What Does It Mean to Be A Healthy Masculine Man?
A healthy masculine man is three things:
1) He knows who he is
2) He has a chosen purpose, and he knows that purpose
3) He is capable of leading himself towards the fulfillment of that purpose.
This is the essence of masculinity. If you have these 3 components, then everything else falls into place.
Note: in this blog we're talking about masculine energy, which is different from simply being a male. You can be a healthy male without being masculine. However, if you want to be a masculine male, then you need to embody the above three principles.
1) He Knows Who He Is
A healthy masculine man has a steady hand on the direction of his life. He has an internal consistency and strength that other people can rely on. This steadiness comes from knowing himself.
By contrast, a man who doesn't know himself will bounce from task to task, and/or from woman to woman, looking for something to fulfill him. He doesn't have a strong sense of his own identity, so he molds himself and adapts to anything around him. He becomes so chameleonic that he can forget who he is. This man has no sense of the still small voice inside of himself, because he's too concerned with the loud voice of the world and with changing himself to match that.
Such a man is inherently untrustworthy. Women, especially women with strong feminine energy, won't trust him because they know that when shit hits the fan he won't stand strong. He's not an oak tree that can brave the storm; he's a reed that will bend however he needs to in order to accommodate the world.
By contrast, a man who knows who he is has a steady hand on the tiller of his life. He's like that oak tree in a storm; he can adjust as needed to weather life's tempests, but he's not going to try to become someone else just to satisfy the world. He has a calm inner strength that comes from hearing and following the still small voice inside of himself.
Healthy masculine energy is grounded rather than reactive. It makes the world adjust to it, rather than bouncing every which way in accordance with the world's desires. It is inherently trustworthy. This groundedness and trustworthiness come from knowing oneself. When a man truly knows who he is, the world loses almost all power to perturb him.
2) He Knows His Chosen Purpose
A sense of purpose is essential to the masculine. Every human being was put on this earth to accomplish something, and a masculine man has a strong sense of what that is. He knows the why of his life. Rather than bouncing around from task to task or job to job looking for fulfillment, he has a strong sense of his chosen mission and is focused on completing that mission.
For the masculine man, this mission takes precedence over almost everything else, even romantic relationships. A healthy masculine man will choose the pursuit of his purpose over maintaining a romantic relationship, if it comes to that. As David Deida notes in The Way of the Superior Man, this prioritization is actually a trait that most women value in a partner. The soldier who tells his girlfriend, "I know innocent people are depending on me to bring my skills and my gifts to bear to win this war and protect them, but honestly I'd rather stay here and make out with you" is not going to make her swoon.
3) He Is Capable of Leading Himself Towards the Fulfillment of That Purpose
The essence of masculinity is leadership. No matter what storms arise, a healthy masculine man sees his own North Star and is relentless in terms of leading himself towards it.
This leadership is one of the hardest things for men to embody, because it represents a soul-deep transformation. The masculine man is never "off." He is never asleep at the wheel. He is always, every moment, leading himself.
This does not mean that a masculine man cannot be a part of a team, or that he always has to be in charge. Rather, it means that he is always leading himself. He is never turning responsibility for his own life over to someone else.
On a personal level, leading yourself means–tautologically–having an internal locus of control. Once you fully lead yourself, you accept that your experience of life is 100% under your control. That doesn't mean that you'll always land the job or have a perfect marriage. It does mean that you are in control of how you respond to external circumstances, and–therefore–of your ultimate experience of life. As Viktor Frankl, a psychotherapist who survived Auschwitz, wrote in his landmark bestseller Man's Search For Meaning, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Leading yourself also means being willing to do what has to be done in any particular circumstance. It means always listening to your superconscious mind (whether you refer to that mind as God, Spirit, or simply your highest self) rather than your ego. It means absolute acceptance of every moment for what it is, because only in acceptance can you act.
It means taking a leap of faith; not spiritually, but making a conscious choice to have faith in your own leadership. It means knowing that your leadership will be enough for you, come what may. When you lead yourself completely, you become utterly immune to shit-tests–whether from your spouse, your children, or life itself.
This leadership also entails a willingness to lead others. The healthy masculine man takes total responsibility for his own life and also for the people around him. He accepts responsibility for the people around him who do not wish to lead themselves, which means children and also–often–his spouse. This is what it means to lead your family.
When a man chooses to start leading himself towards the fulfillment of his purpose, then he is becoming a healthy masculine man. When a man recognizes that his leadership of self is enough for him, and leans into the soul-deep shift with everything inside of him, then he is a healthy masculine man.