, you can tell this brother
speaking truth, Rick, Rick, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Man.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
I'm honored for our new friendship, our new connection. I'm
diving into your book and I'm like singing so much
that I love and that I want to share.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
So I see you, brother, Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Thank you, Craig, I see you too, And I really
appreciate the time. I'm grateful that you're getting this out
to your audience. Sure there's a grateful there's a beautiful
group of men that will benefit from our talk here today.
Blessings to you, my.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Friend, Blessings to you. Thank you guys for listening. Embrace
your power of choice, feed the right wolf inside you,
and I'll see you next time. Stay hungry, brothers. Bye, guys,
All right,
Hey, what's up everybody?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
You are listening to Sex Afflictions and Porn Addictions, a
podcast to help you create and sustain healthy sexuality and
a great life. I am your host, Craig Pera, and
we have a special guest today. As some of you know,
Michelle and I went to Loveland, Colorado for the Big
(00:23):
Tent Summit and we got to sit with and learn
from some incredibly powerful healers. They're the nonprofits. Anybody who
supported men almost was their nonprofits, researchers, experts, counselors, therapists, coaches.
And I met this incredibly brilliant man who so kindly
agreed to be on my podcast. And let me tell
(00:44):
you who he is. His name's Rick Bronick. He's an author,
he's a speaker, he's a men's coach and a skilled
workshop facilitator. I got a little taste of that just
meeting him. I could feel his space. He's been a
leader in men's trainings with the Mankind Projects since nineteen ninety.
He's facilitated men's personal growth workshops and fourteen countries on
(01:07):
six continents for thousands of men, which gives him an
incredibly unique perspective that he has on our issues, what
we need. He's an Amazon bestseller, The Seven Generation Story,
An Incentive to Heal Yourself, your family, and the Planet.
Book number two was a Passionate Life, Seven Steps for
reclaiming your passion, purpose and joy. In the book that
(01:30):
I'm reading now, Power Tools for Men. This is third
book focusing on men's healing work and is co authored
with his great friend Blueprint for Healthy Masculinity, published in
May of twenty three, twenty three, became an instant Amazon bestseller,
and you're going to find all his links down below.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Rick, Welcome, Oh Craig, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Alice. Feels like I wrote that introduction, I.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Know, right, can you imagine?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
But it's a good one to see you. It was
great fun being with you and Michelle at the at
the Big Tent. Great fun.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, it was so awesome and it was so great
meeting you, Rick.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And You've got a week.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Long Ayahuasca sacred retreat in Brazil that I want to
talk about the book, and there's a few things that
we're going to cover today, but I have to ask you,
how did you get here? Can you share a little
bit of background in your journey and what brought you
to this place.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Wow. Wow, that's a big question. I started doing men's
work in about nineteen eighty eight eighty nine, and I
did the Mankind Project in nineteen ninety, as you mentioned,
and that was a life changing experience. It just opened
me up to how little I knew about what being
a man meant. It opened me up to the deeply
(02:50):
spiritual work that men's work is for me, and it
gave me an opportunity and a venue to practice my
leadership and learn a lot about myself. I completely changed
my life. I mean, I've been in a men's group
NonStop for thirty five years, and every week just about
we get together, We support each other, we know each other.
(03:11):
Those are the men who know me the best. Those
are the men who don't take any bullshit from me.
I hope I can say that on your podcast.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You can, you can?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
And you know when I went to life changes, many
of them very significant, the terrible divorces, loss of a child,
loss of parents, for example, those men were there for
me one hundred percent. Came to my house, held me
while I sobbed, loved me up like you cannot believe,
and literally saved my life. I mean that's the depth
(03:39):
of the work that we do. I know you do
this similar work to it is phenomenal. Fast forward thirty
five years I moved from Wisconsin, where I was living
most of my life, to San Diego, which I just love.
Met this amazing woman who's a sex coach and a
expressive arts therapist and also like me, a retired public
(04:01):
school teacher named Michelle. Were only a little over a
year ago, so we're both married, wonderful women named Michelle,
and we just have this incredibly fabulous relationship. We travel
all over the world, including Brazil. As you mentioned earlier.
We just right before the Big Ten Conference. We were
in Costa Rica for two weeks and hooked up with
(04:23):
Chris Kyle, one of the founders of the Big Tent.
He's a good friend of mine, so he taught me
into comment and I'm so glad I did so. Here
i am thirty five years later, I am a leader
trainer in men's work. My wife and I worked together
in the realm of sexuality and relationships, coaching couples. We
(04:44):
don't get that much anymore because she's decided she wants
to retire and be a grandma. She had her first
grandchild in December. Loved doing that work. It's such powerful
put work. As you well know, I'm still in a
men's group. I still lead trainings for the Mankind Project
and around the world. I feel extremely blessed, extremely blessed.
(05:05):
So that, in a very short nutshell is the life
and times of Rick Bronic.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Rick, that's beautiful and I love that perspective you have
because you've been doing this for a while. Tell me,
what do you think are the deepest issues that men
face today?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Boy, that's a good question. Undoubtedly the two top ones
that I see is this epidemic of isolation. We talked
a lot about that at the Big Tent. How so
many men do not have close friends. They might have
friends they go to sporting events with and whack on
the back and when a new team scores a touchdown,
but they don't have men that they rely on, they
(05:43):
share deeply with, they're authentic with. So there's a deep
pain of isolation. I call it the epidemic of isolation.
And that isn't just in the United States. That's all
over the world. Men are acculturated to be loners to
to each other and not not cooperate with each other.
(06:06):
Like women are taught to be cooperative, men are taught
to be competitive. And when I'm competing with you, then
you're always watching what am I going to take from you?
So we don't have those close relationships in general, and
that leads to tremendous isolation. That explains I believe why
the suicide rate for men is about four times what
it is for women in the United States. But here's
(06:28):
a telling statistic. The suicide rate for divorced men is
ten times the suicide rate for divorced women.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I know that's a big wow, isn't it, And yet
we do almost nothing to support men in dealing with
these rather tragic issues. I think the reason for that
is is that men get when the divorce happens, they
get separated from their only support system, which is their
partner wife, and oftentimes they lose contact with their kids,
(06:57):
they lose their homes and so, and they have no
place selves to go emotionally and spiritually. So they become
despondent and many men and they and they end up
hurting themselves, which is which is awful. I hate when
that happens. I mean I love that, I love working
with men, and I don't like to see that happen.
The second big wound that men carry, the big issue
(07:19):
that men face, is called commonly called the father wound.
So many of us, Greig, haven't had a close, loving,
connected relationship with our fathers. I hear this constantly when
I'm leading men's traininges. My father never told me he
loved me. My father never told me he respected me.
My father never hugged me, never kissed me. And again
(07:42):
that breaks my heart. I mean, men need that as
much as women do. And for all of us out
there that are fathers, Love up your sons, tell them
that you're proud of them, tell them you love them,
tell hold them, hug them, kiss them, let them know
that they are so important to you, because that is
(08:02):
there's an epidemic of that also with men who feel
like they never really connected with their fathers. A lot
of times the fathers aren't in the household when this happens.
Sometimes they are present, but they're so involved in their
careers or in their own woundedness, their own whatever, that
they're not there for their sons.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And so is there something uniquely nefarious about the father
wound versus the mother wound. I think a lot of
us guys when we do therapy are pulled towards the
mother wound, and I guess everybody is different, but I
can only think of myself where that's where the physical
(08:43):
wounds were. There was actual wounds there, but it took
me a long time, and even having children, to appreciate
the impact of that disconnect and performance centric relationship as
well intentioned as it was.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Of course, of course, I mean, I don't blame my parents,
or I don't want anybody to blame their parents, because
they did their best. And my father didn't have any
relationship with his father at all. His father came back
from World War One a hulk, terribly terribly wounded physically
and emotionally from the war and never recovered, and he
(09:23):
died when my dad was only fourteen. So my dad
had no guidance, he didn't know, and I honestly I
don't blame him, and he and I later in life
developed because of the work that I was doing reaching
out to him, developed a very very close relationship which
was very very sweet. Most men don't have that opportunity,
I believe them. Father wound is more poignant because men
(09:46):
looked at their fathers to see what being a man
is all about. I want so many of us who
are five, six, seven years old and we want we
look up the dan and say, oh, I want to
be just like that. And of course what are we taught.
We're taught the man box from so many of our
father Don't be emotional, don't don't acknowledge your pain to anybody,
(10:07):
Just tough it out, and all those things we've talked about.
And that's so, that's what men pattern themselves after their
own fathers. And if their fathers are distant or not present,
then they become distant and not present for themselves, for
their kids and so forth, and it gets passed on. Unfortunately,
(10:28):
now with the mothers, the wound is very different. The
wound from mothers is you know, we spend nine months
in our mother's bellies and she gives us life, and
then we're born and either were breastfed or left or
fed by her. She gives us life, and we spend
the next thirty years trying to break away from our
dependence on the female. And many men cold that is
(10:51):
that the feminine is trying to hurt them or hold
them back or contain them, not my mom. They broaden
it to all. So if I am angry about femininity
and I want to break away from that, then I
can hurt women in my life as well, or I
can hurt own my own feminine side, the part of
me that can be feminine. They can be lovering and
(11:12):
generative and sweet and connected. So it's a different wound.
I think. I see I do a lot of work
with men in both fatherwood and the mother would. I
think we all have work to do with both parents,
But it's quite different in my experience, at least from
the perspective of men's work. I'm not about interested well.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
In one of the statistics that I read, Rick that
the single greatest particular of incarceration is the presence of
a father. So when you extrapolate that as it may not,
God Blessed, doesn't apply to all of us, but it
says something really unique about the leadership that comes from
a present father.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And then there's an example of his absence.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Absolutely right, Craig, And not only incarceration, but the level
of violence that happens with men who are are not
having close relationship with their father. They act out, and
they act out on themselves by drinking, drugging, all the
other addictives things that we do, including a correspondent and stuff,
things like that, and they act out on others in
violent ways, and again it perpetuates this nail myth that
(12:17):
that's how we're supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, you mentioned something that I heard for the first well,
at least it rekindled in me. I don't remember hearing
it before the Man Box, And so I looked that
up and I saw some of the beliefs that are
in the man Box, like real men don't cry, suck.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It up, you should be able to take care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
If you don't stand up to someone who's picking on you,
you're weak. If you're not a heterosexual, you're not a
real man.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
And the list goes on and on.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Is it fear where that's the misogyny and the brokenness
and the unhealthy cultural norms and values that is that
the man Box?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I believe so absolutely. Misogyny is definitely a result of
that kind of thinking and what we do Craig as
a society. And of course i'm making the broad genitalization here.
I'm not saying everybody does this, but as a society,
we tell men that their feelings don't matter. We tell
men that if they're hurt, they have to suck it up,
be tough, pretend they're okay. And if they don't do that,
(13:23):
then we label them as feminine by calling them things
like pussy, gay, whatever it is. And for many men,
hearing those majorative terms, especially when we're younger, is akin
to death. It's like it's like, I'm afraid to die
in here. And so men very quickly learn to suppress
all the feminine generative parts of themselves because they fear
(13:47):
that other men are going to take it out on them.
If they see that that they'll think they're weak or
gay or whatever and not a quote real man. So yeah,
that's that man box is stultifying it. It took me
a long damn time to break out of it, let
me tell you, because I was in it pretty deeply
(14:09):
when I first started doing my men's work.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh it's so deep, It's so deep, Rick that in
my podcast early on, it was easier for me to
tell listeners that I got a hand job at the
adult bookstore and I did.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
All these horrible, horrible.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Things, but I didn't share that I happened to like
the cartoon My Little Pony. You're right, right, right, And
it came to me at a very very low point,
and what it represented for me Rick was reclaiming, not
just reclaiming the feminine and redefining the masculine because it's
(14:50):
a soothing show.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
It has good values.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
When i'm you know, my parts are freaking out and
I want something to.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Dial it down.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
But it was easier to say all those things, and
it was to say I enjoyed this TV show because
I hear that voice, that that fag, you know that
that that word that's so toxic. Let me be clear, listeners,
I'm not like you hear, and it's very subtle, and
I've learned to hey, this is cool, okay, right, we
can do this and it'd be notnehing other than us
(15:20):
liking as show in terms of parts work. But what
you said reminded me of that, and I think that's
how deep it is.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Oh absolutely, man, it's terrifying for many men. I'll tell
you something else that really breaks my heart is little boys.
When you see little boys. First of all, if you
ever held a newborn baby, you know how precious they
are and how They're like a tabla rosa. There's no
programming yet they are free. They're joyful, and they let
you know exactly what they need as loudly and clearly
(15:48):
as they can. When they're happy, you see this look
of joy on their face. And when they're when they
have a need, they't cry whatever. Little boys tend to
hug each other, kiss each other, play with each other,
just like little girls do, until about the age of
five six years old, suddenly it stops. Our wife is
a kindergarten teacher, and she said she could see it
(16:09):
happening before her eyes. By the end of that kindergarten year,
those kids boys in her class stopped touching each other,
hugging each other. It became anathema for them to do that.
It was just unbelievable, and I think we all suffer
from that. All our men suffered deeply from lack of
(16:31):
healthy men or with women. All we know is sex
sex only we can get our touch needs met, and
that's sad when we can't get that from other men
in healthy ways, and other women for that matter.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And fathers hug your sons.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Your sons, and your hug of course your daughter's too,
because that might that probably comes more natural to them,
but we and I remember I was the person that
introduced hugging into my father and grandfather relationship when I
was thirty.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Me too, Me too. It wasn't done in those days.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And it felt like I'd climb Mount Everest exactly. I'm
going to give you a hug now, Is that okay?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah? And it was shaking hands.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
So hug your son's fathers. And so we've got loneliness
in the father wound. How do you speak to those
in your book Power Tools for Men, a Blueprint for
healthy masculinity, tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Thanks. First of all, I love this book. Leonardshim Check
is my co author, is a wonderful man. He's in
my men's group. Were in the men's group together. We're
very close. We tell each other, we love each other
all the time. I love it, You're always hugging kiss.
He's just a huge, fantastic human being. And we wrote
this book over a five year period. We rewrote it
(17:56):
three times as things happening in the world, COVID and
so forth happened. We realized we had that we had
to adjust what we were doing. That's why it took
so long answer your question. We came up with what
we think is a beautiful acronym called classics. It stands
for eight behaviors that we invite men to emulate, to
(18:17):
begin to practice, to get out of the manbox, and
to start becoming the whole, precious, generative, beautiful men that
I believe we were all meant to be in this planet, Craig.
That was one of the fun things about being at
the Big Ten, being with a lot of men who
were doing that work, and you could just see how
connected people were, how joyful they were, how anxious they
(18:38):
were to connect with.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Other men, and Rick, if I may, how beautifully we
were able to disagree, Yeah, exactly. That was very special
to me to see that because as a lawyer, competitive,
you know, I got that training in me, and to
see such healthy disagreements and to see men whole, that
(19:01):
compassionate space for differing opinions was actually beautiful to say.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
So.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
The Classics is the acronym that stands for connection number one.
First behavior, loving with the big open heart is the L.
The A is authenticity and accountability. The first S is spirituality,
the second S is sexuality. The I stands for intention,
(19:28):
which is all about mission and purpose in life. The
last C is for community, and the last S is
for sovereignty, stepping into our full, fully developed kings. So
notice the very first thing we advocate is connection, both
connection with our own selves, starting with our own selves,
like what is my feeling? What does my body feel
(19:50):
like when I'm angry and when I'm sad? Most of
us don't know because we've never been taught that we
are allowed like one feeling for men, right, and that
of course everybody knows that anger men could be angry.
Yes we really need to. We can be racheful, but boy,
if we're if we're sad, then we're pussy's. If we're
if we're afraid, we're pussy's. If we're joyful, who do
(20:13):
you think you are? You know? And so everything's cut off.
We're allowed one feeling, and so connection with ourselves means
learning what feelings I really have. Of course we have
the same feelings women do. We have the same feelings
everyone else does. We just record them and we find
(20:34):
them in our bodies. Oh, when I'm angry, my goot
cletches and my job gets tight, or when I'm sad,
I might get tears in my eyes, you know whatever.
So and then once we get that connection with ourselves,
then the invitation is to connect with other men. And
that's done, frankly, most easily in men's groups. All kinds
(20:56):
of men's groups out there. Could be a twelve step group,
it could be a church group. I really don't care
where you go, but go find a group of men
to sit with and be honest with. Tell the truth.
Tell it feels good. There's nothing scarier right than telling
the truth about yourself.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
As you said, as your secrets, right exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
I'm only as sick as my secrets. And I find
that when I disclose my secrets, the shame about them dissipates.
Over time. They no longer hold me back, because you know, shame.
The antidote to shame is is sunlight, Bring it out,
bring it in the open, talk about it, and those
things disappear. So connection is number one. So that is
(21:40):
number one antidote, in my opinion, to the isolation men
learning to be honest with other men. Look other men
in the eye, hug each other, be honest with each other,
tell the truth to each other, hold each other accountable.
I mean, we men can be slippery on their on
their accountability, on their kind of can Oh, it's it's
(22:01):
terrible how and we let each other off the hook
constantly because it's the cowards bargain. If I don't call
you when your shit cray, you won't call me online.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
That's right. I like that.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
It's the coward's bargain. And the opposite of that is,
of course I call you on your stuff lovingly because
I care about you and I don't want you to
get away with stuff that will keep you from growing,
and you'll do the same for me. And a big
part of that, of course, is what I call shadow work,
is about noticing the parts of myself that I hide, repress,
(22:34):
and deny that I don't want to talk about, that
I want to pretend aren't there. And even though I
don't want you to know that, I can see your
shadow parts real easily. And so when you're in a
group where you're you have permission to do that, to
help each other see each other's shadows, both gold and dark.
I have golden shadows, two beautiful parts of myself that
(22:55):
I hide, repress, and deny that I was told when
I was a kid who do you think you are
or you think you're so special, or you think you're
so smart. I always ask, man, how many of you've
heard those things? And every hand goes up, everybody, everyone,
And so we start repressing our beauty. Our gifts are gold.
And I was really really smart in school, and I
(23:15):
learned early on that if other people found out about
that how smart I was, I'd get cut off that
Paul Poppy syndrome and got isolated because you think you're
so smart, or you think you're smarter than me, or
whatever it was. And so we begin to repress those
parts of ourselves. We repress the parts of ourselves that
(23:36):
are precious. We repressed the parts of ourselves that are
that we decide are dark, dangerous, are shameful. And so
what does that leave us? Again, this very narrow range
where we can we're allowed to be. I want a
huge range for myself and for you and for every
other man. I want you to able to stretch and
expand and sometimes be ugly, but do it, do it
(24:01):
with some awareness of why you're doing it, and sometimes
be beautiful and precious and generative, sometimes live by a
mission and go out in the world and do great
works to help people grow and learn and survive, sometimes
be selfish and stay at home and take care of myself.
(24:21):
So I have this range of expression and experience, and
we advocate for that a lot in the book.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
In the work I do beautiful, Beautiful, What's next? No,
before you get there, Rick.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
One thing I wanted to highlight for you guys listening,
do you notice the broader definition of shadow work that
a lot of people typically hear. It's not just what
the quote unquote bad stuff that's being suppressed. There are
good quote unquote, and my listeners, we do parts work
(24:56):
so they know there are no bad parts.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
There are good parts there that you repressed.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
For example, my love of this cartoon which brought me
joy but made me feel like I wasn't a man
because I liked it.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
For simple example.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
It's a simple example, but it's a good one. Here's
the sad thing. In my opinion, we repress our gold,
the precious things that were capable of doing more deeply
than we do our shadow It's easy for me to
talk about getting a hand job in a thirty book store. Well,
I noticed that on my menus group early on, we
(25:31):
guys would talk about the most dark, what would consider
to be horrible things that they had done under the
guise of trying to heal. But when I said one time, hey,
let's talk about how beautiful our love lives are and
what we really enjoy about sexuality, there was a dead silence.
I mean, and these guys have been together for years
(25:52):
and years already and we were very, very close. I
realized that hit some nerves. And I've come to believe
that the golden parts of ourselves, our golden shadow, in
other words, is more deeply repressed for most of us
than our dark or lead in shadows, if you like.
And the the alchemists the work of in men's hearts
(26:13):
is to convert that leaden shadow into golden shadow.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
M beautiful, thank you, thank you for that gift. I
love it. So what's next?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
What's next? For what? For me?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Love? So we went through connection and okay, love was
there was there a little bit you wanted to say
about each or pick a couple that really jump out
to you. The healthy sexual life, I definitely want to
focus on that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Why don't we go there, tell me a little bit so.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
You know my guys, right, they got caught with a
secret sex life, porn ai, girlfriends, only fans, massage parlors.
The list of possible secrets that we men can keep
is growing by the day. There's a new medium somehow
to hide that's not going to stop.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Tell me about that. Building a healthy sexual life.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
That's a tough one because it is so craig. In
my opinion, sexuality and spirituality are so deeply connected that
it's hard to separate them. And when our spirituality is
shamed or belittled, or made or put in a box like.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
This, demonized, right, demonized too, you know, evil devil, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Then our sexuality gets wounded deeply as well. I believe
there's a spiritual wound that it goes completely unacknowledged, and
it's particularly pernicious. I believe in Western countries where where
there's such a split between religion and spirituality, and get
(27:53):
confused a lot. And if I believe that my sexual
energy is somehow hurtful or wrong or bad and personally,
I got deep messages about that from both my parents.
Both my parents were rape survivors and never received any treatment.
Grik wow. So I was born, I was getting and
(28:16):
I'm the oldest of six kids, So I was getting
these messages, particularly from my mom, about how my sexual
energy wasn't okay, it wasn't acceptable, It's dangerous, and it
was dangerous exactly, And honestly, it took me a long
time to unwind that. It was a huge wound for
me and for my siblings too, And it actually took
(28:39):
me to get with my current wife, Michelle, who's the
sex culture, and we did some amazing healing work. I mean,
she was so patient with me to unwind some of
that stuff. But if we if we can connect with
our spirituality, then our sexuality becomes so much more generative
and beautiful, you know, especially when we're with a partner,
(29:03):
a committed partner. We can ask for what we need.
We can be playful, we can try stuff out and
see what works and what doesn't work for each of us.
We can we can talk openly about our sexuality, about
what we what we want, what we don't want, what works,
what doesn't work, and something magical happens if the connection
(29:23):
runs deep and we find ourselves trusting and connecting at
such a deep level. Honestly, it blows me away. It
brings tears to my eyes to have to feel that
deep connection with this woman that's my wife. It doesn't
matter if you're gay, bisexual, street, I don't care. Anybody
(29:47):
can have this by doing the deep personal work connecting
with your spiritual self and then noticing how that influences
and impacts your sexual.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Well, that was so powerful, Rick, and it's a perfect
jumping point to the retreat, because when you talk about sexuality,
there are a few things that are as deeply wired
(30:23):
in us than our sexuality. Exactly how we were bathed,
how we were changed, comments around our body, like things
that you.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Know, we can't remember.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
And because it's so deep, there's been a lot of
progress in plant medicine helping people unlock that.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
So let's look. Look, and I want to acknowledge too.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I know I have listeners that are really excited to
talk about this topic, and I know some that are scared,
and and some that might even be a little frustrated
a little bit more with me talking. But I have
to be clear, if I've learned anything in thirteen years
helping people professionally, is that different people respond to different things.
(31:10):
And I can't ignore the incredible results that clients have
had on these retreats, and so I want to talk
about them. Let you decide, as the customer, as the listener.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
What's right for you.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
But please, please, please make no mistake, this is the
right path for some Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I've been using plant medicine for some time under the
auspices of a shaman, a person indigenous person who's been
trained from early on in their lives how to use
these these substances. I never do it recreationally. I don't
do street drugs at all, but I have used mushrooms,
some heart medicine, and samiyahuasca to open up my own
(31:53):
wounded sexuality to do some healing and wounded spirituality for
that matter. I mean, it is very, very opening for
me to imbibe these medicines, to be with other people
who are also on a spiritual quest imbibing those medicines,
and to notice my connection to the divine just becomes
(32:15):
so clear, Craig, connection to the divine becomes so clear
that I'm not just this body, I'm not just this mind.
I am a soul. I have connection to something far
greater than myself, and I can experience in that under
the influence of this medicine, and then from there, like
my wife says, we can have conversations on medicine that
(32:37):
we could never have in person, because there's no resistance.
When your heart is wide open and you're connected to
the divine, I can talk about anything. I have no shame,
I have no resistance to discussing whatever it is it
may be between us momentarily in our relationship, for example.
So I like, I can't do this much in the
(33:00):
United States, but in Brazil, all these medicines are legal,
and in Brazil there's ready access to indigenous shaman, amazing
men and women who can lead this work. So I
have a dear friend who is also at the conference.
Chris Wakeman is his name, and he owns with his
Brazilian wife, Mara, he owns this beautiful resort just outside
(33:23):
of Rio dejian Ero. It's a gorgeous place. They just
remodeled it. It's on the top of a hill overlook
in the ocean. It's a five minute walk from the beach.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I'm taking a dozen men down there for a full
week and we're going to do a deep dive into
men's work, using my book and Leonard's book as a guide,
a lens through which you look at men's work supplemented
by two amazing ayahuasca journeys facilitated by shaman that works
down there. I can't wait. It starts July seventh, twenty
(33:58):
twenty five, and it's on the thirteenth. There are a
few slots available. Some of your listeners are interested, they
can contact me. I would love to fill it up
all the way. It's about half four right now, and
we're gon we're gonna do some deeply transformative work while
we're down there together as men with men by men.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
That is so awesome.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And I know so if you're listening and you're thinking, Hm,
this Craig thinking of me, you know there's a good
chance that I might be.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And I know you know you clients are listening.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
To this podcast and this lesson too, so you can
reach out to me.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Directly, give you the four to one one on Rick.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I you know, you guys know this is a sacred
place and my connection with Rick was real, it was powerful.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
And when I heard he was doing this retreat.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
The Kuanadero, which is a shaman in Brazil, also brings
along musicians to play this really beautiful, incredible music to
bring you into the state. All of that comes together,
and we do some fasting before we start. We don't
eat a big meal and then take some myahuasca. And
it's never done recreationally. It's done with intention. It's done
(35:09):
with the specific intention of growing spiritually and so and
that's what the shaman's after. That's all that shaman is after,
support each of us in what needs to happen. So
called bad trip can happen. I'm not saying it can't.
And what makes it bad that you bumped up against
(35:33):
some really dark shadow stuff that you've been avoiding.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Or exactly right.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
In the long run, that may become your best journey ever,
you know, because you go, oh shit, I've been holding
back on that stuff for all my life and suddenly
the medicine puts it in front of me. And it
isn't comfortable, it isn't fun. And that it was comfortable
or fun, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
It's what I feel like.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
That which I stuffed down came up in my recent
IFS training, So I've already made that connection.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
And yeah, the intention is critically important.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Men in the container having a facilitator who knows what
they're doing, who can lead you on that journey, and
I want to kind of issue a strong recommendation against
not taking these things into your own hands. It's easy
to do now than it was years ago because of
the online but please, please, please, the risks are great,
(36:40):
aren't they, Rick, They're so great.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Well, they're great for an individual who is not doing
the work that needs to be done. And as you said,
the bet trip can be terrifying. And also sometimes you're
so opened up psychically and spiritually that you come up
against an egoist state, which is like where am I?
I've disappeared? And that's terrifying for many people. For Buddhists,
(37:04):
that's that's Nirvana's I made it, Yes, I made it exactly,
but that it can be very, very terrifying. So having
the facilitator there who's right there next to you, watching
your body, watching the energy, their energy readers, watching what's
going on, and supporting you is really really important in
my opinion. Again, I wouldn't dream of doing any of
(37:26):
these things just recreationally without that kind of support.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah, no, I respect that advice. Okay, So how do
people get involved in this retreat? It's coming up soon.
Share those dates with us again, Rick, and let guys
know how they can contact you and what I want
everybody to know. This will all be in the note.
So you're going to get the links to the books.
(37:51):
You're going to get a way to contact Rick. You're
going to get a link to his websites, his social media,
everything that you want, and also a link to the retreat.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
But for those listening, what do they do well?
Speaker 3 (38:04):
The quickest way to get a hold of me is
either by email or or give me a call. I
don't mind, I'll talk to anybody. My email is you
have it in the listen you want me to say
it a loud.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, no, I'm going to put that in the liner
notes too, and I'm gonna put I'll put your phone
number there.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
That's okay too, number there, call me, text me, email me,
say rook, I'm interested. I'll send you flyers or information.
And they're run up to this training. We're having meetings
with the group of men. They're getting to know each
other really well. They're getting to set their intentions for
the whole week. And you know, getting travel arrangments made
that kind of thing because it's not easy to travel
(38:40):
to reauditionero. You know, it's a twenty to twenty eight
hour flight.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah, oh man, that sounds so exciting. This is not
my time, but I know my time will come. Parting
words for the men listening to this rig what are
you inspired to share with the people's whose voice we've captivated.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Here's what I'm inspired to share. I don't believe there's
anything there's such a thing as toxic masculinity. I believe
that men, when they're given the chance, are beautiful, precious, generative, constructive,
connected beings who do amazingly beautiful things in the world.
I believe there's men that haven't done the work they
(39:23):
need to do. They're damaged, and they do some hurtful things. Yes,
I'm fully aware of that. I've done it myself. I
still do it from time to time, not very frequently anymore,
but you know it's in me. But I want men
to hear that I believe in you, and I know
you can change. I know you can grow. I know
(39:43):
you can become more successful in your life. Not financially.
That's not when I'm after myself. It's successful in relationships
and connecting deeply and authentically with the people in your life,
your partner, your children, and if you have them. I
have six grandchildren I get to play with, and other
(40:05):
men and women in your life. Don't miss that opportunity
to do the work to bring you closer to yourself
and bring you closer to other people. It makes a
profound difference in my life. I know what William news here.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Wow, guys, did you feel that like I felt that
right in my heart? Man, you can tell this brother
speaking truth, Rick, Rick, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Man.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
I'm honored for our new friendship, our new connection. I'm
diving into your book and I'm like singing so much
that I love and that I want to share.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
So I see you, brother, Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Thank you, Craig, I see you too, And I really
appreciate the time. I'm grateful that you're getting this out
to your audience. Sure there's a grateful there's a beautiful
group of men that will benefit from our talk here today.
Blessings to you, my.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Friend, Blessings to you. Thank you guys for listening. Embrace
your power of choice, feed the right wolf inside you,
and I'll see you next time. Stay hungry, brothers. Bye, guys,
All right,
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