Neil McKinlay hopes guys will take a weekend to kick back and meditate

Man to Man

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their bodies . . . by taking a meditative retreat
By John Threlfall

Missing your buddies now that the Canucks have been eliminated from the playoffs? Feeling a bit resentful whenever your female partner heads off to yoga with her gal pals? Not making any headway with that Robert Bly book? Maybe it's time to try something different when it comes to exploring the male experience—like a men's meditation retreat. But before you write the idea off as a chest-pounding, nude-dude exercise in stereotyping or simply claim you don't have the time, consider this: the more we age, the more important it is for men to keep our minds and bodies in harmony.

Of course, try and convince the average guy of that.    

"Most men don't have time for this kind of thing, and they don't have the conceptual framework for understanding what the value would be," says Neil McKinlay, a local meditation instructor, personal coach and shamanic consultant who also had an award-winning career as a competitive swim coach. "When I mention it to people, the reaction has been somewhat uniform and very interesting: the women all smile and nod and say, 'That is a great idea'—and the men look at me, shake their head and wonder why on earth they'd ever do that."

Despite that typically male reaction, McKinlay is still facilitating a Men's Meditation Retreat at Queenswood at the end of this month. "As soon as you say 'men's retreat', people say, 'I don't want to read poetry and bang a drum,'" chuckles McKinlay. "When we meditate, we do soften up, which means feelings we normally keep at bay come back to us: tenderness, vulnerability, compassion, fear, anxiety. And while men do seem to be willing to hang out together, sharing that sort of emotional openness is not something we have a lot of forums for—you're not going to do that at the hockey game."

The other big misconception, says McKinlay, is meditation itself. "The thought is that it doesn't have anything to do with our lives, and is simply a navel-gazing indulgence that most men don't have time for. But, with very few exceptions, we all do have a little bit of time for this kind of work. And, by taking the time to do this, we settle into ourselves, we settle into the world, and it makes us much more open and sensitive in our lives—and if you look at the world right now, that way of being can only be of benefit. The alternative is just to keep going with business as usual."

But clearly, business as usual just isn't cutting it anymore. Given the fact that health risks from stress-related illnesses, heart attacks, weight issues, poor nutrition and alcoholic consumption are all higher for men than women—not to mention the alarming rise in apparent erectile dysfunction this past decade—now seems the ideal time to slow down and reconnect with our male bodies via the kind of embodied meditation experience McKinlay is offering.            

"People have talked about the meditative or spiritual journey as taking you through a journey of initiation," he explains. "Because of their physiology, women generally have an in-built process of initiation that regularly pulls them out of their plans and ambitions and hopes and fears—but men don't. And what's happened in our society is that we've gotten trapped in that world; we're all about our plans and desires and dreams and hopes but we don't see anything else. And therein lies the disenfranchisement that this retreat is trying to address—but it's a challenge, because men don't see it."

McKinlay says the weekend will work for anyone, regardless of previous meditative experience. "Beginners are going to get a gradual introduction to the particular style of practice that I've been trained in and teach, and people who've meditated for years but may not be familiar with this style of practice—which puts a lot of emphasis on how we work with the body—will be shown a different way of engaging with the general tradition called 'meditation.' And, of course, men I've already been working with will be given a rare chance to actually just sit down and practice for two days, with little interruption."

While many may still associate Queenswood with women's spirituality—no big surprise, given their long history with the Sisters of St. Ann—that's yet another aspect of their retreat centre that has been changing of late. “We are seeing more participation by men in our programs than ever before,” says Kate Fagan-Taylor, the executive director of Victoria's longstanding spiritual centre. "Men are finding ways to create health and personal clarity, and this seems to apply not only for busy career-focused men but also for those taking up new interests in retirement."

But what makes McKinlay the right person to lead this retreat?  "I approached Neil about the idea of a meditation retreat for men because his meditation practice and teaching style is so grounded in the everyday ups and downs of modern living," says Stefan Jonsson, Queenswood's programs and marketing coordinator. "He struggles to get his kids to school on time, he runs his own business, he has a busy personal and family life, and he's an active community volunteer and leader. But he stays centred among all his responsibilities through meditation, and he offers insight into this balanced way of living through a uniquely male perspective."
      
But if you're simply a guy who already feels he's got more than enough to balance as it is, don't feel bad. McKinlay puts the blame more on societal evolution than personal bad habits. "We've taken the human enterprise in modern culture and really turned it on its head," he explains. "Hunting and gathering still forms, by far, the majority of our history as human beings, but when we switched to agriculture, we suddenly became separate from the world around us. If you look at how we traditionally lived—and I'm certainly not advocating that we'll go back to that style of life—but we would spend a reasonable amount of time on sustenance issues and a lot of the rest of the time would be ceremonial or ritual time, in which we were maintaining our connection with ourselves, with the land and with the spirit. And then something happened again with the scientific revolution, where we really pulled ourselves out of the world, out of our bodies, in a very thorough way and left the stream of human fullness—which is what human spirituality is all about. And now, we've put everything—money, the economy—into sustenance, into driving that vehicle, and we've emptied the tank in every other regard."

    
Personally, as a father of two young kids, a husband who appreciates the importance of spending time with his wife and a guy who has a more-than-full-time job, I do find it hard to find the time for meditation—and I'm already a new-age, spiritually-aware kinda fella. Alas, that doesn't cut any ice with McKinlay. "I'm not convinced time is the obstacle we think it is," he counters. "We say we don't have time to meditate, but we toss off a hundred minutes watching the latest action flick." (There's that coaching mentality coming through.)

"Really, when we're talking about meditation, we're talking about two things," he concludes. "A way to slow down and relax, which is so beneficial in itself, but on a deeper level, we're also talking about reconnecting with the inherent fullness of our human lives. And this, to me, is where things get really interesting—because this is where the possibility of transformation and of becoming who we were truly born to be comes into the picture. The world needs a lot of things, and one of things it needs right now is people who are more willing to reconnect with an authentic sense of self and then step out into the world from this place."

And given that the dominant model of patriarchy doesn't seem to be shifting quite as quickly as many of us had hoped, more men operating from an authentic sense of self could only be a good thing for the world. M 

Neil McKinlay's Men's Meditation Retreat runs May 28 to 30 at Queenswood. Prices range from $188 to $390. For more details about the retreat, see queenswoodvictoria.ca/retreat/men or visit neilmckinlay.com for more information about the facilitator.