THE MOTHER WOUND

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Creating a healthy relationship with our mother is very important, even if she is no longer present in our lives. Your mother may have been, or still is, emotionally and physically distant. 

 

Perhaps she left you as a child and went back to work or perhaps her focus was on other things, such as running the home or looking after siblings. 

Other mothers can be possessive and care too much for the little child, being overbearing and controlling. Mothers with their own unmet needs might use the child to make themselves happy or feel loved. 

 

Depending on our attachment and relationship with our mother, we may grow up creating power games with partners in a desperate attempt for our inner boy to gain some degree of control or safety. Or we may remain distant from our partners, fearful of deeper connection.

 

Robert Bly suggests that to be liberated from an unhealthy attachment with our mother we must

“steal the key from under our mother’s pillow” thus severing the umbilical cord and

unlocking our own unique power. 

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THE FATHER WOUND

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“A man must love his father and yet be free of his father's expectations and criticisms in order to

be a free man”. - David Deida

 

Healing the relationship with our father is essential in our own masculine growth. “Getting hit by the axe” describes the first time a man feels his father’s anger and how this can shape the rest of his life. 

 

Perhaps your father was unable to show you the affection, love and emotional understanding that your younger self needed in times of difficulty. Perhaps your father rejected or abandoned you. These wounds can still affect our lives today unless they are healed. 

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THE GOOD/NICE GUY

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Many men have the Good/Nice Guy complex - also known as the ‘people pleaser’. This is the man that creates covert contracts and needs to be liked. 

 

This stems from a wound of not feeling good enough as a child and results in overcompensating as an adult. This however comes at the expense of their own well-being; by putting others first they neglect themselves. 

 

The nice guy quickly turns angry and leaks his anger onto his partner, children and other relationships in his life. He has weak boundaries and is not aware it is okay to have needs of his own. Perhaps this man lacks hobbies, his main priority is often his work. 

 

He will not speak up in times of need when it comes to himself. He may become a doormat to be walked over by friends, family, colleagues and is continually ‘friend-zoned’ by potential partners. 

 

We look at how developing the archetype of the Warrior can create healthy boundaries and the ability to speak one’s truth, remedying the grip of the Good/Nice Guy. 

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SEXUALITY & ADDICTION​

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Childhood beliefs, cultural conditioning and sexual trauma at a young age are just a few of the ways in which our relationship to our bodies and sexuality can be damaged. This can lead to issues such as sexual shame, embarrassment, body dysmorphia, impotence, premature ejaculation, performance anxiety, PTSD and more. 

 

Workshops, sharing circles and discussions allow us to open up freely and develop a new relationship to these areas that may have been put in shadow. It is incredibly healing to know there are other men that have experienced the same. 

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AND MORE...

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The programme will also weave in the four great masculine archetypes throughout - King, Warrior, Lover and Magician -  and their opposing inflated and deflated shadows. This is explored in much more depth in our Level 1 - Boy to King - Discover the Masculine Archetypes retreat*. 

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*IMPORTANT TO NOTE - You do not have to take LVL 1 before completing LVL 2.