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A Men's group for those ready to build deeper relationships, emotional resilience, and a stronger sense of purpose.
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About
MY STORY
I grew up in an Italian American family in 1980s Brooklyn, where anger wasn’t just a warning sign — it was the language men spoke fluently, and the only one that earned respect.
I was a gentle boy in a place that seemingly had no use for that.
Early on I came to the difficult realization that
survival meant becoming someone else.
So I practiced and eventually I couldn’t tell where the performance ended and I began.
THE HERO'S JOURNEY (Take 1)
In my early 20s I felt lost. I had no idea what it meant to be a "Man." I did not feel particularly connected to the versions of manhood I witnessed growing up. Unlike indigenous cultures, modern western culture provides young men few, if any rites of passage into manhood.
The only one that came to mind was the military.
So when 9/11 tragically hit my hometown of New York, I felt called to join the Infantry.
I thought combat training would separate the men from the boys.
No amount of training could have prepared me for the brutality and loss of life
I witnessed during my 2004 Iraq combat deployment. I became intimately aware of how fragile the human mind is in the midst of violence and trauma.
There are clinical terms for what happened to me. None encompass the depth of the wound.
One of my favorite teachers Francis Weller calls it Soul Loss and that feels true.
I often explain my exit from the military with a metaphor about an almost inconceivable animal survival instinct…
When a wolf's leg is caught in a trap, there comes a point where, out of desperation, it will chew off its own leg to escape.
My actual Hero's journey is coming home to my true nature… loving kindness.
Much of that healing has happened in the container of Men's group where other men mirror back my integrity and remind me who I am and what it means to be a good man who shows up for others.
Unlike therapist led groups, I am very much a participant as well as leader in my Men’s groups and I share my life and challenges with radical honesty and vulnerability.
One powerful lesson I did take from the military was the principle of leading from the front.
