This weekend will encourage the experiences that accompany teamwork and rivalry, and challenge how we define ourselves as men.

Since the Industrial Revolution, our fathers left home each day to work in industry. When they returned at the end of a long day, they had little time to spend with their sons, or provide the physical closeness they once did when they worked at home as farmers or tradesmen. Boys no longer, received their fathers' teachings, but they did receive their temperament.

The painful lessons we learned from fathers who were absent (their temperament), silent or neglectful, taught us to rely only on ourselves, and not on our fathers, and to be rivals to prepare ourselves for a life of competition - intellectual, business, physical, financial, and sports. Therefore, the only validation we receive is when we succeed in sports, intellectually, financially or through power. Success usually means there is a winner and a loser.

As a result, we have lost our ability to trust other men and to accept competitive feelings in healthful ways. We do not know how to be competitive without being overpowering, and soft without being weak. In brief, we do not know how to be a man and not win. Our egos get in the way of our happiness. The toughness that was once our strength, has become distorted into the macho behavior that turns off women and isolates us from other men. Since society no longer values these qualities, our status has declined as our confusion has grown.

This men's breakthrough weekend provides the opportunity for men to look at their past behavior, look more closely at what they want out of life, and break through the restricted patterns society has imposed on them. On this men's breakthrough weekend, we will have the opportunity to connect with other men, to grieve, to rejoice, to look within, to reach out, and to be honored for being a man.

In A Men's Breakthrough Weekend:

• We begin to look at our masculinity, our fathers and other male role models, in order to claim back our identities as men;

• We do not share what we do for a living. This gives us the opportunity to become known for who we are, and not for what we do;

• We explore the ways we compete as men;

• We clarify our mission, or purpose, in life.

• When we start challenging our beliefs on what it means to be a man, then we may begin giving something back to ourselves, to our wives, and to the planet. If we regress, we will be abandoned emotionally and ecologically.

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