Each year, I make meaningful investments in my personal growth and education. Even as an experienced coach, retreat host and facilitator, myself, I find it essential to my well-being that I remain a student throughout my life.

I just get grumpy when I don’t put myself to learning something new for too long.

For example, in 2025, I invested $25k in a Jungian Coaching Certification program to learn how to bring the depth psychology wisdom of Carl Jung, the father of modern psychology, to my private coaching work. Then at the start of this year, 2026, I kicked things off with a $10k investment to study the spiritual embodiment work of my dear friend, John Wineland.

*to be clear, I do not equate money spent as a measure of investment in self. Though it is undeniable that many of us will deny ourselves vital inner growth due to financial concerns (whether real or imagined), as I have certainly done in past.

Now this week I get to study with a true elder, Michael Meade, whom I’ve had on my podcast (see video below) and have been aching for years to learn from directly.

Remaining a committed student with teachers who inspire me is vital to my well being.

It helps ensure my marriage stays strong. It ensures my own teachings and facilitations stay fresh and inspiring to others (and to me). It’s also how I stay resilient and positive minded even when Life is kicking my ass.

Keeping myself regularly in the presence of people wiser than me, and in some discipline or realm of study that deeply interests me, is among the most important investments I’ll ever make.

It’s why I get to do everyday the work that I love, my soul’s work, and have it actually feed my family and keep us housed.

So, I’m curious, how do you regularly invest in yourself? ... beyond buying stocks or crypto or real estate or whatever. Those may serve your bank account, but they do nothing for your soul.

What does commitment to your growth actually look like for you?

If you don’t, why not? What’s in the way for you?

What might it actually be costing you to not invest in yourself?

Subscribe now

Each month I meet with a small group of epic men via my Elevate Your Relationship program all committed to improving their intimate relationships.

Today’s theme was the art of paradox.

Because we men often want certainty, clarity. We want Life (and Love) to give us a straight line from desire to fulfillment.

But that’s just not how Life (or Love) works.

Real life asks more of us.

Real love asks more of us.

Healing asks more of us.

It asks us to become men who can hold paradox.

For example ...

Can you fully, deeply, genuinely care about your partner’s feelings, her upset, the words from her mouth that confuse and frustrate you ... and also simultaneously not care at the same time?

Or do you get stuck in either fully caring – in which case you risk getting tossed around like a rag doll in a bulldog’s mouth – or do you get stuck in not caring at all – in which case your distance erodes safety and trust? (or do you slam back and forth from one to the other?)

Can you deeply long for love, partnership, and nourishing intimacy, yet be completely willing to not have it?

Or do you sell yourself out in a thousand ways by desperately trying to find/create it?

Can you stay true to what you desire without gripping it, chasing it, or making your peace dependent on whether it arrives?

Or do you suffer when you don’t get what you want? Do you drive yourself into the ground to bring you what you crave?

These are real practices of paradox.

We talked today about how so much suffering comes from the story: “I need this thing in order to be okay.”

I need the woman.

I need the clarity.

I need the future to go the way I want it to go.

I need life to reassure me before I can relax.

What if the deeper invitation is to become the kind of man who can say: “I know what I long for. And I release life from having to give it to me.”

Not because desire is bad or longing is wrong.

But because there is a deeper freedom available when I stop organizing my life around fear.

That’s the paradox:

To keep the desire, and surrender the attachment.

To care, and not collapse.

To be open, and not chase.

To grieve what may never come, and still remain available to life.

This is not passive.

Or giving up. Or resignation.

This is true spiritual surrender.

This is strength.

This is maturity.

I’ve found over and over again in my own life that some of the most beautiful things came on the other side of letting go; not as a strategy, but as a real surrender.

The practice of paradox is not for the faint of heart.

But there is a profound freedom in it.

In what ways are you fighting against some paradox in your life that might otherwise set you free, should you surrender yourself to it?

If you’ve ever loved a man who’s gone quiet, checked out, or in some real way disappeared right before your eyes … you know, retreated into that icy masculine tundra where intimacy goes to die … I want you to know it was never your fault. You didn’t drive him there.

Maybe you already know that. If so … good.

If just reading those words makes you feel anger … I get it.

I have no doubt at some point in your life a man has demanded you carry if not the outright blame, then at least the weight of his discontent.

(*which is even the basis for at least one major modern religion: that a woman tricked a man into leaving paradise!)

Man’s discontent often lands on the woman beside him because you’re the one who notices, who reads the emotional temperature in the room, and who feels the brunt of his pain often even more than he does. You’re usually the one who carries hope for the relationship, for deeper connection .. and who often hurts while he insists everything is fine.

You’re exhausted, and what makes it worse is how rarely this gets named (and how it quickly gets swatted away when you try).

So let me name it, in the hopes that it may lift off you … at least a little.

You were never meant to be a man’s growth plan.

You were never supposed to be the catalyst for a man to grow up, the one who holds his feet to the transformational fires required for his initiation into true mature manhood.

And you cannot do his inner work for him, no matter how clearly you see what he needs.

The truth is: your trying and endless hoping only wears you both down.

I’ve seen it for years, that a man tends to change most thoroughly when the woman he loves stops coddling him, stops mothering him, or stops bullying and coercing him to change, and instead makes space for other men he can respect to enter the room, men who can respectfully challenge him to stop hiding or playing small.

In other words, when he finally gets that the woman he aches to love and be loved by will neither tolerate his disconnected ways of being nor keep hanging around so long as he refuses to do anything about it, is also when he finally chooses growth from his own longing, his own heart .. and not merely to keep the peace with you (which never works).

This is how change tends to work in a man, and it’s the reason a circle of trustable men can reach a place in him that even the people who love him most often cannot.

Your love was never the thing that failed … which doesn’t mean you didn’t make mistakes. Surely every one of us always has more to learn to be more skillful.

But here’s what I hope this frees you to do: to love him without supervising him or pushing him anywhere he doesn’t himself want to go.

You get to keep seeing the man underneath, the more vibrant and heart-connected man inside, and stop being the only one responsible for helping him reveal that part of himself. You can certainly point, gently, at a door through which you believe he can grow, and then let him decide whether to walk through it.

If he continues to resist entering, you’ve certainly got choices to make: Can you keep living like this? For how much longer?

If it ever feels right, my book *Choose Her Every Day (Or Leave Her)* might be an easier place for a man to start than an entire week at a men’s retreat in Costa Rica. Many women have simply left the book where he’d find it (the bathroom is a great spot!). You can read it together, or invite him to find it on his own, at

»» www.bryanreeves.com/books

Should he be truly ready to take the next evolutionary step of his life as a man, he’s welcome to apply for my retreat:

»» https://bryanreeves.com/elevate-costarica

~ Bryan

**P.S.** Refusing to carry his weight for him doesn’t mean you stop caring; it just means you get to care from a lighter place, which curiously is what might help him feel it the most.

That’s the strange gift hidden inside conflict: You think it’s about the way he’s driving, or how she loads the dishwasher, or the tone of voice he’s using, or whoever forgot to follow through. And sometimes it is.

But more often conflict is a messenger. It arrives hot and loud precisely because something quieter inside us couldn’t get our attention any other way.

A need. A fear. An old story or wound, or a painful experience that happened long before this relationship even existed.

I spent years treating conflict like a problem to solve as fast as possible. Avoid it, or win it, but just end it and move on. ASAP!

What I didn’t understand was that the rush to resolution was itself a form of avoidance.

There was something in the heat of those moments I didn’t want to sit with long enough to understand.

Learning to slow down inside a conflict, even just take an extra breath, and ask yourself, “What is this actually about for me?“ … changes everything.

Not because slowing down will make arguments disappear. It can shorten them, but it won’t necessarily make them go away. It just begins to make them useful.

Because now you gain insight into the deeper thing that’s happening, which is often some fear or pain connected to your distant past. Now you have a potential bridge of connection to each other, because you realize you’re never really fighting each other, but rather seeking to soothe old pain.

If you’re a member of our Love With Integrity community (it’s free to join), I asked this in a recent post and I’d love to know what this brings up for you:

👉 When you’re in the middle of a fight with someone you love, what is it usually really about underneath?

For the last 6 years through my Elevate Coaching Journeys and Retreats I’ve supported men through brutal relationship breakdowns, helped them turn toward the shadow parts of themselves, and confront the cynicism, isolation, numbness, and quiet powerlessness so many of us carry around even when life looks pretty damn good from the outside.

Historically working with me directly has required a $3,000+ investment, and I know for some of you, that’s been a wall.

That wall comes down today.

I’m straight-up delighted to officially announce the launch of ELEVATE MEN — my growing brotherhood of epic men committed to elevating their lives and relationships, living powerfully on purpose, and being fully enlivened.

It’s online. It’s free to join. And the doors are open right now.

When you step in, two things happen:

1. You get insider access to the insights, tools, and practices I’ve been coaching men in for over a decade .. the same work I’ve watched transform marriages, careers, fatherhood, and the relationship that matters most: the one with yourself.

2. You enter a brotherhood of inspiring men (including with me).

Since 2021, ELEVATE has served men across the globe: entrepreneurs, artists, doctors, lawyers, military men, husbands, fathers, grandfathers. Good men. Real men. Men just like you.

Now it’s your turn, brother.

And I’m opening the doors with something I’m even more fired up about:

“The 5 Pillars in 5 Days Challenge” … also completely free.

Five days. Five pillars: Brotherhood. Purpose. Family. Intimacy. Spirituality.

Each day offers one potent reflection + one simple practice that I’ve watched crack men wide open in the best possible ways.

This is the foundation I’ve walked ELEVATE clients through for 6 years distilled into something you can feel in less than a week.

What you’ll walk away with:

• A felt sense of what it means to live in your body instead of trapped in your head

• Daily practices that take less than 10 minutes and change the temperature of your entire day

• A genuinely deeper connection with someone who matters to you

• Brutal clarity about the specific ways you’ve been playing small … and real steps to elevate your game.

• A room full of dope men who get it … who won’t flinch when you finally tell the uncomfortable truth out loud.

→ → → Join ELEVATE MEN & Start The 5 Pillars Challenge

One last thing.

There are people in your life right now who are waiting for you. No, who need you. To come home to yourself. Your spouse. Your kids. Your friends. Maybe most of all, that younger version of you who used to dream that his life was headed somewhere epic.

The longer you wait, the louder that empty ache in your chest is going to get. You know it’s true. I’ve certainly lived it.

Just five days. This is my first invitation … and challenge.

Come find out who you are beneath the masks and the armor.

I’ll see you inside.

Warmly,
Bryan

P.S. If you’re rolling your eyes a little … just notice that. That’s resistance doing what resistance does: working to keep you safely away from the courageous path of soul. Come anyway. The door is open.

I promise we’re safe … even when we get dangerous.

Go with fierce spirit ~ Bryan

I’ve been fully estranged from my father for 3 years.

Until a few days ago, I thought I’d made peace with his absence.

I’d worked through a lot of rage towards him in therapy rooms and at men’s retreats. I have confronted him directly with my truth and with my vulnerable desires for our relationship while attempting multiple times to reconcile with him. When our last reconciliation failed, and he showed no real desire (perhaps capacity) to repair with me, I chose to stop fighting for what he was unwilling to fight for. So I let him go. I figured our next real conversation would be over his tombstone, and I came to peace with that.

But last week, while deep in the Mojave Desert surrounded by 80 men, I hit a new layer of anger I hadn’t quite yet touched.

It was the final layer of anger that had quietly been keeping watch over my grief.

We were doing shadow work: plumbing the depths of psyche for repressed feelings and emotions. As I sat before three courageous men holding space for me to explore my depths, I suddenly stumbled upon the words, “I miss my father.”

But I couldn’t actually say them.

Literally, I was unable to let those 4 simple words usher from my mouth. Anger wouldn’t allow it. At my first attempt, I experienced a rage quickly arise from the depths like a snarling Orc from the Hell Fires of Mordor, and it was ready to fight to the death:

“Miss my father? No way. Fuck that guy. He hasn’t been around for decades. He hasn’t shown any real interest in me or my life since … well, forever. He doesn’t deserve my missing him. I won’t give him the satisfaction of my grief - not here in the desert, not anywhere. He simply isn’t worthy of it. Seriously … fuck … that … guy!”

Normally, hitting that anger-wall would be end of story: “Fuck that guy.”

But not on this day in the empty middle of a vast desert. I had come here committed to working through something deep, though it I thought unrelated to my father – again, I had that handled! Yet here I was again brought to this truth:

To go where I need to go, I must face yet again this man who never seems to go away, even though he’s hardly ever been around.

Subscribe now

Francis Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow, wrote that “grief un-metabolized turns bitter.”

Those who know me would agree I’m not generally a bitter person. Still, I do believe my resistance to touching the grief of my father’s enduring absence (and other griefs) has at times caused me to emotionally calcify in my body. As a single man that was rarely brought to my attention – or if it was, I could quickly turn away from it.

But being married to an emotionally-connected woman, who surely feels my calcification, I am unable to look away from it. Because I know she feels it, and I know it hurts her. She wants to feel more my open free-loving heart. Yet too often I fear she has experienced my grief-resistant constriction – this bitterness that sometimes runs through me like soured milk.

It’s this awareness that I took in my heart to the desert. I want my wife to consistently feel my love; not just know that I love her. And I was here to confront whatever might be in the way.

As I sat before these men, leaning into this last ferocious strata of anger, I watched it crack and give way to a great ocean of sadness lying just beneath it.

I’ve never had a harder time getting four short words out of my mouth. But as I fought through, my eyes were quickly overcome with tears. This long buried ocean surged upwards, rushed past any remaining shattered shards of anger now unable to hold it back, and finally, out poured my salty grief into the dark desert night around me.

I have accepted there is no bringing my father back to me. We might get one more crack at reconciliation someday, perhaps when his wife dies, or when his death is imminent. Or maybe our relationship will only blossom over his tombstone. I remain open to however life unfolds.

“I miss my father.”

I wasn’t able to say those words a week ago … I’d never even tried because I didn’t think it to be true.

But it is true. Deeply so.

Today I can say it with gentleness and grace because I finally touched the grief.

What loss or absence might you not yet have quite touched of the grief?

“Hold your sorrow to a degree of eloquence, whereby everyone around you will be fed by your efforts to do so.” ~ Stephen Jenkinson

p.s. If you haven't already, please join me and my lovely wife, Silvy, in our new online relationship-oriented community, “Love With Integrity." It's free to join, so please do.

📸 photo at top by David Piver

Ok, so the American government is executing its citizens in the streets.

This is not hyperbole. It’s what happened to Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, two protesters executed by antagonistic government agents simply because they were in the way.

First, though, I want to acknowledge that minority communities in this country have been experiencing government overreach and violence waved off as necessary to protect the public for a very long time.

This is, however, the first time in my lifetime a president and his staff are overtly supporting the execution of peacefully protesting citizens.

(Don’t bother disagreeing; we’ve all seen multiple videos of the same event, and though I’m definitely a “benefit of the doubt” kinda guy, those two were executed by ICE agents. Full stop.)

As a man who’s professional vocation often focuses on helping men heal the psychological and emotional wounds of disconnection, helping men back into contact with their authentic selves, their heart-connected selves, so they learn to be more relational, more attuned to others and the natural world around us … well, what we’re witnessing right now is simply the extreme violent expression of un-attuned non-relational men – and the harsh women enabling them – enacting the old masculine doctrine of “power over” and ”might makes right,” the very antithesis of civilized society.

I tend to publicly stay away from politics because I don’t want to alienate men who don’t think like me; I don’t want them to not be served by my relational work just because we disagree on immigration or tax policy.

But we’re beyond politics.

As a student of history, the parallels between what we are seeing since Trump came to power in 2016 and the rise of other oppressive regimes before is overwhelmingly clear.

Today, our immigration enforcement organization, ICE, is becoming eerily similar to the SS militia the Nazi party created in the 1930s (that was eventually officially rolled into the state police force) in part to enforce limits on whoever the Nazi party considered non-Germans and any citizens deemed enemies of the German state. Their violent ways weren’t just supported, but encouraged, at the highest levels of leadership.

This is happening in America right now: The highest leaders in the land justifying the point-blank executions by gov’t agents of citizens clearly exercising non-violent protest within their rights to do so.

Democratically elected governments don’t get to use violence on protesting citizens, even if those protests hinder the government’s agenda. That’s what protests are supposed to do. If the government is doing something enough people don’t like, those people can organize, get out into the streets, and even get in the way to make their voices be heard by the leaders who otherwise can’t hear it.

That’s democracy for you: messy and loud.

Only repressive regimes use violence to silence people. Because authoritarians, like bitter fathers who can stand neither laughter nor tears from kids at the dinner table, are far too internally fragile to hear any voice of dissent.

Trump is the exquisite embodiment of the internally fragile male who is empty at his core, feels perpetually victimized and disrespected by the world, and so uses his status and resources to bully others into a false respect that only endures so long as the threat of violence persists.

That’s Trump. Cross him, and he – or his likewise fragile and cowardly sheep supporters who aren’t allowed to have minds of their own - will make you pay.

It’s horrifying that we put such a man into office of President of the United States … not once, but twice (maybe even a third time if he gets his way, which he may well).

But here we are.

I don’t expect my words alone to change anything. But the more voices added to the growing chorus of people standing up to tyranny, the better for us all.

Silence is how tyranny wins.

America will never be great until it embraces the messiness of diversity, until we are courageous enough as a people to only elect men and women who seek not to dominate others, exert power OVER others, but who instead prioritize collaboration, who understand we are much stronger as a nation with all voices at the table, who aren’t afraid to sit down with people who don’t think or look like them.

For now, we’re stuck with a government that has shown zero capacity for real compassion, no ability to consider different views on complex issues, and clearly believes that perfect solutions to complex issues actually exist, and that by exerting enough force over others we can realize those perfect solutions … given all that, it’s hard to see things getting better before they get worse.

But as I reflect on this descent into darkness America seems to be walking, I am comforted by Martin Luther King JR’s famous conviction that

“the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

I believe that. Like the racist civil war generals whose statues have been torn down and their names removed from schools and military bases, someday Trump’s name will be erased from the Kennedy Center and whatever other monuments to truly great men he hijacks as his own. He will be remembered not as a great man, but as a fragile man, who could only get his way by the threat of violence because no one truly respected him, who could only win peace medals by taking them from women, and who encouraged violence against his own citizens because he was a fragile naked emperor with no clothes.

In the meantime, I will continue my activism by calling men forth into the most urgent work of our lives: the confrontation with our shadow selves, the ways in which we turn away from life, resist life, and harm others and ourselves by allowing fear to lead us instead of love.

The world doesn’t need more strong individualistic “my way or the highway” men.

The world needs more courageously relational men.

Thank you for reading.

With relentless conviction,
Bryan Withrow Reeves

What difference would it make to you if the man in your life (past or present) decided to take massive action to improve the quality of every aspect of his life (including but not limited to his relationship with you)?

I was actually surprised at the volume of responses from women.

Though I shouldn’t be.

Women are STARVING for men to commit to sincere personal growth, to evolve beyond merely knowing how to make money or solve technical problems and become fully relationally aware, skillful, present, as well.

A few highlights of what women wrote (MEN, PAY ATTENTION!):

• Anna: “It would change everything. I wouldn’t be with a man otherwise, nor would I stay long-term. In fact, I didn’t. I left a marriage with a wonderful man who, on the surface, did everything right, but he lacked this commitment. He had no greater purpose and was not reaching toward wholeness.”

• Kim: “If my ex-husband made any sort of effort to better himself and get out of the rut he was in, I probably would not have divorced him.”

• Courtney: “Having a man in my life that doesn’t fully embrace my feminine energy means I spend so much of my energy carrying extra burdens.”

• Jessica: “All the difference in the world. It would lend itself to so much more trust and security in the relationship and help me feel like I had a true partner instead of someone I had to mother or coach.”

• Bianca: “I would feel safe, held, supported, confident, and assured. It would also be a MASSIVE turn-on. A man dedicated to personal growth is super sexy.”

• Jayne: “I exhausted myself giving and not receiving until I made myself physically and mentally ill. I would have respected and encouraged him on his journey, but he wasn’t willing to look at his wounding.”

• Valerie: “If I’m raising my awareness and growing to solve problems and my partner isn’t, then I feel unmet and like I need to work harder than he is.”

• Susan: “As a woman, I have to tell you how deeply painful and disappointing it is to see so much potential in a man who won’t take the steps to grow.”

• Kim: “It would no doubt bring tears to my eyes: relief, relax into his presence, joy, heart-swelling admiration, even greater LOVE!”

• Anonymous: “In general, this would make me feel safer with him, less stressed out, and give me a much-needed breather.”

• Anonymous: “Had he taken the step to grow, I would have trusted him with our family life, relaxed, and respected him for being the best version of himself.”

• Nicola: “A program like Elevate would mean the world to me if he committed to helping himself, choosing a better life, and healing alongside other men.”

• Lisa: “I’m playing on team healthy intimacy now. I’ll only play with teammates who show up to practice.”

• Aura: “For me? Heaven on Earth. It would mean living a life where love, partnership, and shared responsibility create safety and joy. It would mean a life where we don’t have to carry alone, where both of us give and receive fully, and where my daughter witnesses what it truly means to be supported, seen, and cherished.”

If you’re a man, at this point you might protest, “What about women? They’re not perfect, either! Why blame men for everything!?”

Which, I get. Remember, my relationship model is 100/100 (both partners must take 100% responsibility to succeed). So please don’t take this to mean everything is on men’s shoulders (it’s not).

But do take this as a wake-up call.

In recent conversations with men who have applied to ELEVATE 2026, I’ve heard more than once from men who’ve been reading my ELEVATE emails for years. Sitting on it. Resisting. Often either convinced this won’t work for them, or giving themselves reasons (usually money) why they can’t do it.

Sadly, many of us men have to hit bottom – finally lose the woman, or our dignity and self-respect – before we take action.

Don’t be that guy.

This is essentially your last chance. Applications close in the next few days.

I promise you: If you choose to go all in with me, I will go all in with you.

Click Here For the Application To Elevate 2026

I also promise you: Your woman (present or future) is aching for you to choose “all in” on massive action to elevate your life.

This morning as I awoke reflecting on the new year we’re stepping into (and my big plans for it), I thought of Death.

Which isn’t unusual, for I think of Death often these days.

Stephen Jenkinson, author of “Die Wise,” observed that we live in a “death phobic and grief illiterate” world.

Our dominant culture teaches us to look away from death, avoid it at all costs, or at least as long as possible; and if you must do it, do it elsewhere, away from the schools and shopping malls (lest the people stop focusing on production and consumption and turn instead to the more urgent mystery work of soul .. which would just be bad for the economy).

Yet our ”avoid at all costs“ approach to death and grief only ends up costing us the most important thing: actually being present in our lives.

Jenkinson, a long-time steward to the dying, insists that for many people “…dying becomes the first time, perhaps, that you appear deeply and profoundly present to your neighbors, your friends, your family – as well as to yourself.”

Poet Wallace Stevens said, “Death is the mother of beauty.”

Without the awareness that something you love will inevitably have its end, it becomes quickly normal, just part of the everyday background scenery … easy to ignore.

I can’t tell you how many times I have worked with a man who’d grown complacent in his relationship, or simply felt overwhelmed and trapped by it, thinking his partner would always be there to either support or irritate him, or both.

Typically that man gets feedback from his partner that says (in a million ways), “You’re not really here. I don’t feel your full presence.”

I used to be that man, too.

When I first started studying relationships I worked with author-teacher, David Deida. At one of his intimate workshops I saw him whisper something into the ear of a man standing before the woman he loved, a woman deeply angry and hurt by the various ways in which she felt him not showing up in their life together. What Deida whispered clearly changed this man, at least for that moment, for his eyes moistened and his face softened, and he suddenly began to stand up straighter and started looking at his woman … no, actually, he started to actually see her … with more depth, compassion, gratitude, and more unconstricted love pouring out through him than perhaps he’d ever been able to show her before. It was an unforgettable moment.

What Deida said to that man was simply:

“There will come a day, likely sooner than you’re ready for, when you will never see this woman again for all of eternity.”

This man’s willingness to confront that inevitable truth, the impending end of relationship with his beloved, changed everything for him. At least for that moment. It’s possible within a few days he’d buried death underground again, went back to taking for granted that she’d just “always be there,” and his presence waned yet again.

So, in the spirit of ensuring we don’t lose sight of the beauty in our lives; in the spirit of New Year’s reflections and renewal, as the sun’s light begins its slow return to lengthen our days (for those of us in the Northern hemisphere), and before we’re too far into January and yet again subsumed into the busy-ness modern life demands of us, I invite you to experience 11 minutes of my guided meditation on death.

I promise it isn’t morbid or heavy. Rather I think it will prove clarifying, invigorating, even enlivening.

In this guided meditation, I’ll invite you to reflect on your life in expansive ways that can help bring you more present to the real work you’re on this planet for: the mystery work of your soul.

Because indeed, you never know what comes first: tomorrow or your death.

May you live wisely, so you may die wisely.

👉 GET THE MEDITATION (FREE) HERE.
*you can save and do it later.

p.s. Men, if you want to join an epic group of men preparing to make 2026 an extraordinary year of radical growth and brotherhood, I strongly encourage you to apply for Elevate 2026 asap. We begin soon. I have only a few spots left.

And, because he’s a man, too, he can’t fully trust himself, either.

That was certainly my life story.

I deeply distrusted, even plain disliked, men for much of my young life.

Dad left at 4? ... Can’t trust a man to hang around ✔

Boys bullied me at school? ... Other boys are jerks ✔

Uncle is a raging alcoholic? ... Men are unstable and scary ✔

A friend takes advantage of my sister? ... Even friends will betray me ✔

My frat bros just want to drink & use women? ... Men are childish idiots and a detriment to women ✔

Then I joined the military, and my respect for men – who can’t talk about real things, can’t ask real questions, can’t let themselves feel – just kept plummeting from there.

By the time I was 21, it was decided: Men aren’t safe (or even worthy) to let into my inner world.

Women, on the other hand?

They’re soft. Easy on the eyes. Smell good. Warm. Nurturing. Seem to love hearing whatever I’m open to sharing. They make me feel good.

So women are safe … buuuuuut only to a point.

For eventually a woman always became angry and frustrated with me, and she’d withdraw her love from me, too. Just like men.

Thus I lived the awful isolation so many men live, even when they put a good face on.

When a man stays there, that isolation turns into cynicism, which requires numbing out, which reinforces powerlessness, which renders him useless to the world, thus leaving him to live a pittance of his potential.

Enter men’s work.

At 39, I started doing deep inner growth work alongside other men, and everything in my life changed … fundamentally. I started seeing everything through a new lens.

It helped me understand why women always inevitably got so angry at me.

After all, I was unconsciously using women in attempting to fill up a gaping hole in my heart that was never a woman’s to fill.

Without trustable men I could bare my soul to, share my burdens with, be challenged by (in respectful ways), I would put too much strain on a woman to be my everything: cheerleader, challenger, supporter, lover, friend, accountability partner, adventure buddy, and whatever else I needed her to be.

When a woman failed at any of those roles – and no human woman can (or even wants to) be all those things for a man – I would complain, withdraw, blame her not being what I needed.

She’d feel my punishment, because that’s what it was. She’d resent me for it and punish me back, because … let’s be real … that’s what many women know to do, as well, at least until they’ve begun their own growth journey.

These days, I’m daily surrounded by profound, strong, trustable men who have my back no matter what may arise.

I trust them to challenge me respectfully and witness my struggles without judgment. Where most men minimize each other’s triumphs, and try to make themselves look better, my brothers celebrate me wildly when I win in my life. They also help me get back up when life kicks me in the pecans.

Ironically, with men like this around me, my wife gets to be what I always wanted from a woman: cheerleader, supporter, challenger, friend.

It’s just that she doesn’t have to do it perfectly, or every day.Because I have epic men who play those roles for me, too, and they have my back.

They have her back, too … which helps her feel even more safe with me.

Subscribe now

If you’re a man, and you want to be surrounded by epic men doing life together, and be witnessed, challenged, supported, and celebrated by men who will help you step more fully into your greatness as a man, apply to join me for Elevate 2026.

I have 5 spots left. We begin in January.

This is when men start to see just how much they project their ”father anger” and/or ”father hunger” onto the whole world around them.

Ten years ago, in one men’s group I was part of, another man in his mid-30s showed up to a weekly meeting after having not attended for 6 months, angry at me. It was a surprise to me, as we’d had disagreements, but I’d never experienced us being in actual conflict until that moment. Nonetheless, I had become in his mind, if unconsciously, his intense and domineering father with whom he had not yet made any peace. Neither of us understood that at the time, and by the end of the night he was demanding that either I leave the group or he does.

Yet where I was at least willing to work through it and reconcile, he was not. Rather than confront his projection and turn to the task of escaping the oppressive shadow his father still cast upon his psyche, he instead only confronted me with an ultimatum and escaped nothing. I was committed to staying, yet was unwilling to accept his father projection, so he left and never came back.

It happens in every men’s group I’ve ever facilitated or been part of.

Eventually, inevitably, as men start trusting each other enough to get real, we start to see the signs of projection pop up: frustrations start to get expressed, judgements spoken aloud, young resentments beginning to sprout, lamentations of being misunderstood by the others.

When I’m leading the group those projections usually fall first on me.

Subscribe now

Even though I’m (mostly) able to facilitate in ways that don’t put me on a pedestal above anyone, as the primary “authority“ it’s natural that a man still angry at/hungering for the presence of his father will see me as He who can either heal their wounds by giving them what they lacked as boys, or further wound them by letting them down – oppressing, denying, competing with, or just somehow injuring them – just like Dad did.

One man in his 60s straight up spoke the words to me after our group had skillfully navigated some conflict that had arisen when one man felt aggrieved that I’d misunderstood him: “You’re the dad of the group.”

Make no mistake: I welcome conflict in my groups.

It’s actually one of the best things that can happen, and I always hope it happens early on in our formation. Because it is through moments of conflict navigated skillfully that the real, deep, most profound healing often begins for a man.

Few men have ever seen conflict handled well, by which I mean handled in ways that actually meaningfully resolve the issue at hand and yield more understanding and connection on the other side.

Most of us have only seen conflict between our parents and other adults as unproductive if not outright destructive and painfully disconnecting, and then swept under a living room rug as if it never happened.

As children, we can’t pretend it didn’t happen happen; our psychological defenses haven’t yet formed to allow us that particular trick. Nor can we really talk about it. So we’re left to feel viscerally the tension pervading the home, our tiny bodies like little lighting rods absorbing the lightning discharge of last night’s storm still arcing through the wallpapered nervous system of our only home.

Before my parents divorced when I was 4, in my only memories of them together they are fighting.

I also remember being terrified to allow my body to poop. I’d sit in a corner, my 4-year old body curled into a tight little ball with one hand placed over my butt, and I would tightly contract myself, for hours, to prevent poop from coming out. I don’t think anyone ever made the connection between my body contracting itself and the emotional contracting my parents routinely played out before me.

Fast forward 35 years, on the second day of the first men’s workshop I ever attended, when I was 39, a sudden rage erupted out of me that I’d never expressed before in the presence of other men. I didn’t even know that rage was inside me – well, it’s more honest to say I would never have acknowledged it. Because I had seen in years past, though only in the presence of two other people: with an ex-girlfriend throughout our tumultuous 5-year catastrophe, and then with my actual father the day after I tasted a betrayal by his hands. Other than that, I was sure I was just super chill!

Since that men’s weekend workshop over a decade ago, in which my “father anger” was skillfully seduced out from the murky shadows of my psyche where it lay hidden like a coiled cobra, I’ve had plenty of occasion to practice working with anger – both mine and other men’s – through the more intentional interactions that occur in men’s groups.

Ten years ago, I knew to not accept a man’s father projections onto me, but I didn’t know how to work with him through it. Actually, I could only project my own father anger right back at him. Two men acting out their unconscious father wounds towards each other can never resolve a conflict, but they can make it worse.

Today, a man’s anger (disappointment, frustration, feeling wounded), though I never intentionally try to provoke it, is one of my favorite things to happen in my groups, but only because I know a profound opportunity for real healing is presenting itself.

When directed at me, sometimes a simple, sincere apology – taking ownership of how I may have overstepped a boundary (even if it hadn’t yet been communicated or I wasn’t clear), or came off harsh (regardless my intentions), or simply said something unskillfully – does wonders for a man who never heard his father apologize.

Indeed, I’ve rarely heard a man share that he’s ever heard a genuine apology from his father for some injury (much less the most painful of woundings) he has visited upon his son, even if unintentionally.

Nope, our fathers swept the pain of their relationships with us under the same rugs they used with our mothers. Thus the work to clear this karma is left to us, should we choose to take up the task.

If we don’t, what’s left but to repeat our father’s legacy? Stay angry at women, at the world, at ourselves? Keep pretending we’re ok even when we’re dying inside, just like dad?

Subscribe now

I’ve heard it said that we men pick up where our fathers left off, as women pick up where their mothers left off. Perhaps it’s not so simple as that, but it’s surely true that what our parents couldn’t model for or teach us we must learn on our own.

For a man, intentional “men’s work” alongside other men is the only arena in which he gets to safely push up against other men such that he learns what it truly means to be his authentic self, an authentic man living connected to his deepest sources of power.

He’ll never truly get at this in relationship with a woman, for she can only reflect back her own aspirations for what she wants (expects) a man to be – and surely her own father wounds will be fiddling with her aspirations (and aversions), as well.

To the man reading this, who might yet still harbor some friction with your father, whether spoken or otherwise – and you can know by how much you’re able to deeply trust in other men, feel safe with other men, and skillfully, vulnerably, authentically communicate even your most awkward truths with other men – consider exploring men’s work.

There are many flavors of men’s work in the world; I offer but one through my ELEVATE 2026 year-long men’s small group coaching adventure.

Whatever you choose, I wish you well on your journey to wholeness.

Warmly, Bryan

Five years ago, I launched “Elevate Men,” a year-long small group coaching program for men. Looking back through photos of each cohort (below), I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the extraordinary men who’ve had the courage to show up, lean in, and do the deep work of simply becoming more whole.

These men are rare.

In a world that still teaches boys to disconnect from their hearts, to stuff down their feelings, to dismiss the feminine, to “man up” and handle everything alone .. these brothers chose a different path.

They chose to gather with other men in circles of vulnerability and truth.

They chose to examine their shadows, face their wounds, and claim their capacity for deeper love.

They chose to be witnessed in their pain, their confusion, their anger, and their yearning.

Most men will never do this work.

Most will spend their entire lives armored up, emotionally isolated, believing that strength means going it alone. Many will leave countless relationships in ruins without ever really understanding what happened or why. Others will stay trapped in disconnection, their hearts slowly calcifying behind walls they built as boys.

But not these men.

ELEVATE 2021

These warriors right here … they showed up week after week, sharing their fears about intimacy, their struggles with anger, their ache to be truly seen by their partners. They learned to breathe into their hearts. They practiced staying present when everything in them wanted to run.

ELEVATE 2022

This brotherhood held each other through divorces, career transitions, death, and father wounds that finally got to bleed in the presence of men who wouldn’t judge them for it.

ELEVATE 2023

These men discovered they’re not broken for having feelings. They learned that vulnerability isn’t weakness, and that other men can be trusted with their authentic truths.

ELEVATE 2024

This group proved that masculine energy and heart-centered presence aren’t opposites. They embodied what it means to be both strong and soft, both protective and open.

ELEVATE 2025

And our current cohort .. these brothers are learning what all who came before them learned: that the journey from head to heart is the most important journey a man can take.

Here’s what moves me most:

These men transformed their relationships not just with their intimate partners, their children, their work and purpose in the world. These transformed their relationships with themselves … and with Life, itself.

They learned that “I got this“ (one of my popular blogs) isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about having the courage to stay present even when you don’t.

They discovered that the most courageous thing a man can say isn’t “I’m fine.” No. It’s “I’m hurting, and I need support.“

They proved that men growing together, challenging each other with love, holding each other accountable while offering deep acceptance; this is what creates lasting transformation.

This Thanksgiving, I’m profoundly grateful:

For every man who trusted me to guide him deeper into his own heart.

For every circle that formed, where safety was created and truth was spoken.

For every breakthrough, every tear, every moment of authentic connection.

For the ripple effect these men are creating, in their families, their communities, their corner of the world.

And I’m grateful for YOU. Whether you are an Elevate Man, or worked with me privately, attended a workshop, or have simply been reading my words and allowing yourself to be moved by them.

Awareness that something needs to change is what sparks the journey. But choosing to actually embark, to grow, to no longer stay stuck in the same patterns that have limited you for so long … that is the choice that actually changes everything.

If you’re a man who’s been feeling the call to do your own deep work with other men, know this: You don’t have to figure it out alone.

The Elevate Men journey enrolls once per year. If you’re interested in joining our 2026 cohort, reply to this email and let’s talk.

To all the men who’ve walked this path with me: I thank you for your courage, your commitment, your genuine willingness to show up real. A man connected to his heart is a man the world desperately needs right now. Thank you for being willing to become that man.

You inspire me every single day.

With deep gratitude & respect,

Bryan

Subscribe now

“Women often become the unwitting ritual stewards in relationships with men - the ones who become the initiators of men into mature manhood.

Which is not their f*cking job.

So much hostility arises between men and women because, on some level, we men crave the initiation yet know it’s not a woman’s job to offer it. Women also know it’s not their job. But given our modern culture’s overwhelming absence of intentional rites-of-passage into mature manhood, intimate relationship is what there is.”

** Quote from my recent “Bridging Connections” Episode #161.

In many a man’s story of deep transformation you will find a woman was the catalyst for his journey.

That certainly is true for me.

I’ve heard it a thousand times from men:

“My wife kept leaving your book lying around so I finally picked it up, and holy sh*t, you were talking straight to me …”

“My girlfriend demanded I listen to your podcast. I resisted at first, but then I heard one episode, and just kept going …”

“She told me something had to change, or we were done … and I finally believed her.”

Sometimes it takes a relationship to end for a man to truly begin his journey.

But once he enters the arena of his inner life, as he steps into the realm of powerful support, real accountability, and real brotherhood with men further down the road, something shifts inside him.

He reconnects with something primal, ancient. He discovers a resource of authentic power he’s not fully experienced before, because all the men he’s ever known have been long disconnected from it, too.

He learns to stop asking (requiring) his partner to be his validator, or his therapist, mother, cheerleader .. his only mirror.

He learns what it means to stand beside a woman, not below her .. or above her.

He learns to meet her in the essential work of relating, and he stops resenting her for wanting (needing) that of him.

This week’s Bridging Connections Podcast episode is an ode.

To the women who love men enough to call them into their greatness, even when it might not land gently.

Even when it sounds like criticism.
Even when it’s done unskillfully.
Even when it ends in heartbreak.

To the women reading this:

Thank you.

Whether you’ve extended the invitation to a man skillfully or not …
Your voice matters. Your stand matters.

We’re listening, even when it doesn’t look like it.

In this podcast episode I share something a girlfriend once told me – it wasn’t kind, and I don’t encourage saying it to a man – that took me 15 years to understand the painful truth of it. She saw what I was unable to see; what many women see in men around them that few men likewise see:

... that I was still a boy, not a man.

Subscribe now

To the men:

If you’ve been hearing the same message – maybe in the form of frustration, distance, closure, or even silence – let this be the nudge from another man you’ve been waiting for.

Yes, I agree women must learn how to be a stand in more skillful ways. Yes, criticism never works; telling you what you to do never works. Indeed, psychologist Terry Real said it true: “Harshness never works.”

Nonetheless, if you keep finding yourself standing before an angry woman, a resentful woman, or one who’s simply closed and shutoff to you for reasons that confound you, rather than focus on what you think she’s doing wrong, consider it far more useful to ask yourself:

“Why does this keep showing up before me?”

That simple question may spark the beginning of the most extraordinary journey of your life.

In this brief podcast episode (only 16 minutes), we explore:

• The masculine resistance to growth – what’s really beneath it

• Why women often become the “ritual stewards” of men’s growth (even when it’s not their job)

• The difference between a friend group and a men’s group

• What men gain when they’re supported by trustable men

• How saying “yes” to the invitation can change everything

Episode 161: An Ode To Women (Who Compel Men Into Manhood)

🔥 You should know about ELEVATE 2026 → A year-long coaching journey for men ready to rise.
→ Only 10 men are invited each year.

*Header Photo by Eli Searcy from Pexels

*in case it’s hard to read, here’s highlights:

“Thank you doesn’t begin to come close to what I’d like to convey to you both. ... the space you provide has been exactly what Jeff needed to break free from the many barriers/walls he had build around his own heart. It has been astonishing to bear witness to this transformation ... for the first time we have a husband and father who has opened his beautiful tender heart – not only to love us well every day - but to break free of the bondage of old patterns. There is nothing more important. I thank you. ~ Katie.”

Over the 5 years I’ve offered this journey to men I’ve heard from multiple women – wives, girlfriends, daughters – who shared that ELEVATE was doing something vital for their man, that it was breathing life back into him, and back into their relationship with him.

The Men in Your Life Need a Path Forward

Men carry a heavy burden … often quietly. We feel the weight of expectations, success, and responsibility, yet mostly lack the resources and tools to turn our inner struggles into growth, clarity, and real strength.

You know intimately: when men suffer in silence, everyone is affected.

Imagine if the men you love had a genuinely safe space to explore who they are beneath the surface.

Imagine if they had a guide to help them align with their deeper purpose, and a community of trustable men to hold them accountable simply to being the best versions of themselves?

That’s why I created ELEVATE, my innovative small group coaching program for men ready to live into a greater version of themselves - for both their own sake, and also for the sake of those they love.

When men do this kind of inner work, everything changes:

• They learn how to show up as emotionally present, supportive partners and fathers.

• They become more relaxed, authentic, grounded, and deeply purpose driven.

• They strengthen their ability to communicate clearly, and thus connect deeply.

Why Men Need You to Encourage Them

The wise sage, Captain Obvious, once said, “Many men resist seeking support.“

We’re conditioned to tough it out, to believe we should already have the answers.

That’s where you come in. Your belief in him - your encouragement - can be the nudge he needs to take this step.

I know it can be tricky suggesting action to a man. I don’t always like it when my wife gives me direction I didn’t ask for – even when she’s right.

But if the man you’re thinking about is as stubborn as I am, and he isn’t deeply thriving, then he needs your encouragement.

He needs you to be a stand for him, to know you believe in him. Deep inside, he’s aching to live as his authentic self, connected to both his emotions and his deepest purpose, able to be fully present for his most important relationships.

So ... if there’s a man in your life who you know needs this, share this email with him. Let him know you honor him as a man, you see his efforts, you believe in his potential for even greater fulfillment, and respectfully encourage him to at least learn more, and even apply if he feels curious.

On behalf of the lives that can be changed by this – including potentially your own – I thank you.

👉 Learn More about “Elevate 2026” Here

👉 Watch videos of past Elevate journeys Here

With appreciation & hope,

Bryan W Reeves

Relationship Guide | Men’s Coach | Author

* this is what joy looks like in a man surrounded by inspired, trustable men :)

I tell the men at the beginning of each year, “None of us know what’s going to unfold on this journey. But if you’re willing to show up, get out of your comfort zone, and play full out with me, extraordinary things can happen.”

When men do just that, I’ve seen them break lifelong sabotaging patterns, restore integrity in their most important relationships, step more fully into being the courageous partners and leaders their spouses, children, friends, family, colleagues, and communities need them to be.

I’ve also seen men shift from distrusting other men to building unshakable bonds with men to last a lifetime.

So, as we round November towards the end of another year, I’m once again throwing the doors wide open for ELEVATE 2026.

Already 5 courageous men have stepped up to claim a seat for the journey. I only have 5 spots left.

***Note for Women: You may be a man’s greatest ally. Please share this with someone who might be deeply served by it.

**Click any picture to see video & hear stories of the men who’ve experienced Elevate.

A lot happens in an Elevate year. We’ve supported men through painful divorce, struggling marriages, and the rocky beginnings of new relationships. We’ve helped men find the courage to make daunting career shifts. We’ve walked alongside men through the deaths of loved ones. We’ve helped men finally connect with and articulate their deepest life’s purpose, and put it into daily practice.

I couldn’t possibly list all the scenarios and challenges we’ve supported men to move through with true power and grace, but through it all, there are 5 core shifts men experience in Elevate:

1. From Lone Wolf to Brotherhood
You stop trying to figure life out alone and begin walking beside powerful, heart-centered men who hold you accountable, lift you higher, and remind you who you truly are.

2. From Numbness to Emotional Aliveness
You reconnect to your emotional body, no longer suppressing what you feel, and rediscover your capacity for joy, passion, and presence.

3. From Performance to Purpose
You stop chasing validation (especially from women) and start living from authentic purpose, aligned with your deepest truth, not external pressures, ambitions, or expectations.

4. From Reactivity to Relational Artist
You learn how to stay grounded, open, and skillful under stress, and transform conflict into connection to create relationships that actually thrive.

5. From Disconnection to Inner Alignment
You reconnect with a deeper intelligence within yourself, cultivating practices that anchor peace, intuition, and inspired leadership, to support you in living with deep clarity instead of confusion or chaos.

If you’re a man feeling that quiet pull to go deeper into living your truest, most authentic and courageous life, take action … this is Life knocking on your door.

Next step?

I invite you to a conversation with Tait Arend, my group coaching co-facilitator, podcast co-host, and lifelong childhood friend.

➡️➡️➡️ Book A Call with Tait

On this call, Tait will help you:

- Explore the 3 most vital areas of your life you want to elevate in 2026.
- Develop a powerful vision for the next year of your life.
- Identify exactly what is standing in the way of you having what you want.

You’ll also explore whether ELEVATE 2026 is a good mutual fit. If it is, Tait will invite you in. If it isn’t, he’ll tell you and offer guidance on another direction.

Once these final 5 spots are gone, they’re gone.

You ever heard the term, “ambiguous loss”?

It describes that kind of loss that defies closure, that can be hard to explain, not only to others but even to yourself.

In the past 5 years – since that worldwide pandemic stole our idyllic Ireland wedding scheduled for April, 2020 – Silvy and I have experienced something like 20 major life upheavals that can be challenging to talk about with others. Some we don’t even try to talk about. Not because we want to hide something or feel shame, but simply because the loss can be challenging to articulate, to truly name, and a lot of people, sometimes even close friends, just don’t know how to empathize.

Whatever the loss, if there isn’t a dead body or a burned down house to point at, it’s too tempting to bypass the pain, insist on solutions, or simply dismiss the loss as not real.

Subscribe now

For example:

- I became fully estranged from my father, yet who’s still very much alive.

- We lost the dream of a baby, one that was never even conceived.

- We bought our first home on an oak-tree lined street in Texas that we soon discovered we couldn’t build a life in, or sell (as the market imploded), and instead it became a 4-br-house-sized anchor I still carry on my back.

- When fire ravaged Los Angeles earlier this year, we lost yet another home despite not yet having one here that even could go up in flames (the fires hit as we were house-hunting, sending us fleeing back into an extended temporary living situation).

I could go on.

Do you see?

No dead bodies. No burned down house. Heck, we even still own a dope-ass house. We just can’t live in it.

We have friends who lost actual homes in the LA fires. We have friends who’ve lost actual babies to miscarriage and grown children to either disease or tragic accident.

It’s easy to ask, “what right do we have to grieve?”

A few days after moving in (i.e. earlier this week), Silvy and I both experienced a profound exhaustion. Our bodies have been holding the tension of ambiguous grief and repeated upheaval for years now. I think moving into this home, which we intend to stay in for a few years, is a signal to our nervous systems that we can finally rest.

We finally have our own refuge once again.

Although we’re still processing the impact of our journey these last few years, I have great empathy for people displaced by natural disaster, economic impoverishment, political/social instability.

I get that Silvy and I are privileged in ways so much of the world is not. It is not lost on my that even as we have been through so much, we are incredibly fortunate for the life we have.

As Silvy and I get ready to write our first book together, I am excited for the lessons of this experience to find their way into our work.

For we have gone through all this both as a couple, and as individuals, as well. We have at times experienced painfully conflicting needs and desires, as well as wildly divergent perspectives and visions for how we each are certain things should go.

Yet here we are, having recently celebrated our 10th anniversary (September 30), not just alive and kicking, but ready and eager to get back to rebuilding our lives, both as individuals and as a couple.

A wisdom I have learned is that Life unfolds in seasons.

For the past few years, we’ve been in a heavy winter season of upheaval and grief.

Surely there is more of that to come, but for now at least, our own personal winter is breaking and the promising signs of a beautiful spring are beginning to shoot out through the melting frost.

P.S. MEN … If you’re ready to step into a brotherhood of epic men, and do deep personal growth work, I’m inviting just 10 men to spend all of 2026 with me in ELEVATE 2026. I already only have 5 spots left. Learn more & apply now here 👉 https://bryanreeves.com/elevate

My wife (Silvy Khoucasian) and I just signed with a literary agent to write a book together.

Yeah.

We’re super pumped.

While not a literal baby (if you’ve been following my work a while you might have thought/wished that the big news), but it is .. *ahem … a literary baby … (I’m so sorry) … that we get to create together.

Anyway, whatever it is, it’s totally a BFD (just look it up).

We almost forgot to celebrate given it happened in the midst of the thousand moving parts that is our life this week. But we just had our kickoff meeting with our agent this week, and now it feels real.

So I couldn’t wait to share this exciting news with you (if you wanna hit me back, reply, send me some celebration emojis, cute GIFs of dogs in reading glasses with books, I’d totally love it!)

What will it be about, you ask?

Well, this past April, Silvy and I did our first duo-keynote presentation at the prestigious “In Bloom Summit” in Vancouver (where I low-key stalked fellow presenter, Dr. John Gottman, in the hotel exercise room), and the producers gave me permission to share the recording of that talk with you.

While it isn’t exactly the subject of our book, that talk did plant the seeds for it, and now you can watch it on Youtube.

It took almost a decade for Silvy and I to (finally!) create enough trust & safety with each other to do something like this. I’m really proud of us. We created a presentation that is at moments hilarious, confronting, inspiring, and insightful, and deeply heartfelt all the way through.

You get a sneak preview into the innovative relational work Silvy and I intend to champion in coming years; see how we dance together on stage; and hear how we help couples embrace their differences to create deeper connection.

[Click here to watch]

A few highlights:

• Why “power struggles” are actually vital for a healthy love.

• Were you raised for “autonomy” or “loyalty”?

• The role of grief and acceptance in relationships.

• The importance of shared purpose & clear agreements.

Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there’s a field. I’ll meet you there. ~ Rumi

Many years ago, I discovered a powerful practice that helps couples tell better stories in their relationships. Whether of past painful breakdowns, or happy memories they remember differently, this simple practice helps couples avoid getting bogged down in the sticky mud of facts.

The practice is simply to banish the words “right” and “wrong” from your relational vocabulary.

Those two words tend to require agreement over ”facts” likely to be so charged with emotion that a stubborn disagreement is inevitable. Removing them instead compels each partner to simply be with their own experience, while simultaneously making room for the other’s experience.

This empowering practice does a few important things:

First, it invites genuine vulnerability.

When you can’t take the moral high-ground by labeling your partner’s (or your own) behaviors and choices as right or wrong, you’re compelled to confront what’s really going on inside you at a deeper layer.

You still get to own and speak to your hurt, your anger, your fear, your desire, or whatever is coming up for you, but you must do so without the strategic advantage of that moral high-ground that only has you look down on your partner. You get to stay focused on exploring and sharing your own truth, your own experience – the felt impact of events on you, not the morality of it. Which offers your partner a real chance to stay out of their own defenses, because they no longer feel morally judged.

Second, because real vulnerability finally enters the scene, unclouded by moral judgy-ness, this opens up space for both of your truths to come forth and be present in whatever story gets told. After all, if no one is right or wrong, a more complex reality can finally emerge, one that incorporates both of your experiences.

Even Silvy and I still disagree on certain “facts” of our past. We just don’t let that stop us from telling our stories in ways that leave each other feeling loved and respected.

Facts just don’t matter as much as how we consciously choose to see, hold, and honor both partners’ truths and experiences. Arguing to get the facts right never creates emotional safety and heart connection.

A healthy and vibrant ”Planet of Us” isn’t built by facts, but by the ongoing effort to merge your two distinct worlds into shared realities that serve (and include) both of you.

Betrayal: When facts really matter.

“Don’t we need to agree on the actual facts of what happened first, before we can even hope for any kind of healing?”

Great question.

Yes.

Facts matter most in an intimate relationship when working through betrayal.

Betrayal happens when one partner discovers the other has been offering a blatant misrepresentation of the facts of their partnership. The entire past suddenly, unexpectedly, gets rewritten in the mind of the betrayed partner, as they learn that what they thought was true about their relationship wasn’t actually true. Such a revelation is always profoundly disorienting, like an earthquake that suddenly turns the solid ground you’ve been standing on into a liquid sand with no bottom.

The first step in recovering from betrayal is a full and factual reconciling of what actually happened.

Both partners must eventually come to agree on the same historical facts – what happened, when it happened, where it happened, how it happened. According to renowned relationship experts, The Gottmans, the only thing a couple should NOT attempt to fully reveal, when the betrayal involves sex, is the actual sex act, what it specifically looked like, felt like, etc. Everything else needs to be put on the table.

They don’t necessarily have to agree on the reasons why the betrayal happened.

Nonetheless, the betraying partner will have to eventually demonstrate that they fully understand, in a felt, embodied way, the impact of the betrayal on their partner. Only once a full inventory of the actual betrayal has occurred, which can potentially take many months depending on the extent of the betrayal, what must begin next, if the couple chooses to stay together, is a long journey towards rewriting a new story about their relationship.

I’ve said it to many couples over the years when attempting to heal from betrayal:

“Your previous relationship is over. Done. If you make it through this together, it will be because you’ve created a new relationship, based on new agreements, new commitments, new behaviors, new everything. You’ll essentially become new people to each other, and to yourselves.”

In other words, they must now begin to find their way to a new story of their journey.

Many couples working through a betrayal will naturally endure intense aftershocks for years that continue to scream out the pain of the past: “You were a selfish liar!” “You didn’t care enough about me to be honest!” “You abandoned me!”

Which is to be expected. The aftershocks of that earthquake discovery will occur long after the initial shock subsides. Eventually, though – and this happens in its own time, as couples persist in doing the necessary work over many years – the relationship must move past those old stories. They must not be allowed to dominate anymore.

A new story that truly serves the relationship will thoughtfully incorporate the betrayal but not be defined by it. It will also find its way to not portray either partner as hapless victim or evil perpetrator.

Betrayal is a massive topic beyond the scope of this post. There are many resources offering roadmaps through that treacherous landscape.

I simply want to impress upon you, my dear reader, the vital importance of stories in relationships, how we hold them, and how we tell them.

Stories create the relationship. Tell more stories that feel good to both of you, and enjoy a good relationship. Tell more stressful stories, and stress will define you.

In the end, the stories you tell are a choice you make.

Subscribe now

Maybe you’re in a relationship where the stories being told are consistently more painful and stressful than they are honoring and praising. Maybe you’re doing the work to find your way to a new story together, and you just aren’t getting there. If that’s true, and you’ve been working at it a long time with good support, then you may be doing more harm in staying together. Ending the relationship, and letting each other go to each find your own way into new stories with someone else, or by yourselves, might be the most loving, mature thing you could do.

After all, it’s torture to be with someone whose stories about you don’t feel honoring, or generous, or kind, or loving.

Conversely, to be with someone who holds you in reverence, who honors you and seeks to see the best in you, even when you’re imperfect … well that’s just sublime.

So, what stories do you still disagree/argue over with your partner? (Single? Reflect on a past relationship. What did you experience?)

What is all that arguing costing you?

What might you gain by learning to tell your stories in a new way … together?

Subscribe now

In case you missed it ..

👉 Part 1 “My Story Isn’t Our Story”

👉 Part 2 “Relationship Isn’t a Real Thing”

p.s. If want coaching to help you elevate your relationship stories, contact me at support@bryanreeves.com.

If you’ve experienced someone close to you – a sibling, parent, old friend, or intimate lover – hold (tell) some story about you in a way that felt harsh, one-sided, dismissive of your actual experience, or perhaps ignorant and devoid of curiosity, or simply lacked generosity in how it portrayed you, then you know the sting of that pain – the pain of exile.

Indeed it is a kind of exile, as their story keeps out the parts of you inconvenient to that story, and that would require they believe a different story. Which only erodes safety and trust, causing you to pull away, mentally, emotionally, if not physically.

Their story is evidence of their (unconscious) inclination to judge you harshly. How could you possibly feel genuinely safe to be your authentic self in their presence?

I myself am estranged from my own father, in part because of a letter he wrote me 3 years ago that gave me insight into the story he tells (himself, and perhaps others) about me. After years of therapy and deep growth work, I’d finally decided to initiate a sincere effort to reconcile with him. We hadn’t been in each other’s lives for 20 years, and I was don’t holding any grudges about that.

Sadly, it didn’t go well. In a letter he wrote to me shortly after my attempt, he told me he didn’t like the man I had become. He insisted I get therapy to heal something that had nothing to do with him. He showed zero curiosity (he obviously missed that I’d already been going to therapy for years).

His story felt deeply disrespectful, and completely dismissive of my actual life experience. There was no room in his story of me for the man I actually know myself to be.

He couldn’t see through his story because he didn’t think of it as a story. To him, it’s just reality.

Relationship Isn’t a Real Thing.

Dr. Stan Tatkin (renowned marriage & family therapist) cleverly points out that a relationship isn’t a tangible thing. You can’t touch it, point at it, put it in a box, or pin it to the wall. It lives or dies by the agreements we make (and keep), the actions we take, and the stories we tell (and how we tell them).

Modern couples into “doing the work” will spend a lot of time talking about agreements, boundaries, needs and desires, daily connection rituals, and other practical aspects of figuring out how to thrive together.

What they don’t often talk about (because they don’t even know they should) .. is actually how to talk about the events and experiences of their journey together.

Couples will debate endlessly over what they see as facts: who’s right about what actually happened in the past, about each other’s (and their own) character traits, each of their perceived strengths and weaknesses, who contributes what (and who doesn’t), what mistakes the other makes, and so on.

They’ll argue like lawyers in a courtroom, certain their version is based in actual fact, tangible reality, rather than fallible perception, memory, cultural bias, pure belief, and a thousand other biases and unseen variables. And they always get nowhere fast because of it.

I’ve seen even otherwise healthy couples completely derail their life together because they couldn’t agree on something each partner saw as so fundamentally obvious a fact.

Hello, my name is Bryan, and I’m a factaholic.

I used to believe that for a relationship to succeed, for my partner and I to get along, we must agree on the most important “facts.” Naturally, as a factaholic, I was sure all facts were important.

Which describes a ”Masculine Values” heavy approach to relationships.

To a more core-masculine person, intellectual agreement is essential for a relationship to move forward. We tend to place Defcon Level 5 Priority on agreement over all kinds of intellect-based things as vital if there is to be peace in the land. We’ve got to agree on viewpoints and opinions of events, the meanings of words, the ideas we hold, what is right vs. wrong, Truth vs non-Truth, and so on.

This is why men, in particular, since the beginning of time will argue (and go to war) over religious and political beliefs despite the impossibility of being able to prove with any reliable finality whether one religious or political ideology is absolutely and always better (or more true) than any other.

We bring this same intellectual fatalism into intimate relationships thinking it must apply there, too. Which is why men also tend to experience relationship as an endless battle ground, as well. Imposing our masculine allegiance to “facts” (as we understand them) onto intimacy causes us to overlook the need to tend to the ”Feminine Values” that bring life to relationship: the drive for connection, and the yearning to maintain a flow of love between us. Facts play little role in creating any of that.

Indeed, after 10 years of marriage and working professionally with couples for longer, despite being a man previously devoted to the worship of facts, I’ve fully accepted that facts are rather tricky things.

Facts are so easily distorted by the unavoidable (and well-researched) limitations of memory and perception.

We humans don’t actually remember things precisely how they happened, no matter how convinced we are that we do. Even a great memory is still affected by the human limits of perception. No person can possibly take in the essentially infinite variables and factors that ultimately led up to any given event coming to pass.

No human mind (nor even advanced AI, as such are the times) will ever be able to grasp the entirety of the childhood influences, cultural influences, environmental conditions, thoughts, feelings, fears, drives, motivations, and so on that are always at play in any given unfolding moment.

Yet argue we will, even passionately, when convinced that we know all there is to know about the what and why of an event, why someone is how they are, why they did what they did, and so on.

Most arguments that endure beyond 5 minutes soon feel utterly frustrating and exhausting because after 5 minutes of rising heart-rates and stress hormones flooding the body like Viking raiders in a monastery, any hope of resolution to the conflict is lost. Any hope for agreement over facts gets overwhelmed by your well-honed, unconscious defenses. Instead of restoring peace, safety, trust, and emotional connection, you are locked in a futile battle to win each other over to your own story of reality.

Subscribe now

How often has arguing over facts, over who is right about something, yielded a genuinely helpful resolution to your differences?

Has it ever brought you closer?

To be clear, I’m not suggesting you must throw out facts altogether. Facts have their place (*especially after betrayal, which I talk about in Part 3).

Rather, I simply encourage you to hold them gently and avoid the temptation to work hard to insist your partner accept all your facts. Because that will never, ever be a winning strategy for bringing you closer together.

♦◊♦

In Part 3 (coming tomorrow) ... learn the 2 extremely common words every couple should banish from their relational vocabulary, why facts matter to betrayal, and how to get beyond betrayal to a new story.

*read Part 1 here

p.s. If you want coaching to help you elevate your relationship stories, contact me at support@bryanreeves.com.

Subscribe now