Hi Subscriber First Name,

I’ve been thinking about writing this for a while but I wanted to get it right.

I’ve been wondering where all the men are?

Not just in the spaces I’ve created but in the spaces I find myself in. A lot of the work I’m drawn towards these days sits somewhere around healing, spirituality, nature, coaching, personal development and exploring what it means to be human. And, more often than not, those spaces are predominantly women.

It’s not a criticism, I genuinely love spending time with women. But I’ve started to notice the absence of men.

I was brought up by an OG feminist hippy until I was 17, when my mum died and I was left to figure a lot of things out for myself. So I know what it means to be around nurturing energy - the nourishment, emotional awareness and spirituality.

My career hasn’t exactly balanced things out either. My path from sociology, to marketing, to sustainability, to coaching has generally been surrounded by female colleagues, bosses, clients and communities. So looking back, I realise that I’ve been short on healthy male role models.

When I think about the men in my life, a lot of those relationships have been through sport or socialising - boxing, cycling, surfing, the pub.

And there’s something about that which I’ve started to find quite interesting.

Because where do men go when they want to explore the deeper stuff?

Where do we go when we’re struggling, questioning our purpose, feeling lonely, trying to understand ourselves, our relationships, our emotions, our fear or what the hell we’re supposed to be doing with our lives?

This photo is of me with my two boys Henry and Arlo and perhaps that’s why this question has started to feel more important. I’m not just thinking about the men I know now, I’m thinking about the men they will become and the spaces that will or won’t be available to them as they grow up.

For a long time, when people asked if I’d consider starting a men’s group, it didn’t feel right.

I was worried about creating another performative space - chest beating, posturing or maybe some caricature of masculinity dressed up as community.

I’ve never been particularly interested in the idea that men need to be ‘more masculine’, whatever that actually means. I’m wary of the false dualities too - masculine/feminine, male/female, strong/soft, head/heart.

We’re all much more complicated than that. But perhaps, in trying not to reinforce those divisions, I’ve also overlooked something - what have we had to swallow down?

One of my heroes, Dr Gabor Maté talks about the way men are often taught to suppress vulnerability, to toughen up, to suck it up and to keep going. That’s true for me and it nearly killed me.

It strikes me that this isn’t necessarily because men don’t feel deeply, perhaps many of us have simply learned that showing those feelings comes with a cost.

Maté writes:

“Healing both requires and implies regaining the vulnerability that made us shut down emotionally.”

That really landed with me. Vulnerability isn’t the opposite of strength, it’s part of being human.

My healing has shown me that if we spend our lives trying not to be wounded, we can also end up shutting ourselves off from some of the things that make life meaningful: connection, intimacy, compassion, curiosity and growth.

Depth psychologist Bill Plotkin takes this somewhere else again, talking about the journey from adolescence into a more rooted adulthood and our relationship with soul, nature and the wider community of life:

“Your soul is your true home.”

I like that much more than the language of the ‘divine masculine’. So maybe the question isn’t how men become more masculine, maybe it’s how we become more whole?

How do we create spaces where men can explore some of the questions that don’t always get asked? Not because men are broken and need fixing and not because women somehow hold all the answers. But because sometimes the container matters.

My sons are growing up in an increasingly divided world, with a constant stream of ideas about what it means to be a man appearing in their feeds.

They have no interest in the manosphere but it’s there nonetheless. Ideas about masculinity are at danger of being weaponised to perpetuate the divisions that harm us the most. And division sells so our work seems to be to unite and integrate.

I don’t want to tell my sons what kind of men they should become. I’d rather they have enough good people and enough real spaces around them to explore that question for themselves.

Upcoming Events

Spending time with other people is an important part of making sense of our own perspectives, lived experiences, needs and expectations. We need other people to reflect things back to us, to challenge our assumptions and to remind us that we’re not the only ones thinking or feeling a certain way.

That’s a big part of why we’ve been creating spaces that matter.

So far, they’ve all been mixed and I’d love to see more men in them. But watch this space because I’m also starting to explore what it might look like to create something specifically for men. The conversations have already begun.

But for now, this evening we launch Gather…

Wrapping up

I’m still figuring out the men’s piece. I don’t want to rush it into existence just because I’ve noticed a gap. I want to spend some time listening, talking to other men and working out what might genuinely be useful.

But I’m increasingly convinced that there is something worth exploring.

Not another space telling men how to be men. Just somewhere we can come together, put some of the armour down, talk about the stuff that matters and perhaps make a bit more sense of ourselves in the company of other men.

For now, though, I’ll see you around the fire, on the farm, at Patch or wherever else we find ourselves making a bit more space for one another.

As always, with compassion and curiosity,

Nick