Conscious Masculinity - Be Of Service

Okay, well, Cadre sphere. I am doing 2:15 on a Saturday in Portland, Oregon. I'm at a conference. It's called the All Addictions Wellbriety Conference. Very powerful conference. It is, I think, one of the only national indigenous Wellbriety conferences in. Wellbriety is the Native American term for sobriety. I'm honored to be on the board for White Bison, which is an organization that serves the tribes in this country as well as indigenous communities around the world. And I just spoke on a panel about compassion and compassion resilience.

And, yeah, it's a real honor to be here at this conference, especially as a white man being welcomed into the community. So today is conscious masculinity, right? The first Saturday of every month, focus on conscious masculinity. And the. I'm about to fall down the stairs if I don't back up. The idea that I wanted to talk about today is this idea of service, right? Be a man of service. And what does that look like? And I got a chance to talk a little bit about that, although I wasn't kind of gender focused when I talked about it on this panel just recently.

And I'm going to be brief because they're getting ready to do an elders panel. One of the elders is just a wonderful woman, Henrietta Mann. Look her up. Amazing woman and a sweetheart and my buddy. And so I want to hear her panel. But, you know, part of the idea is like, how, like, how are you of service? Like, men, for instance, are great at doing things for other people. You know, oftentimes with a little bit of control, a little bit of paternalism, a little bit of arrogance, but sometimes of true humility and service.

Right? And that's the. That's the optimal. That's the ideal, is that that's what we can get to, Right? But it can. The concept of service, for me at least, can get very distorted. You know, sometimes service felt like a punishment. It's kind of weird, right? But I think that just kind of speaks to how selfish and egotistical I was, hopefully was. And. But there's also the line in recovery that says if it's not inconvenient, it's not service. And so that's an interesting part of it, Right? But what does it mean, like, for men to be of service?

Well, one of the ways, I think, for men to, like, truly be of service is to look at all of our g****** privilege and entitlement that some of us have, because there's no way you can truly be of service if you're not looking at that. If you're not somehow chipping away that. Because it follows us, and it follows us wherever we go. So it's like this question of, like, what does it mean for me to truly be of service? Am I doing it for my own benefit? Well, usually there's a selfish purpose. Is it inconvenient?

You know, am I. Am I telling people about it? Am I doing it for show? Am I making sure people know that I've been of service? That's just ego. That's more stuff, right? That reinforces some of the negative aspects of, I think, masculinity and that sort of thing. But, you know, the question for me, you know, what's the line as well? I got a couple of folks in my life who are dealing with the addiction of loved ones, and they're like, well, I want to help them. I'm like, I'm sure you do. And you can only help them so much because we just don't know.

That's where a spiritual component for me, has so much value. I don't know. The anniversary of my father's death 30 years ago was this past Monday, and I did a live stream about Recovery Month, and I did a piece about that because it was very powerful. And then that night, I wrote a gratitude list about him that blew me away because of, like, what it said. Now, that's not the script that I wanted to write for my relationship with my father. We had a horrible relationship. I got into recovery, and I saw the possibilities.

And I even saw men, fathers and sons in recovery having relationships. And I thought, well, that's what we're destined for. And I was just over a year sober when he drank himself to death. Death. So then the question is, right, how was I being of service to him? And was I able? Could I have saved him? Was I supposed to save him? Well, from a spiritual perspective, all I know is that his death had a profound impact on me positively, as far as my sobriety and me choosing sobriety. So the point is, is we can't hang on too tight from this perspective of service, thinking that we know what's best for someone and what they're supposed to do and how they're supposed to act and how they're supposed to live.

That's not being of service, I don't believe. Right. Being of service is serving somebody and also ensuring that they have the right to the dignity of their own experience. And so that's, I think, for men, what we get to really, really look at. Can we let go of thinking we have the answers for everybody. Can we let go of thinking we know what somebody has to do and truly, truly surrender to the idea that there's something that could guide us? That there is, I believe, a divine plan, divine something not necessarily like from a fatalist perspective, but a divine something divine guiding all of us.

And if I can tap into that and be guided by that, it's a pretty beautiful thing. So that's. Those are my thoughts on this day. Coming to you live from Portland, Oregon. If you're not familiar with white bison. Thanks, Jen. Nice to see you. Or, you know, kind of see you. And yeah, those are just some thoughts. And if you're not familiar with white bison, check them out. org and if you're not familiar with their conference, you can find out about their conference as well. And I wish everybody a wonderful Saturday.

Take care. And I guess as we say, we'll see you next week on the kadrasphere.