Asher Packman
After losing his sister and mother to suicide, then facing cancer, Asher left corporate life to teach men that grief is the gateway to connection.
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Asher Packman left a successful corporate career at Time Warner and AOL to teach men that grief is the gateway to their hearts. A phone call in a Dubai hotel room changed everything: his sister had died by suicide. Weeks later, his mother followed. Six weeks after losing his mother, Asher was diagnosed with blood cancer. The diagnosis became a mirror. His disease was an overproliferation of platelets, the cells that protect. His body had manifested the story he had carried since childhood: that he needed to protect his sister and mother. When protection twisted into overprotection, his body spoke what his mind refused to see.
Asher turned to unconventional healing. The Wim Hof Method improved his inflammation markers and quality of life. HeartMath taught him to listen to his heart instead of his head. But the real work was grief. For years, he had worn thick emotional armor. Most men, he came to understand, only access their hearts through loss. Grief is not a problem to solve or a timeline to meet. It is a gateway, and processed grief is what stands between a full emotional life and the mental health crises that emerge when grief stays locked away.
He built The Way, a men's program that began in his living room and grew into a global online community. He teaches that the soul speaks in escalating volumes: first a feather tickle, then a brick in the face, then a train wreck that dismantles your life if you ignore the call to become yourself. Poetry became his language. He discovered that discipline is not punishment but fidelity, a relationship you keep with the practices that matter. Today, Asher helps men find their own expression, whether through words, sculpture, cooking, or any act of creation.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
“The depth of your grief is really how much you loved what you've lost. And by grieving, you're really praising it.”
“Your soul will take your life away if you don't use your life properly. It's got no real concerns about you having a bodily experience right now. It wants something great from you. It wants you to become yourself.”
“I would strongly argue that for most men, the gateway is grief. They're not going to get there in any other way.”
The hero, today
The body keeps score of what the mind refuses to see: Asher's blood cancer, a disease of overprotection, mirrored the story he had been carrying since childhood about needing to shield his mother and sister. Grief is the gateway for men to access their hearts, and processed grief is what stands between a full emotional life and mental health disorders that develop when grief stays locked away. The soul speaks in escalating volumes: a feather tickle, then a brick in the face, then a train wreck that dismantles your life if you ignore the call to become yourself. Discipline is not punishment; it is fidelity, a relationship you keep with the practices and values that matter, and it takes shape when you do the next right thing without needing to know your entire purpose first. Good and bad are labels the ego imposes; treating any event as objectively bad is arrogant when you cannot see the full potential of what that moment will unfold into across years or decades.
Yes. Asher Packman is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
The body keeps score of what the mind refuses to see: Asher's blood cancer, a disease of overprotection, mirrored the story he had been carrying since childhood about needing to shield his mother and sister.
Grief is the gateway for men to access their hearts, and processed grief is what stands between a full emotional life and mental health disorders that develop when grief stays locked away.
The soul speaks in escalating volumes: a feather tickle, then a brick in the face, then a train wreck that dismantles your life if you ignore the call to become yourself.
John Milham (Host) · 00:00
Kintsugi Heroes acknowledges funding and was made possible with support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at cbf.org.au. Welcome back to Kintsugi Heroes, helping people tell the stories they need to share so you can find the stories that you need to hear. In this episode, John Millum is joined by Asher Pakman. Asher's Asher's journey is a powerful testament to resilience and transformation. Diagnosed with blood cancer and facing immense grief, he turned to unconventional methods like the Wim Hof Method and HeartMath to find healing. His problems didn't stop his growth; instead, they allowed him to delve deep into personal development. Asher has moved from corporate life to guiding men through meditation and embracing their true selves. Stay tuned as he shares how he turned trauma into a journey of self-discovery and healing. Enjoy this one with Asher Pakman.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 01:18
So ladies and gentlemen, friends and, uh, listeners, uh, for Kintsugi Heroes, welcome back to Kintsugi Heroes podcast. Asher Pakman has been involved in some of the key movements of self-development and unlocking personal potential over the years. He's done amazing things and I'm really excited to share that with you today. Thank you so much for joining us, Asher, on Kintsugi Heroes Stories That Matter.
John Milham (Host) · 01:47
Hey, it's a pleasure to be here, John. Thanks so much for inviting me in.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 01:51
Asher, you're in beautiful Byron Bay at the moment, mate, and you've been there a long time. Tell us a little bit about where you are in space.
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Discipline is not punishment; it is fidelity, a relationship you keep with the practices and values that matter, and it takes shape when you do the next right thing without needing to know your entire purpose first.
This conversation includes welcome to asher's story, a father's legacy in byron bay, the naval influence and estrangement, following curiosity to mastery, blood cancer and the body's truth and the story of protection that became disease.
John Milham (Host) · 02:01
Right now I'm sitting in my house in Bangalow, which is just outside of Byron Bay. And you're right, yeah, this is a country, Bundjalung country up here in northern New South Wales, which I've been connected to since I was 3 years old, which is back in 1971 when I was born in Melbourne. But my father made a decision to buy some land up here in the early '70s and everything kind of unfolded from there. So, you know, whilst I've been all around the place and lived in many different parts of the world, I've always had a special connection back here. In this particular iteration, I've been back for about 3 years. So that's, that's where I am right now.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 02:46
You mentioned your dad, obviously family. I must admit, I just watched something around the father wound and, you know, gosh, we often hear stories about the impact fathers have, whether good or bad, or framing us. That is a very smart move on your father's part to get land in Byron Bay. How was the rest of your relationship apart from admiring his early land buying decisions?
John Milham (Host) · 03:14
My relationship with my father is a reasonably complex one, I have to say that. My father left for the Navy as a young boy basically and was schooled schooled on board the ship. So, you know, that kind of turned him in a particular direction. Um, and, you know, he was in his, uh, mid-20s, I think, when, when he left the Navy and decided to, um, um, you know, take up residence in Australia. It was, I think it was, you know, I think some of the more beautiful places that he'd been on his, on his travels around the world and decided that that's where he was going to be. So I guess for me, that kind of naval attitude and that, and, and, and I guess more mythopoetically, that connection to the sea was always very strong with my father. But, you know, the naval influence is quite something when it comes to a young boy growing up in his shadow in terms of the discipline and everything like that, which, you know, and it's generational as well, which, you know, I found in some ways was a little bit misguided, you know, in particular ways. So we butted heads an awful lot. And there's been a lot of angst in that relationship over the years. And we're both very different. We're both very different people. We were estranged for quite a long period of time. But more recently, as my father gets into his very elderly age, we've found common ground. And we're, I would guess, I would say, in the process of reconnecting and It's quite a beautiful thing.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 04:50
That reconnection, that arc back to dad, is that— I always wonder, is it an arc that takes you back to dad, or is it like just the development of tolerance and understanding in yourself? Or is it there? Is it some— is it our father's arc, you know, where they suddenly realize something about themselves as well?
John Milham (Host) · 05:09
Yeah, no, it's definitely an arc. I would say it's definitely an arc. I mean, You and I know both, you know, the work of the father and son kind of feels it's a big one. And I know it would resonate with you, but I find so many men showing up at my doorstep and it's the father wound in one way, shape or another, which has brought them to that place. And so, yeah, you know, it is a huge body of work, I think, the father and the son relationship. And, uh, you know, it's going to go through its, its ebbs and flows. Um, you know, um, what one of my great mentors says, it's often, it's often, it's often the son that needs to come back, you know. Um, yeah, it's often said the father, the father will sit there lonely in his whole body waiting for the son to arrive home but won't actually do anything about it, you know. Um, so I think it is, um, you know, at least certainly let me speak from my personal experience. In the eye, I certainly feel it's incumbent on me to to find my way back to him. And I think that that's a responsibility that I want to take on at this stage of my life.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 06:21
Absolutely. Great thoughts. You have some of the qualifications in life that I have longed for or looked forward to. So as you're qualified as a HeartMath consultant. And I love that idea of the congruency, right? Congruency is more important than capacity almost, right? Not to mention, you know, many other qualifications over these. How did you get to be someone who embraced taking on these kind of therapies and developments and say this is the path I'm on?
John Milham (Host) · 07:08
Yeah, um, you know, it's a good question. I, I tend to— like, I'm a very curious person, and so, you know, if I get interested in something like the Wim Hof Method or HeartMath, I tend to want to go all the way, you know. So it's not just a matter of, um, of, of practicing it. I, I kind of want to go and, and, and learn all about it.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 07:28
Is it mastery? Are you, are you interested in mastery of it?
John Milham (Host) · 07:31
I, I don't know. I mean, maybe, but I don't know if that's the direct line. For me, it's just about exhausting my curiosity. Like, I just keep on going until I know as much about it as I possibly can. And often that ends up with a teacher qualification, you know, but it's not necessarily what I was looking at when I began, if that makes sense. I mean, but each of these things come in, have come into my life at the right moments, you know, like you talk about HeartMath, for example. I mean, I did my HeartMath certificate way back in 2015. And that was at a time when I was very, very lost. And I think I was, you know, definitely operating from this part, not, not down here in the center of my chest. And so, you know, so there was a call to kind of find out a little bit about, you know, I was introduced to HeartMath by, by a mentor at the time. And, you know, and it really resonated with me. So of course, I kind of took it all the way. And it's interesting that you use the words like capacity and potential and resonance, and these are all energy words, aren't they? You know, you could say they're all related to electricity, which is exactly what HeartMath is about. So, you know, it's the energy of the heart. So for me, it just became a, um, you know, a wonderful personal tool, which I then wanted to share. And it's exactly the same thing with the Wim Hof Method, John, because at that time you know, I'd been diagnosed with blood cancer, um, and I was looking for ways to kind of really kind of, um, look at what wellness meant to me. Everything from food, like, all the way down, to try to, you know, get myself back on, back on a, back on a path of wellness. And, you know, Wim Hof, um, came into my life from various different directions. And my first thought was, you know, who is this crazy Dutchman with all these world records? It's like, it just didn't seem to be relevant to me. It seemed a bit out here somewhere. But there was a moment when I realized that actually something clicked and I wanted to follow that path and then developed it. I was able to meet with Wim personally because again, it was pretty early days. It was back in about, I want to say 2016, maybe 2017, back around that time. So it was kind of early days in terms of the amount of people who knew about— Yeah, that's right. And again, what I found with that was, um, very specific in the sense that, um, the more I did the Wim Hof Method, my blood markers actually started to improve with my cancer. I mean, it wasn't like my cancer was going away, but, but a lot of the inflammation markers and things like that started to improve, which meant basically I was getting a better quality of life. And so once I had that personal experience with it, it just became something that I wanted to share.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 10:17
Often, uh, you, you know, like, you, you know, take men and, and take them on a journey, and they come to you. Um, often you find when you talk to men who are, uh, at that moment, uh, you know, of whether it's dissatisfaction, distress, or whatever going on, um, it's manifesting physically. Do you think your, like, your issues with cancer and, well, and your body stuff, was that, do you think that's a, was that a universal checkpoint or was it just something that was, you know, just happens, you know, things just happen to us, it's not our fault?
John Milham (Host) · 10:55
Yeah, it's a really good question, John. Maybe I'll deliver the answer by way of a little story given we're talking about stories here. Um, you know, we started talking about my father, and, and, you know, it's true to say that I did have a difficult relationship with my father. Um, and I think that as a very young kid— and I'm talking, you know, under 10 years old, maybe 5 years old— I think I developed a story of protection, um, that I needed to be a protector, um, you know, particularly for my sister and my mother. And, and that's just how it was for me. And I think over the years, that story of protection sort of grew and grew and grew to the point where it became distorted and it twisted itself into overprotection. And so how that looked as I got into my teenage years was that, you know, let's say in relationships with girlfriends, I was overprotective, which looked like jealousy. Which looked like trying to wrap my arms and not giving them the freedom to be who they wanted to be. But for me, it felt in my body like I was doing the honorable thing by them. But what I was actually doing was suffocating them. And so they would leave and I would be upset and wouldn't understand why. And this was this story of overprotection playing out and playing out and playing out. And so the thing was, and I'm extrapolating very, very fast through my life. My sister and my mother are now— have now both passed away, um, and, um, and, and both of them did so through their own volition, by their own hand. Um, yeah, and, um, but, you know, it just meant that that story of overprotect— like, I kind of failed, right? You know, that, that was my version of the story that was playing out inside this sort of self-limiting story, right? But the thing is not long after my mother died, I was diagnosed with blood cancer. And the part of the type of blood cancer I have is an overproliferation of the platelets. I make too many platelets. Now, what do the platelets do in the body? They protect.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 13:09
Protect your system. Wow.
John Milham (Host) · 13:11
Yeah. So that's my answer to your question.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 13:14
It's so like, it's like the language, you know, like a language of HeartMath, you know, you know, the, you know, I have butterflies and, you know, I have a broken heart or, you know, or I learned it by heart. Yeah, I learned it by heart. Absolutely. You know, we kind of know there's a knowing underneath all of our, you know, cognitive awareness underneath is this knowing. And of course, the body knows.
John Milham (Host) · 13:41
Yeah. And John, to me, you know, just as maybe it's an aside, but, you know, a lot of this work, and you know this better than anybody, it's about listening. And you can hear the story in the choice of words that the people are making. They'll give you clues so often, just like that, you know, just like, um, you know, it's in my bones, or, or, um, you know, I've learned it by heart. And, and you get it, you can get a very strong read on, on the story that they're carrying just by their choice of words. You know, it's all buried in our everyday lexicon, just like those examples that you gave before.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 14:21
Yeah, that's so insightful. Do you mind if I ask you about your mother and sister? Of course, bereavement from suicide, it's such a difficult way to grieve. And of course, you know, you were talking about your, you know, you had your journey immediately to deal with. Well, how was your— and then of course, uh, I'm sorry, I bring up the fact that you are a Joseph Campbell man, right? You're the hero's journey. What was that, your threshold? Did you step into those trials and and grief.
John Milham (Host) · 15:09
Yeah, um, okay, I'll touch on my sister, my mom in a sec, but I'm just going to take a back step and address the Joseph Campbell piece too, because, um, yet whilst I broadly, um, believe that the, the foundation of the hero's journey cycle is, is useful, I think that we've far outgrown it. Um, I think that, you know, Joseph Campbell was, was it, was a man of the '50s and, um, and, and everything kind of made a lot of sense. But, but, but I like to think, you know, that, that we've actually gone beyond that now. I think that the hero's journey as a, as a cycle has kind of run its course, and I think it has a lot of shortcomings now. And so whilst I like to use it as a, as an initial foundation, particularly when I'm working with men, you know, I'm very clear right from the beginning to say we're going to go what I call beyond the hero.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 15:58
Wow.
John Milham (Host) · 15:58
Um, because I think, yeah, because I think that it's a little bit, um Yeah, it's maybe a little bit crude for where we are right now. You know, the idea of the monomyth, and it's kind of quite gender-specific, shall we say. There's not much room for the heroine's journey in there. And, you know, whilst you could— I mean, you can, you know, I could make a case, but at the same time, it does feel a little bit rigid.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 16:27
It's always good to update and renovate something useful.
John Milham (Host) · 16:29
Yeah, 100%, but I still think it's a wonderful foundation. I just think we need to be careful about how rigidly we stick to, um, um, how it was, um, originally conceived, um, and, and what it actually means that way. But so, so, so I, I, I don't believe that the arc of one's life is just one hero's journey, you know, and I think that that's what— that's the thing that maybe some of us get trapped in.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 16:55
Yeah, I like to combine it with spiral dynamics.
John Milham (Host) · 16:58
Oh, well, that's actually a nice way of piecing it all together. But, you know, it's wheels within wheels within wheels. And, you know, I could say that the arc of my life is one hero's journey. Sure, I could describe it that way for sure. But I could also describe it— I could describe maybe I've had many lives and that's all part of one hero's journey. But I could also come in the other way to the point where I could say every breath Every step I take is a hero's journey. And if you break down the various stages of the hero's journey, you can actually fit it into breathing.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 17:32
Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 17:32
You know, an inhale, a suspension, an exhale, and it's all— and all the thresholds that you cross, it's actually all in there quite neatly. So having said that, you know, would I say that the loss of my sister and my mum were threshold events? Absolutely. Of course they were. Um, they were part of a larger hero's journey, but they were also part of many, many small ones.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 17:55
Yeah. What did grief, um, mean to you? Like, I, I find grief both incredibly cauterizing, right? You know, the fire of it both scolds and scars, but also, you know, heals and cleanses. Um, you know, what was that? Is that How do you integrate the, you know, when you're a protective, you know, son and brother and their choices, how do you allow them the rights of their own choice?
John Milham (Host) · 18:38
Well, I think there's two things there. I mean, firstly, with the grief, I think, you know, what you're saying there, I found it hard to get into my own grief. And I think that was part of my story. I had a pretty thick armor and I wasn't really allowing much into my heart for a very long time for many reasons, you know. But I don't think that's uncommon for the journey of a man.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 19:01
A lot of masculine—
John Milham (Host) · 19:02
Yeah, like I think, you know, intimacy and connection to our emotions, I would strongly argue that for most men, the gateway is grief. They're not going to get there in any other way, you know. And again, you know, the men that I'm interacting with and the men that I'm— that I have the privilege of working with, often the reason they're in front of me is because they've felt grief, um, and it's been the gateway, the inward journey, um, the drawbridge has come down through, through, through the gift of grief, you know. And it really is that. And, um, you know, I'm very, very, um, like, I love the work of people like Martin Prechtel, and, and, you know, um, if anybody out there is listening, The Smell of Rain on Dust is probably one of the greatest books on grief you could read, as well as The Wild Edge of Sorrow and Francis Weller's work. And all these men are connected to the same path, which perhaps we can talk about later. But grief is— yeah, Martine Prechtel talks about grief being praise. Grief is praise. It's a celebration. The depth of your grief is really how much you loved what you've lost. And by grieving, you're really praising it.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 20:15
So, yeah, the process of almost like, you know, reframing it back into that sort of masculine socialized frame of, well, you have a responsibility to protect and honor the memory now, if not the person, right? Like, you know, what is your act of honor now? Well, it's to heal and grow from and use the gift they've given you in their, in their passing, right?
John Milham (Host) · 20:41
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, um, you know, there's no handbook for grief. I think that's the important thing, John. I mean, you know, people— it's not a skill. It's, it's only a skill that you can learn on the job. Um, you know, you can't prepare yourself in any way, and it's going to be different for every single person. And, you know, I've had many men say to me, you know, there's a certain sense of shame because I didn't cry or something like that. And it's like, it everyone does grief differently, you know. And so you've just got to open yourself to whatever comes. I think that's the way it is, and not expect it to be a certain way, or to last a certain amount of time, or all these different kind of frames that our culture tends to try to put grief in. Because, you know, you get 2 weeks when your mum dies, and then you're supposed to be back at work, you know. So they're already saying, this is the box of time that you've got to work with because that's what a normal process would look like. And it's like, that's just— grief doesn't operate like that. You know, sorrow is a river, grief is a tsunami. Yeah.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 21:48
I find it very strange, the whole Western approach to grief is sometimes, you know, or the Australian approach to grief is sometimes, you know, doesn't work. It doesn't, you know, doesn't— isn't clear, right? I was, I was at one stage, I was diagnosed with complicated grief. I go, what's complicated about grief?
John Milham (Host) · 22:08
That's interesting.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 22:09
Wow.
John Milham (Host) · 22:10
I've never, I've never even heard that term. But, you know, but, but extrapolating on what you said just there, I would argue that the various forms of PTSD and so many mental health issues we have are all connected back to the way we alchemize our grief because processed grief becomes a mental health disorder very, very quickly. And long-term unprocessed grief is PTSD.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 22:32
Yeah, well, that's the— yeah, they've given me labels around that.
John Milham (Host) · 22:36
So yeah, yeah. So, you know, so the grief piece, you know, John, is fascinating, particularly in my life, because, you know, I had my sister and my mum, you know, that happened quite close together. And then I think it was only like 6 weeks after after my mum died, I had my cancer diagnosis. So I had, I really had very little time to be processing what was happening for me. And, you know, I never really had the opportunity to grieve my mum until later because I was dealing with my own mortality, you know, standing in front of a lady in a white coat telling me that I had a pretty complex blood cancer. And, and that's, you know, I'm still, you know, barely put my mum in the ground.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 23:15
Is there a point where, like, you know, I often think of men as being very competent generally, right, at dealing with stuff. Even if they deal with it badly, they often get through. But there's a point where overwhelm, right? Like, why does the universe offer overwhelm to some men, right?
John Milham (Host) · 23:36
Well, I think, you know, that's the soul's call, you know, it really is, John. I think that what we're dealing with here and we're talking about grief is part of our connection to our soul. And, um, yeah, that's— this is the soul's domain. And, um, for me, I think, you know, I talk about the feather, the brick, and the train, John. I'm not sure if you've heard this analogy before, but it's, it's, it's, it's this idea that your soul is always calling to you and about, about, you know, your purpose, why you're here, and, and meaning. And, and if we ignore that and we're off in some other direction, you're going to get these little feather tickles under the chin, and they manifest as actual events in the world, like maybe a sickness or a car accident or something, but something quite minor just to kind of like, you know, literally wake up. And we use that word a lot. But if we ignore that and we keep on going, the soul's call will only get louder, you know, and then it's, you know, it's the brick in the face. And if you don't listen to that, it's an absolute train wreck, which will pull your life apart and to the point of overwhelm. Your soul doesn't— your soul will take your life away if you don't use your life properly. It's got no real concerns about you having a bodily experience right now. It wants something great from you. It wants you to be, become yourself. And if you keep ignoring the call, you know, the external events will keep manifesting louder and louder. And, you know, your soul will give you the noise at the decibels that you need to hear in order to wake up.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 25:08
I really love that, the way you frame that. So we know that, you know, like, we see it over and over again, you know, that life demonstrates, puts on little tableaus for us to learn. And so we see examples of of how, of what we should be practicing and what we should be doing. How do you find, you know, how do you develop the discipline of awareness, of self-reflection, of noticing those examples in life?
John Milham (Host) · 25:48
I think this is where these practices come in. I think that, as it's exactly what I said before, I think you've just got to find time in your day to actually build that muscle. And, and that doesn't mean getting up an hour earlier and doing an hour of meditation and having sort of 15 things that you do before you get your day doing. It can be much smaller than that. And actually, HeartMath teaches you that, you know, like I have little practices that I can do when the, when the lights go red. Like I've got a little, um, I've got a little photo of a little passport-sized photo of my son on my rearview mirror And, and when the lights turn red, I just look at that boy and just think about how much I love him. And, and just until my heart's just, phew, and then the lights turn green and I drive off. And that's, you know, you do that 3 or 4 times a day and that starts to build that, that muscle of awareness, you know. So you, you start to be able to respond to life rather, rather than react to it. And, you know, that discernment starts to kind of, you know, you start to build that in. But you gotta— it's, you know, I think the word discipline you know, probably has a bad rap. I like to use other words, even though discipline is the correct word etymologically. I think it's kind of been warped a little bit. It sounds like self-flagellation and you must, you must. Even the word should, John, even the word should, I find that a tricky one to deal with. You know, I think these things up here, you know, they're not shoulders, they're shouldas. And every time somebody shoulds me—
Asher Packman (Guest) · 27:15
Carry the burden of it.
John Milham (Host) · 27:16
Yeah, every time I should myself or somebody shoulds me, I kind of like, you know, they become a weight on my shouldas. But I guess what I'm saying is, you know, I think we should think about the word discipline as more like fidelity or right relationship, something like that, because that's what it is. You know, you have a relationship with meditation, you have a relationship with journaling, and, you know, it just means that, you know, if you don't show up on the mat one day or you don't find a couple of minutes to meditate, you've got to think about it as what does that mean for the relationship? It's not a question of I had a shit day or I'm not worthy enough because I didn't turn up to the gym or whatever. It's different. It's a relationship.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 27:55
I love that. I like to think of, you know, I like to give it a Stoic lens discipline, right? So, you know, which is about my journey from I to thou, right? You know, like moving away from ego to other, right? And so, like, discipline isn't necessarily, you know, I'm not doing it to demonstrate how powerful I am or how restrained I am. You know, I'm doing it because it, um, it allows me to take up the best space in the world and to serve the most number of people.
John Milham (Host) · 28:29
100%. That's it, man. I like the way you've put that, like, you know, the move from I to thou. I think that's great. I mean, Rumi said angels only shine after they achieve discipline. And so I think when you think about discipline in that way, it's, you know, to hear discipline and angels in the same sentence is is interesting, but when you think about it through the lens of I to thou, it makes total sense.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 28:49
Yeah. And isn't your purpose accepting the discipline of your own heart and values, right?
John Milham (Host) · 28:57
Oh, 100%. Yeah. Great. I love that, John. That's a really nice frame because for me, you know, that what discipline means to me in that sense is just is what Jung said, which is just do the next right thing. Like have the discipline of doing the next right thing. Like men often struggle around, you know, what's my purpose? What am I here for? And I'm like, just do the next right thing. I promise you, you'll get to the later stages of your life and you'll look back and you've been on your purpose the whole time just by doing the next right thing.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 29:26
Absolutely. Hey, you've done something again or something else that I've also dreamed about. What was it like preparing for and then delivering a TED Talk?
John Milham (Host) · 29:41
Well, I did mine during during, um, the pandemic. So, so it was, it was a completely different experience from what, um, others would have been through because I was at home. So I was doing it over a medium like this. So, you know, so they sent me all these backgrounds that I had to have, and, and then, and I'm literally, I'm literally standing, but I'm standing in my own living room. And, and while you get to do the pacing as well, well, I sort of did, but it's kind of, it all feels a little bit contrived because, you know, I knew people out there listening, but I couldn't see them. And so my experience was entirely different. So I don't even feel like I'm eligible to speak about it because it was so bizarre.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 30:27
Good on technology for allowing us to continue and bad on technology for denying that, you know, like what is an outstanding story.
John Milham (Host) · 30:36
Yeah, that's true.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 30:38
So what was the subject of TED Talk?
John Milham (Host) · 30:40
I was talking about conscious dissent. I was talking about, you might have heard the Greek term of katabasis and, and, and the actual, um, you know, the opportunity that, that presents, um, when you, when you move in that downward direction, like into the, into the shit, into the dirt of your own life, you know. And how, you know, we, we kind of— how everything in our culture is about, is about up and out, you know, rather than theosis, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, rather than sort of in and down, which is where the wisdom is. Wisdom is in the dirt. And I think, for me, I just think, like we talk about growing up and that seems to be the trajectory of our life when I think there's something to be said about growing down. We talk about enlightenment all the time, but I think there's an equally important part of life's journey, which is endarkenment. In fact, having said that, John, we're coming up to the summer solstice in Australia in a couple of days' time, right? What we tend to do during the summer solstice is just celebrate the radiance of the longest night and the glory of the light and the blooming and the blossoming. What we forget is at that exact moment, the god of darkness is just beginning his walk back towards us. And we have to acknowledge that as well. But we tend to get caught up in ascension and expansion. The economy has got to go up. Everything's got to go up. Progression. We call ourselves progressives. If we're talking about Greek mythology, John, it would be Prometheus, which means, you know, essentially foresight. But Prometheus had a twin brother, Epimetheus, which was about looking back. And he tends to get forgotten all the time because, you know, stealing fire was a very progressive move. So Prometheus gets all the attention. But, you know, there's a twin brother who's equally important.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 32:35
But he was the go-getter, man.
John Milham (Host) · 32:37
Well, you know, we got to look back and learn from We can't revise history and we tend to do that a lot, particularly around the things that we don't like that we've done as humans. We tend to say, oh, let's just bury that and forget about it and let bygones be bygones. It's no, actually, they also have to be alive because they're continually teaching us.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 32:56
Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 32:57
Wow.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 32:58
Because with mindfulness, right, as you touch on, right, that sense, you know, we often hear the explanation being 'Oh, you've got to be in the present, right? Because the past is over and the future hasn't determined itself.' And of course, I go, 'Well, actually, my thought is, well, if you're in the present, you're actually not living properly because the future must be planned and the past must be referred to, right?' So you have to have a reference to those states. You just don't dwell in them, right? You don't hold on to them.
John Milham (Host) · 33:35
Well, you know, we're also making the premise there that time is linear.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 33:41
Exactly.
John Milham (Host) · 33:42
Which, you know—
Asher Packman (Guest) · 33:44
So parallel, I can do all three.
John Milham (Host) · 33:46
Yeah, and you know, maybe the past is in front of us. You know, it's interesting. You know, I do a lot of work around the wisdom of death as a teacher, which is also that downward movement into the ashes and into the dirt. And you know, there's a lovely Irish saying that says, you know, death happens in the middle of a long life. And that's actually true. That's actually true. We have many deaths. Our physical death is just one of those deaths, but we tend to fixate on that one. I think that everything in life is a tension of opposites. Life is the arc that we travel as we dance in the tension of the opposite things. Look about right now. If you think about what's happening in our culture, it's left, right, Democrat, public, black, white, like it's all, there's all these tensions even between grief and joy and all of this stuff, right? And our ability to be able to dance in that tension literally determines the arc of our life. So therefore, if we, it's like a bow and arrow, you know, you've got to be able to pull the bow back precisely holding the tension of the two opposite tips. And the better you can do that, the more accurate the arrow is going to fly and hit its target. And that arrow is your life. Um, but what's interesting is the more you pull those tensions back, the opposites, what happens, they start getting closer together. So, so if I'm holding the tension of, say, birth and death on Christmas Day and I can really hold it, well, suddenly they don't look too far apart, you know. And, and, you know, it's an entrance and an exit through the same portal, um, which is why young children and older people tend to have conversations that we don't quite understand because one's just come and one's just about to go through the same portal, right? They're very, very close together. Um, so, so that's, that's just an interesting way of thinking about it for me. And I, I don't, you know, and what I've learned very clearly is that, is that death and life are not opposites. Um, you know, that death and birth and death are the things that are in opposition to each other at either end, and life contains both. And therefore it becomes the tension point of how well you can dance between birth and death.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 35:57
Absolutely. It's like, you know, you hear about people say, you know, work-life balance, right? But, you know, that's not, you know, life is the big picture, right? So work doesn't balance with life. It's not.
John Milham (Host) · 36:09
No, work is a part of life. And, you know, if you enjoy what you're doing, it's not work anyway, as we, you know, the old trope would say. But I always, it's interesting that you bring that up because I always found that such an interesting phrase, work-life balance, as those two, as if one is separate from the other.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 36:27
Absolutely. Yeah. It's interesting because you mentioned your corporate work. You had a rich corporate world, right? So, Time Warner, right? AOL when it was huge. Yeah. And some major players in major countries and so on. Did that like— and that would have been seen as success, right? How do you like What is success? Are you successful now? Do you see yourself as successful?
John Milham (Host) · 36:56
Well, I think, well, you know, what is success? I mean, geez, we could do a whole conversation on that. I think, you know, I mean, I think it's something around just becoming yourself, you know, this journey to become yourself. And I think for me, yeah, sort of from an external frame, my corporate life would have been seen as successful. It certainly didn't feel like it to me on the inside. You know, I, I enjoyed those times. I had some wonderful times. I met some wonderful people, but I always felt a little bit like I was, you know, shoveling it uphill. There was something inside— there wasn't— there was a kind of gnawing in my gut which was saying that this wasn't me, that this wasn't the, the, the life I was supposed to be living. But then, you know, um, the, the money's there, the, the rewards are there, and then you've got the validation of people saying, oh, you've got the best job and you're traveling around the world, and you think, oh, I must be happy because because externally everything's telling me that I should be. And there's that word should again. Um, and it was only until, you know, everything came crashing down. It was, it was, you know, I remember the phone call. It was, it was the phone call of my mother calling me to tell me that my sister had taken her life. And that, that was the moment for me when I was like— when I remember sitting on a bed in a hotel room, I was in Dubai, I was about to give a, um, a keynote at a marketing conference, and I was just like what am I doing with my life? You know, it was, it was, that was the, um, the train moment, if we go back to that metaphor. Um, you know, and that plane ride home, you know, was really the— that I felt like I was in some sort of liminal space. I didn't know, you know, it was— I, I wasn't here, I wasn't there, I don't know where I was. And, um, and everything changed from that point on.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 38:42
That, um, you know, you're institutionalized, you've, you know, unimaginable grief, um, you know, the world that you, you know, have worked so hard to create was less meaningful now. And yet that moment, you know, you talk as a, as if it's a gift. That idea that good and bad is irrelevant, what, what's that?
John Milham (Host) · 39:07
Yeah, well, I, um, yeah, they're just labels. I think it's, it's, it's the egoic mind. Um, let me see if I can find my take on that for you. So if, if you decide that an experience that's happened is, um, bad, that's essentially all good, quite frankly. That's you. It's quite arrogant, actually, because you're saying, in, in my, in my case, 5 and a half decades of being on the planet, and the experiences that I've had. I'm saying I know better than the infinite potential of every moment that's been and could be in the universe. I know better with my thin slice of 5 and a half decades in one physical body and the experience that I've had. I'm saying that I, I'm, I know the outcome of what's just happened versus infinite possibility. And, you know, that's gambling against the universe. And it's the height of arrogance. You don't know. Like, how often has something happened to you and 10 years later you've looked back and there's no way that the good/bad label holds water? Everything's changed. And so, you know, I work a lot with sportsmen, John, and it's really interesting. You know, you could take the example of a tennis player who, you know, has a, um, is robbed of a line call. You know, it's clearly in and the umpire calls it out and he has a complete fit. And if you asked him at that moment he or she, they would say the thing that just happened then was bad. But if you just stay with it and stay with this idea of the potential of the universe, you could quite easily look back on that match and say, actually, that was the moment that helped me win. Because from that moment, nothing is the same. You know, it's the same as, you know, like someone missing a goal in AFL or something. From that, the game's no longer the same. Like everything that happens from that point on is different. And who's to say that that's not— it doesn't change in a helpful way?
Asher Packman (Guest) · 41:01
You have demonstrated so much for us today already. So you've shown us The Way, and, you know, I probably should talk— The Way as a project, right, you offer to men. How does that work? What's your thought? What's your purpose in building The Way?
John Milham (Host) · 41:23
Um, it's pretty organic, I'll be honest. Um, it— maybe again to tell a little story. So I was teaching meditation, um, in a yoga studio, and, um, this is years ago, around 2016-ish. And, um, you know, it's fair to say that a lot of yoga studios are quite feminine places. Would you agree?
Asher Packman (Guest) · 41:44
Yeah, I would agree.
John Milham (Host) · 41:46
I'm being I'm generalizing here, but it's often the case. It certainly was at the place where I operated from. It was run by a couple of women and it was very feminine in the decor and all the things that were happening in there. And men were coming to practice meditation in there. And a couple of them approached me and said, you know, do you think we could find a place for only men to come together and meditate and do it in a kind of more masculine environment? And I was like, okay. So I quickly set up something in my own home. And I sort of put together this little 6-week, you know, back then what I would call a meditation course for men. And, you know, men started showing up once a week in my home. And a really weird thing happened, John, because when we finished meditating, they actually started talking to each other, revealing things about themselves and, you know, sharing, you know, stuff that went a little bit beneath the surface. And it very quickly became, you know, what we would probably call a men's circle. And so, you know, I sort of enhanced it a little bit. I cobbled together something which I based on I Am John. And more and more men started coming, and over the years, that's just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. And so the foundation piece of the WAYS is still Robert Bly's work in I Am John, but it's so much bigger than that now. That's just a small piece of it. And then it expanded from 6 weeks to 3 months to— and now it's a 1-year program. And, and, um, the interesting thing was that again, when the pandemic hit, um, we, we were forced to take the whole thing online, um, and then men started coming in from all over the world. And so since that time, um, over the last 3 or 4 years, we've been running it as a largely online, um, 1-year program for men from all around the world. And, you know, and it's, it's, it's broadened its scope in the course materials to last a whole 12-month period. Yeah. So, and obviously now, you know, whilst meditation is embedded, it's much more just men's work now.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 43:44
Love it. And if men are interested in exploring some of the concepts you're sharing on Through the Way and so on, you know, how do they, how do they get involved?
John Milham (Host) · 43:54
Yeah. I mean, there's, you could either go to my website, which is just asherpakman.com. The community is called thefifthdirection.com. Yeah, as in the sacred direction. Yeah. And, but the Fifth Direction is not just men's work. There's also, it's a community for men and women. The Way is just the men's sort of piece of that. And from the Fifth Direction, you'll also find that there's a, what we call a mythopoetic community that you can join. So there are courses like The Way, there's another one called Wild Soul, other things, but then there's a community that we've kind of brought together, which is, which is an online community and an online, um, community platform. And on that you can— I mean, there's, there's sessions, there's live sessions almost every single day, um, you know, from breathwork to meditation to storytelling to sharing circles to all. And we invite guests in from around the world, guest teachers, to speak about different topics and, um, And plus, you know, you can have a— it looks a bit like social media and through one lens that you can just have conversations, but without the algorithm, without the advertising, without the, you know, and so that's probably the kind of lowest hanging fruit to join, you know, that's, you know, it's just $20 a month and you're getting a session every single day.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 45:12
Connection is health.
John Milham (Host) · 45:14
That's right. And community is health, brother. That's— this is the thing, you know, I often talk about the fact that immunity is is healing myself. You know, community is healing together.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 45:26
Wow, man, that's, uh, that's very sharp as well. Of course, well, as I would expect from a poet, right? So do you have any poetry, uh, that, that comes to mind that, you know, that, uh, the listeners, um, you want to share with the listeners?
John Milham (Host) · 45:45
Well, look, what I will say is this. Poetry has been an absolute lifeline for me. And there's been a through line all my life around poetry, right back from when I was a teenager. And it's the language of soul. And I think still, particularly for a lot of men, it might seem, I don't know, maybe soft or something like that. But I would encourage every man out there listening to get into some form of, of, of, you know, expressing themselves with, with, with words, you know what I mean? Um, and, and there are poets out there like, you know, for me it's, you know, we all know about Rumi, but you know, there's, there's some particular mentors for me, like, um, for me, like, like the work of Rilke and Bill Stafford and Robert Bly and these others who, um, they just they speak to me directly in the heart, you know, and you don't have to try to rationalize it and understand it. You've just got to let these words almost like read poetry, like you listen to music.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 46:57
Absolutely. I love the term. I often use it that you listen so hard that you make them hear. Them, you know, like, so, and I think that's how you approach poetry, you listen so hard to poetry that it actually has, you know, it speaks another voice, right, you know, like it's not rationalizing and ruminating is actually a barrier to poetry, to the impact it has on your soul, I think sometimes, right.
John Milham (Host) · 47:29
I think that's entirely true, you know, maybe I'll leave you with a little anecdote because it's really beautiful. There's a story, I'm a big fan of Leonard Cohen. You might be also. But there's a story of him in a radio interview when he recited a poem and the radio interviewer said, oh, you know, that's beautiful, Leonard. What does it mean? And he took a deep, long pause and he just read the poem again. And that's how it goes.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 48:03
Yeah, absolutely. And of course, What I love, you know, I've done a radio show, a men's mental health radio show with a guy who's sadly passed away, but he used to bring in his poems. He was a very masculine guy, but this was his art, his creativity. And he would read his poems on the radio and, you know, they always had a massive impact. But I always thought It's the old— like, it's such courage to share at the soul level, right? And it's so good for us. And the reaction so often is one where it inspires— the courage you show in, in, in power, in your poetry inspires men to be courageous in their poetry, whatever, however it is and whatever it is.
John Milham (Host) · 48:56
Yeah, John, and think about the word poetry, which comes from the word poiesis, which just means creation, ongoing creation, right? That, you know, the never-ending wheel of creation. That, that's your— so don't— it doesn't necessarily have to mean you've got to go and start writing poetry, but find how do you express your poiesis. And, and that could be anything. It could be, you know, ice sculpture, could be crochet, it could be anything. But, you know, my castles, sand, whatever you want it to to be. Cooking, eating. Yeah, yeah, and, and, and, you know, um, just do it. You're absolutely right, it is that easy, and you can do it.
Asher Packman (Guest) · 49:41
I'm so grateful you've, um, you've helped me, uh, understand a little bit more about that idea today. Yeah, brilliant stuff. It's been an absolute, uh, privilege and, um, and heaps of fun and, um, and, uh, and learning to, uh, chat with you today. Asha, thank you so much, my friend.
John Milham (Host) · 50:00
Ah, thanks, John. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to this episode of Kintsugi Heroes. Thank you to Colin Lilly for permission to use Broken as our theme music for this series. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the podcast with a friend and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.
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