Building Presence: How men can support men

This month, we sat down with longtime Academy faculty member, Jacob Lay, to talk about his passion for creating healthy bonds with other men and how he has grown in his own spiritual practice.

As a spiritual man, do you find it challenging to connect with other men?

In my experience, you have a time limit in the emotional world with men. I’ve found many men don’t have the internal bandwidth to talk about emotions and are limited in their ability or vocabulary to begin with.

I also find men tend to be more solution-oriented, which is not necessarily a negative quality. But it’s often like, okay, we acknowledge the emotions, now let’s move into the next steps.

Men typically talk about what they’ve been doing rather than how they are doing, so I try to make a point in conversation to ask honestly, “how are you?” This can create the opportunity to take a moment and reflect and talk about what’s up.

Areas of struggle can be a charged subject because it could be seen to denote weakness. There’s this idea that you’re supposed to have it all together and if you don’t, something is wrong with you. But in my experience, a struggle can also just be a stepping stone in a larger process.

Where do you think that comes from, that place where men can’t find support or a safe place to feel?

I think it’s a lot of how men are brought up. If their father or other male role models are not secure in their emotions, then how could they provide a space for their son to know what that feels like? 

It’s a touchy subject because there’s often not a stable reference point and many young men grow up never having had the experience of being fully supported emotionally by another male. Emotional challenges are met with harshness and short tempers. Boys and young men grow up learning that there is very little space for emotions. The receptivity to this side of us shuts down and then fails to matures as we grow into men. 

It is a fine balance of making space for emotions and then also keeping true to how men often need to move it into action to feel complete. 

How do you feel like a spiritual practice helps with your emotional health?

My spiritual practice gives me the ability to gauge where my awareness is at. Am I present or avoiding the present and why? 

Through meditation, I’m able to create space to listen to what’s going on inside myself, be it parts of myself that are struggling or yearning to express something, even if that may not be clear right away. 

Bringing in things like forgiveness and gratitude leads to a deeper comprehension of myself, my journey and a stronger inner voice.

As a spiritual teacher, what do you hope to offer your students?

I hope to hold a voice of safety and empowerment about being a spiritual individual and, if applicable, a male at the same time. As a teacher I hope to offer a new way of being conscious as a male in today’s society. Because if we don’t have any other examples, we tend to go off of whatever archetypes we’ve seen and mimic those. There’s a passivity in just accepting what has been handed to us as boys when there can often be a whole other toolbox within ourselves waiting to be expressed. 

I find everybody’s individuality is unique, all men express themselves in different ways. There is no one way to be a male yet I find we often get stereotyped as such. 

In today’s world, presence is so important to build a path to that deep inner drive to find and express who you truly are. Humility and humour are always good friends to keep close so I like to add those in with my style of teaching because life is too short to be overly serious even when it comes to spirituality!

As a part of the Academy’s premium newsletter, you and Ty Woolner have created a series called the Men’s Fireside Chat. Tell us about what you’re hoping to share with others.

As two spiritual seekers and teachers, we are using the fireside chat to ask questions like: how are relationships with other men? What makes men tick inside and out? And can we give a voice to places that have been held back? 

I have a lot of gratitude for the men that I’ve worked with and I recognize that there is a lot of healing to be done. Often men say they don’t have much to say in this department then you ask the right questions and the flood gates open. 

We are carving a path of what it feels like to be well and present and balanced as a male. So I have a lot of gratitude for all that is yet to come and all of that that has arrived.

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