I was never entirely comfortable in just the company of men – I was yearning for a woman to make it better for me, to return to the womb perhaps… So in many ways the warrior weekend was my male initiation. It gave me so much to be thankful for. And it was absolutely essential I did this integration first and learned more about my own King, Warrior, Magician, Lover.
It was the most profound weekend of my life so far. I hope writing about it will reinforce the changes it has led to and help strengthen the resolve of other brothers to pursue and maintain changes they wish for in their lives. I went on the weekend hoping to practise and get better at socialising with other men. I came back being better able to be myself in front of other men, in front of myself, in front to colleagues, in front of friends and in front of strangers.
…..And there, beside the tie, is a little reminder of my Adventure weekend - a necklace, of sorts! I stare at it for a few seconds and then pick it up. It goes around my neck, and a couple of days later I have a job offer. What exactly was the connection of my reminder is thing though? Why was I so drawn to it, and what did I draw from it? A few months later I think I can answer that question. To me, it links me back to the place where I felt the strength of other men behind me and where there were times when I felt strong within myself. So now, when I start to feel angry or frustrated, both of which still happen, I have somewhere else to go for strength.
One of these dreams is having the clearly defined mission I was looking for. There are some men around with these kinds of mission; they are beautiful and I do admire them, but I am not that kind of man and only if I life my truth can I give my gift to the world. To do this I must accept that my mission right now is not clear or static. I must pay attention to the every changing plethora of micro-adjustments that allow my core urges to express themselves, and I must follow them until I know myself inside out.
Before I began, I looked each person in eyes and held their gaze for a moment to help calm me down a little. I spoke of my anger, my rage. My shame. I felt shame about not being able to be the dad I wanted to be, shame about letting my children down, shame about letting my partner down and screwing another relationship up.The men worked their magic. The processes held me. My anger was discharged. My shame was extracted. And as I fell into that emptiness, I found support. As I fell, men held me, picked me up, filling me with love for myself and for my fellow men. In that moment I realised why was there: To Wake Up!
Just under two years ago, I had a life transforming moment. I was sitting in the South Bank in London, with friend and fellow warrior Nicolas when he asked me whether I was ready to write a book about the alternative approaches I had developed to running my business, Thornton's Budgens, a supermarket in North London.
And indeed, I was - the title rolled off my tongue: "How To Put The Heart Back Into Business".
As it happened I was just heading off to India on a sabbatical. I spent the first week in Goa, in the monsoon, the only guest in my hotel, with chronic diarrhea - the universe was telling me I needed to be alone and reflect. And in that alone time, I became clear that this was my life purpose.
From that emerged my mission - "I create a heartful world by encouraging people to open their hearts, starting with my own."
Over the eight years of Thornton's Budgens, we have created what we call "The Community Supermarket That Really Cares". Which means we put people and our planet first, trusting profit will follow - with people being anyone who works in our company and those in our community.
In that role we have done seemingly crazy things, like setting up a farm on the roof of one of our stores, as well as more sensible things like reducing our energy consumption by more than 50% and showing the global supermarket industry that putting doors on their chiller cabinets does not in fact cost you sales while substantially reducing your carbon footprint.
With our people, I realised that what we needed to do was to create a "safe container" at work. So that, just like in an iGroup, everyone would feel safe to share, without fear of judgment or rebuke. What I also saw was that the key to a thriving company is truth; and that to speak your truth, you need to feel safe.
A recent Radio 4 programme on Secrets, looked at the opposite of truth, offering evidence that holding secrets is psychologically damaging and can impact on your ability to work. Conversely, sharing something with someone creates a shared bond.
This is of course not surprising news to you Warriors, but it is to the business world. Can you imagine if you were as free to be you at work as you are at your iGroup?
To help create this safe environment we developed the Heart Programme that encourages team members to open their hearts, by creating a safe environment for them to fully show up.
It is based on the work of environmental activist Joanna Macy and involves four steps - gratitude, feeling the pain, seeing with new eyes and action. We start with a meditation and sharing that would not look out of place in an MKP Circle.
Through the heart programme's sharing circles and the use of a talking stick, which ensures everyone gets to speak without interruption, people feel valued, get to contribute their ideas and have an input into the direction of the company.
And it works - since we implemented this we have got straight 100% scores in our "mystery shopper" scores (we used to get very inconsistent scores) and our sales have increased by 6%.
We are in the process of setting up a Council that will become the policy making body for the company, which will see 5 or 6 team members sit along side the three existing board members.
Inspired by Darshita Gillies, we intend to have at least one Millennial on it. These are people born between 1990 and 2000, who have a very different outlook on work and what they want from it - a "civic-minded generation with a strong sense of community both local and global".
We are even considering having representatives from other stakeholder groups - customers, the community and someone representing the environment.
And we are in the process of redefining roles so that everyone does only what they love to do.
I am so excited by the prospect that soon I will only be responsible for our vision and purpose, innovation and the conscience of the company! It is what I love to do and it gives me space for another chapter: the development of Heart in Business Limited.
I formed this with 6 others all from MKP, Celebration Of Being, Nobleman, or Embercombe connections – including Nicolas of course! We started last year with a mission: "Heart in Business Limited will enable companies to put people and our planet first, trusting that profit will follow."
In this way, I can get closer to my life purpose by sharing my experiences with others.
So why, I hear some of you ask, does this matter? Well, if you look at the latest Gallup Poll on workplace satisfaction, it shows that globally 87% of people are emotionally disconnected from their work.
And since we spend half of our non-sleeping time at work, this may explain the amount of turmoil there is in the world right now.
As businesses employ such a large percentage of the workforce globally, we can do something about this. In fact, I would argue that it is our duty to do something about it.
The good news is that most studies examining the profitability of companies who look beyond maximising shareholder value and consider their wider stakeholder base, have shown that doing this delivers better financial results.
"The dream of Heart in Business Limited is that companies put people and our planet first, trusting profit will follow. The dream is of companies where we have a purpose, companies where we make a broader contribution to society and see the world beyond the next set of quarterly profits. Companies where we consider all our stakeholders – our employees, our community, our planet and of course, our shareholders.
Companies where we care about the impact on people, whether those people work in our company, are customers, or live in the community in which we operate.
Companies where everyone is doing the job they want to do rather the one they are good at, where there is passion, authenticity and love; where we are all making a difference, where we are all heard and understood, where we all hear and understand our colleagues.
Companies where there is heartfelt leadership, where we co-create plans and where wealth flows. Companies where people can be themselves, without fear of judgement or punishment.
Companies that care about our planet, who consider future generations; companies that take into account what we are leaving behind for our children and grandchildren.
This is our dream of how companies will thrive in the future, indeed some companies already are.
In fact at Heart in Business Limited, we believe it is the only way forward."
I am encouraged not to be alone on this journey, sharing the vision with other great movements such as Conscious Capitalism, the Blueprint for Better Business, B.Corporations and The B-Team.
I believe that now is the time for change - and that more and more businesses are ready for that change.
So I end with a request, knowing of course that the answer might not be yes! I need to get this message to business leaders - so if you are involved in organising business speaking events, or know contacts who are, or if you lead a business which you would like to be more heartful, then please get in touch!
To find out more, look up heartinbusiness.org or contact andrew3@heartinbusiness.org.
Andrew Thornton
Two days after leaving Dartmoor, where I’d done The ManKind Project’s PIT training, I found myself on my surfboard, waiting for the next set of waves to swell. Maybe 20 feet away, swiftly with complete grace, two dolphins sprang from the water right before my eyes. For that brief moment we occupied the same space. In the same way, my PIT journey was like those jumping dolphins between the spaces of ride-able waves in my life. I’ve heard stories of surfers and dolphins riding the same waves together. I’ll let you imagine that, and my intended future journey with MKP.
On my Adventure weekend, the ManKind Project had accepted me and my differences. The ManKind Project "walked the talk" for me. It was incredibly healing. I know that many men come to the weekend feeling different or outside the mainstream. For me, The ManKind Project (MKP) does a good job at accepting and integrating all men, but as we say, "the journey continues", and there is more to do. For me diversity work is about stretching my capacity to understand and tolerate difference and in this regard it helps me in my day-to-day relationships. I want to learn more about sitting with the discomfort of difference and not shutting down when I experience it.
As the ManKind Project's weekend Adventure unfolded, I came to see how each and every one of us goes through something that causes suffering. And this was an enormous relief to me - to discover that I was not alone. And I also came to see that men who I had always thought of as being better and more capable than me were wounded in deep ways too, that in fact we had much in common, that they also had their own wounds holding them back.
To Be In or Not To Be In So I'm an initiated man. It's been ten days since the ManKind Project UK & Ireland's Adventure weekend (once known as the New Warrior Training Adventure) and a week since the homecoming party.
For me, the weekend was an intense release of some extremely destructive energy I'd held since childhood.
Energy that had prevented me from becoming a man, holding me in a Peter Pan-like place, alternating between a toddler and a raging teenager.
And despite an incredible journey through life prior to the Adventure, a journey that encompassed extremes of near death, insight, intellectual enlightenment, profound love, and loss, my life always seemed like a lie, a long dark night of the soul.
I expect everyone is different; perhaps for some the Adventure is a beginning, for others a point on life’s journey, albeit I suspect a big one. For me it was an ending, a final end to something that had held me in its power for most of my life.
For all of my adult life I'd sensed a lack of access to my manhood - or at least what felt like my manhood: a way of acting in the world as a mature character.
No matter what I did I always felt like the showy teenager, the eager young dog keen to please, wanting acceptance that was never to be found.
Until the ManKind Project Adventure weekend. There I found it.
Videos about The ManKind Project UK & Ireland
And it was nothing like I'd have expected. But what is initiation anyway? An opening of a door into an unknown realm only I could step through, perhaps. But no one could show me; no one could take me there. It was my journey, and mine alone.
In one way, the process itself is simple: give a structure and a story to the deep forces of the psyche, and they can manifest and heal themselves in the ways only they know how.
Modern terms like the Unconscious, the Ego, the Id, don't really cut it. For me, this was and is primordial. It's beyond words and reason, primeval in a hardwired, timeless way.
This is how a boy is transformed into a man. It is alchemy at the purest and most real level. A spiritual transformation of the highest order.
To use a modern allegory: it was like I'd had a light sabre since I was young, a magic box transforming all my emotions and experiences, both bad and good, into a brilliant and powerful light. But the lens at the end of the device was blocked from an early age. And so a pressure built up, an infinite amount of pressure. Not knowing the source of this pressure caused confusion and stress….. until some kind men showed me the blockage, showed me that somehow a load of crap had gotten dumped over the lens, that there was a shadow blocking my light.
And when this shadow was recognised and cleared away, the light sabre came alive.
Now its light could be put to good use, warding off the shadow and manifesting the vision for this being (me) with the power of infinite light, infinite love.
Oh, sure, it's gonna take a little practice to get the parry and thrust up to scratch. Maybe mastering it will take the rest of this lifetime. But at least the damn thing is working now and the interminable pressure is gone.
A New Warrior is born.
Video About the UK ManKind Project
Celebration
I found the celebration to be an affirmation by my family and others who attended. And also by me, confirming my acceptance into the world as this new story unfolds, as this new warrior archetype develops.
Now I had a place in the world, an ancient place, a place held by my ancestors, going back to time immemorial. I can see how valuable this is to those men, both young and old, who just cannot find their place in this world, yet who keep banging on all the doors, never finding what they truly seek, instead finding misadventure, hurt and pain.
Yeah, I like this new story! I hope it continues to grow and spread and does not get lost again in the quagmire of humanity's shadow. I think we can all see the consequences of that playing out around the world right now.
The Challenge
How symbolic that Nelson Mandela should pass the day after the celebration for Newly Initiated Men.
What his passing signified to me was almost an offer, a request, not just to me alone but to all men and women, the question being: "Can I step up and be like him? Can I rise above the pettiness of the world and lead a life from my true heart? Can I endure hardship and not felt hard done by? Can I rise in the face of inequity and injustice and do the right thing?"
Perhaps, by seeing the shadow in my own heart I can seek to remedy my ways, to eradicate evil and be a servant to love. While Nelson may be gone, the world sorely needs a billion or two like him, so I'm in! Anyone care to join me?
"Sid" - Initiated Dec 2013
