The New Warrior Training Adventure

I went to the mountain with men as a child, I came back shell shocked and feeling closer to a man than I ever had. I even saw tough wannabes quit after the second day.

I don’t remember ever being told that I am not allowed to cry but I remember feeling like it was not ok. I remember being told how to act like a “man” when I was an expression of femininity as a child. I remember military training that taught me how a “man” shows up in the world. Through MKP I have learned, truly, how a man shows up for himself and, in turn, the world. This group of men has taught me how to love, and be loved, by men, without exception or expectations. The New Warrior Training Adventure (NWTA) weekend was one of the most powerful and transformative weekends of my life.

After doing the New Warrior Training Adventure in 2012, I felt comfortable calling myself a man for the first time. I’ve recommended MKP to dozens of friends, clients, and colleagues as I know that they are a safe place for any man to land. There is very little work out there that is like it and I recommend it for every man in the world, regardless of your life’s circumstances.

I went on this retreat through this thing called the ManKind Project. Everyone challenges each other and has deep, authentic conversations. Going through that made me realize that we’re so much more alike than different. I came out of that feeling incredibly connected with the world.

The New Warrior weekend was one of two major pinnacles in my life. My heart and soul, the essence of my being has been permanently made more integral and congruent. I’ll carry the love and gratitude for all the men who loved the hell out of me for the rest of my life.

A ‘veteran’ of self-help books, ‘healing’ workshops, and personal development courses, I felt powerless to consistently extend myself to be the ‘me’ I wanted to be. At 41 I needed to regain some of that elusive courage and self-belief I demonstrably had years ago. Several ‘things’ in the MKP New Warrior Training Adventure literature ‘spoke’ to that part of me that wanted to be more than my current lot. I took the plunge, enrolled, and attended what remains the most transformative and empowering experience-bar none I have ever experienced. Simply put, the MKP Initiation is a highly evolved and purely spiritual ‘initiation’ into the sum of the best that Mankind has ever been, and has potential to become;- it’s the ‘ignition’ a truly ‘connected’ man must experience to connect and remain in tune with the sacred mature masculine energy which permeates our world. It is ‘essential’ men’s business, as practiced throughout the history of mankind prior to its suppression in recent centuries through excessive religious practices and over-rationalism.

MKP was something I needed and I didn’t realize how badly I needed it. I came out of the weekend a much better person than the one that arrived on Friday afternoon. I want this to stick. I want to continue to grow as a man, because this feels good

MKP changed my life. I now know what accountability, integrity and mission really mean. I practice the skills I learned at MKP every single day. I know what it means for me to be a man with all the honor, responsibility, accountability and emotions that go with that.

I initiated in 1994 with my brother Corky. In 1995 we brought our father Herb to a weekend. He was 67 years old and had done a lot of internal work in his life. Jim Coleman facilitated his work and had the wisdom to recognize that he had been around the block. His guts work was to tell a love story of our mothers passing and what he did to grieve and move through his loss. The entire room was bawling. When he entered the New Warrior community he took on the role as ideal father for many men. When he became ill with cancer, that is when I became fully aware of what this community meant to me. Men literally carried me through his death. The outpouring support for him and our entire family was and still is one of the most profound expressions of love I have ever experienced. I am eternally grateful to all the New Warriors that have taught, shaped and evolved me into the man I am today.

“The NWTA and the follow-up group work has been a major part of the change that has occurred in my life these past nine years. This organization has provided the space for me to claim my place in this world as a man whose is gay. I denied that part of myself for so many years, but realized I was not in integrity with my core being. Since I have embraced that part of myself and have learned to love that part of who I am, I have become a much happier man and I believe a better Dad, brother, son, educator, and friend.”

At 47 years of age I had enjoyed a great career with financial success, a great wife and two wonderful healthy children yet I kept asking myself “is this all there is?” I really had no mission or purpose and couldn’t figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Then a man I worked with invited to the New Warrior Training Adventure. It was truly a transformational weekend and allowed to look at what wasn’t working in my life. The only regret I have is that I didn’t do it much earlier in my life. I came away with a mission and connection with other men that I cherish.

After doing the weekend, I am spiritually uplifted … and loving every moment of this day. I now have a huge desire to return and help other men with their work. My chest hurts with the opening of my heart. I have been needing this since I was 15, I have been looking for this since I was 28, and I finally found it at 41.

“The weekend began as a group of somewhat cynical strangers and ended as a band of brothers. I left the weekend with a profoundly new sense of what it means to be a man and a new understanding of how I can be of service to others and be supported by others. I feel a new energy and excitement about discovering who I am and what I can do on this planet. The weekend cleared my head of lots of crap accumulated over the years and brought me back to some basic values that I hadn’t even realized were forgotten. I wish I had done this years ago.
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The Mankind Project has offered me the space to really understand what the mature masculine is all about, and, more importantly, to find that part of myself and to live it in a confident way as a husband, a father and a professional person.

MKP changed my life in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. At the time I did my weekend I owned my own company, had done quite a bit of self discovery work, and didn’t know I was missing a key piece of what I now believe it means to be a man. It’s made a tremendous difference in my relationship with my girlfriend, my father, and my friends. And I am so grateful.

I didn’t realize it at the time I went to the training, but I didn’t trust men and definitely didn’t know how to love them or to see men as anything but a threat. Through this work, I’ve learned to truly see men for all that they are, and to love them just like they are.

After 3 failed relationships, 2 failed businesses and sinking into depression, partying and running away from major responsibilities, including 3 sons, I was finally ready for something different in my life. I had no clue what it meant to be a man and how important it was to my self-esteem to be accountable, responsible, and congruent in my actions. My warrior brothers supported me in my self-forgiveness, shame and not good enough self lies. My life today is full of successes, abundance and gratitude.

MKP gave me the opportunity to live a life of connection with the world around me, rather than isolation and fear. Before my NWTA, I had everything I had hoped for — a prosperous career with an incredible salary, success over years of addiction, material possessions — but I was still alone and in fear. I was afraid to let go of the dream and hope that eventually my father and uncles were finally going to step forward to show me how to be a man. Instead, I have elders and brothers in MKP who WANT to connect with me on this level. I now am able to help the next man living that same life of isolation and fear that crippled me.

MKP has created a space for me to look at all parts of myself, to see what’s working and not working in my life, and to connect with a powerful, healthy circle of men whom I trust and love.