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Exploring the intersection of Men’s Work and Psychedelic Integration
Read my feature on The New Fatherhood, Oct 2024:
THE NEW FATHERHOOD
Breaking The Cycle
The most important work many fathers will ever do
KEVIN MAGUIRE AND SEAN TALBEAUX
OCT 10, 2024
We all arrive on the shores of fatherhood having travelled different waters. Some arrive after smooth sailing. Others have had wave after wave crash upon their boat, weathered storms leaving indelible marks on both ship and sailor. If your childhood was far from ideal, becoming a father will bring dormant emotions and experiences to the surface; waves that must be navigated before all are consumed in their wake.
In the world of therapy and self-improvement, we call this “breaking the cycle.” It’s a commitment to doing everything in your power to prevent passing on what was passed down to you. It’s gruelling, relentless work, but—for dads who grew up dealing with physical and emotional abuse—there’s no better gift you can give your children.
Today, on World Mental Health Day, I’ve invited Sean Talbeaux to share his story of becoming a father. Sean writes Into the Fire, exploring the intersection of men’s work and psychedelic integration. This essay is raw and real, touching on topics of childhood abuse and suicidality. It outlines how Sean has used widely available tools and techniques to heal from his childhood experiences. I am thankful to Sean for sharing his truth here and to all the dads out there committed to doing the work.
Illustration by Tony Johnson
For most of my life, I didn't want kids because I feared I would be a father who beat his child, screamed in their face, and poured bleach in their underwear when they soiled themselves. I feared that I would have become like my mum's boyfriend when I was eight years old, who demanded I count aloud each violent impact he made upon my body. I feared that I would have, like him, rubbed a child's nose in their own shit, and insisted they clean the hallway floor from sunrise until midnight without eating that day or the next.
Or, like my own father, I might have simply disappeared, moved a thousand miles away unannounced, only to let my family know where I was once I was established with another family, with no intention of returning.
During a powerful psilocybin mushroom journey a few years ago, I viscerally felt the impact of how those experiences had shaped me. I felt the grief and loss of who I might have become, had the men in my life sought therapy or a men’s group. I felt the red-hot pain that had arrived to my body by blood and hand, and the cold dissociation that I’d employed to escape it. During that journey, I spurned to perpetuate that suffering, even if it meant never having kids.
Deep down, I wanted to be a father. I wanted the opportunity to do it better: to be present with my child in a difficult moment, and instead of trying to make it better, to empathize and love them up with every cell in my body. I wanted to joyfully hold the hand of my little one—as I did a few days ago—as we walked to a blueberry bush together, and witnessed in delight as he picked a berry, put it in his mouth, squealed, and picked another.
My path became clear: I had to learn to be with myself in the quietest, darkest moments of shame and self-hatred. Also, to interrupt the patterns of violence and disconnection by orienting toward the core of my suffering, getting curious about it, noticing the sensations and emotions, and learning to trust that it would—eventually, inevitably—change.
For most of my life, my survival strategies were so entrenched that all I could do was push people away, sabotage my and others' relationships, and hate myself for existing—so much that I badly wanted to die. I felt as if I had nothing to live for. Had my best friend not taken his own life when we were teenagers, I may have, but I knew the other side of that grief too deeply to inflict it upon anyone else.
In 2011, having realized that suicide was a clear 'No,' I slowly began to open to life. I was a commercial fisherman in Alaska, and the summer following my not-suicide, I met my now-wife at a dusty airport in the tundra next to an oceanic river.
This woman saw me clearly, even as I hid beneath my masks. She challenged my integrity and the ways that I said I'd shown up in past relationships. I was turned-on by this because it revealed something of her true depth. It also became clear that, together, we had experienced almost every toxic father archetype you could imagine: absent, addict, abuser, abandoner, emotionally unavailable, dead.
Although being around her made me want to be a better man, I felt helpless to the fate of fulfilling each item on that list. I began to search for healthier male role models.
Finding few on the sea, I became a woodworker, and found my way to cabinetmaking. Something about the need to be present, thoughtful, and precise around sharp blades in service to others felt important. I slowly found mentors in men whose ways of being invited calm, thoughtful relationships. Carpentry developed into a deep practice for me, which helped to support our family for years.
As we deepened into marriage, my wife nudged me toward men's work, though I waited to engage until I was ready. Excited and scared of what I’d find, I attended men's rites of passage workshops, wilderness immersions, and sat weekly in small groups for years. I learned about accountability, integrity, internal clarity, and (as if practicing for fatherhood) living from a deep sense of purpose, even in the face of discomfort or conflict.
It soon became important for me to discern the nature of the men's work being offered by individuals and organizations. Male-exclusive spaces are, by definition, patriarchy, so I began to ask myself questions like: is this group or teacher able to meet me where I'm at? Do they welcome questions, doubts, my full expression? Or do I need to contort myself in order to fit their definition of a 'man’?
I recall one weekly meeting early on where I just couldn't wipe an ingratiating smile from my face, even as someone spoke of a particularly painful experience. There was a volcano of anger bubbling under the surface for me. A man in the group offered his truck cab as a place for me to let fly for a few minutes. I gave hell to the seats and dash. The physical release felt great, but more powerful was being witnessed by others who neither feared my expression, nor sought to change it. The shit-eating smile vanished, and I was more able to be present with others after that.
This was just one of dozens of nuanced experiences where I felt my mind and body re-wiring around how men can show up for each other in more dynamic ways than fist bumps and intellectual banter. It was also a meaningful drop in the bucket of learning to trust men again.
I began to dive deep in other ways. Psychedelic medicine journeys revealed in terrifying, numinous clarity the depth and breadth of the inner work before me. Vipassana meditation taught me to track my reactions to stimuli and bring equanimity to difficult moments. Somatic therapy—and MDMA—helped me to feel safe within myself for the first time in my life.
Although I am grateful for the re-parenting that came from choosing a healing-oriented relationship with my wife, my ongoing relationship with a Hakomi therapist has helped relieve my wife of holding the burden of my emotional work and wounding, freeing her to mother our child instead of my own inner little boy.
My personal work eventually shifted into supporting others on their own healing paths. Many men I’ve worked with report reconnecting to their own inner wisdom, self-love, and empathy. They re-discover their essence beneath layers of conditioning, patriarchy, colonialism, and disconnection. I am passionate about exploring the intersection of men’s work and psychedelic work through a somatic lens. I lead an annual Fatherhood retreat in this vein, as well as other containers where participants can go as deep into their work as feels right for them.
These days, I feel free and clear in a way that I could not before have imagined. The overwhelming trauma fog has lifted from my body and mind, and I spend most of my moments present in the here and now, even when the little one screams and bites and thrashes about. I am aware that fatherhood may get harder as he grows into the ages at which my own trauma intensified. And I know in my heart of hearts that I’ll be okay, and that I’ll have space for him.
I’m grateful to report that I am a father who gently and respectfully changes his son’s diapers, repairs when I’ve reacted, and prioritizes my kiddo when he calls for connection. I am doing my work so that the pain I experienced does not continue, that something more healthy and vibrant can take its place.
The work is never quite complete, nor is this journey easy. Thanks to Kevin for holding this container for all of us. We're not meant to do it alone.
Three things to read this week
Doing things a little differently this week.
For World Mental Health Day, three essays from the archive:
We Need to Talk About Dads, Depression, and Suicide (October 2022)
When undiagnosed, unacknowledged and untreated, paternal mental health episodes can lead to grave outcomes. Depression is linked with more hostile and violent parenting, poorer physical health and well-being of children, and a higher risk of children developing chronic conditions, including depression and anxiety, as adults. For post-natal depression, the research is heavily tilted towards the mother’s experience, where research has shown incidents of self-harm are on the rise, and suicide rates for new mothers have tripled in the last decade. But when we layer on what we already know about male suicide—the leading cause of death for young men, a gender 4 times more likely to kill themselves than women, and with 82% of male suicides coming from the first known attempt—it becomes clear why fathers dealing with mental health problems are up to 47 times more likely to take their own life in the post-natal period. It’s a sickness that has been killing dads for decades. We’re only just becoming aware of it.
Pulling Yourself Out of a Funk (November 2023)
This rebound has taken a while, and I’ve felt myself slip into a funk. It’s not just here—it’s spreading its slimy tentacles towards everything it touches. From talking to friends and fellow dads it seems I’m not alone. If you’re feeling it, your particular flavour of funk might flow from a number of sources: the intensifying cycle of horrific news, dark evenings bringing the dreaded cycle of “Is this seasonal affective disorder or something worse”, uncertainties around the economy and the increasing cost of everything (bar salaries), the inevitable exhaustion that comes from trying to balance it all and feeling like you’re doing a shitty job of everything. These things pile up.
Consider, for a moment: you are a boat. There are waves approaching you every day. A sea of never-ending trials and tribulations, as Mr James Murphy once put it. You know they're coming—they’re inevitable. So you decide to face them head-on, battening down the hatches, steering straight into them. To feel them crash upon you, take the strain, endure the struggle. But what if there was another way? What if you took a moment? Took a breath? Re-orientated yourself and let them peacefully pass underneath? That’s what meditation can bring.
All TNF issues on mental health can be found here and are never paywalled.