The Eight Evolutionary Principles for Being a Powerful, Awake, Alive, Whole, and Ethical Man

Principles Created in Two Public Dialogues with Marc Gafni and Fred Jealous

These principles were created in two public dialogues with Marc Gafni of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion and Fred Jealous, the founder of the Breakthrough Men’s Community. The dialogues were held at the Pacific Coast Church in Pacific Grove, California during November and December 2014. Marc and Fred are grateful for the contributions of those in attendance.

Fred’s additional comments:

My comments will focus on what I have learned, over the past 35 plus years, about the process of men freeing themselves from the limitations and excesses of traditional American masculinity.^[i] As men find the support and slack we need to free ourselves from old patterns, we are more able to embrace our loving nature and these evolutionary principles. In addition to our personal journeys, I am also very aware that public policies are critical in supporting or restricting our liberation and evolution. The highly individualistic nature of U. S. culture^[ii] reinforces men’s attachment to the traditional male role as essential to survival, financial success, and status.

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Photography by Kristina Tahel Amelong

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Principle One: Awareness

A powerful, awake, alive, whole, and ethical man liberates himself from the fear and shame that come from the belief that he is separate from the larger Field of LoveIntelligence that holds him and lives in him and as him.

Liberation from the particular constellation of installed fear and shame that we men have traditionally carried in the name of our manhood means finding a path that allows us to engage in a process of freeing ourselves from ideas that condition our value on our performance of the male role. This idea that we are only lovable IF others, mainly other men, judge us to have successfully performed the traditional male role has isolated us from the larger Field of LoveIntelligence that both embraces us and is us. This separation from the fullness of our built-for-love and loving nature leaves us in an ongoing state of anxiety. This role is behavior we both engage in for acceptance and from which we constantly seek release and relief.

To reclaim our place in the larger Field of LoveIntelligence, we must begin an exploration of the possibility that we are unconditionally loved, lovable, and loving. This exploration and the feelings that accompany the journey show us how all ideas of our acceptance being conditional came from outside of ourselves. By definition, there is no such thing as “conditional love.” As we take this journey to reclaim the fullness of our humanity as men, we can keep committing to acting on our loving nature in the present. At the same time, we evolve best if we make space and find support to process and resolve the old feelings that our more loving actions bring up for healing.

Principle Two: Action

A powerful, awake, alive, whole, and ethical man allows himself to be consciously created, nurtured, and sustained by all of life, even as he is called to consciously create, nurture, and sustain all of life.

As we engage in the process of reclaiming our unique place in the Field of LoveIntelligence, we are moved to redefine power. We leave behind the traditional male role idea of power as competing, winning, and dominating, in an all or nothing world of winners and losers. We embrace power as our capacity to create, nurture, and sustain all of life as we live and evolve in connection to All-That-Is.

Principle Three: Evolutionary Activism

A powerful, awake, alive, whole, and ethical man participates in the evolution of love by evolving love from preoccupation with his own illusory safety and grasping for relief, to a realization of his inherent connection with all human beings, all sentient beings, and all of Reality. He realizes that he participates not only in the being of All-That-Is but also in the becoming of All-That-Is. He experiences the evolutionary impulse awake and active in himself.

Reclaiming our connection to all of life and our place of belonging in the community of all human beings, not as a goal but as a starting place, helps us to release ourselves from the constant anxiety about how well we are performing the male role. As we gain this freedom, we can make our unique contributions to the Field of LoveIntelligence. This foundational and ongoing knowing of our connection to all of life also frees us from the compulsion to seek something(s) outside ourselves (status, sex object, sex, money, alcohol, drugs) that will give us temporary relief from the pressures and insecurities of the male role. Inside of the conditional nature of the male role, our sense of having achieved some sense of value and belonging is always fleeting. The compulsive need to focus on the next performance or win is a clear indication of the isolation men experience inside the pressure of the role. We must move from pressuring ourselves to perform (shame and fear) in order to belong, to our connection and belonging as a starting place (acceptance).

Principle Four: Realization of Unique Self

A powerful, awake, alive, whole, and ethical man realizes his inherent nature as an irreducibly unique expression of the LoveIntelligence and LoveBeauty that is the initiating and animating energy of All-That-Is, which lives in him, as him, and through him. He enacts his Unique Self by giving his unique gifts, which address a unique need in his circle of intimacy and influence.

Principle Three (Evolutionary Activism) along with Principle Four (Realization of Unique Self) will happen best in a community structure and educational system within the Field of LoveIntelligence that intends to nurture and sustain the actualization of the Unique Self. If the manifesting of the unique gifts of my Unique Self is what I am created for, and the manifestation of them is what nurtures and sustains me and my part in my community, then any wealth created by the community is spread throughout the Love Field to nurture and sustain not only me and those close to me but other individuals, families, and communities in their expressions of their uniqueness. I mention this because having grown up in American corporate capitalism; it is obvious that the hierarchies of power, dominance, and extreme forms of wealth creation for a few are antithetical to the nurturing and sustaining of all of life by the Field of LoveIntelligence.

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Principle Five: Discernment

A powerful, awake, alive, whole, and ethical man develops the capacity to discern between true needs and pseudo-needs. He loves by bracketing his own pseudo-needs—of preoccupation with his own safety and grasping for relief—in order to embrace and champion his true needs, his own evolution, and the evolution of the full humanity and gifts of all men and women.

Pseudo-needs are the needs that reflect the fear, shame, violence, and threats of violence that have confined most men to the traditional male role as the only option for self-expression. In the U. S., it is a highly individualized ideal in an all or nothing game of success or failure to belong. An absence of significant national systems of support and security for our citizens reinforces this extreme. At all occasions of work and play, we must market ourselves as real men and participate in a manner that proves our worth and value as men. For example, though the focus of a business meeting may be the mission of the organization, we men often have a demanding second agenda based on our preoccupation with proving our worth. As a consequence, the field of intelligence we bring to advancing the mission is often significantly restricted.

Inside this paradigm of pseudo-needs, it looks like “success in performing the male role or dying alone in the gutter” defines the boundaries of our existence. To address this ongoing state of insecurity, we were taught that having sex with the right person would take care of all of our needs and give us relief from the performance pressures.

To honor our full humanity and our real needs, we need to step outside of the traditional male role and reacquaint ourselves with our true human needs. Sharing in the asking for and giving and receiving of attention, acceptance, affection, appreciation, and support for the manifestation of our Unique Selves can be defined as real needs, along with others related to physical health. (Thanks, David Richo, for your illumination of the 5As).

As we evolve to honor the expression of the real needs of our Unique Self, we are able to welcome our full humanity as well as that of all women and men.

Principle Six: Fully Human

A powerful, awake, alive, whole, and ethical man integrates and incarnates values that have in the past been described as exclusively masculine and feminine.

As men evolve to welcome the full humanity of both men and women, we no longer are run by the need to confine ourselves or women to traditional roles. The person in the female role has traditionally served the dominance and control needs of the person in the male role. In the female role, one must not behave in a way that might threaten our “male role legitimacy” or right to control. As we are freed to experience our human wholeness, we claim a fuller expression of our LoveIntelligence, which includes, for example, our capacity for tenderness, nurturing, and empathy as well as the right to feelings of helplessness and powerlessness and the right to grieve openly. We experience and embrace these states of being and feelings without fear of losing our fully human maleness. We have the safety of being true to our Unique Selves as we have stepped out of the insecurity that is the posturing of the male role.

Principle Seven: Integrated Worldview

A powerful, awake, alive, whole, and ethical man does not unconsciously parrot the perspective of his family or community. He takes responsibility for formulating and evolving his own worldview. As part of his formulation of his own worldview, he fearlessly integrates what seem to be opposing ideas. His core principle affirms that every position is true but partial and that therefore all of the parts can be incorporated into a larger integral embrace.

As part of the evolution of our Unique Self, we learn to understand that our view of the world is a reflection of our Unique Self. As such, the value of my truth and yours is their contribution to the larger Whole. I hold a unique piece of the overall truth. I am free to make my unique contribution. As we engage in the world, we listen to understand the partial truths that others bring to the table. This is a deeper, more curious, more intimate form of listening than the listening we have done in the traditional male role. In that role, we were more concerned with competing, being right, getting attention for our opinion, and being validated. As we relax into listening with a truly open heart/mind, we expand into the larger Field of LoveIntelligence both in terms of our understanding and our capacity.

Principle Eight: Erotic Sexuality

A powerful, awake, alive, whole, and ethical man moves from experiencing sex as a weapon, a form of relief or comfort cover-up, to an expression of his embodied love in all its forms. He evolves beyond feeling a victim of his own sex drive to reclaiming the full beauty and power of male sexuality. He evolves from a pornographic to an erotic vision of his sexuality.

Pornographic sex is built into the traditional male role as a place to go to get relief from the isolation of the male role and release from the emotional pressure associated with it. Traditionally, we are looking for a sex object to give ourselves relief from feeling like a performance object to ourselves. An object looking for an object!

Additionally, the experience of any need at all is likely to be sexualized as part of playing by the rules of being a man. We do not challenge other men when they say they are a victim of their sex drive or that “getting laid” will take care of any needs they have. Expressions of other needs like appreciation or attention require a level of vulnerability that has not generally been allowed by the male role. If we are bold enough to express other needs, we believe the odds of being accepted are miniscule. Stepping outside of the role to express other human needs is too charged with fear of being judged.

Being on the receiving end of someone seeking relief from isolation and intensity through sex, as a compulsive pattern, is a very limited and controlling style of sexual behavior. Although men may believe they are entitled to this kind of sex, they are unlikely to want to be an object used for relief in this way.

Reclaiming the full beauty and power of fully erotic male sexuality requires that we engage in a process of challenging our attachment to the idea that “the charge,” the intense set of feelings we characterize as our sex drive, may only be partially, if at all, about sex. When we pause, rather than seek orgasm and relief, and instead dive into the intense feelings of “the charge,” we discover old feelings and longings and hurts associated with our unfulfilled desires for different expressions of love. As we process and resolve the feelings contained in the charge and the rigid repetitive fantasies we have generated related to them, we open the door to the erotic as an expression of our Unique Self that integrates sexual expression into the larger Field of LoveIntelligence. What we wanted was always more about love than the activity of sex, but we were lost in the world of male role sex. This left little or no room for human sex or an erotic connection to life including our sexuality.

Note: Since male role sex is so deeply engrained and was passed on by other men, it is best for men to engage in the process of a major reevaluation and reclaiming of the emotional and spiritual foundation for the expression of their erotic selves in the company of other men.

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Endnotes

[i] It is perhaps more accurate to say traditional white Christian American masculinity. In my experience, it is this particular group that is most rigidly manifests the role.

[ii] Along with policies that have supported a brand of capitalism that has its roots in slavery.

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Fred Jealous, M.A.

Fred Jealous founded Breakthrough in 1985. Fred has retired from active participation at Breakthrough and enjoys gardening, reading, and writing. Prior to Breakthrough, he spent many years as a teacher at all levels from preschool to graduate school. Locally, he taught Social Science courses and developed programs for veterans in transition at Monterey Peninsula College. He created Monterey County’s first Men’s Alternatives to Violence Program, and he chaired the statewide coalition of alternatives to violence programs. He founded the local chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute, an organization that presents workshops on reducing prejudice and claiming pride in our heritage.