What joy is to health, what pleasure is to longevity, I wish you pleasure every day. Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven, Give us today our daily nourishment. Forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Be sure that all who are enraged against you will be ashamed and disgraced; those who contend with you will become as nothing and perish. Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop. Standing in your power without disconnecting from the heart. A man who can truly father himself is no longer at the mercy of unhealthy fathering, whether from his own father, other men, or the authoritarian dictates of various elements of his culture. I am in good hands. My ground is solid and true. I am capable of deep relationship. What is mostly in the way of meaningful man-to-man connection is the investment that one or both men have in keeping up a wall between them—a barrier that, however soft, keeps them safe from being vulnerable or embarrassed, or being otherwise unpleasantly exposed to each other. Knowing your shadow and integrating it.  

The ethic of men’s allegiance to keeping distance from each other needs to compassionately be laid bare, along with their fears of what might happen if that ethic were to be deconstructed—fears that range from being rejected (as may have happened during boyhood when they showed vulnerability) to being seen as gay (as if being gay means having less than many qualities). Connections with others should feel natural, easy, satisfying, and respectful. Doing such practices is not just great for deepening a man’s relationship with his children, but also for deepening it with an intimate partner. Freeing sex from the pressure to make me feel better. By having a sense of others emotional and psychological whereabouts allows me to more skillfully navigate my interactions with them. Something more deeply interactive is required, something that many men long for with other men, but do not approach, keeping not just a respectful distance in meetings, but also an emotional and psychological distance, a gap that is often also present in their relationships with women. Perhaps the biggest and most relevant challenge for men is doing what it takes to be established in truly intimate relationship. I am not longer under the inner critic’s thumb. 

By intimate, I mean loving, cherishing, and being very close to another, and not just sexually, in ways that deepen both partners’ connection and their individuality. The commitment that centers this is not only to making relational closeness—whatever its from—a central priority but also the well-being and growth of the partners. And what are the essentials for being in such relationship? First, explore the relevant connections between your past and present, seeing what circumstances in your early life generated your current automatic and reactive behaviors with gut-level honesty. Commitment to working on yourself—and the relationship—more than just intellectually an abiding, ever deepening interest in and love for the other. Ceasing to be run by your conditioning is very difficult to do on your own; most require skilled guidance in doing so. Also, turn toward your pain, including emotionally, rather than continuing to distract yourself from it. Do not let your anger or shame turn into aggression. Practice emotional literacy and opening by displaying integrity. Acting from your innate sense of wholeness; taking full responsibility for what you do, internally and externally; making your and the other’s highest good your priority in whatever interaction you have with them. Emotional literacy and openness will allow you to deeply listen and display zero tolerance for disrespect and abuse.  

When you present everything with all respects, happy look will fall down upon you. For true happiness in the World is not acceptance, but presentation! Being consistently reliable, dependable, and trustworthy; making no excuses for your less-than-healthy behavior; being your own source of accountability is what demonstrates the beauty and excellence of anything but its reverse? Thus, the beauty of day, and that of Spring, is set off by the horror of night and Winter. It is astonishing what a different result one gets by changing the metaphor! You do not have to have perfected all the ideals before you enter into intimate relationship!  You thought that you were the victim of your feelings. Now you see that they are not the truth about yourself. Enter—and further enter into the spirit of adventurous exploration by cultivating intimacy with everything that you are, learning bit by bit to allow all things—high and low, pleasant and unpleasant, dark and light—to awaken, hone, and further you. Such is the edge and great challenge that brings forth, honors, and refines the deep masculine. We have to remind ourselves sometimes what we were like before we started the process to keep track of progress, many people keep a chart of their gains. Let go of negative feelings. Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is near.