Welcome to our course on AngerWork.

Anger is a word which generally brings up all kinds of negative associations. Much of contemporary men’s work is portrayed as “Angry White Men” who are desperately trying to hold on to the last strands of Patriarchal power.

At Maniphesto, we recognise that anger has been a central theme for many of us men. We have often been subjected to it, have acted in haste and in the heat of the moment, said and done things that we have regretted afterwards, and which have had negative and even painful consequences for ourselves and for those around us.

And yet, we do not believe that anger is inherently bad. In fact, we see anger a vital part of being human and living a powerful and directed life. Rather than a toxic emotion which should be cut of, anger is vital in order to create healthy boundaries between ourselves and that which could harm us. It is thus an important source of energy which needs to be channeled productively.

In a society where traditional masculinity has been frowned upon, many men have lost the ability to express, or even to feel their anger. This has left many in a state of grey dullness and disconnection from self, often as “Mr Nice Guy” Pleaser-types who consciously or unconsciously use passive or passive-aggressive strategies to try and get their way, and in the process embedding themselves is an environment of dysfunctional relationships. These men will be “doing their best” to do all the right things, but constantly be met with drama and difficulty, and never have the feeling of being able to completely relax and just be accepted for who they are. For these men, there is a need to get in touch with their anger again. Another type of man is generally overly dominant and aggressive, and is finding that this strategy is not working any more.

Week 1: We will start our work with introducing the idea of sublimation of anger. Sublimation is a psychological term which refers to channeling feelings and urges into productive and beneficial action. Here we will employ storytelling techniques around warrior archetypes.

Week 2: We will work with some of the basic approaches to anger through the No More Mr Nice Guy Framework by Dr Robert Glover.

Week 3: We will introduce a series of exercises and work around Assertiveness.

Week 4: We Perform an After Action Review and go through learnings from the month.

Curriculum for this month:

• No More Mr Nice Guy – Dr Robert Glover
• The Assertiveness Workbook – Randy J. Paterson

Practice is all about your personal habits and regular activities where you are investing in yourself and your own alignment. They could be things you have done since you were a child, or a new activity you have chosen with the specific intention of sharpening and building yourself up. This is your “you” time, where you are consciously taking time out to refine your being and to develop yourself to become the kind of man who will achieve the vision that you have already formulated. 

Most personal practices will use an entry point from one aspect of our being – physical, mental or spiritual. And they will also influence all three. If “spiritual” doesn’t make sense to you, then just replace it here with something like “the deeper, more profound meaning related aspects of the mental aspect”.

For example, martial arts is generally anchored in the physical realm but often has very explicit spiritual practices and philosophies. Reading good philosophy starts in the mind but can inspire and lift us up to higher levels of understanding, but does little good for our physical body.

Prayer and meditation starts by training the body and mind, but is ultimately aimed at training the soul.

Welcome to the Core Team Basics course. This course is for all the members of Core, irrespective of what team you are on, in order to set a common standard across the network.

Please prioritise getting through this program as soon as possible.

This course requires a subscription to Maniphesto Core.

Cal Newport’s Deep Work is an antidote for a world where the human attention span has dropped to a mere eight seconds. In his book, Newport introduces the concept of deep work, as well as its opposite, shallow work. He makes the argument that cultivating your ability to focus and think deeply are necessary for professionals to maximize their value, and offers four rules to help improve your ability to work deeply.

Newport defines deep work as, “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.” Similar to the way muscular strain created by working out helps grow physical strength, we need a state of mental strain to improve our cognitive abilities.

Newport believes that without sustained periods of deep work, we can’t reach our intellectual limits or maximize the output we’re capable of. The problem is most of us spend too much time doing shallow work which is “non-negatively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted.” Unsurprisingly, this type of work doesn’t lead to the breakthrough moments that help us create major impact.

As Newport puts it, deep work is valuable, meaningful, and rare.

Explore the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine

Robert Moore’s work, along with co-author Douglas Gillette, is widely claimed as laying the foundation to the psychological patterns of men and masculinity. Using Jungian theory alongside examples taken from myth and legend, this groundbreaking resource is just as relevant today in order to create the men and culture that today’s world so desperately needs.

At Maniphesto, we encourage and support every man in taking responsibility for their own lives.

Using the core archetypes of King, Warrior, Magician and Lover this work and the conversations and materials you’ll find here help us discover the mature, healthy male psyche, whilst also stressing the importance of understanding their bipolar shadows.

The Maniphesto Mission of “Restoring Man” states:

“The mission of Maniphesto is to renew and restore manhood and masculinity, one man at a time. 

We provide a conciliar community for the men who are inspired by our vision, where each man is accepted and appreciated for his unique abilities and contribution. The community supports and challenges its members to grow in authenticity, discernment, and character. And it provides individual and group mentorship to support members in formulating and reaching their goals in life.

Through this process, men transform their lives and how they show up in the roles they take on in their families, in their work and in their communities. This change of behavior restores their confidence in masculinity, in themselves and in other men, healing the wounds of our broken view of masculinity and manhood. As they grow further, they become active promoters of the Maniphesto vision of the restored man.“

The course you are about to embark on here, the Maniphesto Leadership Development Framework, is the pioneering flagship which is aimed at realising this goal.

Changing the World

If this training program works as intended, then we will also succeed in creating the large scale transformational change which the mission here lays out. 

This is a very ambitious goal. Certainly beyond the reach of our current selves. In order to reach this goal, we need to grow as humans together in our authenticity, discernment and character in such a way that enables us to multiply our abilities by many fold. Through the power of combined effort, combined commitment over time, and supporting each other in striving towards our individual and shared goals, we truly beleive that we can change the world:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

What is Required

As a participant on this program, you have decided that you want to be a part of this vision. And you have declared yourself ready to undertake the next step in developing your own ability to lead.

This is an intensely challenging and powerful training which is aimed directly at bringing about development and growth, empowering men to be a of service to the mission.

This is not something that is acquired easily and without effort and even some suffering. In order to grow and develop as humans, something in us has to die and be let go of – which is always a difficult and oft times painful process. 

Our aim with this training will be to get you outside of your comfort zone and make you uncomfortable, get you into difficulty  and even trigger an uncontrolled emotional response at times. Those are the places where there is the most growth available to us. 

Are you ready? Then it is time to dive in.

Format

• 5 modules of self-paced learning
• Apprenticeship-based – working with your Maniphesto Core Sponsor
• Regular Facilitated Meetings for all participants
• Objective based learning – most of the training is dependent on completion of specific learning objectives, you find the best way to get there.
• Facilitated practice sessions with peer review

Prerequisites for Taking This Training

• Attendance at least at one European Men’s Gathering (EMG) or document equivalent in-person training and experience
• Membership in a Core Team for a period of two months
• A personal sponsor in the existing Core Leadership team

Associated with Maniphesto’s 40 Day Non-Ejaculation challenge, we’re combining the wisdom and insight of centuries of eastern and western traditions with insights from today’s leading sexuality experts. Very simply, the challenge is to go 40 days without ejaculation. You can still be sexually active, but just no peak orgasm! Such challenges have proven valuable in men challenging their narrative around their own sexuality, and moving to a place of deeper connecting with themselves and their relationships.

The videos you’ll find on this course, are discussions we had within Core when we first initiated the 40-Day challenge and you should find them insightful and supportive, whatever your current ‘mastery’ status.

Recommended reading:

The multi-orgasmic man – Mantak Chia

50 Misconceptions of Sex – Alex Vartman

The Enlightened Sex Manual – David Deida

Article by Philip Sherrard on Sublimation in the Christian framework of marriage: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15NRezGbOossyqXQpi2YsNGWsuEiTyCrQ/view?usp=sharing

Nofap: https://nofap.com/porn-addiction/ and https://nofap.com/rebooting/

In this course, we will give an introduction to the No More Mr Nice Guy Framework and scratch the surface of your own relation to this understanding. For anyone wanting to go deeper into this framework, we highly recommend taking a course with a No More Mr Nice Guy Facilitator.

We recommend spending one week on each section.

It seems all roads can lead to this topic, so it made sense to give space to open up the discussion for a whole month within Core. With men’s stories, a meta-look at different relationship frameworks and a look at practical forward-thinking tools and approaches to navigate relationships with women, these recorded calls provided a wealth of wisdom, available for you to revisit here.