Top Highlights

• This doesn’t mean finding the “right person” in the very near future, but launching yourself—at the optimal pace—into the work that makes this possible.
• Men may respond to the exhortation “be a man!” by getting harder or tougher, more ruthlessly driven, more competitive, more uncaring about their unresolved wounds, making “getting over it” more important than “feeling it” or “going through it.” Conversely, men might also respond to the exhortation “be a man!” by rebelling against its certainties of...
• The visible presence of these “soft” qualities induces far more discomfort in most men than the “hard” ones do. But once they are brought out into the open, respected, and honored—which takes courage—they can coexist with the capacity to express anger skillfully and take strongly directed action, empowering men in ways that serve everyone’s highest...
• In their unhealthy forms, shame, power, and sex are at the core of male dysfunction, simultaneously possessing and crippling many men. Shame that crushes and shrinks, power (especially in the form of aggression) that inflates and dominates, sex that compensates and distracts—this unholy triumvirate usurps the throne of self in a great number of men...
• True masculine power happens when courage, integrity, vulnerability, compassion, awareness, and the capacity to take strong action are all functioning together. Such power is potent but not aggressive, challenging but not shaming, grounded but not rigid, forceful but not pushy. Again, it requires head, heart, and guts in full-blooded alignment.