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Rites of Passage: Rituals, Relationships, and Responsibility (feat. Luke Entrup)
135 Plays8 months ago
Welcome back to The Integrated Man Project! I'm your host, Travis Goodman, and in today's episode, we're joined by a very special guest, Luke Entrup, a seasoned coach who's led transformative retreats and rites of passage programs for men and boys for over two decades.
As we shine a light on the crucial conversations about masculinity, consent, and sex education, Luke and I dive deep into how we can teach boys about nervous system regulation and the importance of mentorship and eldership in shaping the journey from childhood to adulthood. We'll explore creating a comfortable space for open discussions regarding changing bodies and sex, especially between fathers and their offspring.
You'll hear about Luke's personal endeavors to foster a healthy rapport with his own children—one that encourages them to turn to him when needed, despite the challenges that individuation might bring. Moreover, we'll examine his approach to discussing sex ed through bedtime stories and how this can facilitate easier conversations at home.
We'll also tackle the significance of rites of passage, the longing for belonging that men face, and how to navigate the emotional landscape of modern masculinity. Along with this, we'll discuss how Luke is rewriting the narrative of what it means to be a man, addressing 'toxic masculinity,' and the importance of being connected to something greater than oneself.
Luke reveals his powerful methodology of bringing fathers and sons into the wilderness to acknowledge the critical transition into manhood. And he doesn't shy away from discussing resistance to these ideas, emphasizing that men who seek out his program are ready for guidance and transformation.
This episode is not just theoretical; it's about taking actionable steps toward healing and reconciliation for past wounds, facing challenges with bravery, and the vital role of community in fostering healthy masculinity.
For those interested in furthering this journey, I'm launching a men's group coaching program, and I invite you to reach out for more details.
So sit back, tune in, and get ready for an insightful conversation that could very well reshape your understanding of what it means to be a man in today's world. Let's get into it!
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Transcript
Introduction to Men's Group Coaching
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of the Integrated Man Project podcast. Before we get to the show, just a quick announcement about some upcoming new offerings I'll be having. Under the Integrated Man Project wing, I'm gonna be launching my first men's group coaching program. Those, if you're new to the show, I practice as a licensed marriage and family therapist. I've been practicing for about 10 years.
00:00:22
Speaker
in California and I'm going to be stepping into the coaching world and having my first men's group coaching program here launching. If you are interested in getting involved with that, go ahead and email me at integrated man project at gmail.com. Again, integrated man project at gmail.com for more information.
00:00:41
Speaker
I could send you a quick questionnaire asking a few more clarifying questions. We could set up a quick voice and or video chat to clarify any questions you might have. And this initial offering will be for men to work through a six-week program designed at reducing stress more effectively.
00:01:01
Speaker
teaching some practical skills and tools to effectively navigate stress. So again, if you're interested, email me at integratedmanproject at gmail.com. And without further ado, let's jump into the show.
Meet Luke: Men's Coach and Retreat Leader
00:01:19
Speaker
Hey Luke, I'm excited to have you on. Those that don't know Luke, we met recently and he's going to share a bit about who he is, but we had a conversation, I'm not sure, a few months back and have been working on getting you on the show and really hit it off. Very similar interests, very similar passion, yet different, but we both have a heart for men, for fathers, and Luke is doing some amazing, incredible work and has been actually for quite some time working with men, fathers.
00:01:42
Speaker
sons, has some incredible things he's doing, and I really was excited to have him on. So I'm glad we're finally here to actually sit down. But before we jump into the topic, how are you doing? I'm excellent. I'm so happy to be here. Love the show. Love what you're up to. And yeah, we are on this kind of similar mission of supporting men and fathers to be better versions of themselves. So anytime I can have a conversation about that, I'm excited.
00:02:06
Speaker
Yeah, and I am too. I mean, that's what gets me very excited to have conversations is the exact thing is helping, helping and having a roadmap, having dialogues, conversations, as well as very practical things that we do moving from the conversations to actually doing something and creating something to help men and fathers. And I love it. I love doing this. So, and I know you do as well. Can you tell us just a quick, a bit about who Luke is? Kind of let the audience know.
00:02:31
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm a coach. I coach men and I coach leaders. And then I also lead rites of passage work. So I'm a guide supporting boys through rites of passage programs, honoring the passage from childhood into adolescence.
00:02:46
Speaker
That's so rad. And that's actually our conversation today is the rites of passage. And I love that you work with men and fathers as a coach. And a bit about your background, like how long have you been doing this? Just so we know and have a sense of loose experience. I've been leading retreats for over 20 years. So I started in my early twenties, I started retreats for young adults around their sense of purpose and passion and connecting them with mentors and elders.
00:03:13
Speaker
started coaching out of that. So I've been at this for several decades now. I took a few detours in the middle and got trained as a social worker and a few other things, but I've been doing this work for quite a bit now. A lot of time. And any number of how many men you worked with, like ballpark?
00:03:29
Speaker
Oh goodness, it's got to be in the thousands at this point. That's a great question. You know, when you've been doing it for over 20 years, it's several hundred over a year and it adds up. So it's been, it's been, it's been a while. Yeah. Yeah. So let's just jump in, man. Let's just jump into this topic of, and this is for really anyone listening right now to this, whether you are,
The Role of Rites of Passage in Identity (Q&A)
00:03:49
Speaker
A father, a guy, a mother, no matter who you are, because my audience is definitely split, and as far as listenership. And I think this topic, when we were having this conversation, it really resonated with me personally, but also thinking about this call that we all look for, and the rites of passage also ties in purpose, meaning who we are, identity, and our connection to something larger than just who we are individually, but to
00:04:15
Speaker
elders, mentors, all these things, and then just kind of deeper, deeper vision. And no matter where you are right now, I think there's something from this that we'll speak to. You don't have to be necessarily a guy or a son to get something out of this. I think really, I think I would say that we all probably need some level of rites of passage, no matter who we are, that there's something, I think, mystical, spiritual, connecting, healthy, holistic, when we begin to examine our life through this lens of this
00:04:44
Speaker
you know, how do we progress this life? And what is our purpose and intention? Who is guiding us through it? And I know that a lot of people I've worked with tend to not have someone guiding them on a rite of passage, that they're longing for someone to be there for them and guide them. And they're kind of, there's no one here, so I got to figure it out.
00:04:59
Speaker
So I'm excited to have this conversation. So what is, can you just jump in? So rites of passage, you know, you've been doing this work again for about two decades. So what is kind of your methodology now as you begin to work with specifically men and fathers on helping their kids through this process? Yeah, well, I mean, you're right. Like this, there's something about a rite of passage that is usually relevant to any human. And I would even say like, it's kind of baked into our DNA. We have this very, very deep need
00:05:28
Speaker
to have a sense of belonging and a sense of community. We are highly social creatures, right? It wasn't so long ago if we were somehow lost from the tribe or kicked out of the tribe that that may mean death, right? So it's like hardwired into our behavior, into our nervous system, this feeling of belonging. And so, you know, a rite of passage is the honoring in a community, a community of belonging from one way of being into a new way of being.
00:05:56
Speaker
So it's baked into our DNA, this need for belonging, right? And for, you know, for out human history, throughout human history, there have been, there's been an opportunity for humans to mark one way of being
00:06:10
Speaker
into a new way of being or one stage of life into a new stage of life that is kind of shared in the tribe, in the village, in the community, right? These experiences. And we can think about a few very obvious ones, right? Like birth is a rite of passage. It's a passage from one way into a new way, being born and the community kind of rallies around and celebrates new life. Death is another very obvious one, right? Community comes together and there's
00:06:34
Speaker
grief rituals and life honoring rituals, right? This is a rite of passage. And then there's a myriad other stages of passage throughout one's life. And as a culture, these are the ones that have been a bit lost, right? And a particular dearth of these honorings around the passage
00:06:55
Speaker
from childhood into adulthood. And I think we see evidence of this in the culture when we don't have mentorship and eldership and ritual and ceremony, honor one way of being into a new way, we start to look for it because we are such highly social creatures. We will do just about anything for that sense of belonging that write a passage or a ceremony can
00:07:19
Speaker
can provide us.
Impact of Uninitiated Men on Culture
00:07:21
Speaker
So my point of view is we have a culture that is largely run by what we might say uninitiated men, men who have not been initiated into their adulthood. And there is essentially a feeling of being a boy, and the inside experience in the heart, in the emotional
00:07:40
Speaker
experience is one of not having much direction or clarity or mentorship about how to deal with emotions and what it means to be a man of honor and integrity and to live for something greater than your selfish desires, right? And so we have a culture that is largely run by uninitiated men, and we see, we can look around and see
00:08:01
Speaker
what that looks like and there's some pretty maladaptive and kind of painful and dangerous ways, the forms that that can take. So that's kind of the larger context around this, right? And then we can talk a little bit about my methodology, which is essentially taking some boys and their dads and bringing them out into the wilderness for a weekend and helping honor that passage.
00:08:23
Speaker
And can you speak a bit more before we go there? Because I definitely want to get to that of what your methodology is and kind of your vision and not only your vision, but what you've been implementing and enacting with these relationships. Can you speak a bit more of some of the dangers or issues you tend to see with some of those guys that come in with the uninitiated men kind of running things and kind of
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah, again, some maladaptive behaviors are things that we're noticing with these guys. And maybe some of the men you worked with when they first came to you before they've done this. And then maybe speaking to, once we do that, maybe talking to some of the positive differences you saw in these guys that maybe then were initiated and had some roadmap for them. Yeah, sure. Yeah. You know, our culture, I think, squeezes men into a box, right?
00:09:03
Speaker
There's a box around what is acceptable around our own relationship to our emotions and our feelings as men. It squeezes us into a box around how we provide and squeezes into a box around what the definition of success is. And that box is fairly narrow. It's pretty much in the financial realm. It squeezes us into a box around what you might just call like ego identity, like a sense of
00:09:30
Speaker
where I derive my self-worth and for the culture, like my opinion is the culture generally would have us kind of just grind it out at all costs, at all costs to ourselves, to our families.
00:09:44
Speaker
to the culture. And so there's to the planet, you might even say, right? The idea of success is like when it all costs, right? And with not a lot of sensitivity to the impact. And underneath that all is like a need to fit in, right? So we can see the
00:10:06
Speaker
this, the lack of initiation shows up, especially in young men, we can see some pretty obvious
Redefining Success and Emotional Health
00:10:11
Speaker
places, right? Like initiation into, I don't know, fraternities, for example, not necessarily the healthiest place for men at times, right? But it's a deep sense of belonging or, you know, it could be initiation into gangs, right? It could be initiation into crime and
00:10:26
Speaker
initiation into greed, initiation into taking advantage of women to meet some sort of core need around belonging and feeling okay with oneself to kind of override the shame that can be given to us. So these are some of the forms that it can take. Usually it's like an uninitiated man, man often looks like somebody who is not very connected to their emotions, feels a bit dead inside,
00:10:52
Speaker
does not have a great sense of meaning or purpose in their lives because it's all based in financial outcomes and usually is not particularly connected to anything greater than himself, right? There's like a listlessness around things like wonderment, awe, connection to nature, connection to beauty. So that's kind of what it can look like without
00:11:13
Speaker
without proper guidance from mentors and elders that are helping us know the ways of what it means to be in a place of healthy masculinity. Yeah. And has it tend to manifest when they're in that place with their relationship with their spouses or their children? How do you tend to see, or whatever you tended to see, or some themes you've noticed over 20 years of doing this? It takes many different forms, but there's an emotional avoidance,
00:11:41
Speaker
inability to be with difficult emotions, whether it's mine or someone else's, right? So we're, we don't know what to do with difficult emotions. So we become very dysregulated and then kind of check out, right? That, that shows up in
00:11:55
Speaker
in relationship, there's a way to just like follow the next comfortable thing and not do the hard thing. So maybe a series of shallow relationships. Yeah. I mean, it can take a myriad forms, right? So there's, there's a way in which, you know, be like being initiated into something into like a deeper way of being requires a level of
00:12:19
Speaker
being with one's own discomfort and doing hard things, right? And that has all sorts of applications. We do this, like you think about the ancient times, like those that live closer to the earth, when they would initiate the boys into manhood, they would do things like, and actually some places in the world still do this, like go out and kill a lion. And when you come back, you're then a man.
00:12:42
Speaker
And the village, the men of the village will help you learn how to do that and what it takes to go kill a lion or tie yourself to the Sundance pole.
00:12:53
Speaker
and dance it out for your time or do a vision quest or these things about like doing something really, really difficult that requires us to dig deeper, deeper than we thought we could. And so that's, that's part of it is that willingness to do very difficult things. Yeah. And with that, what do you see in our culture nowadays with people willing to do difficult things?
Emotional Intelligence as Leadership
00:13:18
Speaker
What, what are some things you're noticing now in our 2023,
00:13:21
Speaker
You know, it's this glorious time where we are actually redefining what it means to be a man. It wasn't so long ago that
00:13:32
Speaker
a man that was emotional, it was a sign of weakness. And I think we really currently, current state, 2023, we are rewriting that story. And this whole idea of like, there's power in my own emotional awareness. I actually have more personal power and can actually get more things done in the world, have greater influence on those around me by being able to first identify what's happening in my heart and in my body.
00:14:02
Speaker
And then being able to articulate that and speak to that, there's all sorts of information, right? Like I coach a lot of CEOs of companies around their own leadership. And there's a lot of evidence that shows emotional intelligence is actually more important than other forms of intelligence when leading a large human system like a company.
00:14:23
Speaker
Because your ability to track what's happening, there's all sorts of information about what's happening in the company that's based in my emotions. Not to mention, if I can read it in other people and I know what's happening for them, I can then influence them in a more deeply way and essentially just
00:14:41
Speaker
get things done, right? It's just a more effective way. So there's actually power in emotional intelligence and I think we're redefining that, we're waking up to that culturally right now. Yeah, I definitely see that for sure. We are in the midst of rewriting and there's still a lot of stigma around that, I think, but you're right, you're seeing 40 years ago, whatever, it wasn't that way. It's still very much stigmatized and now
00:15:08
Speaker
still there and there's still not a, I think a week that goes by that I wouldn't have a guy coming in my office that would say, you know, share some of the classic stigmas of being weak and vulnerable and not burdening people, but still coming in. So there's this, I think a deep longing for men to be seen and known, but I think there's still,
00:15:24
Speaker
some barriers and at the same time, we are seeing it being rewritten. We are seeing it more of it. We're seeing it kind of translate into different arenas, business, not only mental health, but we're seeing it kind of spread, so to speak, in a healthier way. I've read quite a few books on EQ, emotional intelligence, and saying, yeah, they're arguing this is probably more important than
00:15:45
Speaker
IQ if not as valuable if not more depending on because you can have all the IQ in the world but if you can't read or help people then what good are you and these are business books that I've read and so that you're right there is something to say that they're they're noticing this and yet here we are we're still helping and we're being guides and as you're working with men now what are some you know what are some of the things working with men and fathers now with this rites of passage when you when you hear their stories and this is generalizing when you
Fathers, Sons, and Rites of Passage (Q&A)
00:16:12
Speaker
hear their stories
00:16:12
Speaker
especially as they're coming to see you initially and saying, hey, you know, help me with this thing of writes a passage in with my son and connection. And when you hear their stories, do they tend to come from like a lineage or a storyline of having their fathers kind of teaching them this? You're shaking your head. It's very rare. Yeah, it's very rare.
00:16:31
Speaker
Actually, I'll share a little bit of my personal journey. I am actually, my father did invite me into this. So when I was 22 years old, he invited me to a men's retreat. I grew up an actor and it was like my everything. I was just like on stage, I was modeling, I was doing, it was really like my whole universe. And then when I got to be about like 17, 18, 19, it just, that was no longer the thing to do.
00:16:56
Speaker
faded and there was a period of several years where I was very kind of lost and rudderless and just just a general like stuck in the mud malaise not like kind of listless not a lot of life force moving through me and my father said hey why don't you come check out this men's weekend with me I've done this experience I think you might like it and let me tell you being surrounded by 80 dudes who were just like on fire like looked me in the eye and I knew like
00:17:24
Speaker
They weren't gonna put up with my BS, but they also were gonna hold me to a fierce level of self-examination, really looking at my own shortcomings and shadows and my own pain and my own sorrow, but also a dude in this very compassionate way. It really, really changed my life. And there was actually a moment in this particular men's retreat where we were all kind of outside standing around a fire. There was like 80 dudes around a fire.
00:17:54
Speaker
and an elder called me up to the front and said, basically, like you're
00:17:59
Speaker
you're no longer a boy, you're now a man. And presented me with a little bit of a token of that and everybody cheered. And it was like, I was 22 years old. And that moment profoundly changed my life because it really did feel like I came a boy and I left a man. I knew what type of man I wanted to be now, which was like these guys that were fierce. They were like strong, but they were also doing work about how the pains of the past impacted them.
00:18:29
Speaker
They all had these mission statements about what type of world they wanted to create that was greater than just a selfish purpose. It was about something back to the community.
00:18:41
Speaker
you know, there was like this trans personal quality to it where these, all these dudes had, they knew what they were doing with their lives and they were on fire. And, you know, I spent, I spent a better part of the decade just like following them around, spending a lot of time with them. And, you know, so for me, that actually, that actually seeded all of this was to have that experience at 22 and have it be so profound. And so, you know, as I work with,
00:19:08
Speaker
boys and men now, most men don't have that experience that I had. And I really recognize that there's a way that we can still get it and still give it, but they're often coming looking for a deeper connection with their boy, right? Like there's a thing about, you know, I work specifically in the ages 10 to 14, right? These are not boys that are becoming men. These are children that are becoming teenagers, right?
00:19:32
Speaker
And it's a slightly different rite of passage than the initiation into manhood. This is an initiation into beginning to have a sense of belonging. So this is where sports teams become really important or a band or the theater or
00:19:47
Speaker
some sense of belonging and some sense of getting really good at something, a sense of mastery. And it's also when the body is changing radically, right? Just puberty happening and all the hormones and the beginnings of, you know, attraction and sexual, you know, the sexual kind of experience coming on board. And in that often there's like a disconnection that happens. I know I experienced it with my own son that like,
00:20:16
Speaker
my baby's no longer my baby. I'm not exactly sure how to relate to him." And so often they're looking for some way to kind of reach their boy and also wanting to make sure that there's a foundation of connection when things start to really get more challenging through the teenage years. So that's really the work that I'm doing is helping establish the bond between the father and the son and
00:20:42
Speaker
giving some very, doing some training and some education around what it means to be a man and emotional awareness and changing bodies and connection to nature and a lot of play and adventure.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah. And when you think about that too, where you're teaching these guys, like what, you mentioned it before, like I came out a man, arrived a boy, left a man, or helping these dads reach their sons and connecting to them and defining what it means to be a man. When you think about that, from your work, from your personal journey, as well as work with the men and people you work with now,
00:21:16
Speaker
how do you help them identify that? Is it, you know, cause we did talk about earlier that the man box, right? It can be very rigid in our culture. And so, you know, at the work that you're doing, right? We're expanding it, but how do you define that? How do you help men identify what it means to be a quote unquote man? What does that look like?
00:21:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question.
Core Principles for Connection and Growth
00:21:35
Speaker
There's a few, I've just oriented around a few principles and left it fairly flexible for men to try on what that means for them. So, some of the principles are a man's strength is both in his body and his feelings, right? And so we talk, we frame emotions through the lens of strength.
00:21:59
Speaker
and courage. I teach a lot around warriorship, this idea of what does it mean to be a warrior?
00:22:05
Speaker
So one of the principles is a warrior has one eye out and one eye in. So one eye out in the world, navigating the world, and does that with a lot of presence. And one eye in, examining my own heart and my own emotions, right? So that's a principle, one eye out, one eye in. Strength is, we can have physical strength and emotional strength. That's a principle. We have another principle, which is men clean up after themselves and sometimes other people. And so the principle there is just,
00:22:35
Speaker
We obviously clean the space. We'd spend a lot of time in my programs outside of nature. So we have a, that's basically a trash altar. Every time you go on a hike, you bring back a piece of trash and we make something beautiful out of it, cleaning up after others. But there's also this thing about we clean up.
00:22:52
Speaker
after ourselves, it's okay to apologize, there's power in apology, there's power in amends. Sometimes we clean up after the harm of other men. So in our relationships, often people, our lovers, our partners may come to us with a broken heart of past harms in that we're really a stand for helping them heal that. So there's an idea about, we tidy up the harms that we've caused
00:23:20
Speaker
the clutter that we've left and that of others. So that's a principle. So yeah, those are a few. I mean, there's more, but that's, that's, you know, we kind of orient around, you know, what does it mean to be a man? He's emotionally intelligent. He honors boundaries in himself and others. He's courageous. And, and then this idea of connected to something greater than himself. And this is where, you know, nature just becomes its own character. And in, when we spend time outside, enough time outside,
00:23:48
Speaker
We learn so much about wonderment and awe and terror and beauty just by being outside in the elements.
00:23:55
Speaker
And when men are doing this too, do you notice any, is there one or few of these even tenets or principles you teach that, do you get any initial resistance? And if you do, which ones you tend to get initial resistance with, or are they kind of open? They're kind of ready for it. They're kind of ready. I think the people that come to this, the men that come to this are looking answers to kind of orient their lives around, you know? And so, you know, it's less about like,
00:24:22
Speaker
you know, we don't do this in like a dogmatic way. It's more just like, this is the, this is an opportunity about, you know, being a stand for something. I think there's so much vagueness around what it means to be a man. The conversation around gender alone is just very much in flux right now in our culture. And so to be a stand for men and masculinity, being a force, a generative force in the world, and what, what are the principles that would allow masculinity to
00:24:52
Speaker
not only be a necessary ingredient for the future of our planet and our community, but being a healing agent for all the harms of the past. You know, that's really what I want to be a stand for as a man myself. And I think, you know, most men when given the opportunity would say, yeah, that's the type of man I want to be. I want to be a man of integrity and accountability connected to my feelings, but also have massive impact on the people around me.
00:25:18
Speaker
And in a positive way, I wanna be an excellent father who's very present to my children, both present with time and space, but also present with my love and affection. I haven't found any men that have been resistant to that yet. That's good. No, that's good. Well, I guess that makes sense, right? If they're on your program, they're in a place of readiness. They've maybe been wrestling for a while and they're like, oh, I need to do something. So they're, yeah, you're right, they're open. And I love that you said this generative,
00:25:46
Speaker
You use the word generative and healing and restorative and for the harm caused and even maybe not by me, but like maybe previous men, different generations. And there's a term that's been around for a while, it's nothing new, but the term toxic masculinity.
00:26:04
Speaker
So when you hear that term, what comes to your mind when you hear that term as a guy? Or what's your initial reaction even to that phrase? Yeah, it's complicated, right? It's complicated. I mean, again, it's like I have this deep commitment to rewrite what it means to be a man. And that's where I go with it is like, okay, I totally understand that most of the serious problems that we're facing have been based
Healing from Unhealthy Masculinity
00:26:29
Speaker
in an unconscious, self-centered version of masculinity.
00:26:33
Speaker
And that's where the toxicity comes from, right? But men are not toxic. There's a shame even, I think, that I've had to work through and many men have had to work through around just being a man. And I can honestly say, I don't have that at this point in my life. I truly believe that it's possible to be a man of power and purpose, open-hearted and clear, and be in your full force of masculinity, and that that
00:27:03
Speaker
is actually what the world needs right now. That is what the world needs, is men out there strong and clear and leading their communities and cleaning up the garbage of the past. So for me, when I hear it, I'm sympathetic. I don't take it personally, but I've had to do a lot of work about my own shame and where I've caused harm in my life.
00:27:27
Speaker
And still to this day, cause harm in my own unconscious, my own pain and my own self-centeredness. We all have this and requires a deep courageous examination. But at the end of the day, I don't buy the story that masculinity itself is toxic. I would think of this more as like wounded masculinity.
00:27:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree with that as well. It's just a term that is out there and even more so with social media. And I have also sympathy and understanding, but I think masculine itself is not toxic at all, right? It could be unhealthy, it could be immature, unbalanced, things like that. But what you're positing and what you're doing, the work you're doing is really, if anything, would come right up against that, that it's a healing model of masculinity, right? That it's like, well, how do we help these men?
00:28:15
Speaker
how do we be generative and restorative and and not only our community but the world like you know that's what you're doing and with your work is teaching these guys you know with picking up your trash right it's like not only your trash but you know figure it literally and figuratively and like you're teaching the one eye in one eye out is like okay what to do that self-examination which i think a lot of guys at first don't have that capacity it's more outward
00:28:37
Speaker
It's the defensiveness, how do I survive that lone wolf? But the work that were in mind so that you're teaching is like, how do I examine and self-examination does, I think takes a lot of courage and bravery. It's not weak. I'm sure as I know when I did it, when I was doing it through my initial healing process, it's very humbling to look inward and to examine unintentional harm I've caused to myself and those around me just based on my behavior and having to like take responsibility for that. That's very humbling for sure.
00:29:03
Speaker
Truly. And yeah, usually when we look at our own areas that we've caused harm, we start to then unravel the origin of where that comes from in us, which inevitably it was given to us our own places we were hurt. And we weren't given what we needed and we were somehow put in a box or shamed, right? Like there's this deep pervasive wound that happens in all humans, but the form it takes in many men is
00:29:31
Speaker
you know, leaves us feeling isolated and alone and seeking out belonging and seeking out, you know, assuaging that, soothing the part of us that just, frankly, at the core of it, it's like a self loathing and shame that most humans have some version of it that need, that needs tending to, that needs healing. So that's part of it, right? Like there's the reconciliation with those that we've harmed. And, you know, my own journey around this when I, so when my marriage ended, I,
00:30:00
Speaker
So I was married for, you know, eight years and then my marriage ended and I did a little dating and then I just realized like, this isn't going to work for me. I need to like stop, pause. And I did this thing with, I worked with a coach and he, he took me through what he called a feminine cleanse and reconciliation where I did no dating at all for six months and no even flirting. No, no nothing. It was like, I just put a veil over me when I would go in public and just,
00:30:30
Speaker
would be friendly and kind, but not hooking any one in. And in that process, I got to see my own kind of funky patterns around how I was filling a hole in myself by relating to other people. And then I went back and I, any past partner, any woman, in this case for me, any woman that I'd ever been with that I caused harm, I went back and actually reached out to them and reconciled how I'd harmed them and apologized
00:30:59
Speaker
asked for nothing from them, even if I felt harmed by them, that was not part of this process. It was purely to apologize and make right.
00:31:08
Speaker
and then honor them for all the gifts that they gave me. And let me tell you, this six months, my goodness, did it change me as a man? Like really, truly changed me in a deep, deep way about, you know, just how I love people in my life and the weight and the pain of all the shame that I've been carrying around women that I had hurt in the past out of my own unconscious
00:31:32
Speaker
you know, unconsciousness. So there is a way that we can kind of like tidy this all up and clean it up and free our own heart and
00:31:40
Speaker
you know, some of those conversations I had were just some of the most beautiful conversations I've had in my life of honoring and owning my part and kind of just ending that cycle, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's powerful. And, and you've done the work so you know what it is to, because of your own personal experience of going through that would be very humbling. I would assume too of like, wow. I mean, that's, I would say that does take a lot of, again, bravery, determination, courage to do that kind of work, to go in and say, and to do it humbly, not expecting anything in return, but to actually genuinely do this.
00:32:09
Speaker
I think a big sign of actual emotional maturity of being able to, in healthy conversation rather than kind of the, there's no manipulation of that. It's like, no, I'm actually doing this. I'm not expecting anything, whatever, and open to whatever. And with that, from your work, I could see why then, from your personal story of navigating this and your own kind of healing and your vision too, to help bring healthy, positive masculinity, masculinities,
00:32:38
Speaker
and having the right of passage and how needed it is for the next generation to be connected. Because like you said, I think the ones that are connected, the ones that they reach to things, because we all long for connection, we're wired for relationships, right? So if we don't have anyone giving us something that's positive and restorative, we will find it. Like I said, gangs or drugs or a lot of men work in money and finances, like this is just who I am and that's my right of passage, but my next paycheck,
00:33:06
Speaker
you know, the house is my right of passage, my next car, my next, you know, my next sales sale, which those things aren't necessarily bad or wrong or evil, but if that's who you, if you tie yourself in it, that's when it leads to emptiness because it's never going to fully satisfy. But the work you're doing now and have been with these guys is that deeper connection. Like you said, you were in a, you know, in a environment with 80 guys looking at you that were fierce, but had it, but all had a clear vision that they had maybe, maybe some had physical strength or weird.
00:33:36
Speaker
Some maybe had, you know, big muscles, maybe some didn't, but it wasn't bad. That's a type of strength. But the other strength you saw was emotional strength, maybe mental strength, spiritual strength, other things that they're showing you that strength comes in many forms. It isn't just this one rigid view of, you know, I have to have the big six pack of muscles to be strong and conquest and beat people down.
00:33:57
Speaker
No, here's the other types of strengths we have. We have vision, we have a mission statement, we have an idea, a clear vision of who we're supposed to be and who we're trying to be within our community. And then it's always about something else outside of self. And you said that too. It's always about something external beyond my own individual personhood, but about the community, about relationships. And then you saw that enacted and you were drawn to that. You said, I hung out with them for 10 years and kept doing it because there's something powerful that what I didn't have, or maybe was missing in my previous life or when I was younger,
00:34:25
Speaker
There's something mesmerizing and enticing and pulling me in to this way of living. And then you have been. And now doing it with these other men that you've been working with for 20 years. Can you speak a bit about your process as well as what are some of the positives or pros you've now seen in these guys' lives and son's lives change of doing this process? Like what have you, maybe some reports you've gotten back from guys doing this kind of weekend?
00:34:48
Speaker
Yeah.
Strengthening Father-Son Bonds
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah. So I do, I run a program called the father son connection experience that this is, you know, that a lot of this is based in, right? So the, one of my favorite reports is actually just got it a few weeks ago. So one of the mothers, you know, I was talking to one of the moms after, you know, he came back and I was like,
00:35:06
Speaker
Hey, how's he doing?" She said, well, he says now he's a young warrior and he thinks that he deserves some more independence and should be able to make some more decisions about how he's spending his time. So I love it. It's not exactly what we were intending, but there's something about that that I really love because it's
00:35:30
Speaker
The initiation, the rite of passage is into oneself. So he is feeling more centered in himself, more confident, more capable of being independent, which that's very much what this stage is about, is exercising and experimenting with independence and good judgment and belonging. So he's saying, look, Mom, back off a little bit.
00:35:51
Speaker
I'm a young warrior, you know, give me a shot at, you know, making some of these calls myself. And, you know, I just love that. There's like an energy behind that, that is really what we want to cultivate in these young men is a sense of like confidence in themselves.
00:36:08
Speaker
clearheadedness. I've also heard quite a bit, so we do a whole thing on the last morning around changing bodies and puberty and sex, and we have a certified sex educator come in and spend a couple of hours with the boys and their dads. And the way we do it is we do a blind Q&A where anybody can ask a question anonymously on a card. Everybody actually asks a question, and then we get through as many questions as we can, right? And so they get a chance to really
00:36:37
Speaker
understand a bit more about sex. We do some work around spatial boundaries. So we do an exercise where it's you line up across from your dad, and then you call your dad closer with a hand gesture closer. And then you pause your dad with a hand gesture. So kind of like a stop sign. And then you move your dad back. And then your dad does the same for you. And you're in control spatially about how close or how far away you want your
00:37:02
Speaker
your dad to be, and then you also get the experience of someone holding a boundary with you, spatially. And, you know, this is a way that we see is a good way to teach consent, right? Like, what's it like to have someone say stop? And how does that feel in my body when someone tells me to stop or move away, or someone tells me to come closer? And so we're teaching these boys, essentially, like, you know, the nervous system regulation. It's an embodied practice of nervous system regulation around consent.
00:37:30
Speaker
So combining these two elements, right, of like sex ed and kind of embodied consent, what we hear from the dads is like, one of the number one things that they'll come back to us with is like, thank you so much. It gave us a runway to talk about sex and changing bodies in a way that I didn't have before. I just didn't even know how to bring it up. And it's not that we're doing a heavy dose of sex ed, it's actually very light. We literally spend like an hour and a half
00:37:59
Speaker
in the sex ed session and then we send them off for like an hour and a half hike with their dads right away, right? They go from that to being alone in the woods with their dad. And that's the intention, right? Is like let just open the conversation in a way that's like sex positive, neutral, not a lot of shame or garbage, you know, and then let them go talk to their dads. And so that's the piece that we get a lot of feedback around is like, thank you for,
00:38:29
Speaker
they've forgiven me the runway to have the talk, which I didn't know how to do. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a common theme. A lot of men don't know how to have the talk at all. In fact, I had a, I did another podcast with a guest on, which is for girl dads, talking to their daughters about sex. And same thing is how do we do that? Like, cause especially for a lot of these guys, well, no one really talked to me about it outside of, you know, don't do it. You know, I'm very paraphrasing what they said, but just don't do it unless you're married or, you know,
00:38:58
Speaker
It's things like that, basic stuff. And it's like, well, how do we talk to our daughters? Especially if I can't, if I'm uncomfortable, how can I? So having a roadmap to do that is so key because guess what? They're all asking the question anyway, whether we want them to or not, whether your daughter or son. And having a runway, I mean, that's key, I think. Now I know I can come back to that and we have a place where it's even footing and we can have this conversation where it's not shaming, but inviting. Because that's really what kids are needing. That's the mentorship piece, right? Is having a mentor and their dad being a mentor.
00:39:25
Speaker
being able to be someone the dads can approach because a lot of themes I heard too of guys in my office and you could probably relate. Not always, but a lot of them is either, there's no way I would ever talk to my dad about anything like that. Like he was unapproachable, we could not do anything like that, but they wanted to. There's always this long, I want to talk to my dad, but I know I couldn't. And when I do like the miracle question, you know, what could you change with your dad? It's often that like, we could just have a conversation.
00:39:47
Speaker
and be heard versus just spoken at or lectured at or, you know, or just being present and how powerful that relationship can be. Yeah. You know, I, like I'm under no illusions to think like, I'm going to be the guy that my son turns to for every, every question, right? Like that's just impossible. There's a, there's a, there's an individuation process that is necessary in human development. We have to push off against our parents, but,
00:40:14
Speaker
If we can lay the ground of health in a way where the relationship is tended to and has, we've invested some experiences together where we've gone through cool stuff together.
The Value of Mentorship and Guidance
00:40:25
Speaker
We've had some deeper conversations. My hope is that these fathers are one of the people that their children will turn to.
00:40:34
Speaker
at times when something big comes up that, that, that's, I think the best we can hope for. I think it's really actually important. This is one of the other things we teach is that the, the boys in this case, or the children have like a trusted adult in their life that they can turn to. That is not their parents that they can, if they, you know, if they have questions about whatever it is, sex or whatever, that there's somebody they know they can, that,
00:41:00
Speaker
that is a solid human that will help them, that's outside of the parents. And I think that's important as well. And I've really tried to encourage that in my children and will continue to do so. One other thing on that, cause I'm a girl dad as well. My hack, if you will, for this has been,
00:41:20
Speaker
buying age-appropriate sex ed books, which I've done since they were like three or four years old. And reading those, interspersing those in bedtime stories, right? So I still read to my children every night, they're 12 and 10, almost 10. And the rhythm is you pick a book, I pick a book, you pick a book, I pick a book.
00:41:41
Speaker
So, you know, we finish up her book and then it's my book and sometimes it'll be like an age-appropriate sex ed book and she may be like, oh, I don't know, you know, but then she always like, you know, she's always very into it and then it again, it gives an opportunity to then say like, do you have questions or this is, you know, I may say like, this is how I think about this particular topic related to sex.
00:42:03
Speaker
So it's a little easier when they're younger like that, right? She's only, she's nine, I mean, 10, but that has definitely worked for just keeping the conversation alive and not letting it get into the shadows, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that hack. And it was, as it comes with being intentional, right? It's like, I'm potentially creating the space to have dialogues ongoing and then there's no pressure. It's like, you should get questions created here. If not, okay.
00:42:26
Speaker
but they're still having the conversation. And I think that, you know, the main topic of that book, she wrote a book called Talk with Her, a great book, by the way, for girl dads. And it's essentially a big theme is you got to keep the communication open consistently. And because they're looking for that. And as they get into teens, there is a national pushback.
00:42:43
Speaker
She talks about that too, but how neat it is for us to show up. And I'm wondering as I look at the time, you know, there's this other idea that you kind of, you sprinkled in there, you know, implicitly, but really it's, that's what your program is about. And also what you experienced, but the idea of mentorship and how important that is like in our life. So what would you say to like the importance of having a mentor in your life? Like, why should we do that? Why is that important? And then also maybe having a mentee below us, like what?
00:43:07
Speaker
Where's power in that, do you think? Yeah, that's such a great question. Well, I mean, when we look at the classic models around initiation, initiation, it doesn't work well at all unless there's mentorship and eldership. We can, peers initiating peers, I think we can see how messed up that can be, right? There's an element around rites of passage where
00:43:28
Speaker
there has to be mentorship and eldership because it's initiating into what? What are we moving from to? Like there's one way of being into a new way of being and the mentor's job or the elder's job is to articulate, educate, and hold the new way of being so that and teach it in a way that's easily understood and easily in the language of
00:43:52
Speaker
the person that's moving through the rite of passage, right? So peers doing that to each other, it's just, it doesn't work. It's very, there's all sorts of harm that can be caused. So it's like core necessary ingredient to an intentional rite of passage, in my opinion. For me personally, it's been this remarkable tool that I've used over many years of finding someone in my life that
00:44:20
Speaker
that has something that can pull me into a new way of being or a deeper level of myself that can take me deeper than I can take myself, right? There's a thing about just continuously, it's been a lifelong journey, finding those people, those teachers, those coaches, those guides, those therapists that I just know when I talk to them, like they're gonna take me deeper into myself or they're gonna teach me some new skill that I don't have and dedicating just being a lifelong student
00:44:48
Speaker
and just know that I, I mean, I even budget for it, right? Like I, I just know I'm going to spend five to 10%, usually around 7% of my revenue goes to me paying coaches, guides, mentors. Some of them are unpaid and, you know, heart friends. Some of them are like experts and I just pay them that. And, and it's just baked into my, you know, the way I do life. And yeah, I think it's super important.
00:45:15
Speaker
Yeah, one final question and we'll wrap up and we could, I guess we could go even farther, but if your vision of your view of your mentorship and rites of passage and creating like a healthier masculinity and men, what would be your mantra or phrase when it comes to that, that you would use to encourage men with that, when the rites of passage are becoming like healthier masculine men?
00:45:39
Speaker
you know, what is your mantra, what you're saying, what's your go-to, like what would you, you know, currently right now in your phase of life doing this experience, like what is it that you kind of leave them with when you do their work?
00:45:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think that, I mean, I just, I go back to this concept of bravery. So bravery is not the absence of fear, right? It's the feeling, the fear and doing it anyway. And, you know, this is truly the warrior's path. The warrior will feel the fear of turning into his own heart and his own pain and his own
00:46:16
Speaker
sorrows of the past, his own shame, he will feel that fear of like, I don't know if I can do that, and he will do it anyway. He will do it with a deep level of commitment or moving through the world, doing something really scary, seeing something scary and tending to it anyway. This is like the hero does this all the time, right? This is the hero's journey of like seeing something that is happening, facing fear and doing it anyway.
00:46:44
Speaker
And I think that's really at the core that is healthy masculinity. There is a deep bravery in that. And again, I think that's what the world is aching for in men.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. We need more bravery. And something that continually stood out to me through this whole conversation is the, and I think you've been said it, if not implied it, is that this is not done alone. This is done in relationship. Like you said, you pay mentors, meaning you're not doing this alone. You're seeking out expertise and guidance.
00:47:17
Speaker
It's only through relationship that I think cultivates healthy, positive masculinity. It's not by ourselves, right? It's in people challenging us and coming back to and learning and growing and teaching and that whole model. It's not in isolation but always, always through community. And I think that we need, I think a lot of men need that more so that they're feeling very isolated that I see and need that connection. And when you get them in there,
00:47:42
Speaker
I think men rise to the occasion. I think when they're in that space, they do because they see that there's other men doing the work and there's something, again, enticing and inviting in. Even if it's hard, they see other men taking the risk and they're like, okay, I want that. And I think if we have more of what you're doing in our world, we'll see. We'll see the benefit of that. So with that said, since we're leading into it, hey, where can we find your work? Where can people get to you and see what Luke's up to?
00:48:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they can find me at lukeentrup.com. I've got a website there where I have some information about my coaching with men and our father-son program. And we have a specific website for that, that people want to go just check out the father-son rites of passage program. It's fathersonconnection.com. And I also have my own podcast, so you can hear me over at Crazy Wisdom, and that's in all the usual podcast channels.
00:48:32
Speaker
and everyone listening, I'll be linked in the description, whether you're listening to this on audio or watching this video on YouTube. This will all be linked in the bottom, direct links click it to find. Really the good work that Luke is doing and Luke and I were talking about this previously before we got on is that, I think there's what we're seeing and even the work we're doing is that we're seeing a lot of men.
00:48:50
Speaker
that were I think modeling relationship bridge building community by sharing each other's work and experiences that were I'm not trying to one up Luke and Luke's not trying to one up me cuz that would be the kind of unhealthy side you know rigid view of what it means to be a man but really seeing I think men do good work relate to one another grow share each other's work.
00:49:11
Speaker
And so I love that I get to meet men like Luke and share what they're doing because they get to reach people that I may not be able to reach in what I'm currently doing. And that's the beautiful thing is that we need, it takes a village, it takes a community to do this work. So Luke, I thank you. I bless all the work you're doing that you keep doing and have been doing. And I hope that you do it for the next 70 years up until, you know, you're way up there and keep going. But, um, thank you and have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you, Travis. Thanks for having me on. See ya.