Wild Men and Nice Guys

THE NICE GUY

Are you a Nice Guy? There is a good chance that you are. In fact we are all recovering Nice Guys in one form or another. 

Nice Guys are guided by the following three covert contracts:

These covert contracts operate at an unconscious level. They don’t work for a number of reasons, but Nice Guys are convinced they should. 

Because most Nice Guys believe they have kept their side of the contract, they often feel helpless and resentful when other people (and the world) don’t keep their side of the contract.

Who is a Nice Guy?

He is the man whose life seems so under control, until BOOM, one day he does something to destroy it all.

Characteristics of Nice Guys

THE WILD MAN

The mythological WILD MAN, or the modern day INTEGRATED MAN

An Integrated Man, on the other hand is a man who is conscious, differentiated, self-soothing, and non-attached. These traits allow the Integrated Man to act with love, integrity, power, and discipline. He is not trying to change himself to get validation from others, but instead he is on a path to deeply discovering himself and focused on becoming the best version of himself. He has an ability to be an observer of himself without judgement. He asks himself what he wants and what feels right, and then holds on to that inspite of pressure from others or from within. He knows how to soothe himself so that he can take action even when he feels fear and anxiety. He is an ascertainer who is conscious of himself and his surroundings and he acts with love and integrity in ways that benefit himself and others.

The mythological archetype of the Integrated Man is The Wild Man as presented in Robert Bly’s book Iron John. The Wild Man is masculinity’s highest expression.

Bly believes that New Age thinking about harmony and higher consciousness holds a dangerous attraction to naive men. Mythology beckons us to enter fully into life as a Wild Man, with all its blood and tears and joy; the way we achieve full realisation of ourselves is to focus on ‘one precious thing’ (an idea, a person, a quest, a question) and the decision to follow it at any cost is the sign of maturity. When we make a clear choice, the King inside us awakens and our powers are finally released.

The Wild Man has been prepared to examine where it is he hurts; because of this he is more like a Zen priest or a shaman than a savage. Bly makes the important distinction between the Wild Man and the savage man. The savage is the type who has wrecked the environment, abused women and so on, his inner desperation having been pushed out onto the world as a disregard or hatred of others. The Wild Man is masculinity’s highest expression, the savage man its lowest.

the journal

the book