Coach Sam and Warrior Week #52 graduate, Don Burris, have an in-depth conversation about important & relevant topics not often discussed with men and share significant insights in this week’s special episode of Warrior Week: Parables from the Pit.

Parable #1: Obligation or Love?

• As men, at what point are we transitioning from being boys & teenagers into men? As fathers, how are you showing up for your children – as a supportive dad or like a fucking teenager?
• If you do show up as a dad, is it out of obligation and expectation, or is it from a space of love and wanting to empower your kids & your family?

QUESTION

How are you showing up for your children?

 

Parable #2: A Matter of Time

• Bedtime routines are unique to every family, yet inside of that, there’s this common belief that children should be in bed by 6:30pm, something Coach Sam vehemently disagrees with and questions.
• When men arrive home at night and the kids are already in bed, that’s a problem that needs to be addressed. If men don’t speak up about this to their wives, the future will surely hold regrets in the hearts of the men for the time they lost with their children.

QUESTION

What is the bedtime routine at your home? Are both you and your wife in agreement with it?

Parable #3: The Forgotten Ones

• Children and their feelings are oft times the overlooked commodity when it comes to divorce. Many fathers, in an attempt to ‘find happiness’ again, begin spending less and less time with their children and more and more time searching for happiness in the arms of other women.
• Who really knows the struggles of children as they are thrust into this new situation? Do they struggle with darkness or being bullied? Significance or popularity? Before they drift off to sleep, what are their thoughts? What are they feeling?

QUESTION

What can you do to open up the lines of communication with your children about their feelings?

Parable #4: Let it Flow

• The valve of the male heart gets shut down pretty early, where we don’t know where to pour all of this pure love & energy we feel as a kid. As a result, we begin restricting the flow of love.
• This ultimately leads to kids shutting down their hearts and lying during the time of their lives when they should actually be opening it wide open

QUESTION

What do you remember about this when you were a kid? Do you see the same thing happening with your children?

Parable #5: Awareness

• Don: Inside the pit at Warrior Week, my heart was on fire again. I was aware of all these things I had suppressed, all the demons and lies I had created.
• Coach Sam: Our imagination is the source of that creation; the source of our fucking lies. When something happens, we imagine, we assume, and then as alpha males, we justify in order to back that fucking imagination. Awareness eliminates imagination.

QUESTION

What was your experience inside the Pit at Warrior Week?

Parables from the Pit:

“There’s one fucking time, and that time says, love.”

—Sam Falsafi

“I used to think my heart was my enemy; now my heart is my sword and my shield.”

 

–Don Burris