Men are often generalized to only possess sheer masculine energy: strategic, firm, and linear. However, every man is also built with his own share of the feminine energy: connection, understanding, and beauty. Principle consultant and coach Bodhi Aldridge joins Daniel Weinberg to discuss how men can balance these two energies to understand their life purpose, get through the rough midlife crisis, and appreciate the importance of vulnerability. Bodhi also presents practical tips for men to connect with their feminine energy to improve their relationships and elevate their self-love methods.
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Bodhi Aldridge
We have a conversation with Bodhi Aldridge. We go deep on what it means to be doing the work and coming into your masculine and feminine energy. Here’s my conversation with Bodhi Aldridge.
Bodhi, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. I’m well over here in Oz. The weather’s good. Surf’s good. Life’s good.
Where are you exactly?
Just North of Byron Bay.
The Four Stages Of The Hero’s Journey
Let’s jump in. You’ve had a very colorful life. You had a career as a lawyer for quite some time and then you did a big switch, big transition. Do you want to walk us through that whole process and what brought you to where you are now?
One of the maps I teach and use is my interpretation of the Hero’s Journey, and I’m sure we’ll talk more about that on the show. The way I have filtered the contemporary Hero’s Journey because a lot of the readers would be familiar with the phrase and the Hero’s Journey is slightly different.
Can you explain? When you say the Hero’s Journey, why don’t you explain to us what you mean by the Hero’s Journey?
The seminal work in this space was Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth. He did a series on the Hero’s Journey. He was an American anthropologist and traveled the world and started to look at traditional cultures around the world, whether it’s Hindu culture, Aboriginal culture here in Australia, New Guinea, South Sea Islanders, or South America. What he found was that all of the cultures in their myth and their story mapped this journey, which he called the Hero’s Journey. If we go back to Anglo culture, we go back to European culture, Celtic culture, they all had this journey, and essentially, there are different aspects of the journey.
What it means, and Carl Jung did a lot of work in this space as well, if you think about your individual journey and your individual consciousness, most people accept that we are also informed by a collective consciousness, by an archetypal journey, a mythology, and certainly traditional cultures did. What Joseph Campbell did was he mapped the different stages of this archetypal journey, this mythical journey that we are all on as men.
I invite any of the guests who want to map their journey, you’ll start to see some of the different milestones. Early on, and what I did was I put the Ken Wilber work over this. The Ken Wilber work is incredible work, the integral work where he mapped stages of consciousness and consciousness development. If any of the readers who want to dive in, I’m no braniac like these guys.
These guys hold incredible concepts, but the easy map, and again, the Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell used a slightly different language, but the easy map I use, and this has certainly been my own journey and none of it’s linear. Although the masculine wants it to be linear, it’s more of a spiral. There’s the wake-up, cleanup, grow up, show up, and open up.
Give us a little two-liner on what each of those are. What’s the wake-up?
The wake-up, and tying it back to my story as you invited it, if you think about it, in Celtic mythology there’s a beautiful Hero’s Journey myth, and what they say is that men are closest to the holy grail, which is the search for the herom King Arthur’s tale, all of that, at 16 and at 45. What happens is in any of the readers and reflect for yourself, normally as teenagers, for a lot of us, we have what the psychologists would call the existential crisis. What’s this all about? We have a sense of maybe there’s something spiritual out there. What’s the purpose? What’s the meaning?
Would you say that when people refer to men going through a midlife crisis, they are referring to the wake-up?
Exactly. Forty-five in mythology. Some as teenagers and some of your readers had that taste. A lot of us had that taste, but in Joseph Campbell’s language, we hear the call and we resist it. A lot of us at sixteen went, “Maybe there’s something.” Before we know it, we finish school, apprenticeship, university, marriage, kids, and then we are gone. We may have heard the wake-up call but resisted it.
You are more than your thinking mind and the identity you may have. Share on XWe slaughtered ourselves into the program.
The mid-life crisis, talking around the mid-40s is exactly, because in mythology, you are closest to the ground. Now, the grail essentially starts with the wake up to realize that you are more than your pinhead. You are more than your ego self. You are more than your thinking mind. We have been conditioned that thinking is everything. Sixty thousand thoughts a day, most of them are negative.
Tim refers to that as the itty-bitty-shitty committee.
That’s right. A simple way, certainly in traditional cultures, there’s your false self and there’s your true self. Now, there’s a healthy ego and an unhealthy ego. A healthy ego is a sense of self, boundaries, agency, and the paradox of separateness and oneness. The unhealthy ego, the false self, is all of the fearful thinking, it’s all the not good enough. It’s all the masks. The midlife crisis, this is where men have spent 20 or 30 years gathering their career, possessions, and persona thinking, “This is what is going to make me happy. This is success.” Only to realize that that’s a false journey.
Pursuing that career, pursuit becomes their identity. It’s what they attach their identity to. It’s like in building this business or doing this project. It’s very mission focused, and that becomes your identity.
That’s what we have been sold. It’s not that you don’t pursue your career, look after your family and provide. Exactly as you said, Daniel, when your identity is caught up in that, you’re identifying with a limited self, not your true self. One of the common ways that we wake up is through nature. Remember, change comes through inspiration or desperation. Unfortunately, some people go through the dark night of the soul, the midlife crisis, the health issue, the relationship issue.
A bit of a mirror going on.
That’s right. That’s the desperation where you’re brought to your knees.
It’s a baptism of fire. You don’t have a choice.
Your spirit, soul, or essence, whatever you want to call it, is going, “No.” That beautiful work of A. H. Almaas. He’s an incredible Jewish philosopher and did some incredible work. He says that there’s a part of you that loves you more than that limited part of you, and that’s going to keep tapping on you until you hear the message and desperation comes from those challenges. If you are open to it, you could reflect a little bit about your journey. Hero’s Journey is often the wake-up call, but then you have to do the cleanup. The cleanup is the work, the shadow work, the childwork, the emotional maturity work, all of that.
Going back to your question. There’s a wake up inspiration, those reading, please be inspired. You are more than your thinking mind. You are more than the identity you may have, and then there’s the cleanup. The cleanup typically is what in psychology, in psychotherapy is very much the shadow work, the inner childwork, as I have said.
There are some beautiful modalities out there. Internal family systems now. There are so many different modalities, and they are all good. It’s like any of the readers who want to lean into a bit of cleanup, I have got to face a little bit of my childhood stuff. Find a teacher that suits you. It’s one part of the puzzle. It’s not the puzzle in itself, but it’s an important part of the puzzle. You got to do a little bit of cleaning up. Michael Singer who wrote The Surrender Experiment and The Untethered Soul.
I said it in my introduction trailer to the episode. Michael Singer, Untethered Soul. In 2022, I read it approximately 30 times on repeat. A very close friend gave it to me and said, “You need to read this. You need to get the mind to stop playing tricks on you, overthinking. Got to stop the chatter.” It’s a brilliant book.
I love one of his sayings. He said, “It’s like you are living in a house and the house is you, your body, your life. You keep ordering takeaway pizza and you never get rid of the pizza boxes and your house is a mess.” The internal aspect of your house is full of pizza boxes full of stuff, and he said, “Unless you clean up the inner house, you are never going to experience externally whatever you are looking for.” Another analogy is like we grow up and we put on this backpack of all the stuff. If you don’t look at your backpack and start unpacking it, you are going to drag it to your deathbed.
You take it everywhere you go and everywhere you go, it comes with you.
Exactly, and we want to make it about somebody else. The victim energy, the pity party, which leads to the next piece. This isn’t linear. This is a spiral. Once you start doing the cleanup, you start to look at the grow up. You mentioned that I have done lots of rites of passage work with young men, traditional cultures, with my sons. In traditional culture, they knew that unless you are initiated into manhood, you don’t grow up and you’ve got to go through those.
If you do not look at your backpack of emotions and start unpacking it, you will just drag it around. Share on XIn Aboriginal culture here in Australia, it was a big ceremony where the boys, when they met puberty. There was a ceremony where they were stolen inverted comments from the mothers, and the mothers knew it was happening and they wail and cry, “My little boy.” They’d be taken to the desert for 30 days with the men and they’d be initiated.
The journey of initiation is little boy to big boy. Seven to puberty is a big boy, and then puberty to eighteen is a young man. What is it like to be a young man? What is it to grow up? As I say to parents that I coach the dance with teenagers, the contextual tension is between freedom and responsibility. The teenager wants more freedom. Yet, what does responsibility look like?
This isn’t draconian authoritarian responsibility, it’s growing up, and then obviously moving into an adult is another initiation. I work with a lot of couples where the guys haven’t grown up. They are still even the frigging wet towels on the fucking bathroom floor. If we look at it from psychology, and this is one of the latter parts of the Hero’s Journey, the two biggest issues, and any of the readers who are married, any of the couples that are reading, please.
What happens for most men? I’m talking to predominantly Western men, in their early 30s to 50s, possibly some of the younger ones. There are five stages of the feminine that men have to initiate themselves into. There are two aspects of our relationship with a mother. What happens is that some men, and you would have heard of the mother complex, some men never get under the shadow of their mother. They never grow up. They never lean into light.
As a terrible stereotype, 35 of them are sitting in the back room playing computer games, still getting fed by their mom every night because the mother complex was too strong. There was no other ring. There was only mothering. There was no ability to separate themselves and make a life for themselves, and again, it’s not critical of any mothers out there. It’s a symptom that we see.
This is a duality; there must be some tools that mothers can use to ensure that they don’t create that situation.
Yes. Thank you for asking. If we look at Rights at Passage and we look at the teenage years, what happens is that teenage girls push away from father, teenage boys push away from their mother. Energetically, “I’m a man, now I’m a boy. I need my privacy, I need to discover myself, my peer group is my biggest influence. I don’t want to listen to mum anymore,” but some mothers get fearful and hang on and don’t give their teenage boys space. They are fearful that they are going to get in trouble. They are fearful, they are not going to come back. It’s the mother’s agenda, not the child’s agenda. When we talk about parenting, collaborative parenting is about thinking about the child and the adult.
You are saying that with girls, it’s the other way. It’s the girls pushing the father away.
You’ve got daughters, you’ve probably known. One of the biggest challenges, and I have got 2 daughters and 7 granddaughters, the daughters at puberty have to push away from that because they’ve got to develop their femininity, they got to develop a sense of self. The peer group becomes a big influence. It’s not that they are doing it intentionally because they don’t like you, but they are discovering themselves. They are creating a sense of other.
The key with the divine masculine is to hold the faith for your daughter, they will come back and you are the representation of the divine masculine until they move into the next chapter of their life, and the same for mothers with their sons. Does that make sense as far as the mother and been there with your daughters? I’m sure you’ve been through it or are going through it.
Exactly.
One of the things I teach is embodied presence, working with the energy of the masculine and feminine because if you don’t know how to ground your masculine energy as a father, lover, or husband, yet you are going to cloud the waters.
The Co-Relationship Of Masculine And Feminine Energies
This is a good segue. Let’s talk about the masculine and the feminine energy because men, unbeknownst to a lot of men and men have both and then the topic of polarity between masculine female energy and how important that is for relationships.
The last two, just to complete that loop, the show up is when a man’s on purpose. You grow up and then you show up, and a man who is not on purpose is like a boat without a row. If you are not clear on your purpose, if you are not clear on articulating your purpose, go and do the work. There’s purpose within purpose, within purpose. The great work of data which has informed so many offers, even leading to polarity. I’m going to talk beautiful body of work, which informs so many of us, including myself, and we’ll talk about that, and then polarity.
The final is the open up, and this is when men have to initiate into their feminine, and this is the part of the Hero’s Journey that’s often missed. A lot of the men’s work, great men’s, I mentioned to you. I’m going to the US to talk about the men’s movement there with all the other leaders in this incredible work. What happened is we leaned into the warrior energy, which is so important, and that’s very much the reason for showing up a healthy warrior. The final loop is the integrating into the divine feminine, which we may come back to in a minute if you want me to answer the polarity question first.
The Long And Complicated Journey Of Men
With this journey, would you say, I have got this theory with men, which is men are like fine wines, they take a long time to mature and to get good. When you describe this journey with the typical midlife crisis happening at 45, and you describe this Hero’s Journey, are you suggesting that men’s journeys happen more into their 50s, going to their 60s than mid-20s or 30s? It takes men that long to get to where they need to get to.
I hope not.
From what you see, you work with a lot of different men. You work with a lot of different leaders from the biggest companies we are all familiar with at Teslas, the Googles, the Amazon. You work with the whole array of them. What I’m asking, given your experience, is that what you observe?
I would say it’s a fair generalization. Yeah. I feel and this is the beauty of your show and the work so many men are doing and some of the men reading this, I feel part of it is because they haven’t been exposed and agreed to these conversations. They may have done it earlier if they had the mentors, the teachers, the podcast, the books, the courses and the programs. Yet, with what you are saying, I would say as a generalization that a lot of men by that age have pursued a level of success and realize that wasn’t it, that wasn’t the holy grail, and then are starting to put the mirror up and go, “I got to look at myself here. It can’t be about everybody else.”
It does then take one needs to have some life experience to start that process. Otherwise, it becomes quiet. I don’t from my own perspective, if I wouldn’t have gone through the things that I went through, I wouldn’t be able to be where I am now. It wouldn’t be possible because otherwise, it becomes academic. It becomes theoretical. To get to where you can get to, you need to be able to truly feel it in your gut.
You need to play and mentally experience it before you can apply all these things. That’s why maybe it takes longer for men than it does for women. Women are a lot better at talking, opening up about things, making themselves vulnerable, and understanding themselves, where men suppress it. You talk about the young child, the inner child. Most men will suppress that and will not be aware or acknowledge or realize that inner child is still within them until a much later date, if any.
The question I wonder, though, in your statement is and the side note is, and this is interesting for the parents, is every human being on the planet, from child to teenager to adult, will face the dark night of the soul and will face the demons. That can happen as a teenager. It can happen in your 20s or 40s. The only caveat I’d add to your comment is, and I certainly know with my four adult children, what they went through as teenagers. Incredible courage, incredible commitment, and they had good guides. What I say to any parent is that you have an education fund and a therapy fund. Every one of your children is going to go to therapy, and most of it’s about you. Don’t think they are going to escape it.
It’s about the parent you are saying.
Exactly. It’s always going to be about the family of origin. Don’t think you can Pollyanna your children, don’t think you are going to get a pill. I’m not saying you don’t have good intentions, but it’s the human experience. I cannot know joy unless I have no pain. I cannot know happiness unless sadness. If you can create a container that it’s okay to feel sad, it’s okay to move into your pain and get the support around them.
Other men, the peer groups, that beautiful saying, the most important man of your life yet are your closest peer group friends and your mentor. If you are in your 20s and 30s and haven’t got a mentor, you have to find one. Find one that has the qualities that you look for in a man, the leadership qualities, and the relational understanding of the feminine. Luke Skywalker. All the Hero’s Journey, one of the key parts is you find the mentor, you find the sage, you find the person that gives you that.
I know we went off track. What was the specific? Was it about, “Do you find wine?” I’ll answer that a little bit. Good or bad, and again, because you think about your exposure to this work at 20 or 30, you find it later in life. When I walk into a boardroom, what I know is this, it’s not that men don’t want to be vulnerable, they have to feel safe to be vulnerable. I can walk into a boardroom of twelve powerful leaders and create a safe space of vulnerability. They will go there. There’s a craving, collectively, that even deeper craving at the moment.
That, I’m feeling now. Maybe it’s because I have been getting deeper into this, but you can see that it’s much needed. Maybe it’s also because of the age. I’m 50. It’s around that time where you are talking about where they are having waking up. It’s at a point where you are like, “You’ve been on the journey for a while. It’s a pause to reflect.” “Is this what it’s all about? I have been working this hard to get here and I’m not that happy or facing divorce and how did that happen?” I get a lot of, “It’s not fair. I don’t deserve this.” There’s a lot of self-pity and blaming. It’s a lot of process.
If you think about growing up and showing up, it’s like you are the author of your life. You create the whole of your own reality, and anytime you challenge that, you’ve gone into victim, you’ve gone into rescue, you’ve gone into the dramatron, you are in effect. Any of the readers, find a teacher, find a book, find a podcast, find somewhere where you can learn how to be the author of whole of your reality. The pinhead, the logical mind will challenge it, but your essence, there’s a part of you that knows there’s a bigger going.
The Required Polarity In Relationships
Let’s switch to the male and female energy for men in the polarity that’s required in relationships.
You mentioned it, and one of the key distinctions is that this isn’t about gender, so we’ll talk more about that. This is one of the reasons this language is resisted a little bit because we talk about the masculine and feminine energy and people automatically go to gender. If I called the David data thread, which was such a useful thread for me, and he described it through his teachers and teachings.
It is not that men do not want to be vulnerable. They just have to feel safe. Share on XIf we think about polarity, then if we think about the universe and Mother Earth, there is this polarity. This energetic polarity. The north and south pole polarity. The magnetism of that polarity. We know this through science. Traditional cultures realize that these energies, this polarity, and they decided to give it a name, and it’s Yin and Yang in the Dao. It’s the masculine and feminine, it’s Shakti and Shiva and any forms of that in the Hindu philosophy.
What they knew is that this current is running through the universe, it’s running through nature and it’s running through us. The feminine energy, the Shakti energy, is everything that flows and moves. It’s like the ocean. It can be wild, calm, or stormy. The driver of the feminine energy is connection and love. In each moment. It’s looking for connection and love.
The masculine energy is that which presences the feminine. It’s the mountain that presences the ocean. The river is the feminine and the riverbank is the masculine, and it’s in us. I will come back to relationships. Most men are more in their masculine as a generalization. Again, it’s not based on gender. We have got lots of nuances now around gender fluidity, yet most men are more in their masculine energy and most women are more in their feminine. Huge generalization yet feel into any of the readers.
One of the things is that if I talk about the women in their feminine, when I work with female leaders, we haven’t been taught the distinction between your feminine energy and the masculine and feminine traits. We have got this polarity, this energy that runs through, but we have also got these traits. The feminine traits are very much about connection, collaboration, complexity, nurturing, and hearing. Now they are in men and women. The masculine traits are very much about strategy, logic, and linear thinking or literal thinking, and they are in men and women as well.
Yet what happened for a lot of women in the workplace, they thought they had to become more masculine to succeed. They had these masculine traits, but they lost much of their feminine energy that was their life force. The biggest journey for the feminine is from depletion to replenishment. The biggest symptom for working women over 40 is adrenal fatigue. They are exhausted because they have disconnected from their feminine life force. They think they have got to be more masculine. Masculine traits often, a lot of them are holding the caregiver role in the family, children and things like that. For men, it’s mental illness, anxiety, depression. For women, it’s adrenal fatigue. Again, huge generalization.
Adrenal fatigue. It leads to being tired all the time.
Yes, and then perimenopausal or menopausal brings its own challenges, but it’s exhaustion. When I work with companies, when I work with boardrooms with men and women, when I work with women in organizations, they are exhausted. They are exhausted also by the lack of awareness of the masculine organization. I run workshops around the masculine and feminine energy in businesses, and most of the middle-aged White guys, their eyes are like dinner plates because they have never heard this stuff. They don’t realize how ignorant they are as to what’s going on in the feminine. They are losing 50% of their energy in the workplace. Not just the women in their feminine, but their own feminine.
We have got these polarities, and for men, again, man can be in his masculine energy and access his feminine traits. When you are with your daughters, you are caring and you are connected. When it comes to relationships, and I work a lot with couples in relationships. What happens is the polarity of the masculine and feminine is the attraction. The eros that occur. When you are more in your masculine, you are attracted to the feminine, and vice versa. Unless you know the practices and teach each to stay in your masculine and your beloved can stay in her feminine long-term relationships. I have been with my wife for 45 years. Long-term relationships.
You’re like the unicorns.
That’s why I want to teach this stuff because I see couples and they become friends or companions. They lose the juice. They lose the spark or get tired. Brother and sister that now want to argue instead of juicy, healthy, masculine polarity. “How does this look? How do we keep it?” I believe it’s one of the greatest gifts we can give the world at the moment. Relationships and healthy couples who navigate this journey keep the juice and keep the polarity, and it’s also keeping the polarity in yourself.
You’ve got to understand you are masculine and feminine. I’m more in my masculine, but I’m aware of my feminine energy and I connect to my feminine energy, whether I’m with my daughters, my granddaughters. One of the beautiful examples, I do a lot of work with groups of men online, and my demographic is guys who are married, mortgage, business, and kids.
Offering Men A Safe Space
I want you to talk us through how these groups work and why you are getting these men now.
One of the things I say to my guys in a graphic, and I think it applies to any man who’s more in their masculine. Buying a present. Have you ever bought a present for one of your wives? I had this joke about man shopping and feminine shopping. Most men are in their masculine, generally when they shop. Certainly when it comes to a beautiful gift for their beloved.
I use the analogy, the masculine energy’s like killing a kangaroo. We know where it is. We are linear, we are strategic. We have got our spear, and I’m going to kill a kangaroo. I’m going to the grocery store to get these five items I’m getting now. You look at the feminine in the grocery store, and it’s all about the journey. It’s all about flow. It’s all about connection and talking. “Look at this. This is beautiful.” The girl that’s serving them, “How’s your day today?” It’s such a beautiful journey. The guys are getting frustrated. They are holding the shopping cart getting so annoyed because they don’t have awareness.
When it comes to buying your beloved a present, and I will invite you to do this next time you can. In fact, one of your previous hosts, who’s a client of mine, had this experience. He had such a different experience. When you learn how to access your feminine energy and realize it’s all about flow, heart, journey, and beauty. Invite any of the readers next time you are buying your beloved something.
Men must learn how to go to their feminine energy. Do not be focused on the outcome, the time, or the prize. Open your heart, follow the energy, and notice the beauty. Share on XIn fact, this was a recent Christmas present one of the clients did. Find a store where you know there’s possibly going to be something she’ll enjoy. Whether it’s jewelry, crystals, soaps, and what else? Go into your feminine energy, open your heart, and follow the energy. Notice what attracts you. Notice the colors, notice the smells, notice the beauty. Don’t be focused on the outcome. Don’t be focused on the time, don’t be focused on the pride, and he said it was transformational. He said he bought his wife something very simple, very heart-centered. She said, “It was the most beautiful gift she’d ever received from him.” Up until then, he was like last minute rush. He said, “I’ve got to get a present. Bloody hell.” That polarity in us is as important. Does that make sense?
Totally.
There’s a challenge for you.
You are right. We are very mission-focused. As we are in life with career, you are the same thing. It’s like, “I don’t want to waste any time here. I have got to get her a piece of jewelry, a bag, or whatever,” and it’s like boom. It can be seen as a task that you have to complete.
Often, men, particularly in the hyper-masculine, that’s how you’ve lived your life. Where have I got to get to? How do I get there? I’m in a hurry. When I do retreats, and as you know, I’m doing a retreat shortly in the UK. One of the things we do is a receptive walk. The feminine energy is all about receptivity. The masculine energy is the electromagnetic current.
The masculine is the outward energy, the feminine is the inward energy, the head and the heart. Take them in on a receptive walk in the forest. A twenty-minute walk, get them into their feminine and say, “I want you to walk slowly and notice in silent, transformational.” A colleague of ours who has a beautiful retreat, he said, “I have walked this 1,000 times and I have never seen and felt this car that way because I’m always getting somewhere.”
Why Inherent Magnificent Men Should Take Action
What’s the category of men that you get? Was it a mortgage?
For me, if I think about my Hero’s Journey, Hindu philosophy says you are born into a certain dharma. Some people are born to be monks or priests. Some people are born to be exceptional musicians or in our culture, athletic and things like that. Some people are born to be what they call householders. Householder is about getting a worthy profession trade, getting married, having children, providing for your family, and living a suburban lifestyle.
I work with what I would call householders. They are married. Normally early 40s, late 50s, or mid 50s. They have a mortgage usually. Some of them have got past that, but you remember the days when you had a mortgage. Often, they will have a business or a leadership role. They are not doing Burning Man with the fisherman’s pants and the man bun. That’s a different model. That’s more artistic and creative.
Have you done that, by the way?
It’s good for fun, but it’s not my client base. There are plenty of great workshops out there. I want to work with the men who are married, mortgage, business, and kids because I want them to realize that even with that commitment. I talk a lot about commitment and I know one of your previous guests talked a lot about commitment. You are committed to that. The most worthy journey is to lean into that.
One of my clients talks at Practical Spirituality. He says, “I still have a barbecue on Sunday afternoon with my mates that I know that I’m a spiritual being at some level having a human experience. I don’t go to church or anything,” but he said, “I just know there’s more to me, but I don’t have to leave my family. I don’t have to leave my business. I don’t have to leave my friendship group necessarily. I have a deeper connection with myself, my beloved, my children, my friends, and my community.” That’s such a big part of the Hero’s Journey and the Wheel of Life in this philosophy.
I work a lot with those men, and what I’m finding, to your comment earlier, is also a lot of men now, typically late 40s and early 50s. I work a lot globally. I work a lot in the UK, as you know. Many of those guys have worked hard. They have provided for their family. The children are getting on with their lives and they are exiting. In the old days, you’d call it retiring.
One of my biggest bug beds in any of the readers out there, one of the things I want to do is a golf club tour to grab all those middle-aged White men and say, “You cannot spend the rest of your life playing golf. You are the most entitled, privileged, influential people on the planet with so much wisdom. I will not let you play golf and talk shit for the next 30 years. It’s not allowed.” They are totally unhealthy, but you think about exactly where we started around role models and rites of passage and making a difference. There are so many of those men. They don’t realize how entitled they think, how privileged they are, and to sit around playing golf and talking shit, it’s like, “No. You got to give back.”
What would you like to see? I don’t play golf, but I have got a lot of people in my universe that play golf. What would be your message to these men in terms of what you suggest they do to replace their time playing golf?
Do the work on themselves. Exactly what we have said. Most of those guys have never looked in the mirror. They are still running the avoidance model. They are still thinking, “If I avoid enough, talk enough shit, play enough golf, drink enough wine. I’m going to get through to 80 and go, ‘That was a good life.’” Now, these are huge generalizations.
Can’t you have golf and spirituality together?
That’s the point. It’s not about not doing golf, it’s not about not surfing, whatever your pursuits are. What I find is so many of them are shut down and afraid to do the work. They are living from the neck up. I want to provoke them because there’s so much beauty. My mantra is to ignite the inherent magnificence in men. That’s my mantra.
These men are beautiful men. They have magnificence. They have beautiful hearts. They are such caring men, and yet they haven’t realized they are magnificent. Realize what they have got to give because, consciously or unconsciously, they are usually a bit afraid to do the work, to sit with other men and be vulnerable.
I remember several years ago, in one of my men’s groups in the UK and one of the guys said and he was 45, “First time I have sat with other men, whether we are not cycling, we are not getting drunk, and we are not watching the rugby,” and he said, “It’s been the most profound evening because I didn’t realize other men wanted to talk about this.” It was a small group. Ten of us. He said it was transformational because, again, it created this safe space. You know this with your friends who play golf. They need a safe space and have a deeper conversation. That’s my reach because they are beautiful men, and I want them to remember that.
Answering Rapid-Fire Questions
I’m with you. It’s been a great conversation and I know we could talk for hours, to be honest, and I’m sure we will. I finish off my episodes with five quick-fire questions, so I’m going to shoot them at you. I’m very keen to hear your responses. The first one is, who would you like to say sorry to given the chance?
On the Hero’s Journey, the fundamental relationship between the father and son. The father’s deepest desire is forgiveness and the son’s deepest desire is to be seen. For me, I have done a lot of work forgiving my father and in saying sorry or forgiveness is to let go of the judge. To realize, at some level, he did the best he could. I didn’t accept all his behavior. He left when I was very young, but for releasing him and forgiving myself from forgiving him has been such a power. For any of the readers, if you haven’t sorted your stuff out, send Daniel a message.
What are you proud of being or doing in your life?
Pride is an interesting word. I’m very fulfilled. I have been together with my wife for 45 years.
Do you have a little secret there? What would you say is the secret to your relationship success? Do a lot of people, both men and women to get to 25, 35, 50 years in a relationship with one other person? It is quite a mean feat. That’s what I call big wave surfing. You are going to have your ups and downs, but to get through to the other side must be very powerful. Do you have any little hacks and secrets?
The reason is my wife has called me forth for 45 years. With love, she’s going, “I don’t want the little boy. Step up, grow up, and be the man you can be.” With love and it’s been tough and challenging, but any of the readers, any of the women there, at some level, us men are fairly simple, and sometimes we need a safe space to step into. Now I’m not saying that’s easy, but to give you a thread of it, my wife was able to hold that space for me, lovingly challenged me, called me forth, and stayed with me. With that container, I would say the fundamental tools, if there are three steps, first is you have to unconditionally love yourself, this vision. Not selfish. Not ego.
You got to be able to look in the mirror and go, “You are fucking amazing.”
Exactly, and whatever work you need to do with a therapist, a men’s group, a teacher, learn to love yourself. Let go of that inner critic, do the emotional intelligence work, deal with your inner child, all those steps we mentioned. The second is, if you can have the intention to bring your best self forward every day. Like, “Is this the best version of myself when I’m in this relationship?” I’m not saying you don’t have struggles and challenges, but take them to your therapist. Take them to your coach. That’s not your wife’s role, but if you can bring your best self there.
Then the other thing, my wife and I, all that time, they have had a coach, we have had a therapist, we have had support together both. Together in particular, what we realized, and again, for the readers, and it’s fascinating in our culture, particularly the British, Australian Anglo culture. When we were very young, certainly for me, I have never done long-term relationship before. Why wouldn’t I get an expert? If I wanted to improve my golf game, I’d get a golf coach. If I wanted to go to the PT, I’d get a PT coach.
At the time our friends looked at us and go, “You guys must be fucked up. You must have a lot of problems.” We are like, “No. It’s like Roger Federer had a coach to the end. It may be about problems, but it’s about being the best version of yourself.” Any of the couples out there, if you want to be the best version of your marriage, stay juicy for 45 years, you have to find a container to do the work.
A safe space. Whether it’s a teacher, a therapist, a rabbi, whatever works for you because that’s a culture. It’s not about always problems. We go regularly to remind ourselves of what marriage is about. At this chapter of my life, for the masculine reading, this is the time to be of absolute devotion for the family. For me, it’s the absolute devotion to the goddess, but that’s the worthy pursuit for me.
When did you receive kindness while needing it at most and expecting it at least?
Learn to love yourself. Let go of your inner critic. Share on XFor me, it’s often in the eyes of a child. It’s not necessarily my children, but I have often shifted my whole energy. We live by the beach and there are children and playgrounds and things and often to smile, the twinkle, or the carefreeness. In the Hero’s Journey, the hero returns to his child, to his innocent. There’s a beautiful chapter in The Fisher King, and a movie has been made, but it’s part of the Hero’s Journey. The Fisher King was fundamentally wounded, and he could only be healed by Parzival, who was the fool. It was the fool, the innocent, who was the play that healed the king. For me, the play and innocence of children, it’s kindness in action.
What did your mother or father teach you that you frequently remind yourself of?
I feel, consciously or unconsciously, my parents split when I was seven, and my mom had three jobs, social housing, incredible, and the hard work that she put in. Mastery. I was talking to someone who’s mastered their craft. It doesn’t have to be negative energy or hard work. It’s just if you want to master guitar. I love playing guitar, but I’m not a master. If you want to master anything, the book 10,000 Hours, all of that. If you want to master marriage, look to the world. As a father, you want to look after your children. Not work in a bad thing, but you’ve got to lean in. You’ve got to have the discipline.
Finally, what’s your superpower?
I would say presence. Consistently facilitate a lot and do a lot of leadership work. It’s tricky to be relative with yourself, as you know. There’s no relativity. I often get feedback and work hard with my personal practice around embodied presence, which I teach. I feel that I can bring a certain presence to a room, conversation, or retreat that creates that safe container for my clients. Through the feedback, it is a bit of a superpower that I have worked on to master all of this.
Unreal. Bodhi, thank you. I love the conversation. I’m going to be bringing you back on at some stage, but we are going to continue our conversations offline, but appreciate you making the time to come on the show. Important work you are doing and a lot to take away for the audience in terms of understanding the journey, the process, but also one needs to do to accelerate that and to come into your true masculine. Thank you.
Richard and I do one of your other guests called True Freedom. If anyone wants a quick hit and to go deeper into some of these topics, it’s on all the platforms. Thank you so much, and thank you to the readers. Hopefully, there are a couple of nuggets for them to reflect on.
A hundred percent. Thank you.
Important Links
- Bodhi Aldridge
- The Power of Myth
- The Surrender Experiment
- The Untethered Soul
- The Fisher King
- 10,000 Hours
- True Freedom
About Bodhi Aldridge
Men need to remember their magnificence. Bodhi’s journey as a father, a grandfather, a lawyer, a coach and a facilitator has taken him across the world diving deep into traditional teachings and contemporary leadership development so that he could find his magnificence and bring those teachings to other men. Bodhi’s commitment to self-development, to life-long learning and to supporting men in business has allowed him to influence and support many organisations and leaders around the globe. He guides men to develop presence, open their hearts, and integrate their masculine and feminine energy so they can start paying attention to what matters most. Bodhi lives at the beach near Byron Bay with his wife of 40 years; has 4 children and 10 grandchildren. He is a best-selling co-author of the book, ‘Visionary Male Leaders’.
