NOW HOLDING OPEN CIRCLES:

1st and 3rd Wednesday of every month
6:30 – 9:00 PM
380 Union Street, West Springfield MA (at A to Z Movers, look for the moving trucks and the Charle’s Diner)

Contact me directly for more information: boysen[@]h2-om.com. I also encourage you to join our www.meetup.com/openmen group to stay up to date with our meetings.

Open Men has now been running for almost 1 1/2 years. I am pretty proud of that. Our circle of men has grown larger and stronger and more committed. I hope that in 2010 you will make the choice to check us out.

We don’t try to make friendships … we make powerful bonds between men, whether they like each other or not.  A ‘regular guy’ can step into this space and be feel empowered to tell the unvarnished truth about his life. We’re not here to put on a show for each other. We’re not here to set ourselves up in opposition to a perceived ‘other’ in the world. We’re not here to offer salvation. We’re here to cut through the bullshit that we’ve been taught are the fundamentals of being a man. We’re here to step through the fear of showing up authentically, warts and all, in our lives and loves. We’re here to find and explore our self-made purpose.

• If you struggle with commitment, with discipline, with emotional honesty, with feelings of powerlessness or inadequacy, with anger, frustration, depression – this is a kind of bonding that will help you break old patterns and find YOUR PLACE in a community.
• If you are outwardly successful and looking to become more integrated with other parts of  your life – this is a place to come and explore, refine and express the other parts of yourself that may be hiding out in the shadows.
• If you have never felt safe or at ease in a group of men - this is a place to figure out why and to change that. Your success depends on your efforts.
• If you are a change agent, a man working with others for the good of society - this kind of bonding is essential to your efforts to create sustainable solutions in the world.

Without moving beyond ‘connection by cause’ and into ‘bonded commitment’, efforts to create and sustain community will fail … over and over and over. Movements fail not because of the lack of good ideas or even good organization, but because of the lack of mature bonding – the kind of connection that allows groups to overcome personal and psychological blocks and resolve interpersonal conflicts in a way that is energizing rather than draining to their efforts.

This is what we’ve been doing for 25 years in the ManKind Project. This is what we strive for in Open Men.

Is it easy? Hell no. Becoming a mature man isn’t easy. That’s why most men act like immature boys when faced with tough issues – emotional issues.
Is it worth it? Hell yeah. Making this commitment to yourself can change everything in your world.