I've been working with men for years, and there's one wound that shows up in almost every conversation, every coaching session, every retreat I run. It's the father wound, and I knew the men in this community needed to hear this conversation with Melanie Curtin on Dear Men. Because here's what I've learned: you can do all the work in the world, but until you address this gaping hole of nutrients we didn't get from our fathers, you'll keep hitting the same walls in your relationships, your career, your sense of self.
What really struck me in this conversation was how much this wound lives in the nervous system. I've done all kinds of work, therapies, medicines, different modalities, and sometimes it's almost annoying how it still comes back to that thing I didn't get from my dad. That presence, that energy that helps us learn to be masculine in the world and handle ourselves.
We got into some specific patterns I see constantly. The freeze response when you don't know how to do something. That deep anxiety about getting it wrong. The way some guys never left the mother because they had no father to go to. And on the flip side, the high achiever dad who's hyper involved but has zero curiosity about what you actually want or feel.
One thing I shared was this experience on a men's rafting trip where I realized I was literally positioning myself to avoid doing anything I didn't know how to do. I had to sit down with my guys and say, I need your help this weekend. I need permission to ask really mundane, dumb questions. It was vulnerable as hell, but so freeing.
We also talked about anger, which for a lot of men gets cut off because of what they saw from an aggressive dad. But clean, open hearted anger is just deep caring. It means you really care. And if you want to be an impactful masculine leader, you have to be able to access that energy. Even if it's just learning to say no. Or back off. That's a boundary. That's saying this isn't okay and I'm standing up for something more.
This is a big part of why men's work matters so much right now. We're missing that cross generational connection. Those imprints of what's possible. I remember watching one of my early mentors handle conflict in a group and thinking, that's how I want to be when I'm old. You can get these imprints from other places when you didn't get them from your dad.
If this resonates and you want to do this work, check out what we're doing at evolutionarymen.com.
