The Men’s Maven Comes of Age: The 12 Most Important Things I’ve Learned in the Last 49 Years 

I wrote my first book, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man in 1983. After reading it, Sam Julty, one of the leaders in the emerging men’s movement said, “You’ve become the men’s maven.” I liked the sound of it, but really didn’t know what it meant until I looked it up. “A maven is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass timely and relevant knowledge on to others in the respective field.” That did seem to fit me. You can get a free chapter from my new book. Information at the end of this article.

In 1969 when my first son, Jemal, was born, I made a vow to him that I would be a different kind of father than my father was able to be more me and I’d do everything I could to bring about a different kind of world where fathers were lovingly involved with their families.

In the fourteen years between Jemal’s birth and the publication of Inside Out, I focused my counseling practice on helping men and the families who love them. In the book I described my own journey trying to figure out what it meant to become my own man. Since then my books are a pretty good reflection of the things I was dealing with in my own life and the issues I thought were most important for helping men and the families who love them:

• Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man was published by my own company, Fifth Wave Press, in 1983. It was my story of my journey towards manhood.

What I learned:

1.  Life is a journey, we each do separately, together. It’s impossible to discover who we are on our own. That’s why I joined a men’s group in 1979. We’ve been together now for 38 years and continue to learn and grow.
2. Writing down and sharing men’s stories helps us figure out who we are and where we fit in the world. After reading the book Natalie Rogers said, “We know the personal—feminists have proved that point—yet few, (if any) men have had the courage to be as vulnerable as Jed Diamond.” We need more men’s stories.

• Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions was published in 1988 and described my own journey to heal and what I thought others needed to know.

3. There is a big difference between sex and love and sex and love addiction. My own journey into addiction almost let to my death, but the experience taught me that healing our intimate lives is necessary if we’re to have real, lasting love in our lives.

• The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet was released in 1994 and offered a new definition of warrior energy that focused on human compassion and bravery and the need to know ourselves.

4. Warriorship is the tradition of human bravery.

Meditation master, Chogyam Trungpa is a modern-day warrior.  “Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others,” he says. “Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution.  Here the word ‘warrior’ is taken from the Tibetan pawo which literally means ‘one who is brave.’  Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness.”  Trungpa concludes by saying, “Warriorship is not being afraid of who you are.”

5. Sam Keen reminds us that whether humans survive or become extinct depends on our recognizing that the new human vocation is to heal the Earth. “We can only heal what we love. We can only love what we know. We can only know what we touch.”

• Male Menopause & Surviving Male Menopause: A Guide for Women and Men were published in 1997 and 2000, become international best-sellers, translated into 17 foreign languages, and were the first books to deal directly with the hormonal, physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual changes that occur in mid-life men.

6. Men have a hormonally driven change of life.

When I first started writing about “male menopause” or andropause, which is the more scientifically acceptable name, most of the men I talked to were scared and dismissive. Most of the women said, “Well, its about time you guys recognized that you’re hormonal too.” Although not accepted by everyone, male menopause is being recognized by the public as well as health-care professionals.

• The Whole Man Program: Reinvigorating Your Body, Mind, and Spirit After 40, came out in 2002 and offered guidance for men who are 40+ and offers specific suggestions for staying healthy as we age.

7. Men live sicker and die sooner than women.

If we want our lives to be healthy, wealthy, and wise we have to take care of ourselves as we age. As a group, men eat more poorly, sleep more poorly, exercise less, and have fewer friends than women. We need to support each other living long and well.

• The Irritable Male Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression & Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable Male Syndrome came out in 2004 and 2010 and shed new light on men’s anger and depression.

8. There are 4 key causes of depression and aggression in men.

a. Decreasing testosterone causes men to become more irritable and angry.

b. Eating too much protein and not enough healthy carbohydrates changes our brain chemistry.

c. Increasing stress and our inability to handle it well causes men to lash out at others and turn their anger on themselves.

d. The changing male role frightens and confuses many men.

• Male vs Female Depression: Why Men Act Out and Women Act In came out in 2012 and was the first book to reveal the new research showing that men and women experienced depression differently and we need a new approach for treating and preventing depression that is gender-specific.

9. Depressed men become more irritable, angry, and withdrawn.

We need ways to assess depression in men. There are definite gender differences we must address.

• MenAlive: Stop Killer Stress with Simple Energy Healing Tools & Stress Relief for Men: How to Use the Revolutionary Tools of Energy Healing to Live Well were released in 2012 and 2014 and offered men and their families simple and effective ways to relief stress.

10. There are new tools for healing beyond talk therapy and drugs.

Energy healing now has scientific backing and can help millions of people heal from physical and emotional pain.=

• The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to Come, came out in 2016 and showed how we can save our mid-life marriages, even if only one person is ready to try.

11. Most of what we’ve been taught about love and marriage is wrong.

Disillusionment and incompatibility are not grounds for divorce, but the beginning of real, lasting love.

• Return of the Puppet Man: How to Deal with an Angry Partner and Heal the Father Wound & Healing the Father Wound Playbook will be the first books to guide you through the 37 questions I had to answer to work through my own anger, heal my relationships, and address the father wound. If you’d like to read an advance copy of Chapter 1 and get the details of the book, drop me a note at Jed@MenAlive.com and put “father wound” in the subject line.

12. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are the hidden cause of many of the physical, emotional, and relationship problems we suffer as adults.

Millions of us grew in a home where a father was absent physically or emotionally or where he didn’t give us the love and validation we needed. We need fathers more than ever.

I look forward to your comments. A big reason I write is to connect with others. Your comments are very much appreciated.