We are here. The place of the heart. The place where so many of us have believed for so long that the opening of the heart has no place in the realm of man. I, amongst many are here to tell you otherwise.

That the heart has everything to do with man and masculine expression. It’s mastering the heart in all its all glory and how and when we lead from the heart that matters most. In order to feel others, we must feel ourselves. In order to be free of the pain of the past, we must free ourselves from the past.

Can we lead from heart, instead of leading from hurt? We carry our wounds with us – often unknown to us and who we are. We wear our wounds like armour encapsulating our hearts. Hiding our truth, our power and our ability to be presence itself.

We hide from intimacy, for feeling the depth of our hearts means exposing our hurt that has crusted around our organ of feeling ever so conveniently that we may be blocked of deep connection. And there we continue to isolate ourselves.

We become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We advocate isolation and aloneness without even knowing we are doing so. We yearn to open our hearts and to feel. We have been hardened by war, by destitute, by ego, pride and suppressed pain.

To expose our hearts is to be rawer than we have ever been. To feel our hearts means to break the habit of being man in this world. Would our strength, courage and willingness dissipate? All that we have prided ourselves on simply vanish in the illusion that we once were something of value and meaning?

Too much of who we are and what we have been has been entangled in our identities surrounding our masculine prowess that now, to deviate from this path is to deviate wholly from masculinity itself. However, we are wrong to believe this.

We are more than this. In my own life I have suffered with the identity of who I was. Living from habitual patterning – violence, aggression, frustration, self-inflicted pain, the martyrdom syndrome and projection. The forcing of my values was all that mattered as that perpetuated and kept alive what I thought I was.

I am more than this. You are more than this and when man denies his heart, man is essentially denying his wholeness. Moving through the world, as I once did – fractured, feeling broken, seeking validation form others, satisfying the never-ending thirst of the ego, quenching nothing, feeling less and suffering more.

As men we are more than this. We are better than this. Heart plays a crucial role in bringing us back to Earth, to family, to love… And without the fear or the need to lose the value that is. I am not asking you to become effeminate – that is an old paradigm of thinking (either this or that). No…

I am asking you to expand… Expand your sense of self and fill in that missing piece of that is retracting you and hiding the best of you from this world… Your ability to tap in to the power of heart. Join me on this journey…

One is glad to be of service.

STEFANOS SIFANDOS

Relational Alchemist, Speaker & Author