Learning To Love Risk

I have a weakness for eavesdropping on buses. Usually it’s fairly innocuous stuff - domestic disputes or one-sided phone calls - but a few years ago I overheard a conversation that got me into very deep water. I was backpacking through the Bolivian highlands at the time, hungry for adventure and potential newspaper stories, and sitting on the kind of bus that looked like it was held together by the sheer desperation of its passengers. On the day in question, wedged between an Aymara woman and a parcel of live chickens, I tuned in to another backpacker sitting a few seats in front. A young, unshaven Frenchman, he exuded Gallic cool with his cigarette smoke, and was wearing one of those striped llama-wool jumpers only ever worn by tourists. More to the point, however, he was talking about a plan to sail 2500 miles to Easter Island on a boat made of reeds. In retrospect, I can see how my warning lights should have come on - and not just because Bolivia is a landlocked country. On closer investigation, I discovered that his proposed crew included a tree surgeon and a jewellery salesman. None of them knew how to sail a replica of a pre-Inca reed boat, least of all the gung-ho American ‘captain’ who was, in fact, a mountaineer. “That’s the whole point,” he insisted, when I queried this. “It’s an experiment.” Other worrying factors included the attractiveness of a slow-moving vessel to sharks and the extreme difficulty of rescuing anyone who fell overboard due to the lack of an engine. Oh, and the fact that the 18-metre hull of bundled reeds would begin sinking, inch by soggy inch, from the moment it entered the water.

And yet I found the trip absolutely irresistible - so much so that when I heard there was a place on the crew, I volunteered immediately. As a writer, I was no worse qualified than anyone else. The official aim of the trip was to test the unorthodox theories of Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer who won fame and a documentary Oscar in 1949, after drifting to Polynesia on the Kon Tiki raft. We were going to navigate rather than drift, and show how ancient mariners might have sailed direct to Easter Island from South America. But to be honest, I was less interested in this than the sheer old-fashioned adventure of it all. In climbing aboard that boat, I felt I was kicking away the props of modern society and for once swapping my comfortable, individualistic life for a shared experience of real and exhilarating dangers.

If I had been a little bit older, I could have blamed it on a mid-life crisis. I wouldn’t be the first. But leaving aside the voyage itself for a moment, I’m always interested in people’s reaction to it, which is usually sharply polarised. Some, particularly young men, have expressed a wondering envy; others, usually those with families, are baffled. “You’re mad,” they say, meaning that I was irresponsible.

So I’ve had a chance to think a lot about safety. Was I wrong to expose myself to such hazards, and my wife and family to such potential distress?

Safety is big business in Western society. It’s impossible to switch on the television or open a newspaper without being warned of the myriad risks that surround us. New health scares assail us weekly, sensational reports of murders and muggings make us think twice about going out at night. The digital revolution and a media in hyperdrive fling our fears around the planet in seconds, giving every isolated tragedy the impact of a major threat.

Yet all this protective nannying seems to have a strange side-effect. A vast adrenalin-fuelled industry has grown up, offering everything from white-water rafting to paragliding to ice climbing in order to provide the sense of adventure so sorely missing from our over-regulated lives. The experts call it risk homeostasis, or risk compensation. It seems each of us has an optimum level of risk, which we maintain often subconsciously through our day-to-day decisions. In other words, take away one risk, and we’ll find another - even if it means climbing aboard a floating bundle of reeds.

Could it be that, despite all attempts to abolish it, risk-taking is somehow hardwired into us, a part of what it means to be human? All babies are risk-takers, of course. Only later does fear take over. A child cannot learn to walk without taking the risk of falling, and the pain we are all afraid of has always been our best teacher. The great religions all acknowledge the fragility of life, but encourage us to stop focusing so much on fear and take instead a step of faith. “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” advised Jesus. Who indeed?

Our fixation with risk is usually traced to the Enlightenment, though the word risk itself emerged some time earlier in the Middle Ages. But as science and industry squeezed out faith, “risk” took on a slightly different meaning. Our increasingly complex ways of measuring probability, in both nature and society, gave us a sense of control over an otherwise unmanageable cosmos. And hey presto, a couple of centuries later we have today’s vast risk-assessment and insurance industry. It has its own, new morality to replace the old religions and to deal with any uncertainty that persists despite unprecedented levels of safety: now the real sin is not to disobey God but to ignore the risk. So, a shipwreck, for example, became less an existential tragedy than an unfortunate result of ignoring weather patterns - or choosing dried reeds as your building material.

More seriously, however, the morality of risk becomes more corrosive when applied to modern society, often tending to blame the victim for the crime or accident. “What was she doing walking home at that hour anyway?” You know the sort of thing. But might our obsession with safety not itself bear some responsibility for the haemorrhaging of trust and breakdown of community which invites such crime in the first place?

Of course, there’s a balance to be struck here, as always. A certain level of precaution, like a child’s seatbelt or a vaccination, is both wise and freeing, allowing us to enjoy our lives. The problem is finding that balance in a risk-averse culture of blame. The more we know about the dangers, the more we worry about them. The healthier we are, the more obsessed we seem to become with our health.

And that’s the catch with safety. To some extent it will always involve a trade-off, a narrowing of possibilities, something less than the fullness of life in exchange for a little more control. And in the longer term, this may prove more damaging than the original risk. Take the issue of child safety, for example. In England, the percentage of seven- and eight-year-olds allowed to travel to school without parents has plunged from 80 per cent in 1971 to less than 10 per cent today, despite any evidence of increasing danger in that period. That means children have less unsupervised play and fewer formative risk-taking opportunities - little wonder, perhaps that one in five children and teenagers now has psychological problems, not to mention childhood obesity. It all reinforces the suspicion that to make safety a primary goal of life is ultimately self-defeating.

What we forfeit most from our obsession with risk is each other. The streets empty as we retreat into our houses, making mugging more likely. Children learn to see strangers as a threat, and never learn how to make their own assessments of who is trustworthy. Society shrinks into defensive enclaves, and the price we pay for being “safe” is an epidemic of loneliness. What we cannot seem to lose is this vague, low-level fear, described by one writer as a kind of “background radiation saturating existence”.

On the brighter side, embracing a risk together tends to strengthen community. The sociologist Deborah Lupton goes so far as to compare the buzz of shared risk with the “communal effervescence” of a revival meeting, in which “participants may lose a sense of their autonomous selves, becoming, at least for a brief time”, part of a group with a common, shared purpose.

This is why those who condemn “pointless” risk-taking may themselves be missing the point. In my experience, physical danger is rarely undergone for its own sake - there is almost always something much more important happening beneath the surface, and it usually involves reaching out from ourselves, either towards others - or towards something ineffable we may only begin to understand.

All of which brings me back to my own journey on the reed boat Viracocha. There, the physical danger turned out to be the catalyst for far more important lessons. I’m actually a bit of a worrywart at heart, and in the first, neurotic days of broken sleep and endless safety checks, I realised how rusty I was at trusting other people. The threats of sharks and storms seemed minor alongside the emotional risks involved in sharing 18 metres of deck with seven other people for six weeks. I discovered that for me the real challenge was open and vulnerable engagement, particularly with other men.

As I lay there at night, listening to the creak of our homemade cabin, or chatting quietly at the helm, trading confidences beneath the speckled night sky, something quietly shifted inside me. I realised I was getting quite hooked on this risk business, as I hauled out 15lb tuna or dived into the fathomless blue a thousand miles from any vestige of my comfortable life. When I eventually returned to it, after navigating successfully to Easter Island, I found the courage to go freelance and write a book. I began my journey in fear and ended it in awe.

Of course, you could argue that it’s easy enough to say this when the risk has paid off - but what if it had all gone wrong? It’s a fair point. Death is the ultimate act of irresponsibility, the one risk nobody’s yet worked out how to eliminate. But the real possibility of death can also have a valuable focusing effect. In the weeks before I set off, my wife and I faced it squarely, and talked about what our lives meant. I’ve rarely felt so spiritually and physically alive, aware of the privilege of being here at all.

Years ago as a cub reporter on a local newspaper, I sometimes had the unpleasant duty of visiting people who had suffered sudden bereavements, often only hours previously. Understandably, most were distraught with the shock of the unthinkable; but one woman stands out in my memory as different. Her husband was a keen climber who had just fallen to his death from Ben Nevis. “We both knew the risks,” she told me, with a stoical sadness. “But we decided that if we were going to die anyway one day, we wanted to live life to the full.” It seemed to me a clean grief, because they had faced the possibility of death, rather than allowing it to creep up on them, as death often does.

The illusion of safety often makes us put off mending broken relationships, following a vision, or talking about what really matters, yet in reality we are a split second from possible death every time we cross the road. Conscious risk taking can clarify what is important in life before that life is taken away.

Having said that, my wife is still a little baffled why I seemed to need to cross the Pacific just to learn to open up a little to my fellow men. Women just need a coffee shop, she says - and she’s probably right. Sometimes the most courageous risks we can take are emotional ones - and as a man they’re the ones I find most difficult. Faced with a choice between vulnerable honesty with a new friend and bungee jumping off a bridge, many of us would, I suspect, take the latter. In that sense, the most terrifying and rewarding risk I’ve taken in recent years, is to become a dad. I’m not sure I would have boarded that reed boat if my 5 year old son was around then - I’m not sure I would have needed to. He calls on me constantly to take the risk of intimacy, challenges me to play rather than plan, pushes me into new situations with no map.

He also reminds me that risk-taking paradoxically relies on a foundation of safety. In the same way that a mariner needs to be able to trust his harness, children need to feel fundamentally undergirded by the ultimate insurance of love before they fully embrace the risks they need to grow. It makes a lot of sense.

But if we accept, as any psychologist does, that children playing will need to be exposed to a certain level of danger if they are to grow healthily, is it really so irresponsible to allow ourselves to go on doing so throughout adulthood, climbing the mast as we once climbed trees? Or are we supposed to have stopped learning by then? Sometimes, recounting another adventure to my son, I remember just how frightened I was, clinging to that reed boat in the midst of a storm - and how it finally forced me to trust my crewmates and find our way through.

As the mountaineer Pierre Beghin put it, if you become smothered by that society and lose the ability to take risks, you become obsessed with the future: “You are old already.”

Nick Thorpe Wandering Lion

This is a transcript of a live talk given by the writer Nick Thorpe in Edinburgh during the 2010 Festival and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in Oct 2010. For details of Eight Men and a Duck – the full story of Nick’s reed boat voyage - and his other books, see www.nickthorpe.co.uk Nick was initiated at Applecross in July 2010.

Death of the father: birth of the man?

Saturday morning on an Adventure weekend is always a time and place where thoughts naturally turn to our ancestors. Creating a sacred space in which to do our work makes it easy to imagine that the ancestors are present in the room with us, and the sense of connection between our time and those who have gone before can be profound. Conversation often centres on our fathers and grandfathers, on how they lived, and how they died, and the gifts they have left us. It's a healing space in which men can express their joy and their grief. I know this because I've seen it happen for other men, and it happened to me this March (not for the first time!) as I passed through the ongoing journey of expressing the grief around my father's death in May 2010.

All of the practical things that have to be done after death may stop a man from grieving fully, so that he continues to carry not only the wound of his absent father, but also the unexpressed longing for a relationship that never was. I could see that coming for me, because when I looked back on my childhood in the early days of my personal work, it seemed like there was a void where my father should have been.

Of course for some men this is literally true - they really don’t have a father in their lives. But my father was physically present: it's just that the void I sensed represented the emotional space he never filled, a sign of his lack of real involvement where it mattered - giving blessing to his son, the blessing that tells a boy he really does have a right to occupy the space that he lives in, and that it's OK for him to achieve his full potential.

Knowing how hard it would be for me to live with my father's passing, I set out six months before his death to build - perhaps for the first time in our lives - a real relationship with him. Orphaned even before he’d entered his adolescence, my father just did not know how to father me, nor indeed perhaps how to have a deep relationship with anyone.

But I sensed the craving in him for connection, and his approaching death was all too clearly advancing on us. His communication was limited after a stroke many years before, but with time and patience, and perhaps also with compassion and love, it was possible to communicate ideas and evoke memories and opinions of times gone by from him.

Much of what we did together was not at the level of verbal communication; it was a silent connection, the one that father and son feel for each other when they simply sit in the same space and by some magical process tune into each other.

Maybe you know those sacred moments from your own boyhood, sharing time with your father in an activity where you felt the joy of sharing that connection.

Sure, it's not quite the same when your father's 88 and you’re 52, but for the little boy in all of us, I believe, time stands still in these things - our sense of connection with father goes beyond age.

We looked back together on the family history, the old photo albums, and so I came to understand more of what made us who we were, and I found myself more understanding of him. Perhaps, for the first time, I found out who he really was.

My anger at his absence during my boyhood and adolescence seemed much less important than the grief at the loss of what he might have given me, but by sharing time in this way, the edges, the rough edges of my grief, were smoothed.

He spent his life designing and building stained-glass windows, and one of the most rewarding things we were able to do together was to go around and look at these windows which he had conceived, designed, built, and installed in sacred spaces around the town (and far beyond, although we weren't able to travel to see these, but they form a memorial which lives on after him).

And then the call came: “Your father is in hospital, he’s had another stroke.”

I travelled up, arriving the next day, went straight to the hospital, where his first words in the moments of clarity and lucidity between the confusion and hallucination were: “I thought I'd never see you again.”

In one brief instant the intensity of the look between us, perhaps the most intense moment of my life, was like the exchange of a lifetime's relationship between father and son, touching a level of understanding that went far beyond any words, and forming an acknowledgement that this was the last time we would see each other for who we were.

He knew, I have no doubt, that he was going to die, and the intensity of that moment somehow completed the circle of birth and death. It took him three weeks to die, and each day there was less of him present; he took his death with such grace, such calmness, such easy acceptance…..

At least that's how I saw it. To this day I believe his spirit began to leave his body the moment he said goodbye to me, and the passing of his body meant nothing.

And how precious was the relationship I built with him before he died, putting aside my anger, putting aside the consequences of all the unfulfilled commitments that a father implicitly makes to his son just by the act of creating a child; how important to see the man for who he was with an open heart, and, if not to celebrate his death, at least to watch his passing with a sense of release and relief - for both him and me.

And how it eased the grief, oh, how it eased the grief, to have known, if only for a short time, something of what it meant to have a father……

And yes, the process of grieving is a long one. Perhaps it goes on to the end of one's own life, and perhaps it's something that can only be expressed in a safe space with supportive men……such as the space in which we’re closest to our ancestors. The space where we make talismans to honour men initiated by their brothers, for example.

I don't think any son is ever the same after his father has died: a warrior brother told me the story of how he'd had experienced a strange sensation days after his father died - something along the lines of an all-consuming awareness of taking the place of his father, telling his father to move aside, that he was the man at the head of the family now. The words which came to his mind were: “Move aside old man, it’s my place now. Now I can become the man I was meant to be, and stop looking for the things you were never able to give me.”

Rod B

The ManKind Project and The "New Warrior Adventure"

I was so excited by what I experienced on the MKP weekend, I wanted to write about my experiences. These are all my personal beliefs and comments, not those of MKP! I believe that the ManKind Project is a modern form of initiation, which helps men make the transition from a common kind of adolescent emotional state to full-grown masculine maturity. (And by that, let me add, I don't mean the kind of macho swaggering masculinity that leads people like Tony Blair and George Bush and David Cameron to invade countries like Iraq and Libya just for the sense of their own grandiosity.)

I'm talking about true masculinity: the kind of masculinity that meets the world head on, giving you steadfastness and determination to stick to the principles that you believe in. Somebody asked me before I went on the ManKind Project Adventure Training Weekend, "what is the cause that you would die for?"

And this struck me as a very powerful way of actually expressing what's missing in today's society for most men - they don't stand for anything. One of the things the ManKind Project does is to  teach men to speak for themselves, not for others, so let me do that: I know that I didn't stand for anything before I went on the Mankind Project weekend.

Indeed, that was one of the reasons that I undertook it. Whether I could admit it or not, my life wasn't working. I was unhappy, I didn't have any purpose, and my relationship wasn't going well. But I don't want you to think that I'm saying the ManKind Project will cure all those problems in one weekend.

It obviously won't, but it can get you really back in touch with who you are and what you want in life, and for men whose lives are not working it can be a most incredible reconnection experience. Forget what else you've read on the Internet from fearful and dissatisfied men. The reality of the ManKind Project adventure weekend is simply this: it helped me get you in touch with myself, in other words, it helped me understand what I needed to do in life, what I wanted to do and how I might do it, and what purpose I  might have that I could call my life's mission. A purpose in tune with my deepest values. Now, what man wouldn't want to understand that?

For men who are ready to move into a more mature place, a place of full power and potential, or at least who are willing to start making the journey, the ManKind Project adventure weekend is unrivalled in its excellence. And no matter what you've read elsewhere from disaffected men I experienced it as more supportive than anything I had ever previously had in my life. One of the guiding principles of the organisation is the sense of integrity and honesty that pervades everything it does.

So let me tell you some other things it did for me: it enabled me to meet with unwavering steadfastness my female partner in our relationship, and to stand like a rock against the tide of emotion that sometimes comes washing over me from her.... And after a while, the tides of her emotion became less strong, and our relationship deeper and more harmonious. What I discovered through this experience was that women test men for their stability and steadfastness, they test men to make sure that they are reliable and dependable and that they have the strength of character that a woman needs from her male partner.

I also discovered that I could bring a much needed sense of integrity and honesty to everything I did, and that I could say what I thought without fear or favour to almost everyone I met. What a change from cringing in fear and reacting with anger to those I loved!

And finally it allowed me to deal with challenges from my children, from my family, my friends, my boss. It allowed me to stand up to these challenges with firm boundaries, and in the process I discovered that what everybody actually wants is a firm boundary, so they know exactly where they stand, and they know exactly what their rights and responsibilities are. That's just about the nicest thing I got from the ManKind Project - I discovered my rights and responsibilities on Planet Earth as a man.

If you have any sense that what I've said in this article might be relevant to you, then you owe it to yourself, and you certainly owe it to those around you, to look into the Mankind Project to find out whether it might be right for you. Good luck, and I hope to see you there.

Fred

Applecross - A Scottish adventure

The rain falls softly but persistently, screening the summer sun, blanketing the surrounding hills and woodland, and carpeting the fields in dampness. A man stands stripped to the waist, wearing his kilt and stout shoes as protection against the wet. He's warm, glowing perhaps from his efforts tending the fire that's blazing fiercely as it heats the stones for the Purification and Renewal Ceremony. But the warmth is more than physical - there's an inner glow, too. It's a scene familiar to staff the world over and one that has been repeated thousands of times as men reach Sunday morning, the final stages of their weekend journey into the fellowship of the Warrior Community.

But there's something unique about this one, something very important to me. This is the first ceremony of its kind to be held by MKP in Scotland. Applecross July 2010; a long, long wait of 16 years is finally over.

What does it take to serve? Willingness? Knowledge? Energy? All these, but fundamentally it takes commitment. And it takes commitment just to reach Applecross, situated on the north-west coast of Scotland hundreds of miles from the UK Community's birthplace in the New Forest deep in the south of England. Men have already travelled a long, long way before the inner journey has even begun.

With Applecross almost reached there's a powerful symbolism in the final few mites, marked by a climb of more than two thousand feet over the Bealach Na Ba. If the weather is fair, breathtaking views through the glens and then across to the Isle of Skye are a reminder of how small we are in the context of the natural world. if the mountain is cloaked in mist, hairpin bends and a gradient of 1 in 5 test the nerves of approaching visitors. Little wonder the ancient name for Applecross, the settlement nestling on the other side beneath the mountains, bordering the sea, is Achornrich, a place of sanctuary.

Sixteen years ago I was a man approaching initiation, yet almost 14 years have passed since I last circled up with the staff men on the Thursday evening of a training weekend. What will I find that is familiar, what will I find that's new? Will I be judged for my absence? What do I have to offer?

The sun begins to drop, flooding the room with light. Welcomed into the circle, I do indeed have something to offer. The question is asked by our leaders, John K., Bennie N. and David S., what are the cultural differences our leaders should be aware of as they take these new men on their journey? How will Scottish men feel about being initiated by English men?

I speak a little of my experience at the first UK initiation weekend in the New Forest, the gratitude I felt to the men who had flown in from the States, and how that gratitude overcame my own prejudices. I am heard.

There is room to talk about Scotland, Scottish people, Scotland's past, Scotland's future. We move from the broad sweep of generic history to personal. stories from men about their Scotland and how they relate to that country, to that culture. This sets the tone of the weekend, and I'm left in no doubt that this caring community of men who have travelled so far to get here fervently believe that creating and managing the first Warrior training in Scotland is special and important. I am grateful.

The discussion even eclipses the hottest topic on the staff bulletin board over the past few weeks - how to combat the Menace of the Highland Midge, an issue that has prompted an unprecedented move, the appointment of the very first Midge Co-ordinator, Brian Lilley. And there are other gestures too: kitchen coordinator Paul Erne takes care to reflect the geographical location in his menu. Among the staff sacred objects is a 19th century edition of James Paterson's book "Wallace the Hero of Scotland", dated 1865.

Friday, and men are coming. Thursday's setting transmutes into action, free flowing, energised and focussed. Preparations are complete and 17 initiates arrive with the sun shining, as a blustery wind portends what is yet to come. By the time of Midnight Adventure the rain is full and incessant, and the winds have rendered the midge coordinator's rote redundant - for this time at least.

Saturday morning and the men awake. For some it will be the longest day of their lives. Applecross welcomes men who are ready to work; the land sends a symbol to mark the day: a stag has descended from his mountain kingdom and strikes a regal air, watching from close by as the men walk in file towards the pit.

What happens next? Every man has a different story to tell of his initiation experience and every staffing provides each of us with new insights, new clarity, and new wisdom. Old fears, shame and guilt are exposed - laughter, tears and anger are welcomed. At the end of the day, 17 men are initiated as Warrior Brothers. As is their right, individuals have chosen to pass on individual processes. Not one man has chosen to leave. Looking down on Applecross from far above the mountains, the ancestors who went through their own initiation on this land thousands of years ago are watching us. I have a feeling they approve of what they see.

Sunday: the first morning of their lives as initiated Warrior Brothers for 17 men. They awake in the rain to the sound of the bagpipes. The strains of Highland Cathedral mark their final day at Applecross; for some, perhaps, that tune will take them back to this moment for the rest of their lives. None are aware that the man heralding the dawn has travelled from Belgium to create this awesome moment. Gautier has not a drop of Scottish blood in him... aye, but he's a bonny piper!

And so with the P&R ceremony complete and the feast prepared I watch as the staff are introduced to the men for the first time. I watch their amazement as they learn how far men have come at their own expense to create this weekend for them.

I revisit in my mind the feast at Sopley in December 1994. I remember first and foremost the longing to be part of a weekend, like the one I had just experienced, but in Scotland. What would life have been like for my father, my uncles, and my bosses if this experience had been available to them? What could life be like for my brothers, my cousins, my friends, men I work with, men I drink with? What could I do to make that happen? Sixteen long years have passed, and while some of these men have gone now, something special awaits a new generation.

Now there are two regular iGroups meeting in Scotland. Individual men who have previously journeyed south to be initiated no longer live in isolation. Already two PIT weekends have been held, where men have reinforced their initiation experience.

I watch in awe as the men who came through that weekend in Applecross step forward at their iGroup, ready to work. They are ready to put aside their fears of not knowing, of not getting it right, to find in doing so the first step to being good enough.

The future of the Warrior community in Scotland will be built on this kind of energy, and the future already looks to be in good hands.

Jim Ferguson

A change in direction – follow your heart

I broke out of a “story” inherited from my family upbringing, school life, and the general culture I grew up in, a story that really didn’t work for me.   When I left school to start out in the big wide world I had taken on some very strong messages about the important things in life: getting a job that would give me the highest financial rewards I could achieve, and the best promotion prospects; joining the culture of the never-ending struggle to acquire a big salary, seniority, house, car, holidays, gadgets – in short, joining the “rat race”. For me, this was a merry-go-round of external recognition, status, and rewards.

But one of the first problems I faced was leaving secondary school without the qualifications to get into college or university, let alone an apprenticeship scheme. How could I now get a “good start”? And so I joined the Royal Navy. That way, maybe I could get an apprenticeship or training in a recognised trade; the navy also provided an escape from a somewhat broken and turbulent family home.

And indeed, for the next decade in the navy I progressed well. A more practical hands-on approach to education saw me go from starting as a junior mechanic to ending as a Senior NCO in with a BTEC Diploma. After leaving the navy I used my experience and quickly went into the management side of the service provision business. I did well there for a few years, rising to a senior position, only to be moved sideways by a ‘new kid on the block’ trying to impress his masters. This sideways move came after years of jumping through hoops, trying my best to achieve the impossible, coping with ever-increasing pressure at work.

But despite all I’d achieved, I still believed I was a failure….and I was still too attached to status and external recognition from my job. So, when all this was taken away, I tipped into depression. After time off work and taking anti-depressants, I found, luckily for me, MKP and started on the road to recovery. I gained balance and perspective in my life, learned what didn’t work for me, and got the tools to change other things so they worked better for me.

I started the process of dealing with life’s challenges in a more healthy way with MKP in December 2002. When I was finally made redundant from the same firm in January 2007, I was able to get through the process into my next employment, with a little help from a few good warrior friends, without becoming depressed or needing any medication.

I know I handled this much better than I would have done “pre-warrior”. During the gap in my employment, I rediscovered what’s really precious to me and what would serve me better in my life. I discovered I wanted to work in a more practical environment with some connection to outdoors and trees. Later, I found I wanted to be away from larger companies, with their politics and endless, impossible, goal-oriented policies. I wanted to work for a small company and be seen as an individual, not a number.

And of course, the jobs I started to look at were all paid much less than I’d been used to – and this brought up lots of fear. How could I maintain the lifestyle we enjoyed? Initially, I kidded myself I need to stay in “the rat race” to keep the status quo, to remain happy and settled where I currently lived, keep the long-term mortgage, and support two boys in the middle of apprenticeships.

But after a while it dawned on me that I needed to allow myself to accept a change in lifestyle and to let go of some material things I didn’t really need. At the time, one of the most significant things for me was giving up gliding, a sport I’d only recently got into. Now, I realise the gliding was largely about helping me keep my sanity whilst staying in the “rat race”, and that didn’t work for me anymore! What a crazy situation!

Lucky for me that my wife was also at a turning point in her working career! After much deliberation, we decided to try and get work together as a couple in the ‘Domestic Service’ arena. Initially, this was a struggle as we were in the midst of the recession of early 2009, and the market seemed flooded with couples who had relevant previous experience; we kept getting passed over. Our luck changed when a warrior friend unexpectedly had a vacancy in just that line of work - so we now work for him and his partner, my wife as the housekeeper and me in house and grounds maintenance.

We are both much happier now enjoying the many, very varied tasks that life on this small Equine Estate throws up for us. We are part of a small team, and this works for us on many levels – not least, we have an appreciative relationship with our employers.

If someone had said to me a few years back this was the way my life would change, from being Senior Manager in a Global Corporation to Maintenance Man, I would, to say the least, have been sceptical, never imagining I would find my way to where I am today.

But I’m happier now in my working life and besides that, life itself works better for me on so many levels. This I very much attribute to MKP and the many gifts and varied learning I have received from so many men in the organisation. I have also done some twelve step work; that has also helped me grow along the way, and it’s another thing I most probably wouldn’t have found without getting involved with MKP.

So where does this find me? Most certainly very much happier than I was “pre-warrior”, a saner, more balanced person, I believe; a better husband, father and man, part of a network of like-minded men. By no means sorted or “there” yet, and still a work-in-progress, still working through “my stuff” as life challenges me, but much better equipped to deal with it all.

So to close I send a big thank you to all the men I have met on the way, and who’ve helped me with support and teaching: specifically but not limited to Dermot F., Mark F., the Reading I Group, the Romsey Tepee I Group, and many more.

The journey continues!               

Chris Lee

First - and second - time staffing the "Adventure"!

Following my initiation weekend (February 2009), I was one of those men who take time to digest what happened and how to integrate it into daily life.  In the past, my first instinct or reaction after having a perceived life-changing experience was to jump in and start to use what I’d learned to help (or maybe convert) others.  The Warrior weekend, although leaving me ecstatic and elevated, also left me in a state of shock.  What had happened to me during that weekend changed me on a cellular level:  I needed time to work out “what next”.  Eighteen months later the “next” manifested when I stepped up to staff the June 2010 weekend (bolstered by the work I’d done in my I-group).  I was nervous - but I knew it was the right time. Even before the weekend began I managed to get wounded by an email response from another brother.  Making matters worse was the fact that the brother in question was a man who had helped me so much during my own work.  My response was - how the hell am I going to be able to clear with this man? And when would I be able to do it anyway? It left me angry with him for writing what he had, and feeling stupid for taking it to heart.  Knowing that I needed to own this I tried to clear it myself but every time the charge came back stronger and stronger.  My decision then was to go - and hold it till I got there, hoping maybe the charge would go when I saw the love in his eyes.

Weekend came, saw the man. Nope, charge still there!  So when it came to building the container, and the clearings, I was dreading it.  But when my chance came I took it - I cleared with the man and felt a huge weight off my shoulders.  To do that in front of all those men in such a place was a big learning curve for me and it really helped me to finally start accepting myself as one of the lads - and in turn I truly began to trust other men.  From that moment on I started to see, perhaps for the first time, how important this work is, and how it can only be done with a community of men, working, striving, loving, fighting for the health, safety, integrity, and even the lives, of all the men who come to get what they want - and who are risking a lot to get it.

The first weekend was mind-blowing.  From the moment we, the staffers, assembled to the time when the initiates arrived, the process was eye-opening - especially seeing how serious and dedicated men were to getting it right.  As an escort the moment I met an initiate at the door I started to relive my own initiation all over again - but I also felt it was an honour to be able to walk every man through the process.

There are two moments that really stand out for me. On the Friday, the final staff ceremony before the men arrived put me in such an emotional space and left me with a strong sense of urgency and importance for the work we were about to do.  Bringing my shadow(s) up front was one thing - but to have this witnessed in such a way was a very powerful event.  At that moment I felt a bond fully manifest between all of us. 

The other moment that remains embedded in my psyche from that weekend was being part of the process work for the initiates. This was even more powerful than my own weekend.  The magic in that container was palpable.  And time and time again I was asked to stand in to help a man do his work.  I thought about it later and wondered what that was all about?  Now I know it’s part of the medicine I bring to my life and my work. I always have.

I can contain energy - and I am happy to do it - for other people: to stand in a place from which I can reflect back what they need to do their work.  All my life I struggled with this bit.  Taking on too much from others, reflecting back at them their own shadows, and being very sensitive to things people left unsaid.  Back then I isolated myself and used anger and reactivity to protect myself from other people’s fear and shame.  I told myself “they all can’t be wrong; this must be my fault”.  Now I know differently.  I can stand in that space if someone needs me to do it and at the same time not become part of the drama. 

With my first staffing experience so exhilarating, my second staffing (in September 2010) couldn’t come quick enough.  This time I knew what was coming. I was comfortable doing some of the same tasks as the first weekend although I would have liked more responsibility.  However, a part of me was telling me to slow down, take a deep breath, not to fight it, and continue to learn.  Little did I know an unscripted piece of work was waiting for me during the weekend. 

Some staff had fallen away so the carpet teams were a bit light with men, especially experienced men.  Again I was pulled in to contain the energy for several initiates; some of their work touched me deeply.  It is amazing how watching a man do his work helps me do mine, but playing a part is even more special.  I wondered what it would be like to actually lead with a man.  Of course, when you ask, someone answers. One of the experienced guys asked me whether I wanted to start a man off and see where it went.  At that moment a wave of fear came over me and I nearly said “no chance!”  But, trusting the process, I said “Yes!” and I started the next man off, took him a bit further and then an experienced man took over.  Part of me was disappointed because I could see where I wanted to take him.  Afterwards, though, I had a deep sense of gratitude for the trust that was placed in me and a sense of joy that I was the one who took that first step. 

In that moment I knew I was made to do this work: to walk with men into dark places (or jump in after them) with no fear - and show them a way back. I know how it makes me feel when other men stand beside me and “hold” me with their fierce love:  it gives me the power to leave the fear behind.  And this is a gift all men should have.

The ManKind Project, and especially staffing the Adventure weekend, has shown me my shadows clearly, but more importantly it has revealed my gold.  MKP has been part of my mentoring family (in the true sense) and now I am starting to fully grasp the unique genius in me - and I’m not afraid to say it.

For me, the work really started not on the day that I was initiated but on the day I started staffing.  Now I know that no matter where my path in life takes me, to become fully who I am I need to be working within a community of men, and our work needs to be given freely for the benefit of all communities on this planet.  Otherwise, the risks to myself and to the Earth are too grave to even think about. 

As a Man amongst Men, I am a man who, in his need to remain whole, must work in service to all.

If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give - yes or no, or maybe - should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford

In love, honour and service,

Neil McNulty

Just what is the ManKind Project, anyway?

What’s the Mankind Project (MKP) all about? I found MKP in 2002 and was immediately drawn to the NWTA (New Warrior Training Adventure). I guess, looking back, it was my sense that this was a community where men could get together without judgement, competition or having to play a role which drew me to the organisation. And – maybe more important – I sensed it was where I could learn to be a man. I certainly knew I hadn’t learnt that from my father – but I didn’t quite know what was missing.

MKP is like a level playing field, where there's no need to worry about what you're saying to your boss, your spouse, your family, your friends. For men who've been judged by others their entire life, this can come as a refreshing change!

Acceptance is the key for me - to be accepted for who and what you really are is rare in this society. I think people live by the masks they create to cope with everyday life. To drop them takes courage - often a man's identity is tied up in who he appears to be to others, or what he does. In this organisation, my experience has been there's a sense of equality born of the fact that we all serve a common purpose - I once heard it expressed like this: to introduce men to themselves, to who they really are.

I'd add that it's also about opening a man's heart to himself and others, regardless of whatever wounds have encouraged him to close off. Of course, no matter why a man’s life appears to fall apart, he’s really in crisis because of the strain of living without fulfilling his inner desires, or trying to be someone who he is not, or following a path given him by someone else, or…..whatever.

I needed and wanted so much to find a purpose, a way of life that fitted with who I am, and with my deepest values and beliefs. (And that wasn’t working for a multi-national chemical company, as I was then doing.)

I'm not saying such changes happen easily, or quickly, but the point for me is that MKP provides a place where the potential for change is available - and the support I needed to help me change my life has been freely available in ways I could never have imagined when I started this journey.

My family and friends and partners over the years have served me in many ways (and I hope the same is true in reverse!), but there's something unique about MKP. I've mentioned a few of the qualities I see in the weekends and the wider ongoing community: openness, lack of judgement, support, but there is more: for me, it was also a way to connect with the deep masculine energy I knew I possessed, but somehow had never been able to access.

After all, I was brought up by a woman who wanted a "nice, well-behaved" son, not necessarily one who could freely express his masculine nature. And by that I mean freely express my strength, courage, loyalty, desire for adventure, spontaneity, loving nature, sexuality, and male power. Now I feel equal to the female power of the woman I’m loving and living with, and I understand what masculinity means to me.

To reconnect with those things more fully in some cases, and for the first time in others, is a wonderful adventure. And it can be so for any man, at any age, I believe – you included!

Rod B