By  Nate Green

Instead, Im staring directly into the eyes of this small, pale man with a huge red beard. Andrew. I think he said his name was Andrew. From Alaska. His breath smells like peppermint and pine needles. Did he eat pine needles? Can you eat pine needles?

My thoughts are racing. I shift my feet. Andrew shifts his. We continue to stare at each other. Finally, Andrew takes a deep breath and speaks. If you really knew me, youd know that I smoke too much pot and use it as a coping mechanism. And you would know Im ashamed of it.

His gaze lowers, embarrassed. He looks back up and we lock eyes. Now its my turn.

If you really knew me, youd know that I sometimes drink too much alcohol and it worries me.

I have never spoken those words out loud before. I instantly feel lighter, like a giant weight I didnt even know was there has been lifted. Andrew smiles, happy to not be alone in his confession.

Were standing in a clearing in Big Sky, Montana, the most appropriately named town in America. Its 20 minutes to sunset and the clouds are just starting to turn purple around the edges. From where we are, you can turn 360 degrees and see for miles in every direction. The tall grass gives way to dense pine trees, which give way to jutting, snow-capped mountains that seem to prop up the big-no, massive-sky.

To our left and right are 16 other men, paired off just like us. Behind us sits a gigantic log cabin that will be our home for the next two nights. After that, well carry 50-pound packs into the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park, where well walk and sleep among the grizzlies, mosquitoes, and stars for three more nights.

Thats Dan Doty, whos leading this group. Get to the edge of your comfort zone and then go a little past it, he continues. Let yourself open up.

We have different jobs, different religions, and different numbers in our bank accounts.

Dan is 36 years old, muscular, with reddish-brown hair and a full beard. For the past hour, hes been walking around in bare feet. Give him a cardigan sweater and a White Russian and he could pass for an outdoorsy version of the Dude from The Big Lebowski. Dan is a cofounder of <a href="https://evryman.com/" id="e877542c-201e-3ad1-a010-476dc297d42b"> Evryman </a> , an organization established in 2016 that arranges weekend retreats and weeklong expeditions aimed at teaching men how to access and express their emotions.

The men here occupy different rungs on the socioeconomic ladder and come from all over the country. Theres a woodworker from Seattle. A recently fired hedge-fund manager from Manhattan. Theres a project coordinator from Iowa, a medical-cannabis grower from Arizona, and a guy who owns an Italian restaurant in Queens. At least four guys are ex-military.

We have different jobs, different religions, and different numbers in our bank accounts, but weve all spent $3,500 for the same reason: to connect. With nature, ourselves, each other.

My next partner is Aaron. He has close-cropped hair and a well-manicured beard. His arms are covered in tattoos. I will later learn that he spent 14 years in the Army, seven of those as a Green Beret in remote outposts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will learn about his parachute accident, his brain injury, and his PTSD. I will learn how he went from being a weapons-and-tactics sergeant to the operations manager at Evryman. But right now, hes just another man in front of me.

Inside the Retreat Where Men Purge Toxic Emotions

Get closer, Dan instructs. Reach out and put your right hand on the shoulder of the man in front of you.

Aaron and I move closer. He puts his hand on my shoulder and I put my hand on his. His eyes well up with tears. Theyre blue and glossy and beautiful, and I am suddenly so overwhelmed with emotion that my eyes start to water, too.

He lifts my hand off his shoulder and places it over his heart. He holds it there. I can feel the thump, thump, thump deep in his chest.

Finish this sentence, Dan says. The thing Im most grateful for is...

Aaron and I stare into each others eyes. Ten seconds go by. Twenty seconds. The boundaries of my body start to dissolve. I have the feeling of looking into a mirror.

Im grateful Im here with you, Aaron says finally. Im grateful Im home, close to my wife and my son. And Im grateful I found this group.

The sounds of night begin to envelop us. Crickets chirp. A tree leans and groans in the wind. Up and down the line, the men lean, too. They sniffle and sigh.

Tears trace their way down Aarons cheek, but he doesnt wipe them away.

Men are hurting, says Dan.

Were sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Bozeman, Montana. Its two weeks before the retreat, and Im here to ask if I can come along.

Suicide rates are climbing. School shootings. The #MeToo movement and sexual abuse, he says. Men are hurting themselves and theyre hurting other people. But men are not getting the help they need.

Men need to talk to each other. And not just bullshit locker room talk about sports and sex.

In Dans view, there are two main things hurting men: repression of their emotions and lack of deep human connection. He knows this because hes seen it with boys. When he was in his 20s, Dan was a therapeutic wilderness guide who led troubled boys through the woods. Overall, he spent 12,000 hours in the backcountry with hundreds of boys. The kind of boys who hurt themselves and each other. The kind of boys who are on a direct path to prison. Or worse.

But slowly, while sitting around the fire, Dan showed these boys how to open up and feel. And he did it by going first. Talking about being scared. Opening up.

It starts a chain reaction, Dan says. When one person opens up, it gives everyone else in the space the permission to do the same. Its an act of courage.

Of course, boys grow into men. And as men grow older, they tend to grow further apart from everyone else.

In other words: Men need to talk to each other. And not just bullshit locker room talk about sports and sex, but about real things of consequence: how were handling our relationships, the things that scare us, what were ashamed of, what were proud of, our failures and dreams.

I went to my first mens group in 2009 and it fucking blew my mind, and I just knew that I needed it in my life, Dan says. Mens groups have been around since the 60s and are like any other type of gathering in that theres a set time and a structure. But mostly its guys sitting around in a circle, talking with one another about their lives: the good, the bad, and everything in between. I didnt even know what a mens group was, Dan says. Some German dude at a dinner party invited me to his group, the Brotherhood NYC. So I went. At that point in my life, I was feeling lost. But after that very first group, I knew I needed to keep coming. And I knew I needed to start something of my own to spread the message. It would take him a decade to do that.

After leaving his job as a wilderness guide in 2010, Dan became a producer and director of the hunting show MeatEater on the Sportsman Channel. Eventually his passion for mens work got in the way of his actual work. When his son Duke was born in June 2016, it inspired Dan to take action. I want Duke to grow up in a world where he can be himself fully, he says. Five months later, he started Evryman with his friends Sascha Lewis and Lucas Krump and his mentor, Owen Marcus.

Evrymans first retreat took place in December 2016 at Race Brook Lodge, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Twenty-five men attended. Since then, nearly 1,000 guys have either joined Evryman mens groups or participated in one of its retreats.

Evryman wants to get a million men in mens groups all over the world, Dan says. It supplies men with the tools and the structure they need to start their own group in whatever city theyre in.

Rather than focusing on what it means to be a man, like its some kind of checklist, were trying to teach men how to connect to their own experience, he explains. Because its only when you can fully connect to your own experience and allow yourself to be vulnerable that you can truly connect to others.

Or, putting it another way: There are as many ways of being a man as there are men on the planet, Dan says. Were just trying to give them some tools.

Dan Doty, the leader and a co-founder of Evryman.

Whether or not guys want those tools is another story. It can be a tough sell to get men together to talk about their feelings. Especially if they have to shell out a couple grand to go on a retreat. However, other organizations, like Junto and the ManKind Project, offer similar retreats, so the movement is growing.

Some men resist the idea of talking about their feelings and will avoid it at all costs, says Edward M. Adams, Psy.D., president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity, a division of the American Psychological Association.

In the 60s and 70s, a whole nation of Silent Generation and baby-boomer men started to grapple with their own repressed emotions, just as the womens liberation movement was picking up steam. In order to support women-and support themselves-men needed to do a new kind of work that had nothing to do with physical labor.

And so began 50 years of trying to define masculinity, with everything from drum circles and sweat lodges to character stories built around Jungian archetypes (or the mythopoeic stage of human thought). Its an old topic with a new urgency.

Adams believes that men right now are at a danger point.

Without connection to each other, men tend to lose their sense of identity and their sense of compassion for themselves and others, he says. But some guys think this kind of work sounds too soft and not manly. They think they can handle it on their own."

Im luckier than most guys. Ive had a best friend, Jason, for more than 20 years. Ive had mentors in my life who have challenged me to grow and learn. My dad kissed me and hugged me and told me he loved me. My long-term partner of ten years-a wonderful, intelligent, beautiful woman-pushes me to grow and to love.

Staring into the eyes of another man, talking about my deepest emotions, and blubbering like a baby is near the bottom of my to-do list, right around punch myself in the balls.

And yet, if Im being honest with myself, I do crave more connection in my life. I can be self-centered and callous. I can get wrapped up in appearances and become overbearing-talking over people, interrupting, and manipulating situations to get what I want. Im not proud of it. Maybe I do need to connect with other men more often.

But will doing it with strangers help?

We stand. Dan gives me a hug and starts to walk out the door, phone in hand.

Wait, I say. What about the article? Can I join the retreat and write about it?

He looks at me. Yes, he says. But you cant just be a fly on the wall. You have to jump into the shit with the rest of us.

Eight of us sit in a circle. Its Day 2. The midmorning sun shines brightly, but here in our rocking chairs, were shaded under the roof of the porch. Against the wall a cord of wood sits with us, neatly stacked, 25 across and 13 high. Fuel ready for a fire.

Craig Salazar, 37, is a former police officer who now lives in Grantsville, Utah.

This is our small group. Theres Chris, an antiques dealer from upstate New York; Bob, an IT guy at a large community college in California; Foster, an executive- leadership coach for Fortune 500 companies; and Kris, a former talent agent who left his company and is going back to school for his MBA. Theres also Craig, a former police officer who now installs sensory-deprivation tanks; another Chris, who works at a food co-op; and Blayne Doty, Dans dad, from Minnesota.

The rest of the guys are scattered around the house in their own groups. For some of them, this is their second retreat with Evryman. Others are first-timers like me. The purpose of this small group is to give each man time to open up and space to be seen and heard. If all goes well, well end this session with our work statement, a short sentence that captures what we need to work on for the rest of the trip. It will become our personal mantra.

Each man gets 30 minutes to become the focus of the group. But its not just idle conversation. Theres a process to get us out of our head and into our body. Step 1 is to slow down. Step 2 is to feel what youre feeling, both physically and emotionally. Step 3 is to share. Easier said than done.

Craig, the former police officer, kicks things off. Im grateful that I can spend time with you guys. I get the sense that you dont know my story, so I just want to share that quickly.

At the expedition last year, we sat in a bigger circle with everyone. I didnt know what I was going to say, but when it came time for me to talk, I just fucking... exploded.

Craig tells us about his life leading up to last year. He had an emotionally distant father. Craig cheated multiple times on his first wife. He tells us about the terrible things he saw as a cop on patrol in Utah. Shit you cant unsee.

During last years retreat, the level of rage I felt was unlike anything Id ever felt in my entire life. I was shaking and screaming. I had no idea this shit was in me this deep. It scared people.

After the yelling and the crying and the purging had stopped, Dan had instructed Craig to stand up and walk around the circle of men. He wanted me to look them in the eye one by one so I could see the support surrounding me. But Craig could barely meet their gaze.

Chris Berman, 42, is a facilities manager of a food co-op in Bozeman, Montana.

I was so ashamed, he says. But I locked eyes with a guy across from me, and the love pouring out of that man changed everything. It gave me permission to forgive myself.

And just like that, Craigs story starts the chain reaction Dan talked about. One guy opens up and everyone else has permission to do the same.

Foster talks about his son, how he lost him for eight years to a methamphetamine addiction before he got clean. He taught me about what I can control and what I cant. I put him out on the streets knowing he didnt have a place to go. I still feel pain from that. But it was the right thing to do.

Chris the antiques dealer talks about his father and his daughter. My dad taught me that crying was for little girls. I was taught to never show emotions. Now I get inspiration from my four-year-old daughter. She has so much passion and fire and heart. I see my younger self in her.

I open up about what it was like to grow up poor. I talk about how I barely graduated from high school and didnt make it to college and how that made me try so hard to be successful. At some point, I realize tears are running down my face.

I always feel like I have to perform, I say. I feel like I have to do whatever I can to impress you and to be accepted. I want to know what it feels like to stop trying so hard and to just be okay being myself.

After I finish, Bob looks at me. He reaches over and touches my knee.

Nate, you dont have to say or do anything to fucking impress us. We all see you and accept you as you are.

Its the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

That evening, after three hours of rafting Class III rapids on the Gallatin River-an activity that pushed us to communicate and work as a unit-the entire group is gathered in the living room, where a large fire crackles in the corner. Tomorrow we go into the woods.

Dan speaks. This circle is gonna close out the first phase of the trip and prepare us for Phase 2. Im feeling the love and the presence of every man in here. Lets share our work statements.

One by one, we share the sentence we need most right now. The thing that will serve as our compass while in the woods.

The words float into the center of the room and break open in front of everyone.

In the woods , there are burned trees next to new ones. There are distant mountains. Patches of snow. Grizzly bear tracks. One day I count 37 mosquito bites on my arms and back. Conversations are overheard, joined, then abandoned.

The best porn is when the girl actually gets off and has a crazy orgasm, right? Or when two girls use the same dildo at the same time?

Shitting in the woods is complicated. You have to start making moves when youre at a six or a seven on the ten scale. You really gotta plan your shits out here.

What do you expect? Were guys. But the chitchat about sex and shitting is tempered with real talk. We ask questions. We learn about one another.

Luke, a business-systems consultant, lost his wife to breast cancer; now he has a son to raise on his own. Cody, a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, lost a little girl to the water. He got her out but she died the next day. A man from Manhattan and a man from rural Ohio talk about transgender rights. A group of us reevaluate our past sexual behavior and how we treated women. Some guys have clear consciences. Others do not.

Every evening, we sit around the fire and watch the flames lick the wood. We sleep under the stars, talking to each other like kids at a sleepover. Every morning, we piss in the woods, pack up camp, eat breakfast, and start walking.

God, Im so uncomfortable. My palms are sweating and my heart is pounding. Why did I think this was a good idea? I could be home right now with my girlfriend and my dog, having a beer and watching Netflix. But no.

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By Nate Green

Articles written by the author

Inside the Retreat Where Men Purge Toxic Emotions