“The soul is not a problem to be solved; it is a presence to be tended.”
— Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul
There comes a point in our lives when no amount of striving, achieving, or performing seems to soothe the ache and deadness we feel beneath the surface. The goals we once chased feel hollow and no longer spark our drive and enthusiasm. The advice to “push through it” sounds like an old radio station we can no longer tune in to. Something deeper is calling—not in words, but in silence. For many men, this ache arrives silently.
This is where soul mentoring starts, not with answers, but with presence. Not a problem to fix, but a mystery to live.
Not with strategy. But with spaciousness.
Not with fixing. But with walking beside a man until he returns to himself.
A Different Kind of Mentoring
There are various types of mentoring, including career mentoring, life coaching, and business mentoring. All hold value. However, most fit within the same cultural story: be better, do more, climb higher.
Soul mentoring is different. It does not focus on performance, productivity, or solving problems. It’s not about optimising your brand or teaching you to speak more confidently in meetings.
Soul mentoring begins with an altogether quieter premise:
That your life is not a project to be perfected, but a mystery to be lived.
It honours the lifelong journey of uncovering our true selves, beyond the masks and roles we have learned to wear. It listens for the deep movements of the soul beneath the surface of our story: our longings, our grief, our wonder, and our truth.
As Moore (1992) writes, “Curing the soul is not about finding solutions but about creating conditions for the soul to thrive.”
This is not mentoring as management. This is mentoring as midwifery—the art of holding space while something deeper is born.
The Ache Beneath Achievement
I, like many men, appeared to have it all on paper.
I was CEO and Director of nonprofit organizations and chair of peak bodies. I raised a family and served communities. Like many men, we keep everything afloat with strength and sacrifice. And yet, somewhere along the way, we lose touch with something essential. Not because we have failed. But because we have succeeded at a script that was never written for our soul.
Soul mentoring offers a space where we gather, not to be instructed, but to remember.
To remember the boy inside them who once felt free.
To remember the artist, the dreamer, and the lover, they buried them to become dependable.
To remember their inner voice before the world drowned it out with “shoulds.”
The disconnection we experience isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it manifests as tiredness, quiet sadness, or a sense of living behind a screen. I call it the ghost life—when a man still shows up and performs, but no longer feels truly present in his own days.
This is not depression in the clinical sense. It’s the depletion of the soul.
Soul Time vs Chronological Time
One of the common illusions men hold is that healing can be scheduled. It flows in straight lines, judged by progress and deadlines.
But the soul has its own rhythm.
Chronological time is linear: wake, work, achieve, repeat. Soul time is cyclical, like seasons or tides. It moves through death and rebirth, through wilderness and homecoming.
Most men I mentor come to me exhausted, not because they’ve failed, but because they’ve been running on chronological time while their soul was calling for a different rhythm.
They ask questions like:
- “Why do I feel so tired, even when I’ve rested?”
- “Why does my life feel full, but I still feel empty?”
- “What’s wrong with me that I’m not satisfied?”
There is nothing wrong. What is missing is the soul.
And soul cannot be chased. It can only be invited.
What Is Soul Mentoring?
Soul mentoring isn’t a set formula. It isn’t a 12-step process for awakening. It’s a relational, reflective, and reverent space where a man can begin speaking in the forgotten language of his own being.
It starts with presence, not pressure.
It listens more than it instructs.
It reflects more than it directs.
It waits until the story is ready to be told—sometimes without words.
Soul mentoring may involve silence. It might include ritual. It may also invite poetry, dreams, myths, or nature as guides. But more than anything, it offers a space where a man can begin to feel again, gradually and safely.
“The soul is partly in the world and partly beyond it,” writes Hillman (1996), “always moving between the known and the unknown, the visible and the invisible.”
To mentor the soul is to hold a space where that movement can happen.
Why Men Need This Now
We are living in a time of masculine crisis— but not the kind that headlines imply.
The real crisis isn’t men failing to lead; it’s us forgetting how to listen to ourselves, to our inner lives, to the earth, and the wisdom found in slowness and grief.
Because we do not listen to ourselves, we listen to everyone else’s idea of what a man should be. We were told to man up. To build. To lead. To push. To be warriors, kings, lovers, to be celibate, to be independent. By listening to everyone else, we keep repeating the pattern of leaving our souls behind.
What I offer, and what I believe soul mentoring must offer, is something quieter.
A space for men who don’t need another bootcamp or blueprint.
A place for men who feel lost, not because they are weak, but because they are awakening.
A rhythm for men who are ready to meet themselves, not in triumph, but in tenderness.
How It Works
In my practice, soul mentoring begins with a few simple but powerful principles:
- Presence Over Prescription
I don’t offer solutions. I offer presence. That alone begins to thaw what has been frozen. - Story As Medicine
We explore the man’s life story—not to analyse it, but to listen for where the soul went silent. - Emotion As Compass
We honour what he feels, not just what he thinks. Emotional literacy becomes a doorway to aliveness (Goleman, 1995). - Myth As Mirror
We draw from myths, symbols, and archetypes—not to escape reality, but to reclaim meaning and understanding. - Slowness As Sacred
We don’t rush healing. Soul unfolds when given time and trust.
It Begins With a Willingness
I often tell men, You don’t need to know the way ahead.
You don’t need language for your pain. You don’t need to be clear about your purpose. You just need to be willing to sit with yourself, to feel again, to wonder.
This is how the soul returns.
Not through force, but by invitation.
Not through fixing, but through remembering.
A Personal Perspective
I write all this not as an expert but as a man who is still learning to listen to his soul.
I have spent years outrunning my soul. I buried long-held grief beneath performance. I confused competence for connection. I played the roles I was handed—minister, father, leader—thinking somewhere along the way I would feel accepted and acceptable. Somewhere, I would finally feel at peace and be able to stop performing.
It was only through the death of my son, divorce, and accepting my sexuality that the scaffolding of my life finally began to fall away.
What remained was silence, grief, and pain. And yet there was more; the silence became my teacher. And eventually, my vocation.
Not to lead men out of their pain. But to sit with them within it. And to offer the one thing I most needed: a quiet, steady presence that says:
You’re not broken. Let’s become the archaeologists of your soul and rediscover the beauty that has been buried.
Why It Matters
In a culture obsessed with improvement, soul mentoring says, ‘You are already enough.’
In a world that wants you to be faster, louder, and stronger, soul mentoring invites you to be slower, softer, and more honest.
And in a time when many men are quietly crumbling beneath the weight of unspoken expectation, soul mentoring offers a sacred alternative:
To reclaim your wholeness not through mastery, but through mystery.
Not all men will want this. Not all are ready. But for those who are—the quietly grieving, the ones done with the noise, the men whose souls are whispering beneath the surface—this kind of mentoring might be precisely what they’ve been unknowingly waiting for.
You are not too late. Your soul is still listening.
And it knows the way back.
Let’s walk together. You don’t have to make sense of it all before you begin.
References
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Bantam Books.
Hillman, J. (1996). The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling. Random House.
Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Vintage.
Moore, T. (1992). Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life. HarperPerennial.
