Disconnection from our core essence is the root of much pain for men. “Men’s Work” has emerged in the last 40 years, which has sought to bring awareness to and expand the definition of what it is to be a man.

The movement has helped hundreds of thousands of men develop awareness and skill in their emotional and relational worlds through re-connection to ritual, rites of passage, life purpose, intuition, and physical bodies.

Indeed, men who have experienced—and inflicted—unimaginable trauma, disconnection, abuse, and addiction have engaged in their deep personal work with the support of other men, and have emerged compassionate, empathetic, self-forgiving and accepting, whole beings capable of holding the depth of their pain and suffering—and also able to show up in their lives and relationships with grace, humor, and kindness.

I know this deeply not only because I have worked with men over the years who have undergone this kind of transformation, but because I, for one, am among them.

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The individual and cumulative impact of this work cannot be underestimated. Collective patterns of belief and practice around what a “man” is—or should be—are crumbling all around—and, importantly, within—us culturally, if not yet politically and economically.

The persistent centering of marginalized individuals and communities in the last decade has jolted the old guard (roughly translatable to the patriarchy, toxic masculinity, et al.) into demonizing ‘wokeness’, which makes sense, because it created the divisions between humans in the first place.

Although corporate media continues to blast the public with conflict, war, genocide, and displacement, there is an increasing value amongst the many in caring for the earth rather than destroying it. Men in positions of power were called to account when #MeToo opened up the conversation about sexual violence, which set a new standard for leadership moving forward. More recently, the pandemic inspired introspection and the need for connection amongst a generation of young men dislocated from their conditioning in ‘toxic masculinity’.

The ecosystem of men’s organizations, informal groups, men’s coaches, and others work to train and encourage men to step into heart-led leadership in their families and communities by learning, amongst other things:

• to accept, love, and trust the full range of their own lived experience

• skills and ways of being around accountability, compassion and forgiveness for the harm they themselves have inflicted, whether consciously or not

• develop a deep and thorough practice of relational repair

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Men’s Work—essentially the practice of gathering in groups and practicing emotional vulnerability, ritual, collaboration and mutual support over time—has become trendy, popular, even sexy.

For good reason! What’s not sexy about a man practicing good posture, breathing deep into his belly, with grace, purpose and humor in his eyes and voice, working toward integrity and dignity in his own life, supported by a group of men who are pursuing similar awareness and engagement in their own lives?

Many of the men actively engaged in this work are an the age and stage of life when the baton of political and economic leadership will soon be passed from one generation to theirs. Whether these men end up occupying these seats of power is irrelevant, because each will be equipped—at least theoretically—to show up in deep support of and collaboration with the health of this brilliant planet, as well as women and other historically marginalized humans whose time has come to lead.