The Warrior's Compassion: Healing Masculinity from the Inside Out, with Sean Harvey
Did you know that in today’s chaotic world, even leaders can lose touch with the truth of the men they lead? The most vulnerable need a safe space to share their stories and connect with their feminine energy because that’s where real healing begins.
In this episode of the Spirituality in Leadership podcast, Andrew Cohn sits down with Sean Harvey, an interfaith minister, former Wall Street professional, and a pioneer in men’s healing work, as well as the author of Warrior Compassion: Unleashing the Healing Power of Men. Together, they explore what spirituality in leadership actually looks like when you strip away dogma and focus on being fully human.
Sean shares his unconventional path from corporate life to ministry and into some of the most challenging environments imaginable, including prisons, police departments, and hyper-masculine cultures. At the center of the conversation is a simple but powerful idea: leadership begins with presence, safety, and the willingness to look inward. In a world that feels divided and overwhelmed, Sean talks about reconnecting with our inner “sacred compass” and learning to trust our own truth without needing to overpower someone else’s.
They dive into the role of storytelling as a healing tool, why creating psychologically safe spaces matters more than perfect messaging, and how compassion is often misunderstood as weakness when it actually requires courage and strength. Sean also shares insights from his book, touching on men’s unspoken suffering, the balance of healthy masculine and feminine energies, and the idea of courageous surrender.
It’s a thoughtful, grounded conversation about leadership, healing, and what it really means to lead from deeper humanity.
Key Takeaways
Truth Begins Within: Leadership grounded in soul starts by listening to your inner compass rather than external noise or ideology.
Create Safe Containers: Psychological safety and presence matter more than words or frameworks when inviting real transformation.
Story as Medicine: Healing happens when we move from the wounding of our stories to empowerment without bypassing the pain.
Compassion Is Strength: Fierce, unconditional love is not weakness but a powerful leadership capacity, especially in hyper-masculine cultures.
Beyond Labels: Spiritual leadership can be practiced without spiritual language by focusing on deeper humanity, love, and connection.
Courageous Surrender: True fulfillment comes from releasing ego, certainty, and control to follow a deeper soul mission.
In This Episode:
[00:00] Introduction
[01:14] Introducing Sean Harvey and his work
[02:21] Key themes in Sean’s work
[05:36] Sean’s background and approach
[07:48] Defining spirituality and soulfulness at work
[09:23] Letting go and surrender in leadership
[09:46] Discovering and accepting truth
[11:21] Creating safe spaces and storytelling
[12:53] Unpacking and healing stories
[13:43] Unblocking wounds and unconditional love
[15:12] The role of stories in identity and healing
[17:33] Non-attachment to stories
[18:40] Introducing spiritual themes without spiritual language
[20:09] Compassion, masculinity, and universal truths
[22:43] About the book: Warrior Compassion
[24:49] Balancing masculine and feminine energies
[27:31] Integration and the sacred masculine/feminine
[28:42] Defining sacred masculine and feminine
[30:38] Courageous surrender and the soul’s mission
[32:31] Planting seeds and trusting the path
[34:08] Humility, witnessing, and walking together
[35:00] Closing and resources
Resources and Links
Spirituality in Leadership Podcast
Sean Harvey
Andrew Cohn
Music:
Listen to the podcast
Watch the podcast episode
Transcript
Sean Harvey: How do we discover the truth in a world right now that has so much chaos and has so much complexity and has so many different manifestations of being in a sense of a post-truth era where people are wondering what is truth? When I think about spiritual understanding in and of itself, you know, the ways we deepen spiritual understanding. The part of it is our journey to discover our own truth is the first step.
Andrew Cohn: Where do you start with that? How do you begin that conversation? It starts with storytelling.
Sean Harvey: I think first it's creating a container for safety.
Andrew Cohn: Welcome to the Spirituality in Leadership podcast. I'm Andrew Cohn. Spirituality in Leadership is a platform for conversations with leaders at all levels about bringing our spiritual dimensions to our leadership, our teams, our workplaces and all areas of our lives in order to achieve greater success and fulfillment and build and sustain healthier organizations. If you'd like to connect with me to talk further about these topics and or about individual or team coaching, leadership workshops or team alignment, please go to my website lighthouseteams.com, enjoy the podcast.
Andrew Cohn: Welcome back to the Spirituality in Leadership podcast. This is Andrew Cohn. Thanks for being with us again and today I'm really pleased to speak with my friend and colleague, a very, very interesting man with an interesting background. Interesting doesn't do it justice. Powerful work in the world of healing and culture change and growth. And that is Sean Harvey. Sean has broad work experience from Wall Street to being the head of culture for an iconic fashion brand. He has been, perhaps still is, and would be more accurately an interfaith minister. And his work is about healing men and helping to heal men who are suffering in silence in a variety of settings. Sean works with extremists and prison populations and others he calls hyper masculine mindsets. And he is just a remarkable individual doing really, really what I would say important and challenging work. And for him, he talks about it as finding truth in nature as well as in a number of traditions. And he draws in a variety of different traditions, not just his faith tradition, as a way of doing this work. He talks about how he does some of this work. He gets into that in the conversation, the ability to tune in to what he calls our sacred compass of truth. How do we discover our truth in a chaotic and complex world?
We talk a bit about how do you actually have these tough conversations with men who may not be particularly receptive to what Sean refers to as bringing an energy of unconditional love into these conversations? This is some challenging stuff and I have a lot of respect for the work that he's doing in admiration. I said, how do you begin these conversations? And he talked about creating a safe container, helping men share their stories, and how key storytelling is so that others can hear our stories, we can feel our response to those stories and move forward from there together. He talks about moving from the wounding of our stories to the healing of our stories, to a place of empowerment where the story is in the past and where we can use our story to help others, not just really to blame others or to separate others. And in terms of even the term spirituality, Sean really talks about that. He talks about deeper humanity as well as love and compassion. But he used the term deeper humanity a number of times, and I thought that was very powerful as a way of connecting with these deeper levels of ourselves. And the importance of he talked about bringing fierce loving into hyper masculine environments. I thought, again, it's an interesting combination of energies that he brings to do this powerful work. He has a new book which came out in the fall of 2023. He and I spoke just before the book was released. The book is called Warrior Compassion: Unleashing the Healing Power of Men. And it's really a roadmap of what he calls soul healing for men. He shares his own journey as an offer to help other men. And his book is fascinating, touches on a variety of religious approaches and what is what he would say, and I would agree, but what he calls universal across traditions. And at the root of compassion, which is core to his work, is love. And he talks about the power and the challenging nature of compassion and how it's not at all weak. He talks about the opportunity for courageous surrender and surrendering when we get to a place of burnout and disillusionment. And is this all there is? And how people can be encouraged and welcomed into a space of courage, a space of the unknown for what's next in terms of their growth and healing. And as Sean says, it's about letting go of all the ego stuff that's getting in the way and moving from rightness or perhaps even righteousness to curiosity and openness and connection to again, what he calls that sacred compass of our own truths.
So this is an inspiring conversation. It's a bit challenging at times just in terms of, wow, what is he doing in some of these very challenging environments. But he speaks about it with such clarity and breadth and the depth of his own experience. It's a very engaging conversation and I hope you enjoy it.
Welcome back to the Spirituality in Leadership podcast. I'm really, really pleased and happy to have my friend–relatively new friend–but friend Sean Harvey with us today. Sean is just a fascinating human being with a unique path from corporate work to interfaith ministry, to two master's degrees to work in prisons with police departments, largely bringing healing work to the community of men in a variety of settings. That may not be a fair way to provide a summary introduction, Sean, but welcome. And then please, of course, add to whatever introduction you think is appropriate so this audience can know you just a little bit.
Sean Harvey: Oh, sure. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. I always like to say, you know, first and foremost, I'm a bunny dad, and so I educate folks on how to have house rabbits. So that's a whole other dimension in my world, like you said, you know, I've gone from Wall Street to fashion, which led to seminary, which led to working with police and military around how to deepen compassion cultures of compassion and hyper masculine cultures and systems, and working with men with hyper masculine mindsets, helping to heal men who are suffering in silence.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, and there are a lot of men suffering in silence in the corporate space, which is where I focus most of my work, but it's certainly not exclusive to there. So, I mean, I'm really grateful that you said yes and that you're here. And I feel as though you've got some really special perspectives to share about that intersection of spirituality and leadership. Leadership in a variety of settings, not just in the corporate space, from your experience, and we've talked about this, but as I like to tee this up, and we'll take this wherever it goes. But as I like to tee this up, I talk about spirituality in terms of the spiritual dimensions of ourselves as people, not spirituality necessarily as a practice, although we could come to that. But what are the spiritual dimensions of us as humans? How do we bring those into our leadership? How do we encourage others to do the same? And my hypothesis, and from my experience, my observation, is that the workplace needs it now more than ever, needs leaders who can demonstrate empathy and compassion and loving and forgiveness and presence and peace, et cetera, et cetera. And so you've seen that, I'm sure, in a variety of settings. Where do we even begin? When I shared with you some of the questions that I like to ask people, what jumped out at you? Where should we start Sean? I want to follow your lead here.
Sean Harvey: I think just playing off of what you just shared, you know, what does it even mean to talk about spirituality at work? You know, the language I use. And it's becoming clear as I'm in more of these conversations, talking about spirituality in the workplace. Because I really talk more about soulfulness and tapping into soul. And what does it mean when we go from our heads to our hearts, to our intuition, to our deeper inner knowing and that intuitive knowing that really reflects our essence. And it doesn't have dogma. It really is just more of what I like to call our sacred compass to truth. And like, how do we discover the truth in a world right now that has so much chaos and has so much complexity and has so many different manifestations of. In a sense of post truth era where people are wondering what is truth? And so that ability to go inward, to listen to that, that inner compass that guides us to navigate from a place of knowing.
Andrew Cohn: Oh, beautiful. And I love the way you describe that as an ability. It's not some conceptual thing or a label to put on certain qualities which I might refer to it that way. But it's more than that. It's an ability.
Sean Harvey: I think it's an ability and I think it's a practice. And by taking the actions to be in practice, you keep strengthening the muscle and elevating your ability to be able to go deeper, to be more grounded and to be able to create more invitation. That really plays to, I think, the dance of the ego, especially for so many men, but I think for all of us dance the ego of the need for control and the permission to let go. And so much of what I talk about in working with men, working with male leaders, working in any setting and especially in corporate, is the ability to let go. The ability to surrender, to get off the script and to be able to see things from a very different perspective or set of perspectives.
Andrew Cohn: And different meaning. Because I'm hearing by inference, deeper, more holistic.
Sean Harvey: Well, when I think about spiritual understanding in and of itself, you know, the ways we deepen spiritual understanding, the part of it is our journey to discover our own truth is the first step to move beyond the protective layers that we hold for ourselves to. To really look into our shadow, to really look into the, where our fears, where our shame, where anger, where hatred resides, and work through that and discover what's true for us at our authentic core. And then to seek to understand and to see the truth in someone else. And then to be able to accept that both of our truths are true versus my truth is better than your truth, or that I need to change your truth to match my truth. And I think right now we are in such a place of division and disconnection from each other that the more we can start to see each other's truth and accept each other's truth as true, the more we're going to start to be able to start building bridges and see things from other people's perspectives that we may not share as our own. And to be able to be in a place of reconciling with ourselves, to come to a place of acceptance for someone else.
Andrew Cohn: And that is indeed an ability, I would suggest, a rare ability.
Sean Harvey: For sure.
Andrew Cohn: So when you're working, maybe you could share some examples. But I'm curious, when you're working with groups, perhaps particularly groups of men, and that could be police officers, prisons, other communities with whom you've worked, where do you start with that? How do you begin that conversation? And you could share a different story from a different population. But I'm really curious to know how you begin and initiate that type of conversation.
Sean Harvey: We can start with storytelling. I think, first it's creating a container for safety. Are we creating spaces that are psychologically safe for people to be able to come into the space? And I think it's for men in particular. What does it take for men to feel safe, to be vulnerable in the space, especially among other men? Right. So I think that's first and foremost, and then being able to create an invitation for storytelling where we can start to share our stories and unpack our stories. And the first is to begin by, in the spaces I hold, sharing my story and asking men to react not to what they think, but what they're feeling, what they're experiencing, what's happening within their bodies, and then give them the opportunity to share their stories and permission based on the level of depth that I go, they know that they can go, while also having a level of protection to know that they don't have to disclose, but they don't feel comfortable disclosing. So I think storytelling is key. And so much of my work is taking a multimodal approach. I use a number of different practices, techniques to be able to engage in spaces I facilitate and the conversations that I hold when I train any new facilitator. What I often say is, we get so caught up in our PowerPoints and our words and our why we're getting it right. And I always say, you know, your words really mean nothing at that point. Your audience is with you within the first 30 seconds of you starting any conversation. And that all depends on your presence and your level of grounding and the invitation that your inner alignment creates for someone else to come into the space.
Andrew Cohn: Which you'll see is this a welcoming space? Is this a safe space? And that's not about the words that I use or what's on the slide.
Sean Harvey: It's not what's on the slide, it's what energy are you creating as you become the centerpiece to really hold this container that's co created by everybody in the space. And that starts to give the permission for the vulnerability and that gives the permission for being able to tell our stories. And then from there we start to unpack our stories and try to understand the pieces of our stories where we have strength in the places where we need healing. And then the baby will start addressing the places that we need to heal that are holding us back from love. They're holding us back from compassion and holding us back from connection. Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: And as you describe that, what I'm brought back to is these core dimensions of humanity, when we are purists, some people would call spiritual dimensions, are exactly those things that are occluded by judgments and shame and trauma, et cetera. So we don't need to create this stuff. We need to help clear the clouds.
Sean Harvey: Often, you know, as a general faith minister, I subscribe to the teachings of Christ. I subscribe to shamanic practice and to suki wisdom. And so much of it is about, you know, finding truth in nature. Finding truth, like being on this path of seeking truth. But more so to your point, what do we need to do to unblock the wounds that are holding us back from love? And also, you know, so much of my work is focused on helping men expand their capacity to love and to move from this concept of love with conditions to unconditional love. And how do you hold every person that's in front of you from a place of unconditional love? And so in the audiences that I reach and the men that I speak to, especially when I work with extremists or far right extremists or white nationalists or men with hyper masculine mindsets. It's really being able to bring that energy of unconditional love into the space and then being able to have that energy there for men to start to be able to heal in ways that they can start to embrace that unconditional love.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Which is in my belief system anyway, which is present. It just is there. It's a question of can we access it. It's a little bit like sometimes when people talk about purpose, you don't create your purpose, you find it. It's there. If we can be quiet enough and tuned in enough to hear it or to track back you know, when you were talking about sharing stories, the image that I saw, Sean, was like, the stories are kind of like. I mean, stories make us who we are. They don't define us for the rest of our lives, so they make us who we are. Would you agree with that?
Sean Harvey: Yeah. Yeah. I think that being able to see your stories, I often use the metaphor of the river. So where are the calm waters? Where are the tributaries? Where are the high points? And then where are the rocky waters? Where are the rapids that reflect the challenge? And you can't accept just park part. I think what we don't want to always look at is in those rough waters. And I think that's part of us coming into our wholeness.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. And it's the same water moving through those different experiences. However we may want to define it literally or spiritually or otherwise, water is one of those things that shows up in all kinds of spiritual teachings for a good reason. But the image that was coming up for me when you were talking about stories and unpacking stories, it's like our stories are essentially like our. Tell me what you think about this. I haven't thought about this like this before. Stories are like our tea bags, and we can take our tea bags out and talk about them. And what was that experience and et cetera. And then what's left, essentially, as a result of these stories is what's the tea that we're holding in our cups that's been. That has been colored literally by our stories? How do we look at that for what it is? How do we help define what helped flavor that water the way it is? And then what choices do we make from there?
Sean Harvey: I would say, you know, so many of the technologies that are out there and so many approaches that are out there, or how do we move from our perceived reality to objective reality? How do our perceptions from our stories cloud our judgment of how we see and interpret? Right. And I think the question then is, as we are with our stories, are we still in the wounding of our stories? Are we in the healing of our stories? And I think it can be very easy to stay in the wounding of our stories, where we can still stay in a place of victimization or victimhood versus moving to that place of empowerment where we have moved past, moved to a point in our stories where it's in the past, and we can see things objectively and that we're able to use it for helping and supporting others and bringing ourselves up in those times when we fall down and so that we keep getting up and we help others to get up.
Andrew Cohn: And so how can I create some distance between myself and that story? And how can I then use that story to help engage me, motivate me, guide me, focus me towards more purposefully what I would want to be doing and the contribution I'd like to be making? Does that fit?
Sean Harvey: I think the only thing I would add to that is that before you get to the distance of the story, that you actually address the story and look at it for what it is and take the elements of the story that are clouded and take the clouds out so you can really see things realistically without attachment. You know, it's. I think it's often the attachment to our stories where we get stuck.
Andrew Cohn: Right.
Sean Harvey: Versus when we move to a place of non-attachment with our stories.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. The story becomes our identity. That's what I walk around with. And I appreciate what you're sharing there about getting into the story. Not so quickly, not rush to separation. Absolutely. So what? Right. What wisdom needs to be distilled from that experience?
Sean Harvey: Cool.
Andrew Cohn: Okay, so safety. Psychological safety and safety. No pressure to force people to share something that they're not comfortable sharing. And how do you introduce themes such as–or how do you introduce things that are quote unquote spiritual, where you might call them spiritual perhaps without alienating people or people thinking you're proselytizing or you're coming with the attack dogma?
Sean Harvey: I very rarely ever use the word spiritual.
Andrew Cohn: Oh, okay.
Sean Harvey: I think you can talk about spirituality without ever using spiritual language.
Andrew Cohn: And my. Understand, if my memory serves me, you've had to do that. Right. You've had to come in and give a talk without using the word spiritual.
Sean Harvey: I mean, a lot of corporate spaces. Yes. Yeah. And a lot of the environments I'm working with, I don't, I don't feel the need to talk directly. You know, one of, one of the things I discovered in some of the work I've done, especially when I take men out in outdoor adventures, is you never have to hit the topic head on. You never have to have a head on collision with the language. And men most often respond to the drive by, not the head on collision. And so by the drive by, you can talk about any number of things or give language to things that get to the essence of what you're trying to say, and it becomes an invitation. So what I usually do when I'm talking about spirituality, I'm basically talking in terms of love, compassion, and deeper humanity. And what I have found is in my work where I cross political lines, especially, especially in America. And I'm talking to progressives, I'm talking to conservatives, I'm talking to extremists, I'm talking to those in the middle of the road. The language that I have found that has the most resonance across all lines of the spectrum is tapping into our deeper humanity and that we are mirrors of each other's humanity and that we are able to deepen because I think what we are yearning for is a more humane and being in connection with each other from a place of deeper human and treating each other with humanity. And I think in so many initiatives that are out there, while they are well intentioned, even we talk about inclusion and justice work, there's not always the humanity in the equation. And it can also make others feel alienated in the process to not want to engage. And so as I think about it, usually the work of the language, I mean warrior compassion is example, you know, I mean, it is fierce, loving compassion that we bring into organizational systems, to hyper masculine environments. And we are able to talk about love in more and more circles these days because I think so many people are yearning for it. In my book, I talk about these faith traditions and how faith, different faith traditions define compassion. From Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sufism, Buddhism, shamanic practice and integral spirituality, and each one getting its definition. And then looking at the universal truths, what is universal across all of these different traditions around the ways we think about compassion? And then the reality is at the root of compassion is love. And from that place of love, if I talk to men, I'm talking from a place of compassionate masculinity, which then I show that has spiritual grounding to it. So whenever anyone tells me being compassionate is a sign of weakness, which I think there's a trope that we hear all the time. And I think most people think it's bs. I think we are more sophisticated than to say compassion is a sign of weakness. But for those that do hold that notion on some level, I always say there is spiritual grounding and a foundation from wolf, from gods, from warriors, from those who are deeply embedded without the dogma of what's good and what is in the best interest of people.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, and there's a lot to be said about that type of colonized thinking and misogyny and power over, et cetera, that breeds the association of compassion as weakness. I remember years ago in a Wisdom 2.0 conference listening to Reid Hoffman, the CEO of LinkedIn, talking about people think that compassion is soft. It's really easy. He said, have you ever tried to tell somebody that they're fired and why they're fired? Especially if they're someone who's been a friend and to move them along into their next role? Because that's what you have to do, and you have to be compassionate and you have to hold those multiple energies at the same time. It's a very difficult thing to do, certainly not weakness. These are tough decisions to make. Yeah. I feel like I want to ask you what some. You did mention your book. So your book is a new book. Could you talk a little bit about that? Because my sense is that that's squarely related to what we're talking about.
Sean Harvey: It is. So my book is called Warrior Compassion: Unleashing the Healing Power of Men. And it offers a roadmap for men's soul healing of their catalyst, resistance, change. In the book, I talk about the wounding and healing of men, where we are. What's the state of men today? Warrior compassion of the healing power. I share my journey and then I unpack what I see as steps from my journey that have been helpful, that may be helpful for other men as they think about their journey. So how to prepare for the journey, how to embrace the journey, how to be an inquiry as they walk their path, and then the types of healing they can do. So healing spiritual healing, spiritual wounds, parental wounds, inner child wounds, intergenerational wounds, how they really come into a place of balance in the masculine feminine, healing their wounds around gender and inviting men to examine their own relationship with gender. I think one of the things that we do so often we talk about gender equity or gender justice is that we rush to the justice part and we forget the humanity part. And by that I mean we don't give men the space to even question their own relationship to gender, to question the ways that definitions, rules and rules around gender, around manhood, around masculinity, around power, around gender dynamics, the roles of women, all of these are changing so quickly. And what I find is men, especially white, straight men, are often scratching their heads, not sure where they fit, not sure what to make of it, haven't been given the space, ask the questions in general, and then also ask themselves in reflection. So how do I feel about this? And I think that is a critical piece that is missing for a lot of men to be able to just have that examination and to start to understand that part of the healing for men and part of healing the strengthening the masculine in healthy ways needs to also include healing the feminine and healing the masculine through the feminine within us. As men within us. Right within us. And so that is where we have our empathy. That is where we have our compassion. That is where we have our grace. That is where we have space and spaciousness to be able to start to untether, unwrap, untangle so many of the ways we have been conditioned to grow up and show up as men that are often, and I never say right, wrong, good, bad, and never say toxic masculinity. But what I will ask the question is, by leaning so far into the masculine, without access to the feminine, what has been the cost? What does it cost you in your life? What's been missing in your life? And what are you hearing so often when I'm talking to men, my approach is because I believe most so many men are suffering in silence in some way or another, you know, just by the fact that we are human, we are men, and we have wounds and many of us haven't healed the wounds. And so we walk around in the suffering from those wounds. That I meet men in their suffering, I listen for their yearning, and I offer hope in the midst of both. And I think that is ways of being upset spiritually is the ways we can offer hope to each other and empower each other versus tear each other down.
Andrew Cohn: Thank you. That's beautiful. And there's so much trauma and there's so much woundedness. And how can we invite men into those conversations in a way that's not threatening, that's not threatening physically. Certainly threatening in other way related to safety or so threatening of their identity that they're terrified to jump? It seems to me that what we're talking about here is challenging our identities. Who am I if I'm not the win at all costs competitive guy? This is what I've been taught. And you know, the mental health numbers support that in terms of the mental health statistic around men and women. And I'm doing a panel discussion shortly about that. Yeah, the numbers don't lie about that either.
Sean Harvey: Numbers don't lie. And I call it the emasculation and de identification challenges. One that to your point, when you take away the masculinity identity, men have to ask themselves, so who am I now? Who am I in my authentic world? And then the other part is, how do we help men navigate a world that is feminizing, where we are emphasizing empathy and compassion and community and these things that go counter to the masculine ideals that many of us have grown up with. How do we help men navigate that without emasculating men in the Process?
Andrew Cohn: Right. Without making wrong those more masculine dimensions of us that may be more aggressive, that may be more, you know, whatever. Again, no judgment there. Just maybe more. Not talking about male and female. We're talking about masculine and feminine, as I understand it. So how to move to discuss these things that are more feminine without judging the more masculine piece. Am I hearing that right?
Sean Harvey: Yeah, exactly. So what I see is there's often two approaches to the ways folks are wanting to work with men. It's either we'll take a hyper masculine approach and beat your emotions out of you and get you to feel something, damn it, or the opposite extreme that I've seen a lot of conscious communities is we elevate the feminine so much and we forget, or we demonize the masculine. And I think there is a–we are at a crossroads for men's healing, I think, and that there is another movement forming that is, how do we come into the integration and the balance of the healthy masculine and the healthy feminine then takes us into our sacred masculine or sacred feminine. And so I think that brings us back to the spirituality piece, that once we're able to really heal in the feminine, heal in the masculine, blend them together, there's an energetic shift that happens within us that brings us into that place of calm, that brings us into a place of invitation, that brings us into a place of openness, that we can navigate the world in a much more liberated way.
Andrew Cohn: And I feel a need to ask you, what do you mean by sacred masculine and sacred feminine as opposed to masculine energy and feminine energy?
Sean Harvey: I think as you're on the journey, you know, I think it's. It's the levels of consciousness, and as you deepen those levels of consciousness and as you continue doing the work, you generally could feel, and I'm going to suspect will feel a pull, an invitation to come into more of a sacred you. I have found so many people through either their different practices, embodiment practices, mindfulness practices, psychedelics, whatever the vehicle is, that brings them into a deeper state of consciousness and awareness that often takes them into a deeper connection with their spiritual selves, with their soul. And so when I say when you start tapping into that soulful energy, then you start reflecting, I think more of the sacred you. And if we are reflections of the sacred, the more authentic we are, the more connected we are to our sacred selves and our higher selves.
Andrew Cohn: which includes both masculine and feminine dimensions, if you will, but at a deeper level, hence sacred masculine or sacred feminine. I'm looking down at the clock here. There's so many places we can go. I feel as though, first of all, thank you for all this and this wisdom. It adds a beautiful, deeper root flavor to the palette of these podcasts. So I appreciate that and I definitely would love to speak with you again. And I really would like to highlight your book and go a bit deeper with it. I'm going to resist the urge to say double click because I just despise that phrase, but go a little bit deeper and talk about what you're seeing, where you're heading, and what's really the invitation for all of us, particularly men, but also women as well, of course. So if it's okay with you, could we wrap this here and then pick it up to talk about after I have a chance to read the book? Because right now we're recording this before the book has come out. But I will read the book before we speak again. And anything else that you might want to add to this topic that I may have left hanging, something, a thought you might want to complete.
Sean Harvey: The word that keeps coming up is surrender. The courageous surrender. This journey, this journey of healing for anyone, for any leader, is courageous surrender. We often have played the game. If you've moved up to a level of leadership in any organization, you have had to play the game. What I find is many people, it's not just that we're talking about burnout. That is one real issue. I think we're also talking about disillusionment, the negative. People become disillusioned that I played the game and this is what I got. I got the prizes, but this is what I got. And there's still that level of is this all there is? Or there's that level of just unfulfillment. And you talked about purpose earlier. And I make that distinction of, you know, when you're doing this work, you really are discovering your soul's mission. Not your life mission, not your career mission, your job mission, or your soul's mission. And that, I think, is the place where you find the ultimate fulfillment when you are in the dance with your soul around the ways you are truly meant and then uniquely designed to contribute in the world today. And I think the only way to do that and to get to that place is courageous surrender into the unknown and onto a path that is really going to be a sole adventure.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. And adding to what you're saying, in my view, I think more of us. I mean, I've been in men's circles for 25 years and leading circles like that. And just in the conversation around spiritual psychology for longer than that, once I think we open this up and we start this inquiry, there's a part of me I don't know, how do you feel about this? But there's kind of no turning back. Because once we start to say, this is what I'm going to really look at, it may take years, it may take lifetimes, I don't know. I can't label that, what that means. But once we head down that path, we can't say it's not important anymore. We can't pretend we don't know.
Sean Harvey: The thing I want to add to that is when people ask me, they ask me that famous question, what are the metrics? What are the objectives? What do you? And I throw all that out the window because that doesn't apply here. That's part of the old narrative and the old model. The way I understand personal transformation and spiritual growth is that each of us, in our energetic interactions with each other, plant seeds for each other. And in your time, when it's your time to start walking your path, something will bring you onto the path and those seeds will start to germinate in their time. And so to let go of an attachment of what this is supposed to look like for others and more of as long as I am doing my work, as long as I am grounding myself, as long as I am coming from a place of love and that I know that my interaction with you will plant some sort of seed somewhere. And so to your point, the goal is not that we see all these men or all these amazing humans have self actualized. It's really more of, are we just offering being a model and offering an invitation for folks to step on the path and trusting that then their soul, their connection to spirit or the universe will start guiding them on this lifelong journey of healing, self discovery and awakening.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. And that type of invitation, just building on what you're saying, that type of invitation has to be done with a sense of humility, because it's done with a sense of I trust that your path is laid out. I'm grateful to be handing you a cup of water in the marathon of life, if you will. And I trust that your path is laid out. I'm grateful to support you. I'm not here to be your guru.
Sean Harvey: Not here to be your guru. I'm not here to be your savior. I'm not here to fix you. What I am here to do is witness you and for you to witness me and to walk the path for the time that we are meant to walk the path side by side. But beyond that, it's letting go of all the ego stuff and to your point, to walk from a place of humility in this journey with others and challenging ourselves to get beyond our own judgments, our own rightness, our own righteousness. To really be in a place of curiosity and to honor the beauty this person in front of me brings and the light they have and to be with them as they start to grapple with their own shadow and their own darkness.
Andrew Cohn: And what a privilege it is to do that work.
Sean Harvey: Yes, for sure. For sure.
Andrew Cohn: Thank you, brother.
Sean Harvey: Thank you, my friend.
Andrew Cohn: Appreciate this conversation. Look forward to continuing it. And the conversation goes on. And I really look forward to getting your book again.The title?
Sean Harvey: Warrior Compassion, Unleashing the Healing Power of Men.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. And if people want to learn more about the work that you do, other than googling that book, where do they find you?
Sean Harvey: You can go to my website, warriorcompassion.com, okay. It's simple.
Andrew Cohn: Simple is good. Thank you, Sean.
Sean Harvey: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Andrew Cohn: Thank you for listening to Spirituality in Leadership. If you want to access this wealth of knowledge and insight on a regular basis, please subscribe to the show. Join the network of leaders who want to do and be better. You can go to the site spiritualityinleadership.com or you can go to your preferred podcast platform to catch all the episodes and learn more. Until next time, take good care of yourself.