TRUSTING MYSELF

Apprenticeship to Love: Meditations for the sacred masculine on this crooked path
March 17, 2026*

TODAY'S MEDITATION

This path is rarely well-marked. With practice (my early morning ritual of slowing down through yoga techniques, including meditation) I am getting better at knowing the way points. They're often subtle, obscured by willfulness or arrogance. Sometimes they're neon signs. Blinking and mirrored on a rain-soaked nightime Hastings Street.

That was last night. A guest on the podcast said something like (I'm paraphrasing): There is magic all around us. We need only become more sensitive to experience it.

Today at noon I'm stepping into the "magic zone." I'll be talking about some of my favourite things: How tango, life, intuition, leading, being a man —come together in the constitution of this man's meaningful life.

I'm feeling anxious it. I know these words and experiences inside out. But how it all fits into this notion of the magic in my life... And the way I'm understanding it all... It's all so fresh. I like it like that, always fresh. Always changing. Because I'm getting better at the one thing that stays stable and helps me enjoy rather than react to the always-changing. I'm getting better at just breathing into what could be chaos, and holding this space of calm.

For myself this morning I'm feeling all these feelings of calm and chaos and magic. Feeling the risk of the high wire. Knowing that what's of value —the only thing of value in this moment, and for those who will be listening at noon— is my stillness. What I think of as my groundedness. My presence. Some might call it my "authenticity."

...

I'm not a big fan of the "warrior" language that is so popular in the men's work movement. Every day I'm a little more distant from that urgency. But what I read by Dan Millman, I think it's important. If we are warriors, we know not only how to dominate and win, we know how to stand with our hearts open to this moment. We know how to be vulnerable.

One of the things I am feeling acutely is the desire to be free from demand. That's part of the "masculine polarity." Often at odds with this demand is the equally powerful desire to have the nourishing experience of the feminine, in the fullness of her flow. I don't want to feel this only in the woman I love, and not only in the women in life, but in the men I lead or teach. Because they too stand in the feminine polarity to my leadership and my vulnerability as a leader. I want to feel them trust me. I want to feel them relax completely into their polarity of creative, always-moving, never-ending flow. This requires that I become still. That I deepen. Become entirely silent —and in this still silence, not only a witness but the structure they need to feel safe enough to blossom.

How do I do this? There are techniques that I've learned, that I teach. It's important to practice these. And then, to throw them away.

If I'm in a leadership or husband position, those I lead and those I am polarity with yearn for my art, not my technique. If you've been led by someone who brings only their brain-learning to the moment you know what I mean. When I'm learning how to lead and how to be a husband, it may seem that the technique and the execution are inseparable. To those who look to us for leadership and husbandry, they can only surrender or trust us they feel us trusting our own guts and heart and balls and throat. When we trust our vulnerability rather than hiding it. Then we are men who must be trusted. Then we are treasured and revered, worthy of love and adoration. Then we are the treasure the world waits for.

...

All around me is all that I need. To become more still, more silent, more vulnerable to receive what I need. It's a dance. And trusting myself to dance beyond myself, I become the lover my beloved yearns for —the leader the world yearns for— and opens to receive.

*A version of this chapter was originally published March 17, 2022

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS

🌀A warrior is not about perfection, or victory, or invulnerability. He's about absolute vulnerability. That's the only true courage. (Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior)

🌀Recognize that the other person is you. (Yogi Bhajan , Aquarian Sutra 1)