A nine-month program for men
For Men Who Want Strength Without Armor and Heart Without Collapse.
Strength with Heart is a 9-month training in embodied masculine maturity for men who want to become steadier, more honest, more connected, and more fully alive.
Through meditation, embodied practice, psychological insight, small-group connection, and real-life integration, you’ll develop the presence, courage, and emotional range to meet work, family, conflict, aging, purpose, and change with greater clarity and care.
Not a weekend breakthrough.
Not a masculinity makeover.
A sustained path for men ready to become more whole.
The bind
Discipline, self-reliance, composure under pressure — these are genuine virtues, and they're enjoying a deserved resurgence. The difficulty isn't that they're wrong; it's that, held on their own, they harden. Self-reliance narrows into isolation, composure into disconnection, strength into rigidity. The missing half isn't something a modern man has to invent from scratch. The capacities now being asked of men — presence, emotional range, the ability to stay open without losing one's center — have been mapped for centuries in the world's contemplative traditions.
Strength with Heart brings that older wisdom into the conditions of a contemporary life, with the tools, community, and time to make it hold.
What you’re actually stepping into
The integration
Lasting change happens in four places: body, mind, heart, and spirit. Each modality alone hits a ceiling. Together, each one unlocks the next.
Rinzai Zen sitting trains the strength side of practice. Insight Meditation cultivates the heart side — mettā, compassion, equanimity, joy.
Parts work, attachment theory, and four decades of clinical group facilitation with men provide the maps for how patterns formed and how they shift.
Breath, movement, and Northern Kung Fu embodiment sequences ground the work in the body, where lasting change actually lives.
A cohort of men doing the same work at the same time, with weekly check-ins and accountability partners. The pressure test for everything else.
How the course works
A steady rhythm of teaching, practice, reflection, and accountability. Each month focuses on one of the Nine Guideposts — enough time to learn the material, practice it in daily life, and bring real experience back into the group.
The nine-month arc
A developmental arc. The work begins with awareness — learning to notice what is actually happening in body, mind, heart, and relationships — and moves outward into connection, courage, intention, centering, care, building, leadership, and enjoyment.
How integration delivers results
Everything else flows from the expansion of that gap. The better marriage. The clearer leadership. The harder conversations handled well.
You can learn in therapy that you have a harsh inner critic, trace it to your father, and understand it intellectually for years. None of that stops the critic from running the show at 2am. What stops it is the trained capacity to notice the critic arising — as a voice, a tension, a mood — before it captures you.
Meditation alone can become a form of avoidance. Parts work and attachment theory ensure you aren’t just getting calmer, but truly more whole — addressing the buried trauma and grief that silence can bypass.
Lasting change happens in the nervous system, not just the mind. Embodiment rewires the physical threat responses that override good intentions, so your capacity for patience and presence survives high-pressure moments.
The ultimate test of growth is how you show up with others. Small groups and accountability partners provide the pressure test that moves these skills from theory into lived reality — during conflict, stress, and disappointment.
Where this sits in the landscape
Many men find that insights gained in isolation — whether through therapy, retreats, or physical training — don’t always translate into real-life changes. Lasting transformation requires reaching the whole man: body, mind, heart, and spirit.
Integration is the hardest part, and it is the core of our offer.
Over nine months, we bring Zen and Insight Meditation, depth psychology, somatic practice, and small-group accountability into one conversation. New patterns get to meet the complexities of real life — parenting, work, relationships — until psychological insight and contemplative steadiness reinforce one another and become a way of being.
This program is neither fast nor easy. It is designed for the man looking to build a foundation that will hold for the next twenty years.
The teachers
Clinical psychology, Insight Meditation, Rinzai Zen, performance psychology, leadership development, and martial arts, — a rare integration under one roof.
Depth psychology · men’s group facilitation
Psychologist with 40+ years leading men’s groups. Former president of APA Division 51 (Psychology of Men and Masculinities). Founder of the Men and Boys Compassion Coalition.
Brings to the program — The depth in male psychology and group facilitation that anchors the program.
Insight Meditation · mettā, compassion, joy
Co-founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and senior Insight Meditation teacher for 40+ years. Author of Awakening Joy.
Brings to the program — The contemplative weight of the Insight lineage and the embodied cultivation of joy that the final third of the program rests on.
Rinzai Zen · Northern Kung Fu · leadership
Ordained Rinzai Zen priest, lineage holder in Northern Kung Fu, and leadership consultant to CEOs.Author of 5 books and an expert in Integral Theory. Leads the meditation and embodiment curriculum.
Brings to the program — The rigor of contemplative practice, the discipline of martial arts, and the pragmatism of working with leaders in high-stakes environments.
By the end of nine months
Over time, men in this work develop a quieter, steadier mind under pressure; a real sense of brotherhood after years of low-grade isolation; an inner strength that no longer depends on suppression; warmer, less defended relationships with partners, children, and colleagues; and a clearer, truer voice — the ability to say the harder thing without bracing for it.
Enrollment
Nine months of contemplative practice, depth psychology, somatic work, and small-group accountability — taught by three senior teachers.
Scholarships available for those experiencing financial hardship.
11 monthly payments
One-time payment
Questions about the program or pricing? Reach out — we’re happy to help. Cohort size is limited to preserve the quality of the container.
Course Logistics
First Saturday of each month · 10:00 AM–1:00 PM PT
Each month includes a live Q&A session with one of the course teachers. These sessions are an opportunity to ask questions, go deeper into the month’s Guidepost, and get direct guidance on how the material is landing in your life.
At the start of the program, you will be paired with an accountability partner. Together you’ll work through weekly practice assignments, share reflections, and support each other’s growth. In the fourth week of each month, you and your partner complete a structured check-in — reviewing where the Guidepost showed up in your life, where it didn’t, and what’s next.
Common questions
Strength with Heart is delivered entirely online via live sessions. Each month opens with a 3–hour deep-dive taught by one or more of the three main teachers, followed by three weekly small-group check-ins (30–45 minutes each). You also receive daily guided meditations (10–15 minutes, five days per week), embodiment practices, and reflection prompts — all accessible on the course platform at your own pace between live sessions.
All live sessions are recorded. If you miss one, you can watch the recording before the next session.
After enrollment, you will receive a welcome email with login credentials and instructions for accessing the course platform at courses.spiritrock.org. All course materials — recordings, guided meditations, reflection prompts, and embodiment sequences — are hosted there. You can access the platform from any device with an internet connection.
Yes. All enrolled participants retain access to all recorded sessions, guided meditations, and course materials after the program concludes. The live group check-ins and accountability partnerships end with the cohort, but the practice library remains yours to revisit.
Yes. If you would like to enroll with a friend, partner, or colleague, please contact us directly and we can arrange group registration. Please fill out this form with your group details
We understand that plans can change, and we're here to help.
No. The daily meditation practice is guided, and the curriculum is designed to meet you where you are. Whether you have sat for years or have never meditated, the program builds capacity progressively over nine months. The teachers are experienced at working with a range of backgrounds.
Most men’s programs focus on one modality — a weekend retreat, a therapy group, a physical challenge, a meditation course. Strength with Heart is designed around deep integration over time: contemplative practice, depth psychology, somatic work, and relational accountability running together for nine months. The combination is what makes change stick. The teachers bring credentials across multiple traditions, not just one.
A nine–month program. Taught by Daniel Ellenberg, James Baraz, and Keith Martin-Smith.
We offer scholarships on a case-by-case basis. We strive to offer our courses and other work with kindness, empathy, and respect for all. We are happy to provide scholarships if one is needed. If you would like to be considered for a scholarship, please click the button below to apply.
We offer scholarships on a case-by-case basis. We strive to offer our courses and other work with kindness, empathy, and respect for all. We are happy to provide scholarships if one is needed. If you would like to be considered for a scholarship, please click the button below to apply.
