90 Days of ILP

As men, we'd like to get to the point of things. As such, at Thursday's third meeting of the weekly Men's Integral Life Practice Group, we decided to shorten the unwieldy name to the brusque "Man Night". Have a better idea?

Now then, this was the first Man Night where we would hold each other accountable to the practice goals we'd set for ourselves the week before (which were written on the "man board" with the "man pen" the previous week). Guess what? Everyone did theirs! A most auspicious beginning. A couple elements of goal-setting:

1) There seem to be two or more types of goal setting. What we're working with so far are a) one-time accomplishments (i.e. get the gym membership, call the girl, sell the car) and b) ongoing, longer-term goals (i.e. getting in shape, creating a healthy relationship, achieving financial stability). For now, the practice group "man board" format seems best suited for the former.

2) We'd like to trust each other, we really would. But men need proof, tangible evidence, and most of all, measurements to show themselves and each other that real accomplishments are being made. "Energetic" accomplishments are airy fairy and intangible: give us something we can hold! While some of us indeed provided tangible evidence (a gym membership card, a cover letter to be submitted with a short story), other goals are going to be harder to concretize.

3) Celebrate your accomplishments! Each man got a round of applause and some hoots and hollers: this helps create a positive feedback loop (?), a subtle system of reward given to good deeds.

Now then, at Meeting #3, following the sharing of accomplishments, we brought up our issues of the week, and moved towards a general topic to address in the vein of issues associated with integral masculinity (what that means, of course, is the whole point of the group in the first place. As of right now, we don't know!). After a few go-arounds, a theme emerged: the ability to draw boundaries with members of the opposite sex (or whoever you may be attracted to), to be able to show both love and to assert one's purpose and mission in the world.

One participant gave a brief run-down of the David Deida 3-stage model (real brief: Stage 1 men are dickheads, Stage 2 men are pussies, and Stage 3 men are sensitive men who get things done), and then gave us all an injunction: find a way to respond with a compliment to the women (or whoever) who are challenging us in our lives, and follow it up with a statement asserting a boundary. For some of us this was harder than it is for others.

The group then focused on the romantic difficulties of a certain member, who is looking for advice on how to find women to date. Our advice? Forget bars and parties: find a club, class, or activity, or better yet: start your own.

Following this, we decided on our goals for the next week, made high-fives all around, and went out into the cool night air, barrell chests thrusted forward, fists at our sides, and manly grunts ringing from our mouths, ready to take on the world.

Man Night!