Men’s Fraternity, Malaysia

" ...when we say "Absent Father”, we mean either a dad who wasn’t there altogether,
or a dad who was there, but he wasn’t there.
And when Dad is not there, it leaves a huge gaping wound in our lives.
Sadly a lot of young men have never, ever finished this business with Dad.
It’s so easy, in the midst of that wound, to either get angry and close the lid on our feelings, or pretend that it’s just going to go away. But we have to know,
it doesn’t “just go away” until we deal with it in an appropriate way. Then
we can put it to rest and can go on to live an authentic manhood life. "

" The Overly-Bonded with Mother Wound often occurs when we were growing up,
and Mom (for whatever reason) invested too strongly in us. She didn’t mean to hurt us; that was not her intention. Many times she rushed in because she was trying to compensate for the Dad that wasn’t there. Or maybe he was there, and not involved – but she got over-involved and she overly nurtured us, and overly controlled us ... "

" ...as badly as we might want to be connected, we walk through life completely disconnected from other men that are on the same journey. Friends who, in the midst of turmoil, are there to hold us up and can cheer for us in the noble things of life.
We develop these large BLIND SPOTS in life that everyone else seems to be able to see but us. And with the All Alone Wound, we damn ourselves to continually making the same mistakes over and over again... "

" ...a result of having no clear Vision of who you are going to be. And so
we then become subjected to a societal-driven conventional vision of manhood
which says: “If you’ll put your warrior face on. If you clamp down the armor tight and
you work really hard, I mean really hard -- I know it’s going to hurt you, and it’s probably going to hurt your family, too -- but if you’ll work really hard, in the end you’re going to get what you want and then you won’t need anybody. You’ll get there! You’ll be on top of the mountain!”

And so generation after generation of men set out to take the hill of this
conventional vision of manhood to find out at 35, 45, or 55, that it ain't working. And so they burn out. Or for those select few that do make it, the few that make it to the top, they quickly find out that they had been climbing the wrong mountain all along and that the conventional vision of manhood was a lie! "

" It’s a wound that requires a deeper answer. And unless we’ve learned how to fix it,
this problem will continually – every day – undercut our masculinity and our attempts at authentic manhood. That’s what the Heart Wound represents. "

" ...with this suitcase full of wounds – some of us with a Father Wound,
some of us with an Overly-Bonded with Mother Wound, some of us are
just All-Alone; some of us Can’t See and all of us have a Wounded Heart.
It’s all a part of the suitcase we carry with us as we go out of here today.
How a man addresses this unfinished business will determine the kind of man
he will become. So, the first issue in authentic manhood is addressing
the unfinished business of my past. "