John Wineland - From the Core: A New Masculine Paradigm for Leading with Love, Living Your Truth, and Healing the World

Praise for From the Core

From the Core is for every struggling, determined, distracted, beautifully powerful man that you knowwhich is to say, all of them. This is urgent. Clearly. Johns insight supports men to grow into the active healers and heart-centered leaders that the world needs.

Danielle LaPorte

author of The Desire Map and How to Be Loving

Johns work and his words have changed my life, and this book is no exception. John has a brilliant way with words that make sense of our experience, lead us to grow and step into our fullest potential, heal what needs to be healed, and not just understand what healthy masculinity means but also how to be it and live it. John is a gift to the world, and this book is a gift to yourself. Buy it.

Mark Groves

human connection specialist and founder of Create The Love

From the Core is a masterpiece and guidebook for anyone whos looking to level up their lives. John beautifully weaves together big concepts into easy-to-understand stories and practical lessons that can be applied immediately.

Preston Smiles

two-time bestselling author of Love Louder: 33 Ways to Amplify Your Life and coauthor of Now or Never: Your Epic Life in 5 Steps

Direct, practical, and rich in tools for strengthening the hearts, minds, and souls of men. This book has a depth of wisdom and practicality that is so challenging to achieve. From the Core shows the reader exactly how to let the masculine within lead. An instant must read and classic for every man.

Connor Beaton

founder of ManTalks and author of Mens Work

John Wineland

Sounds True

Boulder, CO 80306

2022 John Wineland

Sounds True is a trademark of Sounds True, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author(s) and publisher.

Published 2022

Cover design by Tara DeAngelis

Book design by Karen Polaski

BK06381

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wineland, John (Relationship coach), author.

Title: From the core : a new masculine paradigm for leading with love, living your truth, and healing the world / John Wineland.

Description: Boulder, CO : Sounds True, 2022.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021060625 (print) | LCCN 2021060626 (ebook) | ISBN 9781683649106 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781683649113 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: MenIdentity. | Masculinity. | Self-realization.

Classification: LCC HQ1090 .W585 2022 (print) | LCC HQ1090 (ebook) | DDC 305.31dc23/eng/20220204

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060625

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060626

Modern men are facing a crisis of masculinity, or so we are told. The recent proliferation of mens work programs, books on deconstructing masculinity, and the post #MeToo discourse calling out the toxic masculine speaks to the swell of interest in the present and future states of men. Despite all of the flack men have received lately (much of it deserved), I see brothers every day who are hungrier than ever to step into their lives more powerfully, who sincerely want to love their partners well, who want to nobly honor, empower, and protect their feminine partners, and who seek to be a source of healing in their communities. Men want to know and experience themselves more powerfully. They want to create lives of real impact and have a purpose beyond simply making money. There are millions who want to stand for justice and to redefine what it means to co-create in their relationships and their world today. So many men want to love from their hearts. The problem as I see it is not in a mans desire to step up, but in his understanding of how to most powerfully do so.

Leading mens groups for almost twenty years now, I have seen these impulses passionately arise with a growing sense of urgency. There is an evolving ethos in more and more men to grow beyond stale tropes of masculinity, to be more vulnerable, and to be more available in the world. But at the same time, I see them struggle with exactly how to embody and manifest these desires at home and in their communities. How can they face the immense pull to numb and to check out, to battle their own demons, negativity, and addictions? So many men still judge their own emotional natures, not knowing how much to reveal or whether their emotionality will be seen as weakness.

A great pain point that men face is the confusion of how to interact with women. Todays woman doesnt need a man to provide or protect her. She can make her own money, she is often more spiritually and emotionally developed, she can parent a child by herself, and she can take care of herself just fine. This fact confuses some men as they attempt to reevaluate and redefine their value propositions as romantic partners. A common complaint I hear is that they are not sure what their feminine partners truly want. Some mistrust the feminine altogether and blame women for their loneliness, as we can see in the rise of involuntarily celibate men. They struggle to fully absorb and navigate this incredibly potent moment of human history with presence, integrity, and love. And yet, I am very clear the vast majority want to.

The paradigm of masculinity we have inherited no longer works.

These unresolved issues are front and center in so many men who come to my programs and workshops. At the core of most mens exploration into mens work is a desire for belonging. For brotherhood. To love and be loved, and to be seen as noble and good. They wonder what masculinity is and how it can be cultivated as a force of transformative healing; what it means to lead from a healthy, conscious, and unshakeable core; and why the issue of masculinity is even relevant in the world today.

Recent books, podcasts, and published discourses of all sorts have focused on deconstructing masculinity as a whole. I can certainly understand the desire to rid our world of the brutality of patriarchy born of greed and domination, but I think any wholesale inclination to abandon or cancel the masculine principle shows a misunderstanding of what a truly integrated, centered, and grounded masculinity can provide.

Clearly, the paradigm of masculinity we have inherited no longer works. A quick glance at the rising levels of depression, suicide, and addiction among men should make this abundantly clear. We need a new understanding of masculinity and how it can serve, inspire, and support the worldone steeped in the currencies of feeling, integrity, consciousness, presence, and love; one that supports and devotionally celebrates the rise of the Feminine (which I capitalize when referring to the meta-feminine in all of us) in our culture and doesnt try to dominate, control, or capture. We need a framework of practical understanding that embraces the integration of our own tender and emotional sides, without relinquishing our core masculine gifts and most sacred truths. This framework should not simply reward entrepreneurial, technological, or financial successes but seek to reveal and express the more sublime and profound aspects of a manhis core heart, expansive consciousness, and emotional depth. We need a paradigm that clarifies what it means to strengthen, embody, and, when appropriate, lead from a masculinity focused on liberation and born of consciousness and love.