The process of inner alignment begins with becoming aware of how we feel. Suppressing our emotions leads to burn out and spiritual exhaustion. Even when we keep it all together it’s just a matter of time until the nervous system shuts down. When it comes to trying to achieve more, slowing down to become more aware may feel counter intuitive, but it’s essential to our longevity.

The sea doesn’t say to the shore, I am sea, you are shore. The name you carry, the identity you carry, these are just temporary masks. What lies beneath?

Just as the sun shines on both the bad & the good, the embodied masculine shines presence & love unconditionally. 📸@lyallsprong

What does it mean to be abundant? In our hyper-visible, social-media-driven culture, many online gurus and Instagram influencers frame the ultimate goal of life as manifesting lavish abundance and curating an idealized self-expression. A kind of spiritual materialism—where the ego hijacks the path, collecting insights, practices, and high-vibe lifestyles as trophies to reinforce the egoic self rather than dissolve it. This relentless pursuit of high-vibe status and performance quietly erodes the subtle, unperformative connection to the present moment and to Mother Earth—replacing raw, embodied presence and honest intimacy with the living world (feeling and experiencing without branding)—with another layer of escapism and bypassing: greed disguised as awakening. It sidelines those not born into privilege, those among us who are suffering, and those who have been or are oppressed. True abundance isn’t endless getting or achieving— it’s the courage to slow down and feel the present moment in all its ugliness and its beauty, to be truly alive! Cultivating relational humility and attunement to the living systems and community we belong to, to hold a peace that doesn’t depend on how much you have or how much you’re seen. This should be what we are working towards, not just to be free on the outside, but free on the inside too.

What happens when men stop competing with each other? I grew up with an older brother who was physically and emotionally abusive. He took every chance he could to break me down. To make matters worse, I lost my father to cancer at 11 years old. I got to witness toxic masculinity firsthand from a young age—what it looks like, how it grows. It only strengthened my resolve that the most intelligent way forward—the only way forward—is to stay open, to stay vulnerable. Today, men have a mountain to climb. Not only because most of us grew up with emotionally void parents, but because the whole system isolates men by forcing them into competition, into being callous. Yet the old masculine paradigm is slowly dying. Women want a sensitive man. They want a man who feels, a man whose masculinity is defined by the charity of his spirit. There are a whole lot of people who want to see this change—and then there’s the old toxic masculine spirit on the sidelines, terrified of anything that could be perceived as weakness, ready to mock and shame. That noise is being drowned out by the power of brotherhood, by community, and by men who are coming to understand what it really means to be a man.

It’s called “The Hell” but it’s the closest thing to heaven on earth. The way there and back was tough over a beautiful rugged and unforgiving landscape, but we were rewarded with paradise. We slept in a huge cave and spent the days by the river. We experienced a deep peace in being held by this ancient space and the healing that comes from vulnerability in brotherhood. A reminder that the path becomes clearer when we open to how we feel, beyond the expectations and mental loops we can meet ourselves with grace. Nothing is worth our peace and sometimes we just have to feel it again to remember. Thank you to @markusbendele , @clemensbauerfeind & jan for your trust and your courage to go on this journey with me. Much love, Phoenix

Sometimes support is essential for getting to the other side, in this case crossing the might injisuthi river.

The cave and the fire that kept us warm and fed. 📸 @lyallsprong

A well deserved rest after a days hike to the cave. 📸 @lyallsprong

Some kind of ancient energy awakens in a man when he consciously steps out of his comfort & into the belly of nature. It’s as if the body & the spirit still hold the memory of a once deeper connection to the earth. After a day or two the wilderness begins to feel more like home than the life you came from. Time becomes an abstract concept except for night & day. The body & the mind relax so deeply that you come home to your body like never before & feel that you are rooted in the present moment. This sense of belonging & feeling yourself as a part of nature & not separate to it is in itself medicine. To experience that belonging as a tribe of brothers, is a rite of passage 💪🏼 📸 @lyallsprong