Warrior, Magician, Lover, King

by Rod Boothroyd

  2 Find A Mentor

  All powerful Sovereigns need a mentor. In fact, we all need a mentor. Why? Because we need support. We aren’t designed to work it all out alone. Figuring out what it means to be a man can be hard enough. Figuring out what it means to be a King is even more of a challenge. Most men, I judge, don’t have much in the way of supportive relationships with other men, let alone a mentor. So what’s a mentor?

  A man who is able to provide you with objective feedback, sound reflection, solid guidance and maybe even constructive advice. He’ll tell you what you need to hear with compassion; he’s a combination of coach, friend, therapist and wise Elder. He may be an expert in a particular field if that’s what you need. In any event, he’s a man who’s got your back, come what may.

  How do you find him? Start by looking around your world, and assess all possibilities. He may be waiting, in the form of a minister, counsellor, friend, Elder, coach… the possibilities are endless. A mentor doesn’t have to be older than you, or exactly like you, or somebody whose achievements are obvious to all. A mentor simply needs to be someone who can support you in the way you need to be supported.

  3 Form A Sovereign Circle

  As I approached the age of 60, my growing sovereignty called to me, and as it did so I became more aware of the challenge of living that sovereignty fully.

  What has helped is my Sovereign circle. This is a group of men who come together to celebrate each others’ achievements. The Sovereign circle is a development of the idea of the MasterMind group suggested by Napoleon Hill way back in 1925 in his book “Think and Grow Rich” – which is still in publication today.

  Hill’s idea was that men and women should get together in groups where they could support each other in the achievement of their financial goals. He believed that several people working together in harmony, in support of each other, could generate much more emotional, spiritual and physical energy than the sum of their individual efforts. In effect he was saying, “We’re stronger together than separate.” And so we are.

  There’s certainly a powerful force among a group of committed men working together in this way. This is a process which goes beyond our consciousness. In fact Napoleon Hill thought a MasterMind group could access the collective unconscious – call it universal intelligence, or cosmic consciousness, if you prefer. However, you don’t need to believe in the concept of the collective unconscious to benefit from being part of a group of men who can support you.

  I’ve been in several MasterMind groups over the years. The most recent one has naturally evolved into what we call our Sovereign Circle. This group is not just about offering practical support in business, valuable though that is. It’s also about helping each other overcome our emotional blocks, providing positive support, and maintaining a judgement-free environment. It’s a space where we can bring whatever we need to bring, safe in the knowledge that we will not be judged or criticized. Rather, we will be supported in what we want to achieve in our lives.

  If you want to know more you can easily research the idea of a MasterMind group on the Internet. Read all about it, and then form your own group in the way that best suits your objectives.

  An important element of the MasterMind group or Sovereign Circle is that you form it with people who are at or above your own level of development. That way, you will be stretched. After all, you won’t become a stronger Sovereign by staying inside your existing comfort zone!

  4 Develop Your Leadership

  Since sovereign energy is so much about leadership, you might like to seek out some self-development workshops which aim to develop the quality of leadership. For you, this might mean an Outward Bound course or a Survival Skills course. It may mean attending a workshop run by experts in the human archetypes. It might mean going through a weekend of self-development experiences like those offered by the ManKind Project. It may mean finding a training course to develop your leadership skills in business, perhaps in your particular area of expertise. It may mean finding a coach to support you in your personal or business life.

  The simple fact is, you don’t have to do it all alone, and like any Sovereign, you need support as you develop the skills necessary for the expression of your Kingship.

  5 Explore Your Purpose and Mission – Form A Vision

  If you don’t know what you want for your kingdom, if you have no vision for the future of yourself and your citizens, you are not fully in your sovereignty.

  After all, you cannot lead your people to a better future when you have no vision for them! And because you are your own Sovereign, you need to answer these questions for yourself: what is your purpose on this Earth? What is your vision for your kingdom? What is your mission in life? How do your vision and mission relate to your soul purpose?

  To make this clearer, you might try thinking of your soul purpose as what you could achieve by your very presence on planet Earth; the thing you were put here to do, as it were. You can think of your vision as what your Kingdom would look like as you strive to fulfil your purpose, and you can think of your mission as how you manifest your purpose. In other words, your mission might reflect the practical path you can take to achieve a higher purpose.

  For example, a friend of mine is a yoga teacher. He tells me his soul purpose is to help men and women grow into who they truly are. His mission is to bring the gifts of self-knowledge and awareness to men and women by teaching yoga. His vision includes a well-being centre where yoga workshops and healing can take place.

  When you have answered those questions, a vital step is for you as your own Sovereign to set yourself goals and objectives. These are achievable steps along the path to achieving your vision.

  Goals make your Warrior sit up and take notice. He waits for his orders from you, your instructions about how he can go out into the world and make your goals and objectives become a reality.

  If the ideas of soul purpose, vision and mission sound like a mystery, fear not! There are many websites, workshops and people who can help you to establish what all this might mean for you. Use the energy of your Magician to seek these resources out, and apply the discernment and wisdom of your Sovereign to decide which path is right for you.

  A Sovereign needs to have a clear vision for his kingdom, and a sense of his own life purpose and mission at every stage of his life. These evolve as time goes by. Happily these days, we have the Internet available to us as a repository of just about all the information we could ever need to understand such matters.

  One final point: understanding your purpose and having a mission in the world is an important first step, but what really counts is taking action. That is the value of setting goals and objectives: they motivate your Warrior to take action.

  6 Develop Practical Wisdom or Common Sense

  There’s a big difference between the theoretical knowledge of a clever Magician and the application of the practical wisdom we all need to live successfully in the world. We call this practical wisdom “commonsense”, but why some people have it and some don’t is a bit of a mystery.

  We can define “commonsense” as the practical application of knowledge in a way that meets both your own needs and the needs of the people around you. John Bradshaw describes it as “the ability to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason”.

  Of course developing such practical wisdom is partly down to experience. The more decisions you make, and the wiser they are, the better your outcomes and the more positive and affirming your feedback.

  You can see how this ties in with the concept of resilience: you discover you can cope with whatever the world throws at you, then you learn how to deal with it appropriately, you come back for more, and you find this time you can do it better. In short, you consistently improve in everything you do, all the time.

  The more you seek out life experiences that challenge you and allow you to develop your skills, the more likely you are to develop the practical wisdom that will support your sovereignty.<
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  7 Get Your Balls Back From Anyone Who Has Them

  If you find yourself reverting to a childhood pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviour in the presence of your parents, particularly in the presence of your mother (or in the presence of any other woman, for that matter), then your Sovereign energy may need to be strengthened.

  As a child, you may have had good reason to please your mother – usually to stay safe in some way. You may have come to believe you were controlled by your mother. You may have grown to fear feminine anger, or been shamed by the feminine, as represented by your mother. These and many more distortions of relationship are all common enough in men.

  But here’s the thing: adult men tend to relate to women on the basis of their childhood experience of Mother. (And yes, we also learn how to relate to men by extrapolating our relationship with Father. But true emancipation of the male soul and true growth into sovereignty is achieved by liberation from the control of the feminine.)

  For as long as you remain under the control of the feminine, you will carry some degree of self-hatred. That’s because at some level, conscious or unconscious, you know you’re being controlled. You know you haven’t achieved the emotional freedom needed to be a man in your own right. You know you’re not free, as a Sovereign in your kingdom, to make the choices you want to make. You’re constrained by another, maybe by mother. Someone else has got your balls.

  It isn’t in the natural order of things for a man to be controlled by the feminine (or vice versa). Indeed, to fully develop as a mature man you have to break away from the feminine, as represented by Mother, sometime in your boyhood, your adolescence, or even your adult life. (It’s never too late!) Only then can you begin to identify fully with your masculine essence.

  None of this means that your relationship with the feminine comes to an end or, let us hope, morphs into a relationship based on domination of the feminine by you. It simply means that before you can become a man fully in your own power, you have to break away from the control of the feminine – as represented, most likely, by Mother.

  Men who have not broken free in this way tend to give away their power to women. They feel bad about the fact that they can’t stand up to women and maintain their boundaries. They carry some self-hatred about this pattern.

  And this dynamic is what makes men lie to women: a man who feels he is too weak to stand up to a woman may also believe he must appease her lest she get angry. His objective is to avoid conflict even under intolerable pressure, simply because he doesn’t have the masculine strength to keep his boundaries and his masculine identity intact in the face of a woman’s assault on them.

  It’s a humiliating situation for a man to be in: he knows he is weak, that he is a mommy’s boy at heart. And his woman knows it, too. Nor is she about to let him forget it. She may push him all the time until he shows some balls. Unfortunately he hasn’t got any, so rather than displaying them in the form of a clear boundary, he’s most likely to explode in rage or skulk off, neither of which does his self-esteem much good.

  If you have any reason to think that your mother still believes she controls you, or she behaves as if she does, or if you respond to her in ways which suggest this could be true, then you need to get a grip on your masculinity. (And the same is true, of course, if your father took away your masculinity or denied you the right to step into your power.)

  One possibility here is to develop a mature relationship with the feminine – firstly with your mother, if that’s possible, though it is often not, and secondly with women in general. This can be a respectful and loving relationship, even considerate and helpful, but it should never leave you in a position of weakness and subjugation to the childhood dynamics of your relationship with mommy.

  What does this mean in practice? Many things. For example, you must put the needs of your family before the needs of your mother. If she becomes critical of you and what you do, stop talking to her and leave. When she visits, you and your woman agree the terms of those visits beforehand. She takes care of your children only with your consent and only in a way with which you agree. And so on. If you wish to be a man who’s reclaimed his balls, then you have to make a stand.

  However, while these ideas may seem attractive, it’s not always so easy to put them into practice, and you may well need support in this area. That might look like a circle of men who can support you, hold you accountable, and encourage you to see this through. Or you could join a men’s workshop and find out how to get your balls back.

  By the way, this is not about blaming your mother (or father) for what she did. Rather, it’s about accepting her for the person she is, and seeing her as someone from whom you now need nothing and on whom you are not dependent.

  In short, this is about becoming a man who can stand in his own power.

  8 Do What You Want To Do & Be True To Yourself

  How easily influenced are you by the opinions of others? How often do you give up your own interests and ambitions because of the judgements and criticism of other people?

  To put it more bluntly, are you able to pursue your own heart’s desires in the face of judgements, criticism, or even ridicule from other people? How do you respond to this? And how much do you stop yourself enjoying the things which excite you and make you happy, the things you really want, because of what others might say or think?

  To be truly free in this way, you might need the support of some good male buddies, a place to vent your anger, and some training in assertiveness which will allow you to speak your mind in a safe way. This will help you develop the male energy needed to become better able to resist the expectations and demands of others. A supportive men’s group is an important element of this process, too. If you don’t have access to a men’s group, you could always start one. It’s not hard: the suggested reading list towards the end of this book includes a classic book which tells you how to do it. And you will find growing into your Sovereign is much easier when you have male support of this kind.

  You may also find that as your sovereign energy grows and becomes more obvious and more clearly seen, people around you may start to offer unhelpful criticism and judgements. They may try to draw you back into your old ways of being so they feel safe. You need to keep a close watch on how you are faring in the world so you can be sure you’re following your true path rather than being led astray by others with their own agenda. This is where having a mentor, a wise counselor, and a men’s group made up of men you trust to support you and offer honest feedback is essential.

  As Sovereign you need to be confident of following your own inner compass rather than allowing yourself to be guided by the trashy voices of a thousand different media channels bombarding you with propaganda every day. That includes emails, texts, Facebook, Twitter and the like. If avoiding them seems impossible, try a digital detox. Look it up on Google if needed. Then give up the tech.

  We men also need a space in which we can spend time alone with ourselves so we can better understand our own inner world. I recommend time spent in Nature as a part of this process, perhaps one day a month in a place where you feel at ease and able to connect with something bigger than yourself: Mother Nature, Planet Earth.

  At heart, everything you’re doing here is forming a male identity which is truly your own and fits you exactly in thought, word and deed. Once you have a clear sense of who you are and what you stand for, you will be much less influenced by the opinions, beliefs and judgements of other people, and immune to the time-wasting nonsense that flows over you from those trashy media channels.

  9 Develop Integrity & Know What You Stand For

  Integrity is one of the most profound human values – and, I believe, one of the most difficult to embody and live with on a day-to-day basis. But what do we mean by integrity?

  To put it simply, you have integrity when you are who you say you are, you do what you say you will do, and you make yourself responsible for the consequences of your actions, both intended and un
intended.

  Beyond these simple maxims, integrity means having a set of principles by which you live, and knowing precisely what those principles are. Some men refer to them as NUTS – short for “non-negotiable, unalterable terms”. This is a neat way of reminding ourselves that our balls are a major part of what make us men.

  Your NUTS are what help you become a man of integrity; they are the things to which you are committed, without question. As a man, you need to find your NUTS and keep a firm grasp of them.

  Your NUTS might be centered on your kids, your relationships, your purpose, your spiritual practice, your boundaries, your morals – anything, in fact.

  These are the things that define YOU as a man. You keep them sacred, you aspire to protect them. They are the things which you will defend whole-heartedly. If you allow others to compromise these values, with or without your permission or acquiescence, you may find yourself becoming resentful and blaming.

  For example, your NUTS might be summed up in a series of short statements like this:

  I am a risk taker.

  I am faithful to my wife or partner.

  I devote at least three hours a week to my spiritual practice.

  I do not allow people to infringe my boundaries under any circumstances.

  I am honest.

  I support my children in the face of any threats to their well-being.

  I do what I believe to be in the best interests of my children even if they disagree with me.

  I do not indulge my addictions.

  I never use porn.

  I never abuse women in thought, word or deed.

  I stand up for those less well-off than myself.

  I am a man of my word.

  I exercise regularly.

  I never apologize simply to placate or please others.