Group photo from the weekend, October 24, 2015.
Guest post by Marcus Henry, one of the men I’ve had the privilege of working with for over 16 years.
I rode out of Las Vegas with everything I needed strapped to the back of a motorcycle. Camp Whittier, California. I didn’t know the men. I didn’t know what happened at these weekends. Wayne told me to come, so I came.
Before that I’d been working the question the way I work most questions. I read. Books that told me what men do. Then I found Wayne’s book, Hold On to Your NUTs, and it wasn’t a manual for men. It was a manual for relationships. Not just with women. With the other men in your life. Friends, neighbors, children, wives, fathers. Figure out your non-negotiables, stick to them, use them as a guide for everyday life. That was the part that got me.
So I reached out. I told him I’d read the book and seen the retreats on his website, and I had one question about the photos. Why is it a bunch of white men in the woods? I grew up in the South. That question wasn’t rhetorical.
Wayne said all he could do was tell me to come.
· · ·
The instruction was simple. Bring the issue you want to face. Bring the thing you want to talk about.
Mine was the question I’d been carrying through all those books. What does it mean to be a man?
We circled up after everyone arrived. A man named James gave the introduction, and the first thing he said was, “Welcome to a man’s world.” Then he laid out what that meant. Checking in. Clearing. Being open. Nobody softened it for us.
There were circles all weekend. A grief circle. A pain circle. A thank you, Dad circle. A clearing circle. And the fire, where you could say whatever you wanted and leave it in the pit.
I was excited that first day. I had no idea what I’d signed up for.
· · ·
I’ve been at every weekend since. After the first one, I started working on the production team, which meant meeting the crew in Agoura Hills before the weekend started. Discussing the (non) plan, and the theme. It’s a different kind of tired. Sometimes you drive home with your body wrecked. They don’t call it work for nothing. It’s emotional and it’s physical. Movement, games, connection, sitting with men who can’t cut through to the emotion, finding your own bullshit and figuring out how to get through it. Getting called on that bullshit and staying in the room anyway, giving a hundred percent.
I always take something home. Sometimes it’s a decision I’ve been sitting with for a year. Sometimes it’s something another man is dealing with that I didn’t know I needed to hear.
Later Wayne started the Wanzega, the weekend for men who’d already been through initiation. The difference was that it wasn’t like pulling teeth. These men knew how to show up, name what was there, move through it, get unstuck. Not all of them. Some had been through several initiations and several Wanzegas and still preferred to stay stuck in their shit.
The weekend works anyway. You get what you need out of it whether you came for it or not.
The initiation weekends are gone now. One weekend a year, and it’s the Wanzega. You can’t do what I did and show up cold off a motorcycle with a question. You have to already be in the work, with Wayne or with one of the groups he mentors.
· · ·
A man told me early on that the thing you feel like you can’t bring to the men is the exact thing you need to bring.
I’ve tested it. It holds.
Some of my best friends came out of that circle. I’ve been in it since 2010 and I can take all of it there. So much healing has happened in those rooms. Love, support, camaraderie, and a lot of stupid fun.
And the mirror.
The mirror is the part nobody warns you about. You see the thing you weren’t ready to see. The blemish you thought was gone, or the one you’ve been walking past for years.
· · ·
The Wanzega is September 11 through 13. I’ll be there.
What I’m bringing this time is the approval thing. How to stop needing someone to tell me I’m okay. Not my neighbor telling me I’m great. The quieter version. The one where I read the room before I decide what I think.
The people-pleasing part of it. I’ve come very far with it and I still have some letting go to do.
It’ll be good to hear other men struggle with the same thing. To see my reflection in it. It’s going to be work. I’m going to come back exhausted.
Sixteen years in, and I still want to hear a man say it.
Welcome to a man’s world.
You can follow Marcus and read more of his writing at Marcus’ website here
His writing comes from those places: the Marines, the work, fatherhood, and the practice of showing up.
You can find his other essays at marcushenry.com
- Welcome to a Man’s World - August 28, 2026
- Wayne’s Million Dollar Question - May 14, 2026
- What a Marine Learned About Asking for Help - April 13, 2026
