About the Weekend Experience
How do we heal when, as men, we’re not even supposed to feel?
From an early age, many of us absorb the same messages—spoken or implied: Boys don’t cry. Men don’t need help. We don’t talk about what hurts.
We’re expected to be stoic. Capable. Strong. Fixers who meet everyone else’s needs while quietly ignoring our own.
No wonder so many of us feel alone, emotionally numb, or never enough. Many of us carry old wounds—from an absent or critical father, early peer rejection, sexual shame, or experiences we’ve never even spoken out loud.
Not because we’re broken—but because we never had a safe place to be fully seen.
Now you do.
Join us at A New Man.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS AT A NEW MAN?
Explore through experience
A New Man is experiential—meaning real insight comes through guided experience, not just talking about change.
(But don’t worry—your choice to opt out of any activity or experience is always honored.)
“Experiential” means rather than sitting passively and listening, men are invited to participate at their own pace in experiences designed to bring awareness, emotional honesty, and healing.
For example:
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Guided journaling and reflection
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Working with anger or grief in healthy, contained ways
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Identifying and releasing shame (rest assured no one will pressure you to disclose anything you don’t want to)
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Reconnecting with younger parts of yourself that learned to stay guarded
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Exploring long-held beliefs and emotional patterns in relationships
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Structured role-play exercises that help make confusing inner conflicts visible and workable.
Men are often struck by how powerful these experiences can be.
Discover the problem beneath the problem
A more fulfilling life rarely comes from behavior change alone. It comes from understanding what’s driving the problem behavior in the first place.
Again and again, we find that stubborn struggles that feel unresolvable aren’t the result of character flaws or lack of willpower.
They stem from unmet needs and unhealed wounds.
- Our work is to uncover those unmet needs—and discover healthier ways to meet them.
- Our work is to uncover and bring compassion to old wounds—and begin authentically healing them.
When the deeper issues are addressed, change no longer feels like a battle.
Instead, change emerges as a natural next step forward.
My experience at this weekend intensive gave me a much stronger sense of self. It taught me how to be aware of my emotions, what I’m feeling, and why. It helped diminish my shame and pursue getting my authentic needs met in healthy ways.
Group and individual exploration
The weekend includes a blend of large-group sessions, small breakout groups, and time for individual reflection.
Some work happens alongside other men. Some happens quietly, at your own pace.
Experiences are design to help men:
- Learn the differences between facts, emotions, and the “stories” we tell ourselves—and what to do when those stories work against us.
- Recognize core emotions like anger, fear, sadness, and joy—and experience what it’s like to feel them in safe, healthy ways
- Discover how our best self and worst self want the same thing—they’re just trying to get it in very different ways.
- Recognize how your current relationships may be colored unfairly by your experiences with others in your past
- Become empowered to fully embrace who you are and who you want to be—not what others expect of you
We very intentionally create an environment that is safe, supportive, and respectfully challenging.
At A New Man, we face our “stuff” head-on, with courage and rigorous honesty—to the extent that we are ready and willing—rather than hide it or run from it.
Nevertheless, we always honor every man’s free choice. Anyone can “pass” and choose to not participate in any particular process. If you do “pass,” our staff-volunteers will likely ask what is behind that choice for you, but they will never force or pressure you to do anything against your will or to do anything that may not feel quite right to you.
What A New Man is not
You’ve probably never experienced something like A New Man before—and that’s intentional
A New Man is not a church retreat. We warmly welcome men of all faiths—and men with no faith at all. We are careful to work within your existing religious framework. You won’t be preached at, quoted scripture, or instructed in what you are supposed to believe. The invitation is to show up as you truly are, not how you think you should appear.
A New Man is not therapy. While the work can be deeply therapeutic, it is not clinical treatment, diagnosis, or ongoing counseling. No one is analyzed, labeled, or “fixed.”
A New Man is not a lecture, seminar, or self-help workshop. You won’t be talked at, persuaded, or told how to live your life.
A New Man is not a motivational seminar. There is no hype, no cheerleading, and no pressure to push through with more willpower or positive thinking.
ABOUT THE PEOPLE
About the Participants
Typically, participants in our weekend intensives range in age from 21 to 70s, but most are in their 30s to 50s.
The maximum number of participants per event is 24. The average is about 18 participants.
Participants in our weekend intensives may be single, partnered, married, divorced, or widowed. Most (but not all) attendees are religious. Most are Christians (of every denominational variety), Jews, and Muslims. Some are non-religious or agnostic.
Participants may include businessmen and entrepreneurs, doctors and other medical professionals, lawyers, artists, pastors, school teachers, college students, college professors, engineers, and many others.
All are men who are seeking to resolve inner conflicts and make life choices that are better aligned with their core values, faith, and life goals.
About the Volunteer Staff
A New Man is peer-led and facilitated by men who have been where you are now — men who have done (and continue to do) their own inner healing and personal-growth work.
It is run by about 15-20 men who volunteer their time because they care deeply about supporting men’s healing and personal growth.
Volunteers either are not professional therapists or are not serving in that professional capacity in the course of the weekend.
The retreat gave me new friends, a new community, and new life. It was a total reset in my life, and a fresh start. I’m forever grateful for my weekend experience.
The weekend has shown me that I am not alone in my struggles. That there is hope, but also hard work that I need to do. Through this weekend, I met a lot of other men who are on the same journey as I am, and we support each other in this journey.
It has been an immensely positive experience for me. I did not feel as if I belonged to the world of men until after my weekend. Since then I have been able to grow with and meet some of the most incredible men I have ever met in my life. I have gained self-confidence, self-awareness, sobriety, have matured, and grown in love, truth and strength.
KEY TEACHINGS
What We Teach and Believe
- You are good and valuable just as you are, right now, today.
- You have brothers who see your “shadows” (weaknesses, blind spots) and love and accept you just as you are.
- Shame never brings about meaningful change, healing, or growth. Bringing our shame into the light by being authentic and vulnerable with a few trusted others can significantly reduce shame and bring about healing and self-acceptance.
- Your beliefs create your internal reality. Change your beliefs (about yourself and others) and you change the world as you know it.
- Sexual feelings are not simply chosen and cannot simply be “unchosen” as an act of conscious will.
- Personal identity, choices, values, and many behaviors are malleable and subject to change. Emotional responses, entrenched habits, and wound-based patterns usually take much more effort to channel, diminish or redirect, but these, too, can be malleable in many cases.
- Many of us have experienced significant and lasting change, healing, and growth in our lives by doing what we call “M.A.N.S. Work” and living these principles in our daily lives. “M.A.N.S. Work” is an acronym that refers to:
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- Masculinity: Connecting to our internal sense of masculinity, bonding with other men as brothers, and developing healthier relationships with women.
- Authenticity: Getting real, feeling our feelings, and healing old wounds.
- Needs Fulfillment: Uncovering our true, underlying needs and learning to meet them in healthier ways.
- Surrender: Releasing internal resistance to changing, turning our will and our lives over to God, releasing our attachments to harmful thoughts and behaviors, and finding a higher purpose and meaning through this work.
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