Picture…
A circle of men holding space for one another as we cry, wail, scream and release emotions we’ve been taught would make us weak or dangerous.
Four men spending an hour taking turns offering each other gentle touch while humming and weaving simple songs together.
Two men looking each other in the eyes, offering words of affirmations.
Fifteen men surrounding one, singing to him as fifteen pairs of hands held his body while he collapsed into waves of profound grief.
Men playing games, laughing until we cried, crying some more, and then finding our way back to joy.
Men gathered around a fire, offering one another sound baths to help move emotion through our bodies.
Men dancing, celebrating our love for each other.
Men moving our bodies, trying to get out of our heads and listenin to the wisdom of embodiment.
Men modeling self-accountability and offering genuine apology.
Men standing in circle, arms around one another, meeting each other’s gaze as we sang, “what if this is what it means to be a man?” after six-days of exploring the fullness of our experience as men.
If you can picture these moments, you’re getting a glimpse of what I witnessed at the 2026 Men Raised as Men Jam, which I just returned from.
And we jammed so hard.
“Sacred masculinity” can sometimes feel like a fantasy. A thing we say because we know we need some alternative to the toxic masculinity we are so often presented with as the only way of being “a man.” Yet for six-days, surrounded by the quiet strength of the redwoods, we lived it.
If these six-days were even a glimpse of the kind of masculinity that is possible, I came home restored with so much more faith in our future.
The Men Raised as Men Jam
I’ve written about Yes World’s Jams extensively. They continue to be among the most important spaces I’m privileged to be part of. A couple of times a year, I get to step into a time machine - a place where I can briefly inhabit a world that feels like a fantasy centuries away.
In the fall of 2019, I joined a small group of men - cisgender and trans - who gathered to imagine a Jam centered on masculinity.
What began as a conversation about “men” quickly became a deeper question: Where do we begin?
As we wrestled with that question over the months that followed - and through a pandemic that reshaped much of our lives - we came to believe that one meaningful place to start was with a particular shared experience: being assigned male at birth and being socialized as boys, and later as young men.
This wasn’t to suggest that this experience defines manhood, nor that it is the only story worth exploring. Masculinity is far more expansive than any single pathway into it. Rather, we recognized that the conditioning many of us receive while being raised as boys carries particular wounds that deserved focused attention.
Out of that discernment, the Men Raised as Men (MRaM) Jam was born – an opportunity to gather around a shared experience rather than a shared identity. This, we hoped, would be the first chapter in a broader vision to host a series of Jams exploring masculinity from many different lived experiences.
During that season, I stepped away from the team. It was partly that my own life circumstances required my energy in other places. And partly, I was more interested in the broader questions of masculinity.
But earlier this year, as the team prepared for the second MRaM Jam, two organizers stepped away and I was invited to return. I took some time to reflect before saying yes.
And I’m so grateful I did.
Countering the Manosphere
One reason why I believe this conversation is so necessary is because men are struggling. Traditional models of what it means to “be a man” are beginning to break down everywhere.
Women and queer folks are inviting us to step out of the boxes that we have been trapped in for generations. And while this journey will ultimately be liberating for people across the gender spectrum, it can be scary to feel like the walls that we have lived inside of our entire lives are starting to corrode.
The deeper inside of this box we have lived, the scarier it is because it is the only reality we have ever known. This means that this journey of gender liberation that we are on can be particularly scary for cisgendered, heterosexual men.
And for the most part, the political Right has been much more effective in speaking to those fears. For most people in the mainstream, the only voices addressing the concerns of young men are the hyper-masculine ones emerging as a panic-zone reaction to that change. These are reactionary voices that, out of fear, cling to the safety of the old box, desperately demanding that we crawl as deeply back into it as we can.
The “manosphere” as it has come to be known, is a dark and dangerous place, filled with repression, resentment and violence - towards self, to women, to queer folks. It is the world of MAGA, Jordan Peterson, the Tate brothers (who were, ironically, arrested days before our Jam), of rising authoritarianism around the world.
It disguises itself in seemingly harmless messages telling young men to “take care of yourself,” “claim your agency” and “eat well and exercise.”
As the comedian Ronnie Chieng describes in a stand-up special,
“You look up how to lift weights, right? You press enter… It’s some guy doing kettle bell swings...
And then like 30 seconds into the video, he just like suddenly just stops and he looks really sad and he puts the kettle bell down and he looks straight into the camera and he’s like, ‘Yo, guys, just real talk for a second. All right, kettle bells are great, but I just want you guys to know that a healthy body starts with a healthy mind.’
And all the men watching this are like, ‘Yeah, yeah, that makes sense... Tell me more, kettle bell swinging guy…’
And so what do you do? You watch his next video on autoplay…. Then here comes the YouTube algorithm with a suggested video... And then a week later, Jordan Peterson’s telling you that women use makeup to control men. And then five weeks later, you’re storming the capital dressed like a buffalo…
We all know someone who lost their F_ing mind on that men’s self-help Andrew Tate masculinity YouTube self-help algorithm.”
Outside of the progressive bubble that I often find myself in, these voices that blame women and queer folks for all that is wrong with the world are often the only voices that is speaking directly to the fears of young men.
We desperately need alternative narratives that affirm these fears, but also remind them that courage is not possible without fear. And by leaning into what feels scary, rather than lifting weights, shooting guns and pretending we are not scared, we can break through and move closer to the liberated forms of masculinity that I got to experience at the Jam.
The Tao of Gender
Recently, I participated in a gender workshop where we broke into three groups: men, women and nonbinary. While I understand the value of these breakouts, I found that it unintentionally created another false binary: that you either exist in the binary of male/female, or you do not.
Because I don’t identify as “nonbinary,” I had to place myself into the binary category of “man,” rather than exploring in what ways my identity is fluid within the spectrum of gender experience.
I identify as a man. I feel comfortable with that identity. But what does that even mean?
What I mean, I think, is that I am far enough along the spectrum of gender identity that the lable “man” feels comfortable for me, much like someone who is 6”4’ might be comfortable with the label “tall.”
But these labels are contextual. There are people taller than 6”4’, an if that person played in the NBA, they might be the shortest player on the team. Similarly, there are people who embody more traditionally masculine traits then I do. In fact, in some aspects of our relationship, my partner, who was assigned female at birth, exhibits characteristics that would be considered more “masculine” than mine.
So what does all of this mean?
One framework that we explored at the Jam comes from Taoism, which teaches us that the universe emerges out of the constant, dynamic dance between yin and yang energies.
Yin energy is often associated with water, moon and night. It is soft, yielding, receptive. It listens, restores, gathers. It is intuitive, reflective and is associated with the feminine.
Yang energy is associated with fire, sun and day. It is firm, assertive and expressive. It speaks, initiates and expands. It is analytical, decisive and is associated with the masculine.
Yet Taoism never asks “is this yin or yang? Are you one or the other?” The deeper question is, “in this moment, what energies do you have access to? What does this moment require?”
Yin and yang are not fixed identities. They are constantly moving through us. Each contains the seed of the other, as represented by the small circle of the opposite energy contained within each side of the yin/yang.
When one reaches its extreme, it begins to move towards the opposite.
After the summer solstice, the height of yang, the nights begin to grow longer. The moment the tide reaches its highest point, it begins to recede. At the top of each inhale, the body begins to exhale.
This is also why the laughter (joy, yang) that follows a good hard cry (grief, yin) can feel so pure. Why rest (yin) can feel so good after a day of intense activity (yang).
It’s also important to note that yin and yang are not associated with value judgements. Neither is inherently good or bad, stronger or weaker. Each has healthy and unhealthy expressions.
We may think of water as weaker than stone, but water carved the Grand Canyon.
Nothing in the world
is as soft, as weak, as water:
nothing else can wear away
the hard, the strong,
and remain unaltered.
Soft overcomes hard,
weak overcomes strong.
~ Verse 78 of the Tao Te Ching (Ursula K. Le Guin’s interpretation)
Yin’s softness can become weakness, stillness can become avoidance, curiosity can become indecision. Water can cool, and it can drown.
Yang’s firmness can become domination, activity can become burnout, and decisiveness can become control. Fire can warm, and it can burn.
Many Taoist practitioners describe our current moment as one of hyper, wounded yang energy. A culture organized around extraction, speed, competition, control and domination has pushed these qualities to the extreme.
Healing from this doesn’t require rejecting yang. It requires restoring balance through the cultivation of healthy yin: through rest, grief, mutual aid, building community, sitting in silence, deeply listening, working with the earth.
Yet the gender binary we inherit often tells men that these qualities are not available to us. That if we embody softness, receptivity, intuition or vulnerability, we somehow become less of a man. Simply by expressing energies that already exist within all life, our identity and belonging can feel threatened.
At the Jam, we explored this through an activity where we removed the terms “masculine” and “feminine,” and instead placed our bodies along the spectrum of yin and yang energy. We reflected on prompts like: What is our relationship with leadership? Conflict? Decision making? Intuition? Anger? How do we hold our bodies? How does the world perceive us?
The hope was that by recognizing the many ways yin and yang energies move through us, we can learn to accept and love all parts of ourselves without fearing that doing so would threaten our belonging as men.
Is My Anger Safe?
Another theme that emerged was the message many of us received that our anger is dangerous, and that if we express it, we will hurt others and risk our own belonging.
This is a message that people across the gender spectrum are receive, but it takes on a particular shape for those of us socialized as men. Many of us are taught that tenderness is something to hide and anger is the only emotion we are permitted to express. At the same time, we are warned that our anger is something to fear, and that it must be controlled and contained.
The result is that many of us carry enormous reservoirs of unexpressed rage. Multiple men shared that they were filled with anger but did not feel safe releasing it. They feared what might happen if they allowed themselves to fully experience its intensity.
So we screamed.
From the depths of our bellies, we screamed. We allowed the sound of our rage to move through us, and we witnessed each other in that rawness. Not as something to fix or suppress, but as something to be held.
During one session, a small group gathered to explore ways of expressing anger in healthy ways. At the same time, another group met to explore grief rituals. As the session unfolded, the group exploring rage realized that the conversation could not be separated from grief. The two were intertwined so deeply that we needed to bring the groups together.
So often, rage is the doorway through which we access grief. And other times, our grief is so deep and so painful that it disguises itself as anger – something that feels more protected, more socially acceptable.
From that realization, we were guided through a ritual designed by Joanna Macy called the Truth Mandala. This practice invited us to release our grief: an emotion that Joanna taught us is not a weakness, but the “measure of our connection to each other.”
We expressed our rage: an emotion we are told only hurts people, but one that Dr. King taught can be transformative and healing when rooted in love.
We embodied our fear: something we are told to never be, even as we are told we must be courageous. But courage is not the absence of fear. It is the willingness to feel fear and speak our truth anyway.
We voiced our loss and confusion: releasing the pressure of always having to have all the answers, allowing the wisdom of mystery to enter the emptiness.
Power without love is reckless and abusive, while love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This became a space to speak truths that are rarely given room to emerge. A space to be witnessed, not for our accomplishments, identities, or our ability to hold it all together, but simply for our humanity.
There was something profoundly beautiful about witnessing a group of men trust each other enough to let go. To put down the armor. To allow ourselves to be scared, hurt, grieving, even broken. In that moment, our grief and our anger were no longer something to fear. They became doorways into connection and ultimately, love.
What If This Is What It is…
Towards the end of our gathering, a song came to one of the leaders of the Jam.
Standing together in a circle, he led us in singing these words over and over:
What if this is what it is to be a man?
What if this is what it is to be a man?
What if this is what it is to be a man?
What if all of what experienced at this Jam was what it is to be a man?
What if being a man means accepting all parts of ourselves on the continuum of yin and yang? The softness and the firmness. The vulnerability and the fierceness. The intuition and the analysis.
What if being a man means that we are allowed to express all that moves through us? The grief and the joy. The rage and the silliness. The confusion and the certainty. The loss and the gifts.
What if being men means we can hold each other, dance together, be accountable to one another, and witness each other in our rawest moments without trying to fix anything?
What if masculinity is not something we have to prove, defend, or protect, but something we can inhabit fully, with tenderness and courage?
And if this is what it means to be a man, then the possibilities for healing, belonging, and connection are endless.
Men learning to regulate, apologize and lean on other men seems a hell of a lot more useful than another lecture about “female nature.”
Aloha Kazu, this post resonated with me. There are so many connections to my Hawaiian culture about the flow with gender identities. No judgement, just flow.