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Jed
Diamond is the internationally best-selling author
of eight books including Male
Menopause, now translated into 17 foreign
languages and his latest book, The The
Irritable Male Syndrome:
Managing. The 4 Key Causes of Depression and
Aggression and Mr.
Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable
Male Syndrome He looks forward to your
feedback. E-Mail
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com
Take The Irritable Male Syndrome quiz.
The Two Competing
Systems That Will Determine the Future of Our Love
Lives, Work Lives, and the Survival of Our
Children
I have been a marriage and family therapist for
more than fifty years. I help men and women address
two areas that most everyone must deal with these
days—Our love lives and our work lives.
Sigmund Freud recognized the importance of these
two areas many years ago when he famously said,
“Love and work are the
cornerstones of our humanness.”
Over the years I have been in practice I have
learned that we can’t heal individual lives
without addressing issues that impact couples.
Further, I have come to see that we can’t heal
couples relationship without addressing family
dynamics, including our wounding in our families of
origin. We know, too, that families don’t
exist in isolation, but are members of communities,
countries, and members of the community of all life
on planet Earth.
I believe that all people, with the exception of
those who refuse to accept the realities of life in
today’s world, would agree that humans are out
of balance with life on Earth. Existential problems
such as the climate crisis, the loss of
biodiversity, an economic system that is dependent
on exponential growth, and the continuing threat of
wars that could kill us all, are not being
adequately addressed.
We all have experienced two forces working in
each of us. One force is based on love, trust, and
a belief that we can solve our problems. The other
force is based on fear, anger, and a belief that
nothing we do will succeed and we might as well
just give up.
The beginning of a solution to our dilemma comes
from a Native American story that has many
variations. It is a story of the two wolves and is
an ancient tale that has been a part of traditional
wisdom stories for generations. Historians
typically attribute the tale to the Cherokee or the
Lenape people.
The story features two characters: a grandfather
and his grandson. The grandfather says, “I
have a fight going on in me between two wolves. One
is evil – he is anger, envy, regret, and
sorrow. The other one is good—he is joy,
peace, hope, and love.
The grandson takes a moment to reflect on this.
At last, he looks up at his grandfather and asks,
“Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee
grandfather gives a simple reply. “The one you
feed.”
Domination and Partnership: Which One Will We
Feed?
I first met Riane Eisler in 1987 shortly after
the publication of her book, The Chalice & the
Blade: Our History, Our Future. I was moved by
their simplicity, vision, and truth:
“Underlying the great surface
diversity of human culture are two basic models
of society. The first, which I call the
dominator model, is what is popularly termed
either patriarchy or matriarchy—the ranking
of one half of humanity over the other. The
second, in which social relations are primarily
based on the principle of linking rather than
ranking, may best be described as the
partnership model. In this model—beginning
with the most fundamental difference in our
species, between male and female—diversity
is not equated with either inferiority or
superiority.”
Eisler has written numerous books that have
expanded on these ideas including her most recent,
written with anthropologist, Douglas P. Fry,
Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and
Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and
Future. In their chapter, “The Original
Partnership Societies,” they recognize that
the roots of our partnership lives go back nearly
two-million years to a time when we were all
hunter-gatherers.
“Nomadic foragers—also
called nomadic hunter-gatherers—constitute
the oldest form of human social
organization,” say Eisler and Fry,
“predating by far the agricultural
revolution of about 10,000 years ago as well as
the rise of pastoralists, tribal
horticulturalists, chiefdoms, kingdoms, and
ancient states.”
They go on to explore the reasons humanity
shifted away from partnership towards a domination
model.
“There are a number of theories
about how and why domination systems
originated,”
say Eisler and Fry.
“One theory, which recently
seems to have received some support from DNA
studies of prehistoric European populations, is
based on the proposal of archeologist Marija
Gimbutas that in Europe the shift was due to
incursions of Indo-European pastoralists
originating in the Eurasian steppes who brought
with them strongman rule, male dominance, and
warfare.”
This theory is consistent with the work of
historian and natural scientist, Dr. James DeMeo,
whose research indicates that the origin of our
disconnection and resulting alienation occurred
6,000 years ago in the Middle East.
The Original Dominator Societies Emerged in
Middle-East as a Result of Environmental
Trauma
In his well-researched treatise, Saharasia: The
4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression,
Warfare and Social Violence in the Deserts of the
Old World, Dr. DeMeo says,
“My research confirmed the
existence of an ancient, worldwide period of
relatively peaceful social conditions, where
warfare, male domination, and destructive
aggression were either absent, or at extremely
minimal levels. Moreover, it has become possible
to pinpoint both the exact times and places on
Earth where human culture first transformed from
peaceful, democratic, egalitarian conditions, to
violent, warlike, despotic conditions.”
Dr. DeMeo found that the trauma resulting
from
“repeated drought and
desertification, which promotes famine,
starvation, and mass migrations among
subsistence-level cultures, must have been a
crucial factor”
in changing the way we related to the Earth and
each other from one of partnership to one of
domination.
“Once so anchored into social
institutions, the new draught-and
feminine-derived behavior patterns reproduce
themselves in each new generation, irrespective
of subsequent turns in climate towards wetter
conditions,”
says DeMeo.
Once the domination system is introduced, it
spreads. Violence begets violence. As social
scientist, Andrew Bard Schmooker reminds us in his
prophetic book, The Parable of the Tribes: The
Problem of Power in Social Evolution,
“Power is like a contaminant, a
disease, which once introduced will gradually
yet inexorably become universal in the system of
competing societies.”
That is certainly what we have seen as
Indigenous, partnership cultures, throughout the
world have been wiped by the power of what we
euphemistically refer to as
“civilization.” Schmooker said it simply
and powerfully:
“Civilized society in general
has been like a rabid dog. Its bite infects the
healthy even though it contains the germ of its
own destruction.”
Similar views have been voiced by geography
professor Jared Diamond and historian Yuval Noah
Harari.
Restoring Our Partnership Future: Indigenous
Wisdom and Worldview Can Guide Us
Drawing on their own research and the wisdom of
Indigenous people from around the world, Wahinkpe
Tope (Four Arrows) and Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D, have
written an important book, Restoring the Kinship
Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts
for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth.
In the book’s introduction, they draw on
the experience of environmentalist and author Paul
Shepard who said,
“When we grasp fully that the
best expressions of our humanity were not
invented by civilization but by cultures that
preceded it, that the natural world is not only
a set of constraints but of contexts within
which we can more fully realize our dreams, we
will be on the way to a long overdue
reconciliation between opposites which are of
our own making.”
In Restoring The Kinship Worldview,
Wahinkpe Tope and Darcia Narvaez share a chart by
Wahinkpe Tope, originally published in The Red Road
(chunku luta): Linking Diversity and Inclusion
Initiatives to Indigenous Worldview. He contrasts
what he calls the “Common Dominant Worldview
Manifestation” and the “Common Indigenous
Worldview Manifestation” which are very
similar to the contrasts Riane Eisler describes
between Dominator and Partnership systems and James
DeMeo describes as Armored Patrist and Unarmored
Matrist behaviors, attitudes, and social
institutions.
Winkpe Tope’s original chart had forty
contrasting manifestations.
Only the Partnership/Indigenous Worldview Can
Save Humanity
Thomas Berry was a priest, a
“geologian,” and a historian of
religions. He spoke eloquently to our connection to
the Earth and the consequences of our failure to
remember that our survival depends on accepting our
place as one member, among many, in the community
of life.
“We never knew enough. Nor were
we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in
the great family of the earth. Nor could we
listen to the various creatures of the earth,
each telling its own story. The time has now
come, however, when we will listen or we will
die.”
Our only way forward, I believe, is the
Partnership/Indigenous pathway. Native Americans
have long understood the destructive nature of the
Dominator system that has infected our Dominant
worldview. According to Native American scholar
Jack D. Forbes, in his book, Columbus and other
Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation,
Imperialism, and Terrorism,
“For several thousands of years
human beings have suffered from a plague, a
disease worse than leprosy, a sickness worse
than malaria, a malady much more terrible than
smallpox.”
Native peoples call the disease Wetiko and
Forbes describes it as the cult of aggression.
“Indians are murdered,” he
says, “in order to force impoverished
mixed-Indians to gather rubber in the forest
under conditions that doom the rubber-hunters
themselves to miserable deaths. Small countries
are invaded so that an entire people and their
resources can be exploited. Human beings of all
colors are seized or insnared in debts and are
forced to live out their brief lives as slaves
or serfs. Boys are raised to obey orders and
serve as cannon-fodder, while girls are raised
to give their children over to armies, factories
or plantations.”
Forbes says it is an insidious disease that has
become so pervasive it is seen as normal.
“I call it cannibalism…but
whatever we call it, this disease, this wetiko
psychosis, is the greatest epidemic sickness
known to man.”
Indigenous peoples refuse to be wiped out. Their
communities and the Indigenous wisdom, and
worldview they embrace, may well be the hope for
all humanity. As Thomas Berry reminds us, we will
listen, learn, and act on that wisdom, or we will
die. Our Moonshot
for Mankind and Humanity is bringing
together leaders from around the world to help us
all heal. Please join us.
The End of the U.S. and
the World as We Know It and The Truth About Our
Collective Future - Part 1
It is not easy to accept, but it is becoming
more and more obvious that our country and our
world are not doing well. Some believe the U.S. is
falling apart and the humans have made such a mess
of the environment that we should call it quits, go
out in a blaze of destruction, and leave planet
Earth in the hands of species who are better able
to be good partners in the community of life on
Earth. Others believe that human ingenuity and
innovative technologies will fix things and we have
a bright future ahead. I have a different vision
that was given to me in a sweat lodge in 1993 at a
men’s gathering in Indianapolis, Indiana:
We are all on a huge ocean liner. It is the
Ship of Civilization. Everything that we know and
have ever known is on the ship. People are born and
die. Goods and services are created, wars are
fought, and elections are held. Species come into
being and face extinction. The Ship steams on and
on and there is no doubt that it will continue on
its present course forever.
There are many decks on the ship starting way
down in the boiler room where the poorest and
grimiest toil to keep the ship going. As you ascend
the decks, things get lighter and easier. The
people who run the ship have suites on the very top
deck. Their job, as they see it, is to keep the
ship going and keep those on the lower decks in
their proper places. Since they are at the top they
are sure that they deserve to have the best that
the ship has to offer.
Everyone on the lower decks aspires to get up
to the next deck and hungers to get to the very
top. That’s the way it is. That’s the way
it has always been. That’s the way it will
always be. However, there are a few people who
realize that something very strange is happening.
What they come to know is that the Ship of
Civilization is sinking. At first, like everyone
else, they can’t believe it. The Ship has been
afloat since time before time. It is the best of
the best. That it could sink is unthinkable.
Nonetheless, they are sure the Ship is
sinking. They try and warn the people, but few
believe them. The Ship cannot be sinking and anyone
who thinks so must be out of their mind. When they
persist in trying to warn the people of what they
are facing, those in charge of the Ship silence
them and lock them up. The Ship’s media keep
grinding out news stories describing how wonderful
the future will be and technology will solve all
our problems.
The Captains of the Ship smile and wave and
promise prosperity for all. But water is beginning
to seep in from below. The higher the water rises,
the more frightened the people become and the more
frantic they scramble to get to the upper decks.
Some believe it is the end of the world and
actually welcome the prospect of the destruction of
life as we know it. They believe it is the
fulfillment of religious prophecy. Others become
more and more irritable, angry, and depressed and
use alcohol, drugs, and other forms of
self-medication to escape the pain.
But as the water rises, those who have been
issuing the warnings can no longer be silenced.
More and more escape confinement and lead the
people towards the lifeboats. Though there are
boats enough for all, many people are reluctant to
leave the Ship of Civilization. “Things may
look bad now, but surely they will get better
soon,” they say to each other.
Nevertheless, the Ship is sinking. Many
people go over the side to the boats. As they do
so, they are puzzled to see lettering on the side
of the ship, T-I-T-A-N-I-C. When they reach the
lifeboats, many are frightened and look for someone
who looks like they know what to do. They’d
like to ride with those people.
However, they find that each person must get
in their own boat and row away from the Ship in
their own direction. If they don’t get away
from the Ship as soon as possible they will be
pulled under with it. Though each person must row
their own boat, they must stay connected to others.
As people row away from the Ship, they connect with
each other in a new, yet ancient, network. A new
way of life is created that is much better than the
Ship of Civilization which continues to sink.
Here are a few things I have thought about over
the years that gives me hope for the future:
1. “Civilization” is a misnomer.
Its proper name is the “Dominator
culture.”
As long as we buy the myth that
“civilization” is the best humans can
aspire to achieve, we are doomed to go down with
the ship. In The Chalice & the Blade: Our
History Our Future first published in 1987,
internationally acclaimed scholar and futurist,
Riane Eisler first introduced us to our long,
ancient heritage as a Partnership Culture and our
more recent Dominator Culture, which has come to be
called “Civilization.” In her recent
book, Nurturing
Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape
Our Brains, Lives, and Future, written with
peace activist Douglas P. Fry, they offer real
guidance for creating a world based on
partnership.
Historian of religions, Thomas Berry, spoke
eloquently to our need to be honest about our
present situation.
“We never knew enough. Nor were
we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in
the great family of the earth. Nor could we
listen to the various creatures of the earth,
each telling its own story. The time has now
come, however, when we will listen or we will
die.”
2. There is a better world, beyond
civilization.
When I was given the book Ishmael, by Daniel
Quinn, I got a clear sense of the two worlds that
are competing for our attention: A world where
hierarchy and dominance rule (Quinn calls it the
world of the Takers) and a world where equality and
connection rule (Quinn calls it the world of the
Leavers). In his many books Quinn offers a clear
contrast in worldviews.
In his book, Beyond Civilization:
Humanity’s Next Great Adventure, Quinn
says,
“I can confidently predict that
if the world is saved, it will not be because
some old minds came up with some new programs.
Programs never stop the things they’re
launched to stop. No program has ever stopped
poverty, drug abuse, or crime, and no program
ever will stop them. And no program will ever
stop us from devastating the world.”
Quinn goes on to quote Buckminster Fuller who
said,
“You never change things by
fighting the existing reality. To change
something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete.”
3. All Civilizations Come to an End, Most
Within Ten Generations (250 years)
In her powerful and important book, Who
Do We Choose to Be? Facing Reality, Claiming
Leadership, Restoring Sanity, social scientist
Margaret J. Wheatley shares the findings of
historian Sir John Glubb.
“Glubb studied thirteen empires
in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, from
Assyria in 859 BCE to modern Britain in
1950,”
says Wheatley.
“The pattern of the decline and
fall of these superpowers was startingly clear.
It didn’t matter where they were or what
technology they had or how they exercised power.
They all declined in the same stages and it
always took ten generations, about 250
years.”
Wheatley concludes,
“The deceit we are engaged in
is that we think we’re special, that we can
transcend history, alter the seasons, and step
off the Arrow of Time. Surrounded by technology
that dazzles us with its capabilities and
techno-optimists who confidently promise ever
more wonders, we believe that even as other
civilizations failed, ours will not.”
4. Understanding the Reality of
Collapse.
The thought of our country collapsing or
humanity becoming another species that becomes
extinct is terrifying to most. One response is to
deny the reality of our situation, to lose
ourselves in the latest escape or addiction.
Another is to falsely believe that some
technological fix will magically save us from
ourselves.
When I hear the word “collapse,” I
can’t help becoming terrified and wanting to
run away from the truth. I picture a freeway
collapsing and crushing cars with people inside or
the twin towers collapsing floor by floor and
killing hundreds.
The truth is that even during these disasters,
not everyone died. Many more people walked out of
the twin towers than died inside. When
civilizations collapse, it doesn’t mean that
everyone dies. When the British empire collapsed,
it didn’t mean all Brits lost their lives.
Some did, indeed, die. Death is something we all
must accept, but collapse can signal a
transformation.
In describing the reality of collapse, Margaret
Wheatley draws on the work of Joseph Tainter, as
well John Glubb. Tainter’s book, The
Collapse of Complex Societies, published in
1987, is acknowledged to be the seminal work in
establishing the pattern of collapse that is the
fate of all complex societies.
“He is a superb and dedicated
scholar,”
says Wheatley,
“both humble and clear. Over
several years he studied in depth many different
societies; as he did so, the pattern became so
clear that he felt no need to continue to study
others in detail.”
Tainter’s description gives a more
accurate, and less terrifying, description of the
reality we are living through. Tainter defines
“collapse,” as primarily a political
phenomenon with consequences in all other spheres
such as economics, art, and culture.
“A society has collapsed when
it displays a rapid, significant loss of an
established level of sociopolitical
complexity.”
This fits well with the descriptions
I have offered by sociobiologist and futurist
Rebecca Costa. In her book, The
Watchman’s Rattle: A Radical New Theory of
Collapse, Costa examines the rise and fall of
multiple civilizations including Mayan, Khymer, and
Roman empires. She found that the underlying cause
of collapse had not been fully understood or
addressed. What she discovered was that a societies
inability to deal with complexity was the root
cause of collapse.
As Costa’s mentor, the world-renowned
sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson said in the books
foreword:
“The clash of religions, and
civilizations, Costa argues, is not the cause of
our difficulties but a consequence of them. The
same is true of the global water shortage,
climate change, the decline of carbon-based
energy, our cheerful destruction of the
remaining natural environment, and all the other
calamities close to or upon us. The primary
cause of all threatening trends is the
complexity of civilization itself, which cannot
be understood and managed by the cognitive tools
we have thus far chosen to use.”
But transformation is inevitable and we have an
opportunity to create a different way to live, one
that is more sustainable and supportive of life.
Our ancestors go back millions of years and humans
have lived sustainably on the planet for much of
that time. But getting from here to there is a long
journey requiring a new kind of leader, which
Margaret Wheatly describes as a “warrior for
the human spirit.” I will describe her ideas
more fully in part 2 of this series.
As Wheatly reminds us, “The Warriors
arise when the people need protection. The human
spirit needs protection. May the Warriors
arise.” As I am learning, getting older
and dealing with disability and death, have some
similarities with the transformations going on in
the larger world. It takes the best of our warrior
spirit to meet the challenges of life in the 4th
quarter of life.
I appreciate your comments and support. I will
post part two in an upcoming article.
What I’m Learning
About Being a Male Caregiver - Part 3
More and more of us are being called to be
Caregivers for loved ones as well as helpers and
healers for those we are called to serve in a world
out of balance. In Part 1 I
described the call that changed my life. “Jed,
I’ve fallen,” Carlin’s words on my
cell phone got me running for the keys to the car.
“I need help. I’m near the corner of
North Street and Mendocino.” We quickly went
from a stable and familiar life to one that
involved the local emergency room at the hospital,
partial hip replacement surgery, a stroke that
occurred during surgery that resulted in some
cognitive and speech problems, three days of
hospital stay, and return home to a new
configuration in our home (hospital bed downstairs,
bedrooms are upstairs) and our lives. In Part
2, I talked about the intimacy and exhaustion
that comes with 24/7 home health care.
Although I had done some family caregiving for
my mother, father, and Carlin’s mother; my
caregiving was mostly focused “out in the
world” with clients I saw for healing in my
psychotherapy practice and in programs to help men
and the families who loved them throughout the
world. My website MenAlive.com has been my window
to the world where I have been helping men and
their families live fully, love deeply, and make a
positive difference in the world for more than
fifty years now.
When I reached out for support to help me with
the 101 things that needed to be done when Carlin
was in the hospital and the many more that needed
to be one when she came home, I found that a number
of women friends had experience caring for older
family members. Certainly caretaking is not limited
to women, but women seem to be called upon more and
step up for this kind of personal care more often
than men do.
When all this began I panicked. How am I ever
going to do all the things I need to do to take
care of Carlin? The first thing I did was to call
our son Aaron whose partner, Jennifer, is
fortunately a Home Health-Care Nurse. They
immediately flew from their home in Alabama and
stayed with us for ten days. Jen was well-versed in
caregiving, both professionally and taking care of
aging parents. She helped me make sense of all the
medications Carlin needed and set up some structure
of what was needed. Aaron provided additional
support. Our friend Yvonne, who was also
experienced in caregiving, helped me with all the
hospital contacts with doctors, nurses, and other
personnel, as well as helping organize food support
when we came home and other things we needed.
I never knew there was so much work that women
do. I have gained a whole new level of respect,
appreciation, and gratitude for work that I have
taken for granted and I often overlooked in my
desire to do the “important” work out in
the world. I also re-remembered skills I had
developed helping our daughter Angela when she was
a baby.
My first wife, Candace, and I had adopted Angela
when she was 2 ½ months old. She had a cleft
palate at birth and had trouble sleeping the first
year and caring for her required the best of both
of us. When she was one-year old she had surgery to
repair the palate and she didn’t sleep much
the second year. Both my wife and I were beyond
exhausted, but we learned to care for someone in
need. There was no way I could turn over the
caretaking to my wife. I was needed and I needed to
learn how to nurture and care. Now Angela is a
mother herself and has four beautiful children. She
is a great caregiver and I continue to learn from
her every day what it means to love deeply and well
and care for those in need.
I’ve come to realize that too many men
never learn the joys of intimate caregiving. Too
many of us are taught that caretaking is
women’s work, so when caregiving is needed we
look the other way and hope a woman will step up
who knows what to do. As a result we often
don’t learn good caregiving skills and
don’t take good care of ourselves or each
other. It is one of the reasons, I believe, that
men die sooner and live sicker than women. We
don’t learn to nurture ourselves and we
don’t learn to care for other men friends. It
is also one of the reasons that men are so
irritable, angry, and lonely.
I’ve written extensively about these issues
in books and articles. In a recent article,
“Why Are Men So Angry and What Do They Really
Need?” I said,
“researchers have found that men
have significantly fewer friends than women,
especially close friendships or best friends.
Instead, men often have ‘activity
friends’ such as a weekly tennis partner or
drinking buddy. The friendship is often based on
the exchange of favors rather than emotional
support. Men often are able to advance their
careers with these kinds of friendships, but
they fall short of what most of us need. As a
result, many men feel isolated and angry.”
I remember the first time I realized that men
could be caregivers. I was in my 20s, had been in
and out of multiple relationships and was between
girlfriends. I lived alone and got very sick with
bronchitis that turned into pneumonia. In the past
when I was sick I would reach out to a girlfriend
or my mother when she was alive. It never occurred
to me to call a male friend. I only did thaBut I
was desperate. I called David and told him I was
sick and needed help. He immediately came over with
homemade chicken soup. He also gave me a massage
and offered to come back and see me again. I
literally couldn’t believe that I had male
friends who could nurture and care for me and were
not only open, but willing to offer a helping hand
and could also listen to my fears and worries. It
opened me up a whole new world.
Later I joined a men’s group. Our group has
been meeting now for a long time. My wife, Carlin,
says one the main reasons we have had a great
43-year marriage is that I have been in a
men’s group for 44 years. I’ve learned
more about caretaking over the years and these
guys, particularly, Tom, Denis, and Tony, have been
there for me over the years as I have been there
for them.
Tom Mattlack is also a friend and fellow writer.
I have truly appreciated his regular articles on
men. I particularly appreciated his recent article,
“How Many Guys Do You Have in Your
Corner?” He begins the article with a series
of provocative and important questions:
If you woke up in the middle of the night upset,
or you had an emergency, or your wife told you she
wanted a divorce…how many guys do you have in
your contacts that you could call, no questions
asked? The answer is the most significant
determinant of your physical and emotional
well-being. The number of men who say
“none” is staggering. To be healthy, you
need three. To be really healthy, you need five or
more.
I used to be the one of the many guys who had
none. Now I can confidently say I have more than
five. It has taken me forty-four years to get
there. It is never too late to begin wherever you
are. It is not easy, believe me, but the payoff is
huge. It is truly lifesaving.
We need more male caregivers in the world. Are
you one? Do you know one? Will you become one? I
look forward to hearing from you. Please share your
experiences, thoughts, and feelings. If you like
these kinds of article, please subscribe to my free
weekly newsletter.
Caregiving: Intimacy
and Exhaustion Part 2
In Part 1, I talked about Carlin’s slip on the
wet sidewalk and subsequent events of her hip
surgery. Here I would like to talk about
caregiving. For those who have done full-time
caregiving for a loved one, you know how rewarding
and exhausting it can be. I had never been a
full-time caregiver before. The only thing that
came close was taking care of our daughter Angela
when she needed surgery on her cleft palate when
she was one-year old.
It has been more than fifty years since I was up
nights with Angela. After her surgery she was
terrified to sleep. I think it brought back trauma,
so she fought sleep like it would kill her. So, we
took turns singing to her, rocking her, walking
with her, even driving around (it seemed to be the
only thing that put her to sleep, but she’d
wake up as soon as we turned off the engine.)
If you’ve gone a few nights without sleep,
you know how it impacts our emotions, thinking, and
overall brain function. It can be debilitating. One
of our biggest challenges has been to get back in a
normal sleep pattern. For Carlin it has been most
difficult. She went from a special bed in our
upstairs bedroom to a hospital bed set up
downstairs in the living room. She would usually
watch some T.V. until 10:00 or 11:00, get to bed,
and I would wake her up at 7:00 AM. My schedule was
slightly different. I would go to bed at 9 PM, read
until 10:00, then lights out and up in the morning
at 5:00 AM. Getting our routine back on schedule
has been a major challenge.
The first night I brought Carlin back from the
hospital on Saturday, March 30th. I got her settled
in her new hospital bed which was delivered and set
up in the living room after getting four strong
neighbors to move out the huge dining room table
that had occupied the site by the front window.
Our son, Aaron and his wife Jen, wouldn’t
be arriving until the next day, so I sat with
Carlin until she was ready to sleep. A neighbor had
brought a bell she could ring if she needed help,
but I was afraid I might not hear her from the
upstairs bedroom so I reclined in my office chair
downstairs where I knew I would hear her if she
rang the bell we had gotten for her. She slept
soundly, me not so much.
Aaron and Jen were with us for ten days before
returning to their home in Alabama and I became the
full-time caregiver. Change is always difficult
until we develop a new structure and get used to
the new normal. We’re still in process, but
damn, I never realized there was so much to do and
so little time in the day to do it all.
The days weren’t so bad. I immediately
devised a system to keep track of the 18-20
medications the doctor ordered, some old ones, many
new ones. With Jen’s assistance, I numbered
each bottle and we put them all in pill boxes with
morning, evening, and bedtime pills, along with
their names and what they were for. Carlin always
wants to know what she is putting in her body, and
though she trusts me and the doctors, she still
knows she is the ultimate one in charge of her own
health.
Then there were the follow-up doctors’
appointments along with lining up help to assist me
in getting her in and out of the car. Luckily Home
Health Services were available within the week so I
talked to and scheduled physical therapy, nursing
follow up, and speech therapy. Carlin can’t
bath yet due to the hip surgery, but with the help
of a special in-tub chair and some great women
friends who both help her in and out of the tub,
help her wash, Carlin is getting support with the
basics we most often take for granted, until we
don’t have them.
We’ve been blessed with lots of friends who
are bringing dinners (enough for lunch then next
day), but still there is shopping to do, dishes to
wash, including dishes brought with the food that
needs to be washed and put outside in a collection
container where people can pick up their washed
dishes. Yvonne and Lu-Ann have been particularly
helpful in helping organize all that is needed and
giving Carlin regular showers.
Plus, I still work full time as a counselor,
writer, and therapist. I’ve cut down on a lot
of it to take on the added challenges of keeping up
on all the house duties—washing clothes, doing
dishes, paying bills, cleaning floors, bathrooms,
etc. A lot of these things Carlin used to do, but
now fall to me. It can be overwhelming at
times.
We don’t have any family living close by so
friends are stepping up big time. Everyone wants to
help and be supportive, but some are more helpful
than others. Most of the focus is on Carlin, which
is the way it should be, but few people tune in to
me and my needs. I’m doing a pretty good job
at reaching out, yet there are times I wish there
were a few more people tuning into me.
Luckily my men’s group has been supportive.
These are guys who have been together for 44 years
and are like brothers to me. As an only child,
I’ve longed for sibling support and these guys
have always been there for me, as I have been for
them. The problem is that we are all getting older.
There were seven of us when we started. I was the
middle one in age, three older than me and three
younger.
Each of the elders died in order of
age—John, Dick, Ken. Now I’m the
“old man” of the group, and there are
three younger than me—Tom, Tony, Denis. I will
be 80 in December and the younger guys aren’t
far behind me.
I have some other men friends who are local and
younger that I’m calling on for support. When
I can stay in the present moment and not ruminate
about the future, I can deal with what I have to
deal with day by day. I got a good night’s
sleep last night. Today is Easter Sunday, and the
season of Passover and Ramadan. I’m Jewish by
birth, with roots in our cultural history, but not
religious. Today, it is supposed to be sunny and
warm. Carlin and I are looking forward to getting
out of the house, maybe a drive in the valley, and
a walk around Haehl Creek area near the
hospital.
Your comments and sharing are always welcome. If
you would like to subscribe to me weekly posts at
MenAlive.com, you can do so here.
Falling in Love in the
Second Half of Life Part 1
Many of us are living in the second half of life.
My wife, Carlin, and I have been married for 43
years, which is more than half our lives. She will
be 85 in July and I will be 80 in December. Our
love has deepened since we were first married in
1980, but it has taken us even deeper since her
slip and fall on March 20th.
Both of us are very physically active. We do a
morning series of exercises. I do a morning walk
through the neighborhood and Carlin gets on her
treadmill, walking forward and backwards in ways I
wouldn’t even try. Well, I did try doing her
backwards walking a few times and almost fell off
the treadmill.
It was an unusually warm and sunny day on
Monday, March 20, 2023 in Willits, California.
Following our regular meditation group, I went into
my home office to talk to a counseling client on
Zoom. When I got out, there was a note from Carlin
that she was out for a walk. A half hour later I
received a call from her on my cell phone with
words no one wants to hear. “I’ve fallen.
I need help. I’m near the corner of North
street and Mendocino,” she told me. “Hang
on, I’m on my way,” I told her, as a
grabbed my car keys and ran out the door.
I was by her side in less than two minutes. She
had slipped on a wet spot on the sidewalk and was
still down in a puddle of water. A woman from
across the street was by her side trying to assist
but was agitated and it took me a little time to
calm her and access Carlin’s condition. She
was clearly in pain and she couldn’t get
up.
Just then a young man came from across the
street, said his name was Brian, and identified
himself as an EMT and Paramedic. He was very
professional and respectful. He asked Carlin if it
was OK for him to touch the area on her right hip
where she identified the pain. He was soon clear,
as was I, that she needed to get to the ER at the
local hospital as soon as possible. We could either
call an ambulance and wait for their arrival or he
could gently lift her into my car and I could drive
her myself and get there much faster since the
hospital was five minutes away.
I got her into the ER and the nurses took over,
getting her into a bed, and quickly got an X-ray
that confirmed a broken hip. “I was surprised
that it was broken,” the nurse told us.
“You didn’t seem to be in that much pain,
but it is broken, and you will need surgery as soon
as possible.
In that moment of truth our worlds changed. I
went from thinking my wife fell, bruised her
butt, and we’ll laugh about it as I rub on
healing creams for a week to Carlin needs hip
replacement surgery and flashes of media stories of
a broken hip being the beginning of the end for
older people.
It took all my relaxation and meditation skills
to calm my run-away anxieties and worst-case
stinkin’ thinkin’ to calm myself and
realize that it was much more likely that the
surgery would be successful and Carlin would fully
recover.
The next few days were a whirlwind of
activity—driving back and forth bringing her
things she needed and medications that the doctors
wanted me to bring from home. The surgery was
scheduled for Wednesday, March 22nd and fortunately
I knew the surgeon to be top quality and highly
trained. I had consulted him a few years back when
I tore ligaments in my shoulder.
We were told she would be in surgery for a few
hours, more or less, depending on how things went
and whether he would need to replace just the ball
of the femur or also the joint in the pelvis. The
nurse said he would call me half way through and
give me the progress report. I walked the hospital
grounds along the trail I had helped build with a
whole lot of others in our community.
The call came an hour later and I was pleasantly
surprised by the report. “Things went more
quickly than expected. She only needed a partial
hip replacement and there was very little loss of
blood. She will be a bit woozy for some time after
she comes out of surgery but she should be back in
her room in a few hours.” I was elated, top of
the world, relieved and did a little prayer of
thanks to all those who brought her through this
ordeal, including her own higher power and deep
spirit of healing. The doctor told us she would
likely be released in a few days and we would start
home care.
The crash came the next day following the
surgery when I expected we could talk about what
she would need coming home. But when Carlin tried
to talk, she couldn’t complete a sentence and
she couldn’t find simple words to say. I was
terrified. How can I take care of my wife if she
can’t tell me what she needs? Again fears of a
future life together going downhill to the end
began to overwhelm me.
Gaining control of a mind that is lost in
worse-case what ifs takes discipline that was hard
to apply, but I got a little help from
neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor and her book,
Whole
Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four
Characters That Drive Our Life. I had
watched her TED talk and enjoyed her earlier book.
This one helped me engage my Character 2, which
tends to focus on all the things that can go wrong
in life, to reassure this brain Character that I
would take his worries seriously and do everything
I could to keep him safe.
The doctors and nurses reassured us.
“Carlin didn’t have a stroke,” they
told us. “Her speech problems are likely the
result of aphasia, which is the loss of ability to
understand or express speech. This is not uncommon
following surgery with anesthesia medications,
lower oxygen levels, and other things. It will
likely clear up gradually and she should fully
recover.”
I was reassured, but facing the reality of her
coming home and I wanted to know when she would be
back to normal. “I can’t give you a firm
answer,” the doctor told me. “The brain
heals when the brain heals.” Fortunately, it
continues to heal and we are learning new things
about life, love, resilience, and community. Often
life crises can bring out the best in each other
and deepen our love and connection. This is
happening, big time, for Carlin and me.
I look forward to your comments. Come visit me
at http://www.Many of us are living in the second
half of life. My wife, Carlin, and I have been
married for 43 years, which is more than half our
lives. She will be 85 in July and I will be 80 in
December. Our love has deepened since we were first
married in 1980, but it has taken us even deeper
since her slip and fall on March 20th.
Both of us are very physically active. We do a
morning series of exercises. I do a morning walk
through the neighborhood and Carlin gets on her
treadmill, walking forward and backwards in ways I
wouldn’t even try. Well, I did try doing her
backwards walking a few times and almost fell off
the treadmill.
It was an unusually warm and sunny day on
Monday, March 20, 2023 in Willits, California.
Following our regular meditation group, I went into
my home office to talk to a counseling client on
Zoom. When I got out, there was a note from Carlin
that she was out for a walk. A half hour later I
received a call from her on my cell phone with
words no one wants to hear. “I’ve fallen.
I need help. I’m near the corner of North
street and Mendocino,” she told me. “Hang
on, I’m on my way,” I told her, as a
grabbed my car keys and ran out the door.
I was by her side in less than two minutes. She
had slipped on a wet spot on the sidewalk and was
still down in a puddle of water. A woman from
across the street was by her side trying to assist
but was agitated and it took me a little time to
calm her and access Carlin’s condition. She
was clearly in pain and she couldn’t get
up.
Just then a young man came from across the
street, said his name was Brian, and identified
himself as an EMT and Paramedic. He was very
professional and respectful. He asked Carlin if it
was OK for him to touch the area on her right hip
where she identified the pain. He was soon clear,
as was I, that she needed to get to the ER at the
local hospital as soon as possible. We could either
call an ambulance and wait for their arrival or he
could gently lift her into my car and I could drive
her myself and get there much faster since the
hospital was five minutes away.
I got her into the ER and the nurses took over,
getting her into a bed, and quickly got an X-ray
that confirmed a broken hip. “I was surprised
that it was broken,” the nurse told us.
“You didn’t seem to be in that much pain,
but it is broken, and you will need surgery as soon
as possible.
In that moment of truth our worlds changed. I
went from thinking my wife fell, bruised her butt,
and we’ll laugh about it as I rub on healing
creams for a week to Carlin needs hip replacement
surgery and flashes of media stories of a broken
hip being the beginning of the end for older
people.
It took all my relaxation and meditation skills
to calm my run-away anxieties and worst-case
stinkin’ thinkin’ to calm myself and
realize that it was much more likely that the
surgery would be successful and Carlin would fully
recover.
The next few days were a whirlwind of
activity—driving back and forth bringing her
things she needed and medications that the doctors
wanted me to bring from home. The surgery was
scheduled for Wednesday, March 22nd and fortunately
I knew the surgeon to be top quality and highly
trained. I had consulted him a few years back when
I tore ligaments in my shoulder.
We were told she would be in surgery for a few
hours, more or less, depending on how things went
and whether he would need to replace just the ball
of the femur or also the joint in the pelvis. The
nurse said he would call me half way through and
give me the progress report. I walked the hospital
grounds along the trail I had helped build with a
whole lot of others in our community.
The call came an hour later and I was pleasantly
surprised by the report. “Things went more
quickly than expected. She only needed a partial
hip replacement and there was very little loss of
blood. She will be a bit woozy for some time after
she comes out of surgery but she should be back in
her room in a few hours.” I was elated, top of
the world, relieved and did a little prayer of
thanks to all those who brought her through this
ordeal, including her own higher power and deep
spirit of healing. The doctor told us she would
likely be released in a few days and we would start
home care.
The crash came the next day following the
surgery when I expected we could talk about what
she would need coming home. But when Carlin tried
to talk, she couldn’t complete a sentence and
she couldn’t find simple words to say. I was
terrified. How can I take care of my wife if she
can’t tell me what she needs? Again fears of a
future life together going downhill to the end
began to overwhelm me.
Gaining control of a mind that is lost in
worse-case what ifs takes discipline that was hard
to apply, but I got a little help from
neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor and her book,
Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the
Four Characters That Drive Our Life. I had watched
her TED talk and enjoyed her earlier book. This one
helped me engage my Character 2, which tends to
focus on all the things that can go wrong in life,
to reassure this brain Character that I would take
his worries seriously and do everything I could to
keep him safe.
The doctors and nurses reassured us.
“Carlin didn’t have a stroke,” they
told us. “Her speech problems are likely the
result of aphasia, which is the loss of ability to
understand or express speech. This is not uncommon
following surgery with anesthesia medications,
lower oxygen levels, and other things. It will
likely clear up gradually and she should fully
recover.”
I was reassured, but facing the reality of her
coming home and I wanted to know when she would be
back to normal. “I can’t give you a firm
answer,” the doctor told me. “The brain
heals when the brain heals.” Fortunately, it
continues to heal and we are learning new things
about life, love, resilience, and community. Often
life crises can bring out the best in each other
and deepen our love and connection. This is
happening, big time, for Carlin and me.
I look forward to your comments. Come visit me
at MenAlive.com
and please subscribe to our free weekly newsletter
if you like to read articles about life, love,
resilience, and community. and please subscribe to
our free weekly newsletter if you like to read
articles about life, love, resilience, and
community.
Donna’s Law: A New
Suicide Prevention Tool
I wept when I heard Katrina Brees share the
story of her mother’s death on the CBS
Morning Show. For more than a decade, Katrina
and her mother, Donna, worked side-by-side
producing parades in New Orleans. Her fond memories
of her mom include “just her dancing in a
parade, just her feeling the music, feeling the
audience, giving love.”
But the person who seemed so carefree was a
tormented soul, in a constant battle with bipolar
disorder. In 2018 she wrote a letter to her
psychiatrist:
“Dear Doctor, it has been nine
months since this episode began. I am not doing
well. How long must I endure this?”
Katrina’s mother answered her own question
just a few days later. On June 26, 2018, she bought
a gun and fatally shot herself. She did it beneath
the Tree of Life, a New Orleans landmark.
- “It was the most special spot she
could choose,” said Katrina.
“It’s where many of our friends have
had weddings. We’ve had funerals there. The
space is so sacred. It feels to me like she laid
herself on the cathedral of our community and
died there.”
My tears were for Katrina, her mother, and all
those who have experienced deaths of despair. I am
all too familiar with those feelings. Following
years of depression and feelings of hopelessness my
father took an overdose of sleeping pills.
Fortunately, he didn’t have a gun. He was
hospitalized and eventually recovered. I grew up
wondering what happened to my father, when it would
happen to me, and what I could do to prevent it
from happening to other families.
I faced my own dark night of the soul when my
mental illness caused me to temporarily lose hope
in ever feeling good again. Fortunately, with my
wife’s support, I was able to reach out for
help and get into therapy. I wrote about my
experiences in an article, “Being
Bipolar: Living in a World of Fire and
Ice.”
Professor Mike Anestis, who appeared with
Katrina on the CBS Sunday Morning show, heads up
the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at the
Rutgers School of Public Health, said that many
people survive suicide attempts using other
methods.
“Intentional overdose?
Only 2% to 3% of the folks who attempt
suicide using an overdose
die,”
said Anestis.
“Almost 95% of folks who use
a firearm do. They don’t get a second
chance.”
When we think of guns and violence, we often
think of homicide deaths, mass killings, and
horrible tragedies like school shootings.
“Suicide accounts for anywhere
from 60% to 65% of all the gun deaths in the
United States in any given year,”
said Professor Anestis.
“Guns are the main cause of
suicide deaths. More than half of all suicide
deaths in any given year are caused by
self-inflicted gunshot wounds. So, that’s
somewhere in the vicinity of 25,000 firearm
suicide deaths in the U.S. every single
year.”
According to University of Alabama law professor
Fred Vars,
“In 2020, there were 66 gun
suicides every day, which is more people than
died in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
And we don’t see it. You know, it
doesn’t make the news. It happens one
person at a time. Unless it’s a celebrity,
we just don’t hear about it.”
But Vars is trying to change that, raising
awareness while pushing for new gun legislation. He
says there is “absolutely” a correlation
between stricter gun laws and fewer suicides.
He’s working with Katrina Brees on legislation
called Donna’s Law, named after her mother. It
would allow potential gun buyers to put themselves
on a “do not sell” list.
“An individual would have the
opportunity to suspend their ability to buy a
gun, voluntarily, confidentially put their name
into the already-existing background check
system,” said Vars. “And if they
attempted to buy a gun, that transaction would
be denied.”
When asked by the CBS Morning Show’s
interviewer,
“Do you have confidence that
people who are suicidal would voluntarily
request not to be sold a gun?”
Professor Vars replied,
“During a suicidal crisis or
depressive episode, I think it is unlikely that
anybody would sign up. But there are a lot of
people who’ve been in that dark place who
come out the other side and know they’re a
danger to themselves. It’s more like an
advance directive. Here, while I’m feeling
better, let me prepare myself for that, and just
get the gun out of the equation.“
Dr. Vars speaks from personal, as well as
professional, experience. In his book, Weapon of
Choice: Fighting Gun Violence While Respecting Gun
Rights, he shares his own experience with
depression, bipolar disorder, and thoughts of
suicide earlier in his life.
“I sank into a deep
depression,”
he remembers.
“It was months before I could
go back to work full time. Because I feared
hurting myself, I stayed away from the apartment
windows and kitchen knives. Since that time, I
have been back on the psych ward only once more,
another manic episode, confirming my diagnosis
of bipolar disorder.”
This makes very good sense to me. I would
absolutely put my name on a “do not sell”
database to protect myself and my loved ones from
the danger of my making an irrational decision at
the depth of despair rather than when I was feeling
more hopeful. I believe many clients I work with
who are dealing with depression, addictions, and
other health challenges, would also want the option
of this kind of protection.
So far, Donna’s Law advocates have not yet
convinced Congress to act, but three states,
Washington, Utah and Virginia, have passed it, and
Maryland recently held hearings. Mental health
advocate Bryan Barks testified in favor of the law,
saying,
“This bill would give people
prone to suicidality the agency to make
decisions about their own access to guns when
they are not actively suicidal.”
Katrina Brees says there are also
other tools we could use to lower the risk of
suicides. In reflecting on her mother’s
death following a 30-year battle with bipolar
disorder, she wondered why her mother had gone
out and purchased a gun, since all her life she
had been vehemently opposed to them.
In an Op Ed she hopes to have published
she wrote in part:
“My mom died by gun suicide, and she
couldn’t have done it without Google. The
day she died, my mom searched how to hang
herself. She had been struggling with suicidal
ideation brought on by a medication side effect
and was under the care of a psychiatrist. A top
recommended article by Google explained that
suicide by handgun is statistically more
reliable.
“In a fragile state, my mom took
Google’s advice and searched for gun stores
near her. Google then provided directions to a
gun store a couple miles away. She bought the
only gun she would ever own and shot herself.
After her death, I searched Google myself for
information on gun suicide. I was bombarded by
targeted advertisements encouraging me to buy a
gun. Even the news article about my mom’s
death presented an algorithm-derived
advertisement telling me where I could buy a
gun. As if that weren’t enough, I saw
advertisements suggesting I could get a free gun
— and “Buy Now” options with
local pickup.
“Google’s business model is
earning revenue by maximizing click-throughs.
It’s not a passive bystander in the
business of selling guns and other dangerous
weapons, it is an active participant.
“When considering whether tech
companies should be legally liable for the
harmful content their algorithms promote, I hope
the Supreme Court will consider that even if
Google may not be technically liable, its
failure to direct suicidal searchers to the
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (988) is a
failure of moral responsibility and a danger to
society.”
For more information:
Saving Lives: Why
Gender-Specific Medicine Will Transform Healthcare
For Men and Women - Part 3
In parts 1 and 2, I talked about the biological
basis of gender-specific healthcare and quoted
Marianne J. Legato, M.D., founder of the Foundation
for Gender-Specific Medicine. She said,
“We’ve acted as though men
and women were essentially identical except for
the differences in their reproductive function.
In fact, information we’ve been gathering
over the past ten years tells us that this is
anything but true and that everywhere we look,
the two sexes are startingly and unexpectedly
different not only in their normal function but
in the ways they experience illness.”
In part 3, I will explore the evolutionary basis
of our differences and describe our Moonshot for
Mankind mission to improve the lives of men and the
families who love them.
The Evolution of Males and Females: Warriors
and Worriers
Joyce Benenson is a lecturer of Human
Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. In her
ground-breaking book, Warriors and Worriers: The
Survival of the Sexes, Dr. Benenson, who
considers herself a human primatologist, presents a
new theory of sex differences, based on thirty
years of research with young children and primates
from around the world. Her innovative theory
focuses on how men and women stay alive.
“Men and women have evolved to
specialize in preventing death from different
causes,”
says Benenson.
“That way, their children had
two parents who could cover more forms of danger
and thus be able to keep them alive.”
One of the world’s leading experts
evolution, biologist and naturalist Edward O.
Wilson called Warriors and Worriers,
“brave, thoroughly documented,
and written with unusual clarity. It explains
more about the fundamentals of gender
differences—and the meaning of human
nature—than a library of conventional
social science.”
Dr. Benenson calls the primary,
evolutionary-based role of males, to be warriors,
while the complementary role for women is to be
worriers. These two words summarize and simplify
very complex, evolutionary successful survival
strategies. For the maximum benefit of all, women
and men assume different roles. Women’s first
job is to take care of themselves. If they die,
their children are likely to die. Then, they must
take care of the children. Hence, it is good if
they think of all possible dangers to their health
and well-being. In other words, they worry about
everything.
Men must protect the women and children against
attack from other groups of men. They must always
be on guard and be willing to be prepared to fight.
From an early age, males practice being
warriors.
Benenson concludes,
“We are not conscious of being
warriors or worriers. Rather being a warrior or
a worrier is like having a special program
continually running in the background of our
mind.”
She makes clear that we are not prisoners of our
evolutionary past. War is not inevitable, and
societies can learn more peaceful ways to solve
problems. But in order to change, to reduce male
violence in the world, we have to understand the
evolutionary drives that operate, often in our
subconscious minds.
Men’s True Strength and Resilience
Begins With Accepting and Having Compassion for Our
Weaknesses
Too many men who feel weak and powerless inside,
act out their fear and vulnerability by becoming
aggressive and dominating. In her powerful and
important book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the
Present, internationally acclaimed historian Ruth
Ben-Ghiat lays bare the blue-print that
authoritarian leaders have followed over the past
hundred years and empowers us to recognize, resist,
and prevent their disastrous rule in the
future.
She details the rule of leaders from the past
including Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler as
well as modern authoritarian leaders including Jair
Bolsonaro in Brazil, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and
Donald J. Trump in the United States.
“For ours is the age of
authoritarian rulers,”
says Ben-Ghiat,
“self-proclaimed saviors of the
nation who evade accountability while robbing
their people of truth, treasure, and the
protections of democracy.”
I’ve learned that men’s real strength
and power comes from accepting our weakness. The
fear many of us have if I accepted my weakness I
would be dominated by others. The truth is that
accepting ourselves for who we are is our real
superpower and this begins with accepting our
biological weakness.
Sex and Gender, Nature and Nurture: They Can
Never Be Separated
In our complex world we all look for ways to
understand and simplify things. When I was in
college there was a running debate about whether we
were most influenced by our biology or our
environment. More recently there is great confusion
about whether the differences between men and women
can best be understood as biologically based sex
differences or more environmentally determined
social differences.
In an article titled, “Nature or Nurture,
Sex and Gender,” Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the
Stanford School of Medicine, helps clarify these
important issues.
“In recent years, both sides
have capitulated to what seems like an obvious
compromise: It’s both. Our genes and our
environment play leading roles in shaping who we
are. But to Siddhartha Mukherjee, physician and
author of The Gene, this compromise is ‘an
armistice between fools.’ The answer —
nature or nurture — depends on the
question.”
Dr. Minor goes on to discuss Dr.
Mukherjee’s understanding of sex and gender
issues. The genes that govern gender identity are
hierarchically organized, Mukherjee argues. At the
top, nature acts alone. A variation in a single
chromosome determines whether our sex is male or
female.
Gender, on the other hand, is determined lower
in Mukherjee’s hierarchy. There, genes
interact continually with the forces of history,
society and culture, making gender and gender
identity not an either/or, but a spectrum based on
an infinite number of influences and interactions.
Being clear about what questions we are trying to
answer can help us best understand sex and gender
issues.
Our Moonshot Mission for Mankind
Although I have been focused on healing men and
their families since 1972 when I launched MenAlive,
my work took a new turn twenty years ago when I
read a research study by Randolph Nesse, MD and
Daniel Kruger, PhD who examined premature deaths
among men in 20 countries. They found that in every
country, men died sooner and lived sicker than
women and their shortened health and lifespan
harmed the men and their families.
Their conclusions were a call to action for
me:
- “Being male is now the single largest
demographic factor for early death.”
- “Over 375,000 lives would be saved in a
single year in the U.S. alone if men’s risk
of dying was as low as women’s.”
- “If male mortality rates could be
reduced to those for females, this would
eliminate over one-third of all male deaths
below age 50 and help men of all
ages.”
- “If you could make male mortality rates
the same as female rates, you would do more good
than curing cancer.”
At MenAlive I developed new programs that
address issues including male suicide, violence,
irritability, depression, and loneliness—all
issues that we know if treated can improve the
health and well-being of men and their families.
After doing clinical research for many years, Dr.
Marianne Legato wrote the book, Why Men Die
First: How to Lengthen Your Lifespan. She
concluded,
“The premature death of men is
the most important—and
neglected—health issue of our
time.”
In 2021 I invited a group of colleagues who have
been doing ground-breaking work in addressing
men’s health issues and together we launched
our Moonshot
for Mankind and Humanity. My forthcoming book,
Long Live Men! The Moonshot Mission to Heal
Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope to
Humanity, describes our work in more detail. We
believe that “hurt men, hurt themselves,
women, and the world” and “healed men,
help themselves, women, and the world.”
Together we can change the world for the
better.
The MenAlive Academy of Gender-Specific
Healthcare
I estimate there are 1,000 organizations that
are doing important work in the area of
gender-specific medicine and men’s healthcare.
There are millions of men and their families who
need help and support. I will be partnering with
Ubiquity University to offer a complete training
program for individuals who want to improve their
own health as well as support men they know and
love. We will also educate practitioners who want
to develop their skills in this emerging and
important field of health care.
There will be four levels of study that we will
be offering:
Foundational Level—Before we can
help others, we have to help ourselves. Everyone
must start with the basics. You will learn why
men are the way they are and how to improve
men’s health. You will be able to take your
own life experience and learn how to better
understand yourself and others by looking at
your health successes as well as your health
problems through the various classes that will
focus on physical, emotional, and relational
health of men.
Intermediate Level—For those who would
like to increase your knowledge and skills so
that you can help others professionally, you
will gain additional skills. If you are already
in the helping professions, you will develop the
added skills you need to expand your practice to
include men’s mental, emotional, and
relational health. If you come to this work from
other professions, it will help you integrate
your previous work with new skills in the area
of gender specific practices that focus on
men’s health.
Advanced Level—This level is for those
who want to advance in the field, increase your
reach and effectiveness, and specialize in
working with certain specific populations such
as young men and boys, mid-life men, or older
men. It is also for those who want to focus on
more specific issues like male anger or
depression.
Master Level—For those who want to reach
the pinnacle of this emerging new field of sex
and gender-specific health care, this will help
you focus your skills and practice to help more
and more people. You may want to write a book or
consult, teach, or train. I believe the world
will need more and more experts at this level
and will be reward both in satisfaction of
helping many more people and also in the
monetary compensation that goes with mastery at
the highest level.
The programs with Ubiquity will allow you to
receive certification at the various levels and for
those interested, also opportunities to receive
college degrees at bachelors, masters, and doctoral
levels for those want their training to go beyond
certification in sex and gender-specific healing to
include bachelors, masters, or doctoral level
degrees. If you would like more information, please
drop me an email to Jed@MenAlive.com
and put “MenAlive Academy of Gender-Specific
Healthcare” in the subject line and I will
send you more details.
Saving Lives: Why
Gender-Specific Medicine Will Transform Healthcare
For Men and Women - Part 2
In Part 1, I described my
own experiences with mainstream medicine and my
interest in developing a more personalized way of
offering healthcare for men and their families. I
learned about the work of Dr. Marianne J. Legato
when I read her book, Eve’s Rib: The New
Science of Gender-Specific Medicine and How It Can
Save Your Life.
Dr. David C. Page’s work at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the
genetics differences between males and females
opened up new avenues for exploration. He said,
“We’ve had a unisex vision of
the human genome. Men and women are not equal in
our genome and men and women are not equal in
the face of disease.”
In part 2, I will continue to explore the value
of a gender-specific approach to men and women and
how we can develop better healthcare for all.
XX and XY: On The Genetic Superiority of
Women
While Dr. Page was conducting genetic research
with a particular interest in the Y chromosome,
Sharon Moalem, MD, PhD, was looking at sex
differences that related to the X chromosome. In
his book, The Better Half: On the Genetic
Superiority of Women, Dr. Moalem begins by
offering the following basic facts:
- Women live longer than men.
- Women have stronger immune systems.
- Women are less likely to suffer from a
developmental disability.
- Women are more likely to see the world in a
wider variety of colors.
- Women are, overall, better at fighting
cancer.
- Women are simply stronger than men at every
stage of life.
Dr. Moalem’s research points to the
benefits that accrue to females because they have
two X chromosomes in every cell of their bodies
where males have only one. Dr. Moalem’s
interest in the benefits of the X chromosome came
home to him when he and his wife were in a serious
automobile accident.
“So, you know what I was thinking
while strapped to a spine board in the back of
the ambulance hurtling toward the hospital? I
was thinking about how grateful I was that my
wife, Emma, was a genetic female with two X
chromosomes.”
He goes on to say,
“I knew from my clinical work and
research that even if my wife’s injuries
were the same as mine, given the odds, she was
likely to make a better and faster recovery than
I was. Her wounds would heal faster, and she
would have less of a chance of subsequent
infections because of her superior immune
system. All in all, her prognosis was almost
assured to be better than mine.”
Melvin Konner, MD, PhD, applies science to human
nature and experience, exploring the links between
biology and behavior, medicine and society, nature
and culture. In his book, Women After All: Sex,
Evolution and the End of Male Supremacy, he
says,
“Women are not equal to men;
they are superior in many ways, and in the most
ways that will count in the future. It is
not just a matter of culture or upbringing,
although both play their roles. It is a matter
of biology and of the domains of our thoughts
and feelings influenced by biology. It is
because of chromosomes, genes, hormones, and
nerve circuits. It is not mainly because of
what your mother taught you or how experience
shaped you. It is mainly because of intrinsic
differences in the body and the brain.”
In their book, Gender Gap: The Biology of
Male-Female Differences, evolutionary
psychologist David P. Barash, PhD. and his wife,
Judith Eve Lipton, MD, who is a medical doctor and
psychiatrist, offer similar conclusions based on
their extensive experience.
“When it comes to human nature,
the differences between males and females must
be acknowledged as real, important, and
downright fascinating. Moreover, when it comes
to understanding those differences, there is no
better guide than evolution.
The Telomere Effect: Living Younger,
Healthier, Longer
Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, received the Nobel
Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2009 alongside
two colleagues for the discovery of the molecular
nature of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that
serve as protective caps, and for discovering
telomerase, the enzyme that maintains
telomeres.
Dr. Elisa Epel, PhD, is a leading psychologist
who studies stress, aging, and obesity. She is a
professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the
University of California San Francisco, and directs
UCSF’s Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions (AME)
Center.
In their book, The Telomere Effect: Living
Younger, Healthier, Longer, they say,
“We now have a comprehensive
understanding of human telomere maintenance,
from cell to society, and what it can mean in
human lives and communities.”
In a research study “Sex Differences in
Telomeres and Lifespan,” published in the
journal, Aging Cell, Emma L B Barrett and David S.
Richardson, say,
“Males and females often age at
different rates resulting in longevity
‘gender gaps’, where one sex outlives
the other. Why the sexes have different
lifespans is an age-old question, still fiercely
debated today. One cellular process related to
lifespan, which is known to differ according to
sex, is the rate at which the protective
telomere chromosome caps are lost. In humans,
men have shorter lifespans and greater telomere
shortening. This has led to speculation in the
medical literature that sex-specific telomere
shortening is one cause of sex-specific
mortality.”
In a 2022 research paper by Ericka
Méndez-Chacón, “Gender
Differences in Perceived Stress and Its
Relationship to Telomere Length in Costa Rican
Adults,” she says,
“Telomere length differs by sex,
with women having longer telomeres on average.
It is believed that estrogen has antioxidant
properties that can protect the telomeres and
that testosterone lacks these properties.”
The good news, as Drs. Blackburn and Epel point
out, is that we can actually change the length of
our telomeres.
“You can make simple changes to
keep your chromosomes and cells healthy. You can
use telomere science to support your cells.
Begin with changes that you can make to your
mental habits and then to your body—to the
kinds of exercise, food, and sleep routines that
are best for your telomeres.”
In Part 3, I will explore the evolutionary basis
of our differences and describe our Moonshot for
Mankind mission to improve the lives of men and the
families who love them.
The Hubris of Mankind: Our
Survival May Depend on The Secrets We Can Learn
From The Animals
Hubris is a Greek word that originally meant
defiance of the gods, nearly always resulting in
divine retribution. Its modern meaning is
“extreme arrogance, a combination of foolish
pride and dangerous self-confidence. It aptly
describes mankind’s attitude towards the
natural world.”
Jan Bee Landman, Editor-in-Chief, of Aftermath
magazine says,
“We humans have always had a
hugely inflated opinion of ourselves. Our
ability to outsmart other animals made us
believe that we were unique, superior to all
other beings, not bound by the laws of nature
but free to do anything we wanted. We imagined
that we were supernatural, the center of the
universe, pinnacle of creation, darlings of our
imagined gods, destined for eternal life, partly
divine and sometimes even entirely so. This
delusion of grandeur blinded us to the grave
errors that marked our reign, the worst–and
now seemingly fatal–error being our
disregard for nature.”
Prosanta Chakrabarty explores the roots of our
dis-ease and calls us to reconnect with the natural
world. Dr. Chakrabarty is one of the world’s
leading experts on ecology, evolution, and,
interestingly, fish. He says,
“I have described 15 new species
of fishes from almost as many countries and
I’ve been lucky enough to have worked in
more than 35 countries doing natural history
research.”
He was a Program Director for the National
Science Foundation and is a TED Senior Fellow. He
teaches one of the largest evolutionary biology
classes in the United States where he dispels many
myths about evolution and the place of humans in
the community of life.
We’ve all seen images like this one that
purport to summarize the path of evolution with
modern humans being the last stage of our advance
from monkey to modern man.
In his powerful and important TED talk,
“Four Billion Years of Evolution in Six
Minutes,” Dr. Chakrabarty begins with a
provocative question.
“If we evolved from monkeys, why
are there still monkeys?”
His answer is even more surprising.
“Because we’re not monkeys,
we’re fish.”
In his 5 minute and 41 second talk, he dispels
some hardwired myths about evolution, encouraging
us to remember that we’re a small part of a
complex, four-billion-year process, and not the end
of the line.
“We’re not the goal of
evolution,”
Chakrabarty says.
“Think of us all as young leaves
on this ancient and gigantic tree of life —
connected by invisible branches not just to each
other, but to our extinct relatives and our
evolutionary ancestors.”
Animal Secrets: Nature’s Lessons For a
Long and Happy Life
Another man with a unique perspective on human
wellbeing is David B. Agus, M.D. Dr. Agus is the
author of the international bestsellers The End
of Illness, A Short Guide to a Long Life, and
The Lucky Years. He is a professor of
medicine and engineering at the University of
Southern California and founding director and CEO
of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for
Transformative Medicine.
He is also the author of the new book, Animal
Secrets: Nature’s Lessons for a Long and Happy
Life. There is a myth that Homo sapiens (Latin:
“wise man”) are the end product of
evolution. This myth, he believes, blinds us to the
reality that rather than being the pinnacle of
evolutionary progress, we are a very young,
outlier, species, in danger of being blown off the
tree of life like a diseased leaf unless we wake up
and learn from our elders.
In the Introduction to Animal Secrets, Dr. Agus
quotes Albert Einstein:
“Look deep into nature, and then
you will understand everything.”
He goes on to pose several hopeful
health-related questions:
“What if, for the rest of your
life, your body could be ten to fifteen years
younger than your birth certificate says? What
if you could safely edit your genes to avoid
getting Alzheimer’s or heart disease that
notoriously runs in your family? What if I could
assure you that you’d never develop cancer
or some rare, abominable illness with no
meaningful treatment? What if you could know
exactly which diet and exercise regimen to
follow to stay lean and fit? What if you could
avoid ever feeling depressed, achy, foggy, and
‘old’?”
I think most of us would pay a good deal of
money if we could get positive answers to even one
of these questions. We’d probably pay even
more if we didn’t have to wait in line to
enroll in some high-tech scientific study testing a
new drug that had been recently discovered after
billions of dollars invested by a multi-national
pharmaceutical company with a dubious
reputation.
What if we could get introduced to these
healthcare miracles from an expert that lives very
close to us?
“Seventy-eight million households
in America,” say Dr. Agus, “have
four-legged, fleecy family members. My family is
one of them.”
In his chapter, “Oh My Dog! More Than
Man’s Best Friend,” Dr. Agus gives us the
first of many stories in the book that offers
wisdom to create a life of health from our
evolutionary elders in the animal kingdom.
I grew up in a family with dysfunctional
parents. My father had become increasingly stressed
and depressed when he couldn’t find work. He
took an overdose of sleeping pills and was
committed to the state mental hospital. My mother
lost her own father when she was young and had
become obsessed with death ever since. She was
convinced she would die soon and bought life
insurance policies she couldn’t afford so that
I would have money when she died. When I was five
years old she bought life insurance policies on me
“so your family will have money in case you
die.”
My refuge from the craziness of life was with my
dog Spotty. He was playful, full of energy, loved
me unconditionally, and was always ready for romp
in the yard. At night he would sleep at the foot of
my bed. He was my friend and companion and the only
being I felt I could trust. Dr. Agus says that
domesticated dogs have been found with human groups
that go back at least 130,000 years into our
hunter-gatherer past, long before we domesticated
other animals like sheep, goats, and cattle.
Dr. Agus describes many ways that dogs
contribute to our health, not the least of which is
their ability to heal our emotional wounds.
“A pet pooch,” says Dr. Agus,
“provides comfort, cuddles, and
unconditional love. And because dogs know only
how to live in the present, they can help us all
focus on the now, sometimes hard to do. Even the
bond we feel when we play with our dogs and
enjoy those almost inevitable licks is like
therapy on the brain and the nervous
system.”
I have spent a lot of money on therapy in my own
life, and as a psychotherapist offered my care and
support to thousands of men, women, and children,
but I have never forgotten the great healing that
comes from animals.
There are many other animal secrets the good
doctor shares with us. These include head-bobbing
pigeons that offer creative strategies for
preserving our memories and warding off dementia,
bold squirrels and pigs that harbor secrets for
managing chronic pain, elephants that help unlock
insights into preventing cancer, giraffes who offer
solutions to cardiovascular issues, and many animal
secrets that provide health-promoting wisdom we can
all use.
Humans have been on planet Earth a comparatively
short time. Our animal elders have been here much
longer. We would do well to listen to what they can
teach us and stop pretending that we have nothing
to learn from the animal partners who are with us
in the community of life. As the cultural historian
and religious scholar Thomas Berry so eloquently
warned us:
“We never knew enough. Nor were we
sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in
the great family of the earth. Nor could we
listen to the various creatures of the earth,
each telling its own story. The time has now
come, however, when we will listen or we will
die.”
You can learn more about David
B. Agus, M.D. and his work here. If you would
like to read more articles on ways to stay healthy
in body, mind, and spirit, please join me at
MenAlive.com
Four Play: How Your Core
Brain Characters Drive Your Love Life
In 2008 Harvard trained neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte
Taylor, gave a talk, “My Stroke of
Insight.” It has now been viewed over 25
million times and remains one of the most popular
TED talks ever. It was the first TED talk to go
viral on the Internet and as a result both TED and
Dr. Taylor became globally famous. Within three
months of delivering the talk, she was chosen as
one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential
People in the World for 2008. She was the premier
guest on Oprah’s Soul Series webcast, her
memoir was published by Penguin Books, and it spent
63 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
In the talk she shared with the audience her
story of surviving a massive cerebral hemorrhage in
which the left hemisphere of her brain shut down
and the right hemisphere became dominant. She
described how she, through the eyes of a
neuroscientist, watched with fascination as her
circuits and faculties went off-line. She took the
audience on a mind-expanding journey into the
deterioration of her own left brain whereby she
shifted into a state of peaceful euphoria and
oneness with the universe, unlike anything she had
ever known.
“Underlying the functional
differences between our two hemispheres,”
says Dr. Taylor
“are neurons that process
information in unique ways. The left hemisphere
works linearly and methodically and is all about
the past and the future, while the right
hemisphere functions like a parallel processor
bringing multiple streams of data that
simultaneously reveal a single complex moment of
experience.”
It took her eight years to fully recover and her
journey opened my heart, mind, and soul to the
beautiful and mysterious power of our brains. Dr.
Taylor offers a window into how we can get to know
the four main Characters in our brain that guide
our destiny. But she didn’t stop there.
“In my heart the talk failed to
accomplish the one thing I had hoped I would do.
I wanted us, as human beings, to recognize that
we are connected as part of a whole, and I
wished for us to treat one another with a higher
degree of respect and kindness. Instead, our
civility toward one another has clearly decayed
over the past decade or more.”
In her new book, Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy
of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our
Life, Dr. Taylor offers hope that we can reclaim
our partnership roots with ourselves, our family,
friends, communities, and life on planet Earth. As
a psychotherapist, who specializes in helping men
and the women who love them to live fully and love
deeply, I find Dr. Taylor’s work profoundly
important.
Our Four Characters: How We Think, Feel, and
Love
“I am a brain enthusiast,”
says Dr. Taylor.
“But, beyond the beauty of this
amazing organ we all have inside our heads, it
is our remarkable brain cells that manifest our
choices and abilities. When we understand
which cells manifest which of our abilities, the
more power we have to choose who and how we want
to be in any moment.”
She goes on to say,
“I learned the hard way that we
each have four distinctive groups of cells in
our brains, divided between our two brain
hemispheres, that generate four consistent and
predictable personalities. Neuroanatomically
these four groups of cells make up the left and
right-thinkingcenters of our higher cerebral
cortex, as well as our left and right emotional
centers of our lower limbic system. I consider
my new book, Whole Brain Living, to be a roadmap
to the four different ‘Characters’
inside your brain. The better you know your
Four Characters, the easier your life will
become.”
Since all information comes into the brain first
through our emotional centers, Dr. Taylor says we
are all “feeling beings who think, rather than
thinking beings who feel.” The philosopher,
René Descartes’ dictum cogito, ergo
sum, (Latin: “I think, therefore I am),
whose views have greatly influenced our culture,
demonstrates the imbalance towards our thinking
centers which have come to overshadow our emotional
centers.
Character 1. This rational character in
your left-brain thinking is amazingly gifted at
creating order in the external world. This part of
your brain defines what is right/wrong and what is
good/bad based upon its moral compass. It is also
our left-brain Character 1 that triggers our stress
response since it is a perfectionist in all it
does.
Dr. Taylor suggests we name each of our brain
characters as a way to begin to become intimate
with these unique characters within us. She calls
her Character 1, Helen.
“She is Hell on wheels and gets
things done.”
I call my Character 1, Jaydij for Just Do It,
Jed. This character is action oriented, takes no
prisoners. He is impatient and jumps to creating
solutions, often before he gets all the facts.
Rather than taking his time–On your mark, get
set, go–he often “goes off” quickly,
never needing to get ready or set. This can, and
often, does cause problems with relationships.
As you get to know your own Character 1, you
will come up with your own name and learn his or
her characteristics. Dr. Taylor lists some of the
characteristics of Character 1 as follows:
- Organizes and categorizes everything.
- Divides people into we and they.
- Is protective of our people and suspicious
of those people.
- Plans well.
- Respects authority.
- Critically judges right and wrong, good and
bad.
- Interested in details and differences.
- Counts everything.
Character 2. The left-brain emotional
character is preoccupied with one vital question:
“Am I safe?” This is the core issue for
any intimate relationship as well as our very
survival through our long evolutionary history.
Making a wrong decision was literally a life and
death issue, particularly for women. Picking a
partner who was not safe put women at risk of
sudden death from predators, from males from other
tribes who might cause harm to her or her children,
as well as from a potentially untrustworthy
partner. For men, the risk was also there, but the
threat of death was less imminent.
Character 2 is often powered by a
familiar feeling of unease that stems from either a
traumatized or out-of-control past. As a result,
this Character 2 part of our brain may end up
feeling either “less than” or “not
worthy.” It can also bring up fears of
abandonment. That’s why I call the Character 2
part of my brain, Aban.
A great deal of the conflicts I have had in
relationships can be traced back to my fears that
my safety and security needs were being
threatened.
Dr. Taylor says some of the most important
characteristics of Character 2 include:
- Anger and name-calling when upset.
- Feels guilty.
- Internalizes shame.
- Loves conditionally.
- Negative self-judgment.
- Experiences a great deal of anxiety and
worry.
- Egocentric.
- Blames others.
Where Characters 1 and 2, address issues of our
past and future, our right brain Characters 3 and 4
are all about the present moment.
Character 3. The right-brain emotional,
is our experiential self that seeks similarities
rather than differences with other people. It wants
to connect, explore, and go on adventures with
others. The way the present moment feels is
delicious, and sharing time, having fun, or deeply
connecting through empathy can be gratifying for
everyone.
I call my Character 3, Jeddy, the endearing name
my wife, Carlin, calls me when we are feeling the
most connected and playful. Jeddy is like a big
joyful puppy dog. He is spontaneous, exuberant,
unrestrained. He may unexpectedly jump into your
lap and lick your face. He also can overwhelm you
with his barks of delight and may even pee here and
there when he is overly excited.
Dr. Taylor says some of the most important
characteristics of Character 3 include:
Forgiving.
Awe-inspiring.
Playful.
Empathic.
Creative.
Joyful.
Curious.
Hopeful.
Character 4. The right-brain thinking
character which exists as our most peaceful, open,
and loving self. Our Character 4 is right here,
right now, and completely invested in celebrating
the gift of life with immense gratitude,
acceptance, openness, and love. I call my Character
4, Lovers. My Tarot deck says the card VI, Lovers,
is “symbolized by the conjoined male and
female, is the law of union—oneness through
the marriage of opposites.”
Along with the right-brain feeling Character 3,
Character 4 is what Dr. Taylor experienced in all
its magnificence when the left-side of her brain
was incapacitated due to the brain hemorrhage.
“This is the part of our
consciousness, right thinking brain that we
share with one another and all other life,”
says Dr. Taylor.
“I see the brain cells underlying
our Character 4 as the portal through which the
energy of the universe enters into and fuels
every cell of our body. It is the all-knowing
intelligence from which we came, and it is how
we incarnate the consciousness of the
universe.”
Dr. Taylor says some of the most important
characteristics of Character 4 include:
- Aware: I am connected to all that is.
- Expansive: I am open to possibilities and
value the big picture.
- Accepting: I am curious about what is and
accept all of life’s experiences.
- Embraces change.
- Authentic.
- Generous of Spirit.
- Vulnerable.
- Connected: In the consciousness of the
cosmic flow I embrace the timeless, all-knowing
part of myself that is connected to all that
is.
The Brain Huddle: Your Power Tool for
Peace
One of the challenges of life is being able to
balance our individual me-ness with the larger
we-ness that is required to have a successful
relationship with another person as well as all
parts of ourselves. Dr. Taylor says that bringing
our Characters together can help, particularly when
Character 2 is terrified and acts out.
In my book, The
Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages
of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to
Come, I talked about the importance of
understanding Stage 3, Disillusionment, which is
where many couples get off track. Before that
happens most often the couple have Character 2s
that are freaking out and in conflict.
What Dr. Taylor calls a “brain huddle”
enables us to bring each of our Characters together
to figure out what is best. When Character 2, Aban,
is terrified, irritable, and angry when he feels
uncared for, we can meet with Character 1, Jaydij,
my playful and interactive, Character 3 Jeddy,
along with the Character 4, Lovers. The more we get
to know our various brain Characters, the more we
learn how we can work together to heal the
inevitable conflicts that arise in our
relationships.
Dr. Taylor’s book has a whole chapter on
The Brain Huddle and much more detail about
the Four Characters. You can learn more here. If
you’d like to receive my free weekly
newsletter with articles and opportunities to live
fully, love deeply and make a positive difference
in the world, you can do so
here. I enjoy hearing from you. Please send
your comments and questions.
The Evolution of Desires:
The 4 Universal Conflicts That Undermine Men’s
and Women’s Relationships
“When it comes to human nature,
the differences between males and females must
be acknowledged as real, important, and
downright fascinating. Moreover, when it comes
to understanding those differences, there is no
better guide than evolution.” — David
P. Barash, PhD. and Judith Eve Lipton, MD.
Biologists have a very simple and useful
definition of what is male and what is female,
whether we are fish, ferns, or human beings. An
individual can either make many small gametes (sex
cells) or fewer but larger gametes. The individuals
that produce smaller gametes are called
“males” and the ones that produce larger
gametes are called “females.”
Many men believe that size matters. Yet, most of
us are not aware of the difference in size and
number between a sperm and an egg. A human egg is
85,000 times larger than a sperm. Each man produces
100 to 300 million sperm per ejaculate.
Dr. Steve Jones is professor of genetics and
head of the prestigious Galton Laboratory,
University College of London.
“The cellular imbalance is at the
center of maleness,”
he says.
“It confers on males a simpler sex
life than their partners, together with a host
of incidental idiosyncrasies, from more suicide,
cancer, and billionaires to rather less hair on
the top of the head.”
“Generally, it is easier to move the
smaller sperm to the larger egg than vice versa,
and so it is the male that seeks out the female
and the female who makes the selection from
those males that come courting”
Dr. Jones concludes.
“From the greenest of algae to the
most blue-blooded of aristocrats their restless
state hints at an endless race in which males
pursue but females escape.”
Of course, if females escaped completely, there
wouldn’t be babies and that would be the end
of that species. Yet, it does help us to recognize
the different challenges males and females face in
the mating process.
According to Dr. David Buss, author of the
textbook Evolutionary Psychology: The New
Science of the Mind,
“Human sexual psychology evolved
over millions of years to cope with ancestral
adaptive problems before the advent of modern
contraceptive technology. Humans still possess
this underlying sexual psychology, even though
the current environment has changed.”
“What competing is to males,”
say Dr. David Barash and Dr. Judith Eve Lipton,
authors of The Biology of Male-Female Differences,
“choosing is to females.”
In a TED talk on “Sexuality Conflict
in Human Mating” Dr. Buss begins with a
thought experiment: I’d like you to imagine an
attractive person of the opposite sex walking up to
you and saying, “Hi, I’ve been noticing
you lately and find you very attractive.” They
then ask you one of three questions:
- Would you go out on a date with me?
- Would you come back to my apartment with
me?
- Would you have sex with me?
These experiments were carried out numerous
times in a variety of settings and, as you might
expect, the answer given were different depending
on whether those being asked were male or female.
Here were the results:
Of the women approached by the attractive male
experimenter, 56% agreed to go on a date with him,
6% agreed to go back to his apartment, and 0% of
the women agreed to have sex with the attractive
male stranger.
Of the men approached by the female
experimenter, about 50% agreed to go out on a date
with her, 69% agreed to go back to her apartment,
and 75% of the men said they would be happy to
have sex with her. Of the 25% who declined,
many were apologetic, citing a girl friend or
fiancé and asking for a raincheck in case
things changed.
This evolutionary-based difference between men
and women is at the root of much of our sexual
conflicts.
Conflicts Between the Sexes Are Tied to
Different Evolutionary-Based Desires of Males &
Females
Conflict #1: Desire for Sexual
Variety
In experiments with males and females they were
asked, if given your choice, how many sexual
partners would you like to have over the next
month, six months, or over your lifetime. Think
about it yourself. How many would you like to
have?
- Women, on average, said they would like to
have 0.7 sex partners over the next month. One
partner in the next six months. And 4-5 over a
lifespan.
- Men, on average, thought 2 in the next month
would be about right, 8 in the next six months,
and 18 in the lifespan. Dr. Buss noted that this
was after eliminating 3 outlier males who wanted
to have 1,000 sex partners over the
lifespan.
As you might imagine, this difference between
males and females is often a potent source of
conflict.
Conflict #2: Sexual Over-Perception
Bias
In this experiment males and females are shown a
video of a man and woman sitting across from each
other and interacting. At a certain point, the
woman smiles at the man. The video is stopped and
subjects are asked, “Why did the woman smile?
What was she thinking? What signals was she
sending?”
Men are more likely to say, “It was
obvious. She was sending sexual signals.”
Women seeing exactly the same film say,
“She was just being friendly, being
polite.”
This over-perception bias is a source of
conflict with men assuming sexual interest that
isn’t there. It is most prevalent with
attractive women, the ones who are most often hit
on by men and the least likely to be reciprocating
a sexual desire. You see the potential for
conflict, I’m sure and have likely experienced
it yourself.
Also, men who are high on narcissism are
particularly prone to this bias, assuming,
mistakenly, that they are God’s gift to women.
They think they’re hot, but they’re
not.
Conflict #3: Deception
All of us are prone to deception, but the sexes
lie in different, albeit predictable ways. Men lie
about their height (always want to be a bit
taller), their income, and status. Women lie about
their weight (by about 15 pounds on average,
lower). Both men and women post photos that make
them look more attractive than they are.
So, we need to see people and get to know them,
not just trust social media connections. But even
when couples meet, men tend to lie about the depth
of their feelings. I remember being very drawn to a
young woman, becoming sexual and then responding
much more positively about our potential for a more
in-depth relationship than I actually felt at the
time. Studies show that I was not alone in what I
said. Men often profess love when they are really
talking about lust. We even tend to fool ourselves,
which adds additional levels of conflict.
Conflict #4. Mate value discrepancies
I was asked by a female colleague, “Jed,
why is it that all the guys that I’m
interested in don’t seem very interested in
me, but I’m pursued by all these guys who are
interested in trying to ‘chat me up,’ but
I have no interest in them?”
I told her honestly, “On the mating market
you are an 8 seeking 10s, being lusted after by
guys who are 5s and 6s.” Many of us seek a
partner for short-term or long-term relationship
that is at an evolutionary higher value than we
are. We all want a high-quality mate, but even if
we’re successful, we may still lose. Higher
quality mates tend to have affairs more often and
more often leave their partners over time. Some of
us underestimate our value and are drawn to those
below us. Best to seek a mate with relatively
equal mate value.
This is one of the most common, and
misunderstood, sources of conflict I see as a
clinician who specializes in sex, love, and
relationship issues. One of the greatest services I
offer clients who are looking for a great partner
is to be realistic about our evolutionary-based
mate value as well as the value of those who may be
interested in us.
We might tell ourselves that it shouldn’t
matter, that we should see the whole person below
the external indicators of desire, but we
can’t ignore evolution.
My wife, Carlin, and I have been together for 43
years now. We had both been through two marriages
and divorces before we met. But when we first got
together there was clearly some attraction, but
there were strong evolutionary pressures that told
us that “the chemistry just didn’t feel
right.”
I was a few inches shorter than her, which
usually ruled me out with many women I found
attractive. She was five and half years older than
me, which was usually a deal-breaker for men she
might be interested in getting to know better.
Fortunately, we were smart enough to talk about our
feelings of attraction as well as the discomforts
we were experiencing.
Ultimately, we found that we were totally right
for each other and have continued to be even more
in love with each other through the years.
Here’s a take-home bit of wisdom we’ve
learned:
- We can’t ignore the forces of
evolution.
- Evolution has little interest in our
happiness, just in our reproductive
success.
- We have to explore outside the evolutionary
box of what drives our initial attraction.
- We need to take our time before we get too
involved with Mr. or Ms. Right or to exclude
someone where there were lots of Mr. or Ms.
Right signs, but the “chemistry”
wasn’t there initially.
- If we want to be happy for the rest of our
lives, we need to listen to our
evolutionary-driven desires but decide for
ourselves who would be the best mate for
us.
You can learn more about what we learned in our
on-line course: “Navigating
the 5 Stages of Love.” If you’d like
to read more articles like these, please join our
free
newsletter list.
Why Men Are the Key Factor
for Marriage Success or Failure
VIDEO
I have been a marriage and family counselor for
more than fifty years. There is a saying in the
field, “Happy wife, happy life,” that
suggests that women’s wellbeing is the key to
a relationship’s success. But research from
the emerging field of gender-specific medicine
indicates that men’s health and wellbeing is
the key factor that determines whether
relationships grow stronger through time or go
under.
Dr. John Gottman is one of the world’s
leading experts on sex, love, and marriage. At his
famous center at the University of Washington, he
has been meeting with couples for more than thirty
years and can predict with 94% accuracy whether a
couple will get divorced. His findings may surprise
you. In his book, written with his wife Julie,
The Man’s Guide to Women: Scientifically
Proven Secrets from the “Love Lab” About
What Women Really Want, he says:
“Men, you have the power to make
or break a relationship. What men do in
relationships is, by a large margin, the crucial
factor that separates a great relationship from
a failed one. This does not mean that a woman
doesn’t need to do her part, but the data
proves that a man’s actions are the key
variable that determines whether a relationship
succeeds or fails, which is ironic, since most
relationship books are for women. That’s
kind of like doing open-heart surgery on the
wrong patient.”
Gender-Specific Healing: Why Men Die Sooner
and Live Sicker Than Women
In a recent podcast interview I conducted with
Marianne J. Legato, M.D., Founder and Director of
the Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine, we
explored the emerging field of gender-specific
health care and the importance of men’s health
and wellbeing. Dr. Legato is regarded by both the
medical and research communities as one of the
world’s leading experts on gender
differences.
One of the prevailing myths about sex and gender
is that men are the dominant sex, occupying
positions of power throughout the world. Dr.
Legato’s research over the years has
demonstrated that this “top dog” position
of men is misleading at best.
“If it is true that men rule the
world,” says Dr. Legato, “it comes at
a heavy cost.”
In her book, Why Men Die First: How to
Lengthen Your Lifespan, Dr. Legato says that
the biggest surprise from the research coming in
from all over the world is that
“From conception until death, men
are inherently more fragile and vulnerable than
women. In virtually every society in the world,
men die first. Women have a hardiness that men
simply don’t possess.”
Speaking directly to men she offers these facts
of life:
- The fundamental male biology makes you an
underdog.
- You are less likely to survive the womb than
your sisters.
- You are six weeks behind in developmental
maturity at birth compared to girls.
- Men have four times the developmental
disabilities of females.
- Men suffer more severely than women from
seven of the ten most common infections that
humans experience.
- Men are likely to experience the first
ravages of coronary artery disease in their
mid-thirties, a full 15 to 20 years before
women.
The Number One Killer of Men and Destroyer of
Relationships
Like millions of others, I grew up in a family
with a father who became increasingly irritable,
angry, and depressed. His depression undermined my
parents’ marriage, eventually led to my father
taking an overdose of sleeping pills and being
committed to the state mental hospital, and our
family fell apart.
I grew up wondering what happened to my father,
when it would happen to me, and what I could do to
prevent it from happening to other families. It was
the underlying reason I went into the field of
gender-specific medicine and men’s health. In
my book, The Irritable Male Syndrome and
later in my book, Male vs. Female Depression:
Why Men Act Out and Women Act In, I described
my own research and the reasons that male
depression is mis-diagnosed and mis-treated.
I said,
“Many studies show depression
affects women about twice as often as men. This
is surprising since suicide rates are 3 to 15
times higher in men. My own research, and that
of a number of scholars in the field of
men’s health, indicates that men suffer
depression much more than previously thought. I
believe we have been missing many depressed men
because we haven’t been asking the right
questions.”
I went on to develop a new questionnaire that
addresses symptoms, such as male irritability and
anger, that often underlie male depression.
Dr. Legato also addressed these issues in her
book, Why Men Die First.
“One of the most important issues
that face us all is the subject of depression:
Women are said to suffer from this disease twice
as often as men in virtually every country in
the world. I think this is because men hide
their pain…’Suck it up,’ men are
told by their parents, teachers, and sports
instructors—and by the commanders who send
them into battle. I have asked many men if they
think women underestimate the extent and depth
of their sadness and the resounding answer is
‘yes.’”
I believe that untreated depression is one of
the prime causes of relationship stress and
breakdown. Healing men can go a long way in healing
our love lives.
Healing Men, Healing Relationship: Navigating
the 5 Stages of Love
Often unhealed wounds from childhood can
contribute to later problems in our adult
relationships. This was certainly true for me as I
share in my welcome video on MenAlive,
“Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage
Counselor.” It took me many years to heal the
early wounds in my family and to create real
lasting love in adult life. I am more than pleased
to say, my present wife, Carlin, and I have been
happily married for 43 years.
We share our story in my book, The
Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages
of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to
Come which you is part of my special on-line
course, “Navigating
the 5 Stages of Love.” The course is for
men and women who still believe in love, but
don’t have a lot of time to waste. It brings
together what I’ve learned over the years in a
self-paced course you can do as an individual or as
a couple.
I look forward to hearing from you. If
you’d like more information about how to have
the relationship you’ve always wanted, drop me
a note to Jed@MenAlive.com
and put “Healthy relationships” in the
subject line and I’ll send you the latest
information.
The Days of Love and Roses
Are Wonderful if You Have a Mate —What to Do
When You Don’t?
This was one of my most memorable Valentine’s
days ever. My wife, Carlin, and I went into town. I
dropped her at her hairdresser and I went and
bought a new pair of shoes. I had worn my Keens
down to the bone and I was pleased to find what I
wanted on sale. I picked Carlin up and she looked
fabulous, but she always does, even after being
married for 43 years. We went out to one of our
favorite restaurants, got a private table on the
second floor, had a glass of wine and a fabulous
meal. Next day, which was February 14th, I picked
up the gluten-free cake I had specially baked for
her with a special hand-made card from a local
artist. We enjoyed a lunch of our leftovers from
the night before and had a quiet day at home. To
top it off, it snowed, beautiful, floaty flakes. A
rarity in Willits, California.
But my romantic life wasn’t always like
this. If you have ever visited me at MenAlive.com
you will see my welcome video, “Confessions
of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.”
Before I got married the first time I was too young
and crazy to think much about Valentine’s Day.
Towards the end of my first marriage, I still
bought my wife a nice card every year, but the
stresses of earning a living and raising two
children had taken a lot of the passion,
creativity, and caring out of our marriage. We were
still a family, but we had lost something that we
never were able to retrieve.
After the divorce all I wanted to do was work
and forget the pain of a failed marriage and the
strain of being a part-time father with an ex-wife
who never seemed to be able to forgive me for not
being the man she wanted and needed. Truth be told,
she also couldn’t forgive me for my inability
to fill the hole in her soul that was left by her
father who had died of a heart attack when she was
seven years old.
Loneliness is a great motivator, but not always
a healthy one. After a short time I met a sexy,
exciting woman in the tubs at Harbin Hot Springs
and after a whirlwind courtship I asked her to
marry me. My close friends tried to talk me out of
it, but I didn’t listen. They were probably
jealous that I had…well who really knows what
they were really thinking. I should have listened
to my intuition that warned me that a woman who
slept with a gun under her pillow might not be the
ideal mate for an anti-war, peace-loving
pacifist.
But loneliness has a way of blinding us to what
is in our best interests. Falling in love is not
always easy to distinguish from falling in lust.
Love may not be blind, but my one-eyed friend,
particularly when he was aroused, was not always a
good guide to a hearts and flowers marriage that
grows stronger through the years.
In my book The Enlightened Marriage and my
course based on the book, “Navigating
the 5 Stages of Love,” I talked about the
challenges of Stage 3, Disillusionment, and how
loneliness can cause us to feel alone even when we
are in a relationship and can cause us to go
“looking for love in all the wrong
places,” the title of another book I wrote
when I was trying to figure out why my first
marriage had ended.
By now you’ve probably figured out that I
write in order to sort out my feelings and make
sense of my love life. It is a tradition I have
grown to love and respect. One of my friends, and
fellow writers, John David Mann, quoted Joan Didion
in a recent mailing.
“I write to find out what I
think,”
said Didion.
He also quoted William Faulkner:
“I never know what I think about
something until I read what I’ve written on
it.”
The quote I like best is from Ann Morrow
Lindbergh:
“Writing is thinking. It is more
than living, for it is being conscious of
living.”
How the Loneliness Epidemic is Undermining
Our Relationships
Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, the US surgeon general,
released a book early in the pandemic. He said that
the coronavirus pandemic has created a loneliness
epidemic.
“Social distancing, while
necessary from a public health standpoint, has
caused a collapse in social contact among
family, friends, and entire communities —
one that is particularly hard on populations
already most vulnerable to isolation.”
Those who have been following this trend have
recognized that Americans were experiencing high
degrees of loneliness well before the coronavirus
resulted in greater levels of social isolation. In
a 2018 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 22
percent of all adults in the US — almost 60
million Americans — said they often or always
felt lonely or socially isolated. The problem is
even more concentrated among older adults: A major
National Academies of Sciences report found that a
little more than a third of adults over the age of
45, and 43 percent of adults over 60, felt lonely
(other surveys have returned similar results).
The problem is even more pervasive and
destructive. In her most recent book, The Lonely
Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World
That’s Pulling Apart, Noreena Hertz, one of
the world’s leading thinkers says,
“Even before a global pandemic
introduced us to terms like ‘social
distancing,’ loneliness was well on its way
to becoming the defining condition of the
twenty-first century.”
In the book she shares stories of pervasive
loneliness: Carl, the Los Angeles executive so
lonely he pays to be cuddled. Eric, the Parisian
baker finding community in the political far right.
Peter, the London schoolboy distraught because no
one ‘likes’ his Instagram posts. Although
as a group males seem to be more isolated and
lonelier than females, this problem impacts both
sexes. The CDC released a report that shows that
teen girls across the United States are
“engulfed in a growing wave of violence and
trauma, as well as record levels of feeling sad or
hopeless.”
“This is not merely a mental health
crisis,” says Hertz. “Loneliness
increases our risk of heart disease, cancer, and
dementia. Statistically, it’s as bad for our
health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. This is
not just a crisis for individuals. Equally to blame
are the dismantling of civic institutions, the
radical reorganization of the workspace, the mass
migration to cities, and decades of neoliberal
policies that have placed self-interest above the
collective good.”
Noreena Hertz concludes saying,
“All around us, the fabric of
community is unraveling and our personal
relationships are under threat.”
In a Time magazine article, “It’s
Harder Than Ever to Care About Anything,”
Hertz says,
“It’s almost like we have a
choice to make. Are we going to consign and
resign ourselves to a life of increasingly
contactless encounters, in which we become ever
more isolated and ever lonelier? Or are we going
to commit to reconnect? My hope is that
it’s the latter. This demands action not
only by us as individuals, but also by
businesses and governments.”
The Evolutionary Purpose of Loneliness and
Its Solution
For most of human history humans were embedded
in a rich network of interpersonal relationships.
We had families of mothers, fathers, and children
who received support from extended family and
community. Times were often tough, but everyone had
a purpose in life and everyone felt connected to
others. That is how our ancestors survived over
millions of years.
Any disconnections that lasted more than a short
time created acute feelings of loneliness. Like
hunger that would get us up looking for food and
thirst that would send us searching for
life-sustaining water, loneliness was a signal to
reconnect. The problem in our modern world is that
loneliness feeds on itself. We become increasingly
fearful of others, afraid to trust others who could
give us the life-preserving connections we
need.
Here are my suggestions for healing:
- Recognize that loneliness is a call to
action. It is not a personal failing.
- We can begin immediately to reach out to
friends and family we trust.
- When we’re most lonely, we can help
someone else in need. Helping others reconnects
us to the world.
- Start small and build up your confidence.
Even small gestures of kindness, care, and
support can help you feel more connected.
- Together we can expand our circle of care,
connection, and love.
If you feel so moved, drop me a note to
Jed@MenAlive.com
and tell me what you are doing to combat loneliness
in your life. If you’d like to stay connected,
join our community to receive free weekly articles.
https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/
Are You a Master at Work
but a Disaster at Love?
I’ve always been successful in my work life,
but my love life has been a challenge. I had my
first job when I was eight years old. I recognized
that everyone I knew sent out Christmas or holiday
cards in December and I figured that I could make
some money selling cards to my neighbors. I found a
company that sent me a book of sample cards that
people could choose from, fill in the personalized
greeting they wanted, and pay me for the quantity
of cards they wanted. I sent half the money to the
card company and got to keep the other half. I made
enough money to buy presents for family and friends
and have a little left over to start the new year
off right.
That led to bigger and better jobs, first as a
paperboy and later I learned that I could make
money buying and selling coins. At age nine I took
the bus from our home in the San Fernando Valley
into Hollywood to go to coin shows. When I learned
that coin dealers at the shows got a discount
buying coins from other dealers, I had business
cards printed. “Jed Diamond, Dealer in Rare
Coins” and demanded my dealer discount when I
attended the next coin show.
I could go on and on about my business ventures
including becoming a successful marriage and family
therapist and author of seventeen books on various
aspects of relationship health including
international best-sellers such as Looking for Love
in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and
Sexual Addictions, my first widely read book that
spoke to problems I had gone through in my personal
life and what I had learned that would help
others.
In Looking for Love, I said:
“When we find that our romantic
relationships are a series of disappointments
yet we continue to pursue them, we are looking
for love in all the wrong places. When we are
overwhelmed by our physical attraction to a new
person, when the chemistry feels
‘fantastic,’ and we are sure that this
time we have found someone who will make us
whole, we are looking for love in all the wrong
places. When we are in a committed relationship
but find ourselves constantly attracted to
others, we are looking for love in all the wrong
places. When our desire for more sex, different
sex, or hotter sex, keeps us looking on-line for
our latest fix, we are looking for love in all
the wrong places.”
Like many of you, I did my share of looking for
love in all the wrong places. I even developed a
mathematical representation of it. We often view
marriage as a way to make us whole and complete.
The formula is ½ to ½ = 1. But I learned
that trying to get another person to complete you
actually creates a formula for disaster: ½ x
½ = ¼.
When you visit my website you’ll see my
introductory video, “Confessions
of a Twice-Divorced Marriage
Counselor.” I share what I went
through with a first marriage and couldn’t
survive the stresses of raising children and
attempting to stimulate our flagging sex lives by
exploring the world of polyamory and open marriage.
My second marriage was to a woman who slept with a
gun under her pillow…”to protect myself
from men,” she told me, should have been a tip
off to run the other way. But when you become
addicted to the rush of excitement and danger, we
become like confused homing pigeons flying headlong
in the opposite direction and soon crash.
The 5 Stages of Love and Why Too Many
Relationships Crash at Stage 3
Rather than follow my old pattern of going
through the grief of an ending, burying myself in
my work, eventually getting lonely, and going out
looking for love again; I tried something new. I
decided to do some serious reflecting on my love
life. I found a good therapist, attended a number
of retreats on trauma, healing, and how we can find
real lasting love, and took the time I needed to
sort things out.
Looking back, I realize I had taken the skills
that allowed me to be successful at
work—Learning from experts, engaging what I
learned, getting support, and creating a new way of
looking at my life—and applying them to my
love life. I’m more than happy to report that
“the third time was the charm.” Carlin
and I have been together for 42 wonderful years. I
wrote about what we learned in my book, The
Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages
of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to
Come.
We all want real, lasting love, whether we are
in our 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, or beyond. Yet too many
marriages fall apart and most people don’t
know why. They mistakenly believe that they have
chosen the wrong partner. After going through the
grieving process, they start looking again. But
after more than forty years as a marriage and
family counselor I have found that most people are
looking for love in all the wrong places. They
don’t understand that Stage 3 is not the end,
but the real beginning for achieving real, lasting
love:
- Stage 1: Falling In Love
- Stage 2: Becoming a Couple
- Stage 3: Disillusionment
- Stage 4: Creating Real, Lasting Love
- Stage 5: Using the Power of Two to Change
the World
Like many people I grew up thinking that love
and marriage were easy and straightforward. You had
fun dating until you met that special someone and
magically fell in love. You became a couple and
lived happily ever after. Clearly, real-life
wasn’t like that. After a certain amount of
time, we become disillusioned with our partner and
the way we are in the relationship, eventually
become more distant, and eventually things break
down.
Yet, it doesn’t have to be that way.
A Retreat for Men Who Have Gone Through a
Breakup, But Want to Learn the Secrets of Real
Lasting Love
For years, I offered counseling for men who had
gone through a breakup and wanted to come through
the grieving process with new understandings about
what went wrong and what they could do to create a
better future. I also counseled women, but I seemed
to attract many men. They were mostly over 40 and
pretty successful in their work lives but were
struggling in their love lives.
I also offered retreats for guys who wanted to
give themselves a true gift of love: Learning from
one who has been there the secrets of creating an
intimate partnership that not only lasts through
the years but becomes better and better.
Then Covid came to visit our world and we
couldn’t do our retreats. Now, for the first
time in a while, I will be offering a retreat for a
small group of men. And I will be joined by two
experienced colleagues, one male and one female, to
give the men an experience they have never had, in
a beautiful, and relaxed setting where they can
learn the skills they will need to have the
relationship they’ve always dreamed of
having.
The retreat will take place March 16-19, 2023
and will be for men who:
- Have been through a breakup, which could be
recent, or sometime in the past.
- May still be going through the
disorientation, pain, and confusion or may be
coming through to the other side.
- Are starting to reach out again or may even
be in a new relationship.
What you have in common is that you still
believe in love, but don’t have a lot of time
to waste. If this sounds like you, drop me a
note to Jed@Menalive.com
and put “retreat” in the subject
line. I will get back to you and set up a time
to talk in person, to hear more about your needs,
and tell you more about the retreat. We are
limiting the group to 12 men so you will get the
personal attention you deserve.
If this sounds like something you’d like to
do or if you know someone who might like to join
us, please pass this on. I look forward to hearing
from you. If you are thinking “next year,
I’m going to have the relationship I need and
want,” 2023 could be the year for you.
Navigating the 5
Stages of Love & Surviving the Turbulent Waters
of Stage 3 Disillusionment
Valentine’s Day is celebrated as a day of
love. For those who are in a loving, committed,
relationship it is a time of special gifts, cards,
and chocolates. For others, it is a time when we
dream about real lasting love and hope it will be
ours someday. Like many I grew up in a family with
a mother and father who had serious wounds in their
own families and the lessons I learned distorted my
love map.
For more than fifty years I have been helping
men and women learn from my mistakes as well as my
successes as a marriage and family counselor. If
you have visited me at www.MenAlive.com you
have seen my welcome videos, “Confessions of a
Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.” You also
know that I finally learned the secrets of real
lasting love and have been joyfully married to my
wife, Carlin, for 43 years now.
I share what we learned in my book, The
Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative States
of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to
Come. This is the time of year where I get a
lot of calls for private counseling. Women and men
in a relationship where they have been struggling
decide that this year things are going to get
better, or I’m getting out. Single men and
women decide, I’m going to find that special
someone that I can spend my live loving and being
loved.
I’ve developed a self-guided
on-line course for those who don’t need,
or can’t afford, private counseling but know
that they want more from their love lives than they
are getting and want to give more than they are
currently giving.
We all want real, lasting love, whether we are
in our 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, or beyond. Yet too many
relationships fall apart, just when the couple
could be enjoying their marriage the most. Most
people don’t know why. They become
disillusioned, frustrated, and lost. They have
fallen out of love and mistakenly believe that they
have chosen the wrong partner. After going through
the grieving process, they start looking again; but
often, their efforts end up in disappointment.
Those who have been in a relationship that has
gone bad still want love but don’t want to
repeat the same mistakes.
I’ve counseled thousands of individuals and
couples over the years. I’ve gathered together
everything I would have liked to have learned when
I was struggling in my past relationships and what
I wished I had learned before I jumped into a
second marriage. I put it all into a course,
“Navigating the 5 Stages of Love.”
You
can learn more here. In this season of love and
romance, many would like some real guidance to
unlock the mysteries of love.
The 5 Secrets For Finding Real Lasting
Love
Have you ever wondered why finding the
right partner and having a love life that is
passionate, nurturing, loving, and joyful has
been so difficult?
Do you ever feel like you repeatedly pick the
wrong person to fall in love with?
Have you ever felt like you are looking for
love in all the wrong places?
Are you in a relationship that started off
great, but seems to have lost something
vital?
If you answered “yes” to any of these
questions, you are not alone. I’ve been there
myself. Here are five secrets I’ve discovered
that helped me find real lasting love.
~ Love Secret #1: There are 5 Stages of Love
Not Just Two.
Many of us have come to believe that finding the
right person (Stage 1) is the most important stage
(Hence all the programs and dating sites that
promise to help you find your soul mate). Once
you’ve found that special someone, Stage 2
begins and you build a life together. We are told
we are then entitled to live happily ever after.
But that is not the case for most of us. Here are
the 5 Stages:
Stage 1: Falling In Love
Stage 2: Becoming a Couple
Stage 3: Disillusionment
Stage 4: Creating Real, Lasting Love
Stage 5: Using the Power of Two to Change the
World
~ Love Secret #2: Stage 3, Disillusionment,
is Not the Beginning of the End But the Entre to
Real Lasting Love.
If we believe there are only two stages for
having the relationship we’ve always wanted
when things start to go south we ignore the signs
or try to fix what is wrong. When things don’t
get fixed we often blame ourselves or our partner
and real we must get out of the relationship
because it seems that no matter what we do, things
don’t get better.
There is an old saying that can help us at this
point, “When you’re going through hell,
don’t stop.” Most people either stay
stuck in their pain or bail out. What is called for
here is to keep going. One of the most important
things I teach people when they come to me for
counseling is how to understand the value of Stage
3.
~ Love Secret #3: Stage 3 Teaches Us to Be
Real.
Falling in love is by necessity deceptive. We so
want to find that right person, we all project our
unmet needs and desires on them. We don’t see
the real person, we see what we want and hope to
see. We don’t fully share our real selves. We
share the parts of ourselves we think will be most
attractive to a potential partner.
In Stage 3 we learn to recognize our projections
and take the risk to slowly reveal who we really
are and accept the gift of who our partner really
is. We also recognize that there are unhealed
wounds from our past relationships, most
importantly from our first relationships—the
ones we had growing up in our first family with our
parents. We must get real with our past in order to
have the future we all want.
The famous psychiatrist Carl Jung said,
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become
who you truly are.”
This is never an easy task. Stage 3 can help us
release the illusions that keep us from our true
selves.
~ Love Secret #4: We All Have Faulty Love
Maps That Must Be Corrected.
Most of us grew up in families where we got a
distorted map of what real lasting love was all
about. There were beliefs about ourselves and
others that were implanted in our brains and became
mostly unconscious. We were implanted with
internalized messages that told us things like:
I am not safe.
I am worthless.
I am powerless.
I am not lovable.
I cannot trust anyone.
I am bad.
I am on my own.
As a result we become like confused homing
pigeons always flying ever faster towards addictive
and disastrous relationships and away from good
people and potentially wonderful relationships. It
is like having a compass that always seems to take
us South when we want to go North. Does that sound
familiar?
~ Love Secret #5: Real Lasting Love Requires
Three Simple Ingredients.
Most of us have no idea how to nourish a healthy
relationship. It’s as though we are given a
beautiful and rare flower, but me mistakenly give
it too much water or not enough. I thought all I
need to do when I got married was to be a good
provider and refrain from being mean and nasty (Oh,
and remember to shower regularly). But it took me a
long time to learn the simple, yet necessary
ingredients for real lasting love to flourish.
Psychologist, Dr. Sue Johnson, offers guidance
in her book, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for
a Lifetime of Love. She helps us remember these
three ingredients with one simple word:
ARE.
- A is for Accessibility: Can we reach each
other? This means staying open to your partner
even when you are tired, hurt, or insecure.
Answering “yes” to questions like: Can
I get my partner’s attention easily? Is my
partner easy to connect with emotionally?
- R is for Responsiveness: Can we rely on each
other to respond to our emotional needs?
Answering “yes” to questions like: If
I need connection and comfort, will you be there
for me? Does my partner respond positively to my
signals that I need them to come close?
- E is for Engagement: Do we trust our partner
to value us and stay close even when we are out
of sync with each other? Answering
“yes” to questions like, Do I feel
very comfortable being close to and trusting my
partner? If we are apart, can I trust that we
are still connected and cared for?
Most of us didn’t learn how to give and
receive real lasting love. We forget that like
food, we need these three types of nourishment
often, many times a day. A big splurge on
anniversaries and special occasions never makes up
for what we miss if we don’t get these regular
gifts of love every day.
I hope this was helpful to you. If you’d
like to receive the gift of having my on-line
course “Navigating the 5 Stages of Love,”
I think you will find it’s a gift that keeps
on giving long after you get it.
If you want to learn more about counseling or to
subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, come visit
me at www.MenAlive.com.
Saving Lives: Why Sex
and Gender-Specific Medicine Will Transform
Healthcare For Men and Women Part I
“We’ve had a unisex vision of
the human genome. Men and women are not equal in
our genome and men and women are not equal in
the face of disease.”—David C. Page,
MD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In September 1965 checked into my room at U.C.
San Francisco Medical School. I had just graduated
with honors from U.C. Santa Barbara and had
received a four-year, full-tuition, fellowship to
study medicine. I had planned to become a
psychiatrist and secretly hoped I would learn why
my father took an overdose of sleeping pills when I
was five years old and why my mother was
preoccupied with death, hers as well as mine.
Though neither my father nor my mother died back
then (they have since passed on), I never lost my
desire to understand men’s and women’s
physical, emotional, and relational illness and
health.
However, medicine at the time was too
restrictive for me. It assumed that the only
differences between males and females had to do
with our genitals and it totally neglected any
psychosocial factors that impacted our health and
wellbeing. I soon dropped out of medical school,
graduated from U.C. Berkeley’s school of
Social Welfare, and began working in the healthcare
field in 1968. I later returned to school and
earned a PhD in International Health.
Following the birth of our first son in 1969 and
our daughter in 1972, I stared MenAlive.com
as my “window to the world” for improving
the health and well-being of men and their
families. I read widely and shared what I was
learning in books and articles. My first book,
Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man was published in
1983. My seventeenth book, Long Live Men! The
Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan
Gap, and Offer Hope to Humanity will launch later
this year.
The Emergence of Gender-Specific
Medicine
Marianne J. Legato, M.D. is regarded by both the
medical and scientific communities as one of the
foremost experts on gender differences in the
world. I first became acquainted with Dr. Legato
and her work in 2002 following the publication of
her book, Eve’s Rib: The New Science of
Gender-Specific Medicine and How It Can Save Your
Life. “Until now,” said Dr. Legato,
“we’ve acted as though men
and women were essentially identical except for
the differences in their reproductive
function.”
Research findings and Dr. Legato’s own
experience as a clinician and scientist were
showing that these assumptions were not true.
“In fact, information we’ve
been gathering over the past ten years tells us
that this is anything but true and that
everywhere we look, the two sexes are startingly
and unexpectedly different not only in their
normal function but in the ways they experience
illness.”
Dr. Legato notes that it wasn’t only the
medical and scientific communities that were
challenging the old paradigms, but women were
calling for changes as well.
“It has been women
themselves,” says Dr. Legato, “who
have demanded a change in the way American
scientists and doctors do business. With an
increasingly more coherent and powerful voice,
women have forced the federal government and the
biomedical establishment it supports to define
the differences between males and females.”
There Are 10 Trillion Cells in Human Body and
Every One is Sex Specific
I learned in biology class that all humans have
23 pairs of chromosomes. The first 22 are
identical. The 23rd set are the sex chromosomes. If
we are biologically male, our 23rd pair are XY. If
we are biologically female they are XX. The
scientific assumption until recently was that any
differences between males (XY) and females (XX)
were limited to differences related to our sex
organs.
Another biomedical researcher who has been
working to better understand sex differences is
David Page, M.D. Dr. Page is a biologist and
professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). After Dr. Page won the MacArthur
“Genius Grant” in 1986, he was promoted
to the faculty of the Whitehead Institute and the
MIT Department of Biology in 1988. In 1990, Page
was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Investigator. In 2005 he was named as director of
the Whitehead Institute where he and his colleagues
have been studying the genetic differences between
men and women.
His particular interest and expertise has been
in studying the Y chromosome.
“There are 10 trillion cells in
human body and every one of them is sex
specific,” says Dr. Page.
I first heard about Dr. Page’s research
when I viewed a TED talk called “Why Sex
Matters,” which has now been viewed by more
than 2 million people. He contends that medical
research is overlooking a fundamental fact with the
assumption that male and female cells are equal and
interchangeable in the lab, most notably because
conventional wisdom holds that the X and Y
chromosomes are relevant only within the
reproductive tract.
“It has been said that our genomes
are 99.9% identical from one person to the
next,” says Dr. Page.
“It turns out that this assertion is
correct as long as the two individuals being
compared are both men. It’s also correct if
the two individuals being compared are both
women. However, if you compare the genome of a
man with the genome of a woman, you’ll find
that they are only 98.5% identical. In other
words, the genetic differences between a man and
a woman are 15 times greater than the genetic
difference between two men or between two
women.”
If we think that a 1.5% difference in our
genomes, isn’t a big deal, think again. Dr.
Page says I am as different from my wife
genetically as I am from a male chimpanzee, and so
are all other men. And my wife is as different from
me genetically as she is from a female chimpanzee,
and so are all other women. Being aware of our
differences and similarities are important.
“Men and women are also not equal
in the face of disease,” says Dr. Page.
“For instance, take the case of
rheumatoid arthritis. For every man with
rheumatoid arthritis, there are two to three
women that are affected by this disorder. Is
rheumatoid arthritis a disease of the
reproductive tract? No. Let’s flip the
tables and consider Autism Spectrum Disorders.
For every girl with this disorder there are
about five boys. Let’s look at Lupus, a
long term, autoimmune disorder with devastating
consequences that can result in death. For every
man suffering from Lupus there are six women
suffering from this disorder.”
Dr. Page goes on to say,
“Even when disease occurs in both
men and women with equal frequency, that disease
can have more severe consequences in one sex or
the other.”
We know, for instance, that with the Covid
epidemic, although both men and women could become
infected, men were more likely to require
hospitalization and more men died.
“So, all your cells know on a
molecular level whether they are XX or XY,”
says Dr. Page. “It is true that a great
deal of the research going on today which seeks
to understand the causes and treatments for
disease is failing to account for this most
fundamental difference between men and women.
The study of disease is flawed.”
“We’ve had a unisex vision of the
human genome,” says Dr. Page.
“Men and women are not equal in our
genome and men and women are not equal in the
face of disease.” Dr. Page concludes
saying,
“We need to build a better tool kit for
researchers that is XX and XY informed rather
than our current gender-neutral stance. We need
a tool kit that recognizes the fundamental
difference on a cellular, organ, system, and
person level between XY and XX. I believe that
if we do this, we will arrive at a fundamentally
new paradigm for understanding and treating
human disease.”
The Future of Healthcare:
I believe that gender-specific health care will
transform our world. I will be offering a training
program later this year for healthcare
practitioners who want to improve their skills and
expand their practice. If you are interested in
learning more, please send me an email to Jed@MenAlive.com
and put “Gender-Specific Healthcare” in
the subject line.
Is Your Love Life in
Transition? Make 2023 the Year of Real Lasting
Love
If you have been following my writing, you know
that I am a marriage and family counselor who
specializes in working with men. That reality is
surprising to many. When we think of love and
marriage, most people think, consciously or
subconsciously, that this is the province of women.
But here is a secret I’ve learned after more
than 50 years working with men, women, and couples.
Whether a relationship is successful and leads
to real lasting love or crashes in disillusionment
is primarily dependent on what the man does.
That’s right guys, you can make or break your
relationship.
One of my colleagues, Dr. Marianne J. Legato,
herself an expert on men’s and women’s
relationship, says,
“What men do in relationships is,
by a large margin, the crucial factor that
separates a great relationship from a failed
one. This does not mean that a woman
doesn’t need to do her part, but the data
proves that a man’s actions are the key
variable that determines whether a relationship
succeeds or fails, which is ironic, since most
relationship books are for women. That’s
kind of like doing open-heart surgery on the
wrong patient.”
I went through two marriages and divorces before
I understood that having a successful relationship
depended on me. Up until then, I assumed that if I
found the right woman then worked hard to be a good
breadwinner, that everything would take care of
itself. Or at least that my wife would know what to
do. I imagined that women, because of being women,
knew the secrets of love. My job was to find the
right one and then to live happily ever after.
Relationships don’t just fall apart. There
are always warning signs. But when we’re busy
working and we assume that relationship success is
women’s work, we miss the warning signs until
it is too late. I talk about my own failures when
people visit my website and see my introductory
welcome “Confessions
of a Twice-Divorced Marriage
Counselor.”
Although marriages can end at any time, they are
becoming increasingly common at mid-life. My
colleagues Jeff Hamaoui and Kari Henley at the
Modern Elder Academy have written a wonderful
article, “Anatomy of a Transition,” that
captures the craziness and confusion of what we go
through when a relationship has ended.
They describe 3 Stages: (1) The End, (2) Messy
Middle, and (3) New Beginnings. In each stage there
are three steps we must navigate. Together they
constitute a map that can help us navigate the
journey from an ending to a new beginning:
Stage 1: The End
- External Kick or Internal Shift
Some relationships end when we are kicked in the
teeth (or somewhat lower in our anatomy.
“I’m no longer in love with you.
It’s over. I want a divorce.” Or it can
happen with a more gradual internal shift when the
negative aspects of our love lives build up until
we can no longer ignore them and we know we have to
change or die inside.
We have invested a lot of our hearts, souls,
hopes, and dreams in our relationship and we all go
through a phase of denial as we try and convince
ourselves that it isn’t as bad as we think or
surely things will turn around soon.
Our feelings go up and down. One minute
we’re sure its over, but something good
happens and we’re sure things are turning
around and everything is going to be all right.
There is a line from a song that captured this time
for me. “We’re walking the wire of pain
and desire, looking for love in between.”
Stage 2: Messy Middle
This is the period of being in between.
It’s called liminal space. We know an
important part of our old life has ended but
don’t know what lies ahead.
- Being drawn back to what is familiar
Even when we know a relationship has ended, we
are drawn back to what we know. “Be it ever so
shitty, there’s no place like home.” Even
after I knew my relationship was over I kept being
drawn back in. This is particularly true if we have
children. They want us together, no matter
what.
When we’re in the soup, we feel like we are
coming apart. What we know has disappeared and who
we are is frightening and unfathomable. It takes
real courage, and more than a little help from our
friends, to keep us afloat and moving ahead.
This is the key to our survival. The thread is
our connection to our True Selves which is
connected to Source or Soul. When we are deeply
connected to the Life Force, we can never get lost.
We never lose the thread, but it can be hard to
find when we are in the soup.
Stage 3: New Beginnin
Beginnings are exciting and fragile things. We
are learning to get to know ourselves anew and are
ready for a new relationship with ourselves and
someone else.
After the end of a relationship, we realize we
are becoming a new person to ourselves and we need
to take time to get to know ourselves. This often
means reflecting on our lives, including our past
relationships and understanding why we got in them
and why we had to leave (even when we weren’t
the ones who initiated the ending).
You are in a new world. You’ve found your
wings and you are flying. You feel more complete,
whole, and healthy. You are in love with life and
you’re ready to share your love with others.
You’re in no hurry. You’re not starving
for love. You have love in your life, but you know
you want to share it.
We’ve all had that feeling when you know
everything is as it is supposed to be. There are no
mistakes in our lives. Everything is part of the
journey. What we thought was a disaster turns out
to be the gift of rebirth.
Looking back I realize I went through these
stages with my first two divorces. But I also have
come to realize that in a long-term marriage, we
can go through them with the same person. My wife,
Carlin, and I have been together now for 43 years.
We both realized that we change and become
different people and so our relationship has to
change.
We decided we needed to review and renew our
relationship every 15 years. This allows us to let
the old relation go and create a new one that fits
who we are now. We’re coming up on our fourth
marriage to each other. It is wonderful to know we
can go through the stages together.
Starting Over: Create an Inspiring New Story
After Your Relationship Ends
In March, I will be offering a 4-day retreat
just for men. I’m excited to be joined by two
colleagues and friends, Shana James and Mark
Pirtle. This retreat is for men who have been
through an ending and are ready to start anew. Your
ending may have been the end of a marriage or it
may have been the end of an old relationship, but
one where you two are still together, but ready for
renewal.
This four-day retreat is for any man who may
be…
In shock about what happened and why his
relationship ended.
- In shock about what happened and why his
relationship ended.
- Stuck in a loop and can’t stop thinking
about his former partner.
- Grieving, feeling the intense pain of the
ending of a cherished relationship.
- Trying to ground himself before he starts to
think about dating again.
- Exploring a new relationship but being
careful.
- Wanting to learn more about sex, love, and
intimacy.
- In a relationship that needs to end or
transform.
- Wanting to ensure that he has real lasting
love in the future.
Are you a man who is ready to have the
relationship of your dreams? Do you know a man who
is ready to learn about real lasting love? If you
are interested in knowing more about this retreat,
I will answer all your questions. We are limiting
the retreat to just 15 men and it is filling up
fast. Drop me a note to Jed@MenAlive.com
and put “men’s retreat” in the
subject line.
How to Become the Man All
Women Wish They Had
I was a junior in college at U.C. Santa Barbara
in 1964 when I saw Anthony Quinn in the movie Zorba
the Greek. I went to college to fulfill my parents
dream that they never achieved, but really to learn
the mysteries of life—in other words, sex,
surfing, and what it meant to be a guy who could
attract a girl who would be willing to have wild
sex in the surf with him. Zorba was my role model.
Let me confess at the outset, I failed at finding a
girl who would have wild sex with me (that would
come much later), but I never forgot what I learned
from Zorba.
There are four things Zorba loved more than
anything: Life, women, music, and his latest scheme
to succeed against all odds. At a time when most
film heroes were characters like James Bond who
killed bad guys and was only interested in women
for one thing (his love interest in Goldfinger was
named Pussy Galore. How did that get past the
censors?). Zorba was refreshingly different.
James Bond was one dimensional, Zorba was
complex. He was the kind of man all women wanted,
young, old, and in between. But he was also a
man’s man, and genuinely wanted to help his
stiff, young, English boss. Zorba (the character
based on the book from Greek writer Nikos
Kazantzakis) offers wonderful bits of advice that
have stuck with me for almost sixty years:
- “Since we cannot change reality, let us
change the eyes that see reality.”
- “The only thing I know is this: I am
full of wounds and still standing.”
And the one that still guides my life:
- “A man needs a little madness, or else
he never dares cut the rope and be
free.”
Becoming the Man You Always Wanted to
Be
I fell in love and got engaged during my last
year in college (I was 21, she was 18). We were
both naïve (how could we not be?) believing
that we had found everlasting happiness. Without
thinking about it consciously, we assuming there
were two stages for a successful relationship:
1. Fall in love.
2. Build a wonderful life together.
There was no need for more stages. We just
assumed we would live happily ever after. Life had
other ideas for me.
We had two children and got divorced just before
our tenth anniversary following three years of
conflict and recriminations. I quickly remarried
and was soon divorced again. Divorce is painful for
everyone. Our hopes and dreams of love everlasting
are dashed. For me, who had become a successful
marriage and family counselor, it was devastating.
How could I expect anyone who pay me for counseling
when I couldn’t even keep my own relationship
together? How could I keep saying I was a therapist
if my own love live wasn’t working?
I made a decision that changed my life. I
decided to quit my job as a professional counselor,
go back to basics and see if I could figure out
what it really meant to be a man and to have the
kind of relationship that I had dreamed of having.
I needed to make a living while I was figuring it
out, so I got a job at Howard Johnson’s
restaurant doing the early morning shift that no
one wanted.
I stopped looking for women. What woman would be
interested in having a man whose job was serving
coffee and serving food to travelers who were still
asleep when they stumbled in? I also went into
therapy myself and read everything I could find
from experts who actually were practicing what they
preached to others.
I also reflected on what Zorba taught me. After
a lot of dark and depressing times feeling like a
failure at the two things that Sigmund Freud said
were the cornerstones of our humanness, “Love
and Work,” I got back in touch with Life. I
went for long walks on the beach and learned to
meditate. I read “The Course in Miracles”
and joined a weekly group of people who sang
together. All of these things were a bit crazy for
me.
I was a city kid who was uncomfortable in
nature. I thought meditation was boring and
couldn’t keep my eyes closed for more than a
few seconds, a racing mind, I believed, would
somehow get me someplace worthwhile. I didn’t
believe in miracles or God. My parents were Jewish
by birth and culture, but political activists by
inclination and atheists by training. If you
can’t see him, touch him, prove
him—believing in God or Goddess is
unscientific and a waste of time.
I began writing my thoughts and feelings in a
journal, which really seemed crazy to me. It
eventually turned into a book, my first, called
Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man. Instead of going
out looking for women, I joined a men’s group,
which was really crazy. What heterosexual man would
rather be in a men’s group than chase women?
Being in the group changed my life and we’ve
continued to meet regularly since we began in
1979.
Finding My Soul Mate Instead of a
Playmate
I was ten years old in 1953 when a
twenty-seven-year-old nerdy sociology student at
Northwestern University named Hugh Hefner started
Playboy magazine. He put a racy picture of Marilyn
Monroe on the cover and added some philosophy about
sexual freedom. The first printing of 50,000 copies
sold out overnight. Playboy bunnies and Playmates
of the Month became the dream lovers of boys and
Peter-Pan men who never wanted to grow up.
By the time I met Carlin, I had gone through two
marriages and divorces (Check out my
“Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage
Counselor” at MenAlive.com). I had given
up the search for the perfect partner, but I
retained my vision of the kind of girl who had the
right chemistry to turn me on—younger than me,
shorter than me, if not a Playmate of the Month, at
least one of the cute bunnies (I mean, if a nerd
like Hugh Marston Hefner could spend his adult life
surrounded by bunnies, I could find at least one
for myself, I hoped).
Carlin and I met at the dojo in Mill Valley. I
had begun practicing the non-violent martial art of
Aikido (most of my macho friends went in for more
kick ass practices like karate or Kung Fu). She was
introduced to me by a mutual friend. I was
friendly, but clearly she wasn’t my type. She
wasn’t cute or bunny-like. She was pretty in
an exotic kind of way that was attractive, but
confusing. But she had one quality that was clearly
a deal-breaker. She was a few inches taller than me
(and I found out later that she was also a few
years older than me).
But a very strange thing happened. We ended up
going to the same retreat (turned out the friend
who introduced us, knew I was going to this retreat
and suggested it to Carlin). We kept running into
each other and some crazy magic began happening. I
put my conscious mind to sleep (really a crazy
thing to do for me), quit ruminating, comparing her
to others, comparing myself to some ideal, and just
lived in the moment and enjoyed being alive.
Without judgement about her or about me, whether
she was sexy enough or if she was my type, or mine
hers, we just got to know each other (and in the
process ourselves). We even talked about our
judgements and the stereotypes that told us who we
should be attracted to and how we should feel. We
stopped trying to be the people we were supposed to
be and started enjoying being ourselves.
We’ve been married now for 43 wonderful
years. We’ve had our ups and downs, like all
couples, and we are still learning about love. I
wrote a book about our continuing journey. The
Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages
of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to
Come.
If you are a man, or know a man, who has been
through a relationship breakup (or more than one)
and is ready to explore and learn what it really
means to become a man who can attract a true
soul-partner, I will be leading a 4-day retreat in
March, along with two colleagues, I’ve known
for years. If you are interested in learning more,
let me know. It will be limited to a small group
of men who are ready for real lasting love. It is
for a few good men who aren’t afraid to
explore their little bit of madness. If this
sounds like it might be you, drop me a note to
Jed@MenAlive.com and put “Soul-Mate Man”
in the subject line. I’ll send you all the
details.
You might also enjoy my recent article,
“Are
You a Master and Work, But a Disaster at
Love?”
Man Therapy: Training
Health Practitioners For the Future
When I began medical school in 1965 I had a vague
notion that I wanted to become a healer and a
subconscious desire to help men. It soon became
clear that the medical education at U.C. San
Francisco was more limited than I had hoped and I
transferred to U.C. Berkeley where I eventually
received a master’s degree in social work.
During my three years in graduate school, I not
only broadened by knowledge of the psychological,
interpersonal, social, cultural, and spiritual
aspects of health, I also better understood my
interest in men’s health.
I was five years old when my father took an
overdose of sleeping pills because, as I would
learn later, he had become increasingly depressed
because he couldn’t make a living doing what
he loved to support his family. He was committed to
the state mental hospital in Camarillo, north of
our home in Los Angeles. It is the same hospital
where the 1948 movie, The Snake Pit starring
Olivia de Havilland, was filmed. I still remember
the terror I felt going every Sunday with my uncle
to visit my father in the mental hospital beginning
in 1949. I watched as his depression worsened and
his mental health declined.
I grew up wondering what happened to my father,
whether it would happen to me and what I could do
to help other men and their families. I graduated
from U.C. Berkeley in 1968 and started MenAlive in
1969 following the birth of our first son. I became
a psychotherapist and soon specialized in working
with men and their families. After practicing for
34 years, I returned to graduate school and earned
a PhD in International Health in 2008, at age 65
(we joked that my “retirement” party was
also my coming-out party as a doctor.) My
dissertation study, published with the title,
Male vs. Female Depression: How Men Act Out and
Women Act In, answered many of the questions I
had been wrestling with since childhood and
expanded my focus on gender-specific health
care.
The Emerging Field of Gender-Specific
Medicine and Health Care
Marianne J. Legato, MD, is an internationally
renowned academic, physician, author and lecturer.
She pioneered the new field of gender-specific
medicine. She is a Professor Emerita of Clinical
Medicine at Columbia University College of
Physicians & Surgeons and an Adjunct Professor
of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School. Dr.
Legato also the founder and director of the
Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine, which she
created in 2006.
In her 2002 book, Eve’s Rib: The New
Science of Gender-Specific Medicine and How It Can
Save Our Life, she says,
“Eve’s Rib is not just about
women’s health, but about the health of
both sexes and the new science of
gender-specific medicine. Until now, we’ve
acted as though men and women are essentially
identical except for the differences in
reproductive function. In fact, information
we’ve been gathering over the past ten
years tells us that this is anything but true,
and that everywhere we look, the two sexes are
startlingly and unexpectedly different not only
in their normal function but in the ways they
experience illness.”
Although Dr. Legato’s first book focused
more on women’s health, her subsequent books
expanded her focus to men. Why Men Never
Remember and Women Never Forget was published
in 2008 and explored the ways men and women are
different and how those differences impact our
relationships. She acknowledges the ways in which
discussing sex and gender differences can be
misunderstood.
“I have taken a number of risks in
writing this book,”
says Dr. Legato,
“and I wish to acknowledge them
right at the outset. For instance, there is a
tremendous risk in categorizing certain
behaviors as ‘male’ or
‘female,’ as I do throughout the book.
There is a cautionary skit in Free to Be You and
Me in which two babies (played to great effect
by Marlo Thomas and Mel Brooks) argue about
whether they’re boys or girls. Boys can
keep secrets, and they’re not afraid of
mice, so the Mel Brooks baby, who can’t and
is, must definitely be a girl—right? The
debate continues until the nurse comes to change
their diapers, which settles the matter once and
for all.”
Legato obviously was willing to take the risks.
She concluded in the book’s introduction,
“Whatever speculation I have
engaged in over the course of the pages that
follow is in the service of a larger concept:
the ideas that, whatever our differences, there
is much that men and women can learn from one
another.”
Dr. Legato is not the only clinician and
researcher to take the risk to tackle sex and
gender issues. There are many, including David C.
Page, MD. Dr. Page is professor of biology at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and
director of the Whitehead Institute, where he has a
laboratory devoted to the study of the
Y-chromosome.
“It has been said that our genomes
are 99.9% identical from one person to the
next,”
says Dr. Page.
“It turns out that this assertion
is correct as long as the two individuals being
compared are both men. It’s also correct if
the two individuals being compared are both
women. However, if you compare the genome of a
man with the genome of a woman, you’ll find
that they are only 98.5% identical. In other
words, the genetic difference between a man and
a woman are 15 times greater than the genetic
difference between two men or between two
women.”
Dr. Page, like Dr. Legato, demonstrates that
even small differences can be important.
“There are 10 trillion cells in
human body and every one of them is sex
specific,”
says Dr. Page.
“So, all your cells know on a
molecular level whether they are XX or XY. It is
true that a great deal of the research going on
today which seeks to understand the causes and
treatments for disease is failing to account for
this most fundamental difference between men and
women. The study of disease is flawed.”
In looking ahead to the future of
gender-specific healthcare, Dr. Paige is
hopeful.
“Here’s what I think. We need
to build a better tool kit for researchers that
is XX and XY informed rather than our current
gender-neutral stance. We need a tool kit that
recognizes the fundamental difference on a
cellular, organ, system, and person level
between XY and XX. I believe that if we do this,
we will arrive at a fundamentally new paradigm
for understanding and treating human
disease.”
The Moonshot Mission for Mankind and
Humanity
Our Moonshot Mission for Mankind and Humanity
launched in November 2021 when I invited seven
colleagues who lead programs focused on men’s
health to join me and work together to improve
men’s health. The mission was inspired by the
research of two colleagues, Randolph Nesse, MD and
Daniel Kruger, PhD examined premature deaths among
men in 20 countries. They found that in every
country, men died sooner and lived sicker than
women and their shortened health and life-span
harmed the men and their families.
Based on their research Drs. Nesse and Kruger
concluded with four powerful statements:
- “Being male is now the single largest
demographic factor for early death.”
- “Over 375,000 lives would be saved in a
single year in the U.S. alone if men’s risk
of dying was as low as women’s.”
- “If you could make male mortality rates
the same as female rates, you would do more good
than curing cancer.”
Drawing on my own clinical experience and
research over the last fifty-plus years, I wrote,
Long Live Men! The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men,
Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope to
Humanity. In it I detail the reasons why I
think improving men’s health is not only good
for men, but also good for the well-being of women
and children. In order to achieve our Moonshot
Mission, I believe we will need to train 1,000,000
more practitioners who are skilled in treating
men’s mental, emotional, and relational
health. Here are some of the courses that I would
hope would be included in such a training.
- How to Be A Good Man In Today’s
World.
- The World We Live In: Chaos, Collapse or
Transformation.
- Why Men Live Sicker and Die Sooner Than
Women and How We Can All Live Fully Healthy
Lives.
- Keeping Your Balance in a World Turned
Upside Down.
- Tipping the Scale Towards Partnership and
Away From Domination.
- Man Therapy: A New Gender-Specific Approach
For Healing Men’s Mental, Emotional, and
Relational Problems.
- Breaking Free From the Man Box of Restricted
Beliefs About Being Male.
- Accepting the Gift of Maleness in a World
Confused About Sex and Gender.
- Why Men Are the Weaker Sex and How Our
Strength Comes From Accepting Our
Vulnerabilities.
- Testosterone: The Holy Grail of Manhood For
Better or Worse.
- Accepting the Biological Differences Between
Males and Females Can Liberate and Empower Us
All.
- Loneliness: The Male Malady That is Killing
Millions Every Day and How to Heal.
- Joining a Men’s Group: The First Step
For Reconnecting With Our Manhood.
- Healing Our Anger Towards Women and
Recognizing Our Fear of the Feminine.
- Embracing the 5 Stages of Love and Why Too
Many Men Get Lost at Stage 3.
- Recognizing Our Adverse Childhood
Experiences (ACEs) and Addressing Old
Wounds.
- Healing Our Inner Trauma as We Heal The
Environmental Trauma We Have Created.
- Understanding and Healing the Father Wound
and Becoming the Father and Man We Were Meant to
Be.
- Warriors Without War: Finding the Path of
Courageous Action For Good.
- Accepting the Increasing Pain and Suffering
of Many as We Continue to Do Our Part to Heal
Ourselves and Others.
- Embracing Our Unique Mission in Life at This
Time in Our Evolutionary History.
If you would like more information about
upcoming trainings for practitioners working in the
field of men’s health, drop me an email to
Jed@MenAlive.com
and put “Man Therapy” in the subject
line.
Help Us Heal The
Males
For more than fifty years, I have had one goal:
Healing men and the families who love them. I
founded MenAlive
in 1972 following the birth of our son Jemal and
our daughter Angela. Like all parents I wanted my
children to grow up in a world where fathers were
fully healed and involved with their children
throughout their lives. In 2019 I invited a small
group of colleagues to join me in creating a
Moonshot
for Mankind and Humanity.
When I began my work there were very few
programs that specialized in gender-specific health
care and we the information we had about how to
help men was limited. That has changed. There are
literally thousands of programs that specialize in
helping men and their families and we know a great
deal about how to address many of the major
problems facing humanity.
In a recent article, “The
Man Kind Challenge: Why Healing Men Will Do More
Good Than Curing Cancer,” I said that male
violence was one of the most significant problems
facing humanity and preventing male violence was
one of the most important things we could do to
improve our world and make it safer for our
children, grandchildren, and future
generations.
There is an African proverb that says,
“The child who is not embraced by
the village will burn it down to feel its
warmth.”
We don’t have to wait for the next mass
shooting to be reported in the news to know that
there are a lot of wounded, angry, and violent
males who don’t feel hope, love, and support
from their society.
A number of years ago, The World Health
Organization issued a report, “World Report on
Violence and Health” that took a comprehensive
look at violence world-wide. In the Foreword to the
report Nelson Mandela says,
“Many who live with violence day
in and day out assume that it is an intrinsic
part of the human condition. But this is not so.
Violence can be prevented. Violent cultures can
be turned around. In my own country and around
the world, we have shining examples of how
violence has been countered.”
The report breaks down violence into three main
categories:
- Self-directed violence.
- Interpersonal violence.
- Collective violence.
Self-directed violence primary involves death by
suicide. Interpersonal violence occurs most often
in families, but also includes violence in
communities. Collective violence involves conflicts
between groups and includes genocide, terrorism,
and war. Women certainly can be driven to
violence, but violence is primarily a problem for
men. Males do most of the killing and males are the
majority of those killed.
Male Violence and Mass Shootings in
America
Although mass shootings constitute a small part
of the violence in the world, understanding them is
important because they can help us better
understand violence of all types. Perhaps more than
any man, Mark Follman can help us understand male
violence. He is a longtime journalist and the
national affairs editor for Mother Jones magazine
and author of the influential book, Trigger
Points: Inside The Mission to Stop Mass Shootings
in America.
I recently interviewed Follman and gained new
insights about what how we can prevent male
violence. You can watch the full interview
here.
Follman just wrote a new article, “The
Truth About Stopping Mass Shootings, From Sandy
Hook to Uvalde” which offers new insights that
can help us create a more peaceful world in the
coming years. He says,
- “Progress begins with rejecting the
longstanding narrative that mass shootings are
inevitable and will never cease, a theme
reliably delivered after each horrific tragedy
with the political cri de coeur that
‘nothing ever changes.’ The assertion
that mass shootings are an inherent feature of
our reality is in its own right fueling the
problem, in part by validating this form of
violence in the eyes of its perpetrators, who
seek justification and notoriety for their
actions.”
He goes on to say,
“Now, a decade after Sandy Hook, a
spate of gun massacres in 2022—including
another nightmare at an elementary
school—has only further clarified how
America can and should think more broadly about
confronting this distressing problem.”
Preventing Male Violence Begins With New Hope
and Real Facts
“A decade after Sandy Hook, a
spate of gun massacres in 2022—including
another nightmare at an elementary
school—has only further clarified how
America can and should think more broadly about
confronting this distressing problem,”
says Follman.
If we think mass shootings are an inevitable
part of life and nothing can be done to prevent
them, we will mourn our dead, look for someone to
blame, and go back to business as usual. If we
refuse to see violence as a male problem, we will
fail to address issues of male hopelessness,
depression, and rage.
Mark Follman offers the following facts and some
specific solutions.
- There have been five devastating gun
massacres since May 2022.
- All five attacks—in Buffalo, New York;
Uvalde, Texas; Highland Park, Illinois; Colorado
Springs; and at the University of Virginia in
Charlottesville—were carried out by deeply
troubled and aggrieved young offenders, ages 18
to 22.
- All showed various combinations of the
following warning signs ahead of time.
Aggression and other behavioral and mental
health troubles.
- Observable deterioration in life
circumstances.
- Various forms of communicated threats.
- Focus on graphic violence, misogyny, and
ideological extremism.
- Planning and preparation for the
attacks.
Follman offers following solutions:
1. Shift away from the heavy overemphasis on
active shooter response—lockdown drills and
the various “target hardening” measures
of physical security—to a greater emphasis on
active shooter prevention.
- Invest in mental health care and
community-based violence prevention, including
behavioral threat assessment programs, which can
have a broader benefit of helping foster a
climate of safety and well-being, from corporate
and college campuses to K-12 classrooms.
- Raise the age requirement for gun buyers
from 18 to 21.
- Expand the use of extreme risk protection
orders, a policy known as red flag laws, for
temporarily disarming individuals deemed through
a civil court process to pose a danger to
themselves or others.
Man Therapy: An Innovative Community Mental
Health Program
Man Therapy is a unique and innovative program
that addresses these issues. I first heard about
the work of Man Therapy when I met its founder and
creator, Joe Conrad in November, 2021.
“We realized early on that if we
waited until men were in crisis, we would be too
late,”
says Grit Digital Health Founder and CEO, Joe
Conrad.
“I have always felt that
creativity, innovation, and communication could
solve any challenge. From the beginning, our
team set three goals for Man Therapy:
1) Break through the stigma surrounding mental
health by making it approachable.
2) Encourage help-seeking behavior.
3) Reduce suicidal ideation.
“Through research, men told us to
just give them the information they needed to
fix themselves, so we built a website that
provides a broad range of information,
resources, and tools to do just that. It is
extremely rewarding to know that we are
accomplishing our goal of positively impacting
and changing men’s lives.”
Those of us who work in the field of men’s
mental health, know there is a strong relationship
between violence turned outward that leads to
problems like mass shootings and the violence
turned inward that leads to suicide.
Man Therapy has been doing great work for some
time.
“Man Therapy was launched in
2010,”
says Joe Conrad,
“and has had more than 1.5 million
visits to the site. Visitors have completed
400,000 ‘head inspections’ and there
have been 40,000 clicks to the crisis
line.”
A recent A CDC-funded study shows that men who
access Man Therapy, as a digital mental health
intervention, experience a decrease in depression
and suicidal ideation, a reduction in poor mental
health days, and an increase in help-seeking
behavior. Additionally, this study shows that men
in the Man Therapy control group reported
statistically significant improved rates of
engaging in formal help-seeking behaviors through
tools like online treatment locator systems, making
or attending a mental health treatment appointment,
or attending a professionally led support
group.
For more information: Man Therapy: https://mantherapy.org/,
Mark Follman’s work: https://markfollman.com/,
my free weekly newsletter, https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/.
©2023 Jed Diamond
See Books,
Issues
+ Suicide
©2023 Jed Diamond
See Books,
Issues
* * *
Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau
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