45 Moments With Men

In one of Rex McCann’s Essentially Men workshops, I met George (name changed to protect the gregarious) who I called the Hug Master; he gave the deepest, most loving hugs of any man I’d ever met. When it was his turn to stand and speak to the seated circle of men, he told us, among other things, that he’d turned himself around during that weekend workshop. He’d previously referred to himself as a gay man ... he was, firstly, gay and, secondly, with the men in that pool of gay people. Over the previous 24 hours he’d realised he wasn’t so different from all other men – same dreams, fears, aspirations, histories and jokes. Choosing to see himself as a man first – and gay second – he came home to a stronger connection with all men. As a man who was gay, rather than a gay man, he wasn’t denying his sexual orientation but celebrating a larger brotherhood he had previously denied to himself.

As men we tend to separate ourselves off from our brothers by identifying, initially, with our occupations, nationalities, cultures, religion and sexual preferences. Like George, we judge other men as unlike us – as lesser, better, weirder, more popular, less capable – and so our sense of separation deepens.

If we’re able to undo the labels and start with our deepest essence – humans and then men – we have a larger pool of people and brothers to call our own. Our chosen loneliness may then drop away, our self-created prisons may crumble to dust as our perceived differences collapse as the rolling peace and connection envelops us, calling us home.
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That is my aspiration for all men and women on this planet.​