Unmaking the Man — A Taoist Reflection on Masculinity

In Taoist thought, nothing in nature forces itself.
The oak doesn’t rush its growth. The river doesn’t try to be strong—it simply flows, finding the lowest places and nourishing everything along the way.

But many of us, especially men, were taught just the opposite.
That strength is about control. That leadership means pushing harder, speaking louder, fixing faster.

We were told to be the mountain, but never taught to be the valley.

In Classical Chinese Medicine, imbalance comes when yin and yang fall out of rhythm. When action (yang) is cut off from receptivity (yin), we get burnout, aggression, rigidity. A man who only knows how to assert becomes brittle. His power doesn’t flow—it fractures.

This is what I see in so many men who are searching.

They’re not broken. They’re just tired—tired of performing strength without feeling rooted in it.

Tired of leading when they’ve never learned how to listen—to themselves, their bodies, or those they care about.

So, when I hear calls to “reclaim masculinity,” I pause.
Because what exactly are we reclaiming?

Taoism teaches that to move forward, we often need to return.
Return to stillness. To presence. To softness.
To the parts of us we were told to reject—our grief, our tenderness, our not-knowing.

In the body, healing happens not through more doing, but through restoring flow. The Liver must not only rise upward with vision and drive—it must yield to the Kidney’s depth, the Heart’s wisdom, the Earth’s steady rhythm.

So maybe the question isn’t: How do we man up in a new way?
But: What are we willing to let die, so something more whole can live?

Masculinity, in the Taoist view, isn’t a fixed identity. It’s a movement. A rhythm. It must dance with its opposite. It must yield to truly stand tall.

So, I ask you:

What parts of your masculinity feel forced? And what might happen if you let them soften, dissolve, compost?

Not to disappear—but to return in a wiser, more rooted form.

There is no one way to be a man.
But there is a way to be in rhythm with life.
Let’s begin there.

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Welcome to the Practice

I named my coaching practice Cultivate because that’s what growth really is—slow, seasonal, relational. It’s not a race. It’s a rhythm.

Thank you for being here.

More soon.

-- Robert Baggett, M. Dip. Ac., CLC