Building Confidence And Self Worth: Lessons From King Arthur
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You've probably heard of King Arthur in the Knights of the Round Table, and you probably also felt in your life, maybe looking out in society and culture, that there's a significant decline in mature masculinity, in men who just are mature, grounded men. Maybe you feel like that.

Maybe your quest, if you could call it that, is to be a more grounded, mature man. Somebody who feels like he's leading himself with respect, with compassion, with discipline, with effort, with purpose, with meaning. And maybe that feels very elusive for you because

To be honest, in today's world, it's hard and challenging and confusing to be able to just define what makes a good man. In many ways, modern culture has done men a disservice by simply saying, here's the laundry list of things that you should not be as a man.

And there's no real definition of an aspirational vision of masculinity. And in these times, and I think Terrence McKenna said it best, in these times where there's a void of any type of direction, Terrence McKenna said what we need is an archaic revival, an archaic revival to go back

to the wisdom of our human history, not to try and move culture or society or relationships back to what they were a thousand years ago or 200, anything like that, but to realize that there is wisdom embedded into ancient texts, into ancient stories, into ancient myths.

And so today, I want to talk about two of the main pieces from King Arthur in the Knights of the Round Table.

that are really instrumental for all men to step into a deeper level of self-leadership. Now, this is going to be through a mythic lens. This is not going to be a tactical, practical, go do these three things, do burpees every single morning in a cold plunge and you'll gain more testosterone and feel more like a man. That's not what this is about.

This is about the baked in truths about being a man, about being successful at being a man, about feeling good at being a man, about being a grounded, mature man, and the quest, the journey that one goes on in order to achieve that, in order to embody that.

So let's talk about King Arthur because King Arthur is no mere historical tale, right? It is a mythic mirror for the masculine psyche.

King Arthur, that's a mythic mirror for the masculine psyche and how the masculine psyche perceives itself with all of its longings, all of its wounds, the callings from within, the journeys it wants to go on, the adventures, the desires that it has.

And among the many symbols that are baked into King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, there are two that stand above the rest. And you probably know the first one that I'm going to say, which is Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone.

And it's interesting because recently I've let my son, who's four years old, watch a couple old movies. We let him watch TV like once a week on a Saturday, and he's allowed to watch a handful of things. And one of them is Sword in the Stone, the original Sword in the Stone from whatever it was, 1958, 1962, whatever. And as I watched the movie, I watched the movie with him a few months ago.

And I was struck by the symbolic nature of the coming of age of a young boy and the making of a future king. And I think that for all of us as men, there is this desire to move towards some more aspirational version of masculinity. And usually that version is this sort of archetypal mature king, the mature elder masculine.

man. I was talking to a man the other day who was thinking about coming out to one of the men's weekends that we run. There's one in September, by the way. So check out the website, mantalks.com for that. But I was talking to him and he's an older gentleman. He's in his late 50s, early 60s.

And he was talking about coming out to the weekend and he was trying to describe the challenge that he was having. And there was some like core issue where he was been grappling with. Basically what he said was, I don't know what to do with the next sort of like 20 years of my life. And as we got deeper into it, I said, you know, there's two big thresholds that men cross. One is from boy to man and one is from man to elder.

And for a lot of young men, they don't cross that threshold from boy into man, into like true manhood. And so they go through life feeling like they're still this, what Jung would have called the Puer Aeternus, right? The forever boy, the infinite boy, the always boy.

And then they get later on in life and maybe life initiates them through some hardship. They discover who they are. They go on this journey and this quest of trials and tribulations that they end up experiencing. And eventually they find themselves seated in a more grounded, mature version of masculinity. Then for some men, they get to the latter part of life. They get to the last

what you could call the fall or the winter of life, the sort of last part of life. And that usually happens depending on the man. Sometimes it's in his 50s, sometimes it's in his 60s. And for other men, it's in their 70s or it just doesn't really seem to happen.

But there's this questioning that starts to happen well after what James Hollis, Dr. James Hollis, will have called the middle passage, right? The middle passage is sort of like mid-30s to mid-40s, which is where I see a lot of men. A lot of men come into work with our organization in that middle passage. They're questioning what they want to do with life. They're questioning what their meaning is in life, what their purpose is in life, whether they're living life in the way that they actually want.

There's grappling with relationship issues, big transitions in careers, that kind of stuff.

But this last stage in life that this man was really grappling with was interesting because it was the transition from being a man to being an elder. And I said something to him that really hit home with him. I said, it sounds like you're grappling with the question of how do I make sure I don't become another old man? How do I make sure I become an elder? And immediately this man, I mean, I get chills talking about it, but immediately this man started to well up.

And he got emotional and he's like, that's it. That's what I'm actually grappling with. And nobody's been able to give it words like that.

And immediately I thought about the tale of King Arthur, you know, because my boy and I, we've been watching it. We've watched it on repeat. He just loves it. And he's gotten me to tell him stories about King Arthur and Merlin and Archimedes. And so most mornings when we wake up, I'm telling my son stories. I'm making up magical, mythical adventures about Arthur and Merlin and Archimedes going on these adventures.

And they're all very instrumental characters, right? Like the journey that Arthur goes on to become the king, to pull the sword from the stone, to find Excalibur is incredibly important. And there's something fundamentally core and foundational there.

to our masculine development. So I'm going to dive into this because the first big symbol in King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the first big one obviously is Excalibur and the sword that gets pulled from the stone. And this really is the representation of the legitimacy of

authority of the self, right? The, the, the legitimate authority within the self. When Arthur pulls the sword from the stone, first off, you know, if you watch the movie, if you have kids, I definitely recommend go back and watch it. And even if you're not a kid, it actually might be worth you going back to watch because it's a phenomenal story. There's challenges, there's quests, you know, the, the anima, the animus, the animate nature of existence and, uh,

and reality is in there, right? They get turned into fish and squirrels and stuff like that. And all these adventures happen. It's really wild. But in it, the sword and the stone, which only Arthur can draw, right? Which only Arthur can pull out is not just a kind of magic test. It's not a brute strength test.

And this is really important because for many of us men, we get caught in this trap of, if only I'm strong enough, if I'm just strong enough, then maybe I could pull the sword from the stone. If I was just strong enough, then I would legitimately have authority over myself.

And this is the core trap that so many of us modern men have fallen into. I fell into it for many years. Maybe you've fallen into it throughout your life or you're coming out of it or you're just having that realization now that maybe if I'm just strong enough, if I suppress my emotions strong enough, if I suppress my unwanted desires strong enough, if I suppress my bad behavior strong enough, that maybe that will give me some type of

authority over myself, when in actuality, it's the inverse. It's the ability to start to work with some of that unwanted material and have these unwanted experiences that are confronting and challenging and that we do in relationship that are hard.

that actually allow us to cultivate a character that has a sense of dominion over the self. And you can see that in the story of Arthur and Merlin, especially in the movie, which does a great job at depicting it.

they go on a whole series of events. And what's interesting is Arthur in the movie is sort of overseen by this kind of like stepfather. It's not his real father, and he's kind of got this stepbrother who's like rude and mean and doesn't care about him, and doesn't care if he gets eaten by the wolves, and does no interest in him whatsoever. So the shadow of the masculine is very prominent.

in the story. It's very prominent, especially in the movie, where there's kind of this tyrannical stepfather who's constantly ruling over him, just punishing him with more chores, more dishes, more stuff to do around the castle. And his brother is just this crude human being. And so he has to go through all of these challenges to claim a sense of independence and sovereignty, to claim a sense of true inner authority.

And unlike the power that we take by force or that's been inherited by lineage because we don't know about Arthur's lineage, we don't know about where he's come from, he doesn't take his power by force. The authority that he ends up wielding is earned through authenticity. It's earned through authenticity. And this is one of the core pieces of masculine development, of curating a deep core

quality of masculinity and manhood within yourself that is so important. You know, Jordan Peterson, love him or hate him, said something that was really great, which is, you know, the truth is an adventure in itself. And the notion there is that when you are honest, when you really commit to a deep sense of authenticity, that leads you on a journey of

that is going to take you through all types of trials, all types of challenges. It will be a quest.

unto itself. And so for you as a man, and I think about this all the time in my own life, like there was a time in my life where I was completely lost. I had no path, no direction. I had no sense of inner authority. I freaking hated who I was. I didn't know what it meant to be a man. I was confused about that. I wasn't really too sure what it meant to be a

good man by any means, shape, or form. I didn't feel like a good man because I was completely out of integrity. And so for me, a big part of finding meaning and finding purpose was almost holding truth and authenticity as a North Star. And in many ways, that's the role that Merlin and Archimedes play in Arthur's life. Merlin has this wealth of information and knowledge.

It's so vast and so big and so broad, well beyond the scope of Arthur's comprehension, which is amazing because in that way, he's kind of the magician. I mean, he is the magician, but he's the archetype of the wise elder man. And Archimedes is also kind of a part of that. But I remember this one part of the movie that my boy was obsessed with where Merlin gets super frustrated because

Arthur decides that he's gonna become a squire. He's going to hold the sword for his stepbrother, and he's not going to pursue magic. And Merlin gets super frustrated, and he says, "That's it, I'm going to Bermuda." And he blasts off and he goes to Bermuda. And for like weeks after that scene, my son was just like,

Bermuda, you know, he'd smack his hand on the table and pretend to like blast off to Bermuda. But in his own way, what my son was really grappling with was there is a wealth of knowledge. There's, I mean, he was just having fun with it, right? I don't mean to actually read too much into this, but you know, what, what he's actually seeing in that moment is this mature, mature

magician who sees this path for a boy, who sees the boy's path into manhood, and the boy is choosing something different, and he's struggling to do that. So anyway, the sword Excalibur really represents this inner authority of the self, that you as a man have gone through the trials, you've gone through the quests, you've gone through the adventures that have put you into contact with

with a sense of authority and authenticity within yourself. Meaning, and when I say authority, because so many men struggle with this. So many men, and I used to hate this. I used to hate authority. I didn't like it. I rebelled against it. But authority, not in the tyrannical sense, not in a police state sense, not in a governmental sense, but an authority in the sense that you have dominion over and in yourself.

that no one else is responsible for tending to your every need. They're not responsible for your mood. They're not responsible for how you feel. They're not responsible for ensuring that, you know, you've communicated your needs and none of that kind of stuff.

Authority in the sense that you are connected deeply to your needs, to your wants, to your boundaries, to the way that you want life to move around you. And you're able to do what it takes to move into that. You're able to have the hard conversations.

You're able to be in the practice. You're able to be uncomfortable. You're able to get really into the discomfort of some of the trials that you will likely have to go through and experience in order to get to that place where you're

who you are and what you've created and built as a man has come to fruition. I have faced so many trials and a lot of it has been uncomfortable. And a lot of it has been conversations and conflicts and frustrations and failures along the way that have led me to where I am today. So the sword...

When it's not pulled by might, right? Because again, the sword represents that authority and it can't be pulled by strength. And this is so vital because so many of you are trying to bully yourself into submission. You're trying to bully yourself into

into greatness. You're trying to strong arm yourself into discipline or strong arm yourself into impulse control over pornography or texting or whatever it is, drinking, weed, etc.,

But the sword cannot be pulled by strength or might. It has to be pulled by right. It has to be pulled by authenticity. It has to be pulled from a place of wholeness. And it's a gesture that signifies a kind of alignment between your inner essence and outer action. So how you want things to look externally, how

how you want to act and behave as a man externally are congruent with your internal frames, with the way that you speak to yourself internally, with the way that you deal with yourself internally. So every man has to ask,

What is my Excalibur? What is my Excalibur? Where is that unique sense of inner authority that no one else can wield for me? Where have I given my authority away? Who have I given my authority to? Where have I handed it over? The sword and the stone calls forth this potential king within you, the self-defeating

as Jung would call it. Jung called at the very core, at the very essence, you could call it the soul, but he called it the self. This is the archetypal center of your being that organizes the psyche and all the different parts

when one is true to their path. So by connecting to that true sense of self, by aligning to that true sense of self and making decisions from that place, speaking from that place, acting from that place, behaving from that place, relating to other people from that place of true self,

of deep connection to authenticity, that is pulling the sword from the stone. Now, for some of you, that might mean staying calm and grounded with your kids. It might mean having a little bit more backbone in your relationship and actually standing up for yourself.

I mean, there's so many different examples. So that's the one main piece. The second one is the quest for the Holy Grail. And this is a much bigger piece. And so I'll likely go on and expand into it in a different one. But I'll say a couple of pieces here that I think are super important for masculine development.

maturing as man, grounding into who you are as a man. The quest for the Holy Grail is really about the wound and the longing for wholeness. The wound and the longing for wholeness.

And again, this is why I always loved Carl Jung's work, because in many ways, his work is very similar to like a Gestalt approach now, which is about a return to wholeness. So something like shadow work is all about moving back to a place of wholeness. It's not about growth.

It's actually about reclaiming the abandoned parts of ourself. It's actually about coming into right relationship or more coherent relationship with the different elements of ourself, right? Your shame, your guilt, your grief, your anger, your sex drive.

all of those being in a kind of right relationship where you have some dominion and some mastery over these different elements of yourself and that all of them are welcome and none are banished.

So the grail represents, again, not an object. It's a symbol. And it's instead of a sort of claiming of authority, this is really a process. And this is about the soul's sort of longing to come to the forefront of your life.

And some people might call it the soul's longing for divine, for reunification, for connection with the kind of the mystery, the bigger than us, the bigger than you. But really, it's about the soul's longing to come to the forefront of your life, for your soul, for that deep part of you that lives in your gut.

that says, this is who I know I'm capable of being as a man. This is how I want to operate as a father. This is how I want to operate as a leader. This is how I want to operate as a partner, as a husband, as a friend, as a son. This is how I want to operate. These are the values that I hold, and this is how I want to express myself out into the world through what I create, through what I build, through my artistry, through my work, through my purpose.

So it's really that journey. And so the grail isn't necessarily a place. It's not necessarily an object, which is what so many of us as men, we get caught up in, right? We're like, what's my purpose? When I just reach this place, maybe I'll have my purpose. Or if I've hit that accomplishment, if I become the New York Times bestselling author, which is, I'd love to be a New York Times bestselling author, but if I become a New York Times bestselling author, that's,

then and only then will I be living my purpose. That's not what this teaches. What it teaches is that the process is the soul's way of coming forward. And I have a saying with my son that I encourage all of you to take, but the joy is in the process. The joy is in the practice.

I say this to him all the time, and he doesn't really know what practice is. He's just conceptualizing it. But I want these things to kind of seep into him because those are the things that I've found for myself have been instrumental, you know, instrumental. Letting the joy be in the process of whatever it is I'm learning or whatever it is I'm working on in the relationship. So the grail is often hidden, right?

or revealed only to those who have a pure of heart, which is to say that the inner mystery reveals itself only when the ego is humbled and the heart is opened, right? As you've probably heard the saying, the longest journey a man will take is from the 18 inches between his head to his heart, which I feel like it's probably more than that, but I guess it's not, right? 18 inches between the brain and the heart.

So this is really about sometimes you cannot find purpose. Sometimes you cannot find your soul's desire. And again, whether you want to use the word soul's desire or you want to use purpose or mission or meaning, whatever works for you, but you cannot find that until your ego has been humbled.

And so as Arthur's quest emerges, the kingdom starts to decay. And as you read the stories, Arthur goes on these sort of adventures and the kingdom starts to go into disarray. It starts to decay. And it echoes this vital truth that the outer world suffers when the inner world is neglected.

So your work as a man is to understand that if your outer world is in decay, if your outer world is in breakdown, is in disarray, whether it's your relationship, your finances, your health, I mean, I guess that would be sort of an inner one, but your relationship, finances, your work, your purpose, your family, et cetera, it's likely a reflection of your inner world. And there's some piece of returning that

to inside of who you are, to find a deeper level of what it is that you are actually here for. Why are you actually here? Likely to love deeply, likely to let that love come out into the world, to create meaning, to create purpose, to support people, to be of service to others.

But that's a part of the Holy Grail. So I'm going to pause there for today. I'm going to leave you maybe in a little bit of suspense. Let me know if you enjoyed this archetypal episode about the becoming of a man, of becoming an elder and the sort of stakes and the process that it takes

Let me know in the comments below what you took from this and what you'd like to hear more about. Don't forget to man it forward and don't forget to like and subscribe and hit the bell icon on YouTube so that you get notified and on Spotify so you get notified so you do not miss an episode. See you next time. Conor Beaton signing off.