I’m 62 and have worked in Physical and Outdoor Education since I was 15.  I have tried to help children and adults find ways to exercise, eat well, and stay healthy—today I am gratified that so many people are embracing a healthy lifestyle.

Great achievements … now to the next level. The more I worked with young men through the decades, the more I have appreciated the importance of emotional fitness; in fact I now believe it is crucial to our personal development and happiness—as well as being a key factor in ending violence–and of course, saving the planet. Read more »

The demise of our monetary system, along with global warming, environmental destruction, pollution and increasing youth violence are issues that came to my attention some decades ago - back when few were concerned. Are they related? You betcha!

They are relics from the dominator mindset, a now outmoded mindset which views local and global issues from within a very narrow lens. After 6 decades of women’s emancipation, around the globe men are still the ones who make most of the decisions in politics, commerce, law and education. Therefore I’ve been trying to seed the idea of widening the old dominator male lens. No blame implied but that viewfinder just may not be wide enough to deal with the huge crises of our times. Read more »

Ok! Time for solutions! What do we do about the bad role modelling by SOME of our talented football players? Whether he did it - whether they did it - something stinks in football land. Time to clean it up!

Yes it’s time to get serious and get to the root causes of such incidents. We have been sticking bandaids on this problem while failing to get at the deeper causes. Read more »

It is not often I feature a feminist piece on my blogs however I’ve seen the Vagina Monologues and enjoyed the perspective promoted - it broadens me. Thank you Eve. What Eve Ensler is saying about Sarah Palin broaches a wider topic - women can and do, adopt the dominator path - a path that has been called patriarchal because it was the main organising method used by men to create ‘androcracy’ - a world run by and primarily serving of men.

The dominator mindset is no longer the tool of all men. Many men have adopted ‘partnership’ methods - while at the same time many women have become dominators. Since I believe that everyone and everything is connected to everyone and everything, it is dangerous, even irrational to use the dominator method in politics, commerce or even in our relationship with ourselves. We must find ways to adopt the partnership approach. The dominator path brings war - war on others is really war on our selves - war against nature is also war against the extension of oursleves. This is the message I read into Eve’s excellent article - please enjoy. Read more »

I am always searching for ways to talk about the ’shadow.’ I know that unless we make peace with our shadow, it will sabotage all the good we are trying to achieve. Unless we acknowledge our shadow and transform or perhaps partner with it - it will create havoc. We cannot dominate it. (many Catholics priests know this does not work)

I have a connection to Deepak and his excellent work. In 2007 I was in a team with Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson and other authors, trying to convince US senators and congressmen to establish a ’Department of Peace’ - a body to promote dialogue and mediation as a tool for resolving international and national conflicts. The following article -Deepak’s explanation of the shadow and how it plays out in politics is excellent. You may be aware of your own shadow - most are not - I wasn’t until I studied Bly and Jung. You may be aware of the shadow at your workplace, in groups or in the community. Read more »

In the last few blogs I’ve been talking about the human shadow. To support my goal of raising consciousness about the human shadow I’ve included a link to Robert Bly’s classic - ” A Little Book on the Human Shadow” http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780062548474

Unless enough of us can own our shadows we just project them onto external targets. A classic example is George Bush’s ‘axis of evil’. It has proved to be an interesting statement because in the years under Bush, America has become feared and even reviled in many parts of the world.

I recommend the URL above where you can view 20 pages or more of Robert Bly’s famous book. Enjoy!.

Chief Seattle’s Speech is brilliant and most appropriate for our times. Please note there are many versions in circulation - it is doubtful that anyone took a verbatum transcript at the time - Another version is at http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/chiefsea.html

I firmly believe that everyone and everything is connected to everyone and everything. The chief’s speech demonstrates his people’s relationship with nature and understanding of man’s part in the web of life. You will note in the second version above, that he “owns his shadow’ - that is, he acknowledges the part his people played in fighting other native tribes; I detect sadness in this admission. Nevertheless I think we can all take this speech to ‘heart’ and I hope you can enjoy and experience the ’sacredness’ of nature (and yourself) this weekend. Read more »

The great Australian ‘buck’s night’ tradition is Neanderthal to say the least. We have all heard the horror stories about the ‘buck’s night pranks’ enacted by the ‘mates’ of the groom—some leading to permanent injury and/or psychological damage—some causing the impending marriage to end.
It is time for the decent men of this country to say - ENOUGH! It is time to stop ‘male bonding’ activities that demean women as the majority of buck’s nights do. The traditional ‘buck’s night’ is a product of the old dominator style of masculinity. A quick look at the state of the world attained under that model heralds the urgent need to adopt a new male ideology -  one based in partnership with all humans and nature. 

Read more »

I’m 62 and have worked in Physical and Outdoor Education since I was 15.  I have tried to help children and adults find ways to exercise, eat well, and stay healthy—today I am gratified that so many people are embracing a healthy lifestyle.

Great achievements now to the next level. The more I worked with young men through the decades, the more I have appreciated the importance of emotional fitness; in fact I now believe it is crucial to our personal development and happiness—as well as being a key factor in ending violence..and saving the planet.

To demonstrate that physical fitness alone is not enough to guarantee happiness or underpin a creative and productive life; I’ve previously used the poor behaviours of Australian sports icons such as Ben Cousin, Wayne Carey, Shane Warne, Greg Bird (sorry guys) and other players. These sportsmen had much in common. They were very fit, made lots of money, were good looking, were sought after by women; BUT could not control their poor behaviour against women, or other people. Some struggled with alcohol or drug taking (a form of violence against the self), and some were blatantly misogynist.

It was the emotional and psychological fitness that was missing! It is not just sportsmen that ruin their lives in this way. I’ve also talked about US ex-president Bill Clinton who also appeared to ‘have it all’ - the money, the good looks, the good health, charisma, status and a great potential to bring about peace in many parts of the world.

Addiction to women was his undoing (like the popular president of the 60′d-JFK) and this almost guaranteed that an extreme right wing president would be elected—George Bush, whose ‘war on terror,’ born from the old dominator male mindset, caused the loss of many lives and failed to address the root causes of terrorism. Note the limited success of a ‘war’ on anything—poverty, drugs, pollution and so on - it is a ‘dominator’ approach.

In future articles we will talk more about how to build emotional and psychological fitness and courage. I believe this is the next evolutionary step for males—an enormous step which will enable humans to deal with massive challenges of our times. I say this without blame because when I was a less conscious man, I made or was capable of making all the mistakes made by the men I’ve mentioned above. 

Here’s the thing - many of these men could become unstoppable leaders when they build their emotional fitness and courage—with a long course in emotional fitness they would truly be ‘fit to lead.’

Whilst I abhore road hoons - in fact I abhor any behaviour by young men that endangers others - I am very unhappy our government has resorted to using a well known sexual inuendo in order to shame young males into better driving and therefore reduce the road toll.

Imagine the outcry if the gender was reversed - if the implication that a woman was - say frigid, or asexual - that public outcry would be enormous. If we want equality we should practice it at government level. Read more »