Helping With Relationships, Grief, Addictions and More
By Erin Kelly-Allshouse
Many men struggle with relationship issues, loss, self-worth, anger, addictions and isolation. Breakthrough works on the causes behind these challenges that all men face, and provides life tools for men to help them become better partners, better fathers, better friends, and better men.
This is not a quick fix but a community of men dedicated to making real lasting change in the quality of men’s lives through a support program. It is a way to acquire life changing tools and learn to address the causes of an issue and not just treat the symptom.
Breakthrough is a non-profit organization founded and created in 1987 by Fred Jealous, a teacher of nonviolent communication, to provide men with skills to free themselves from non-productive, painful, or abusive aspects of their lives.
Jealous, also a leader in his community, has empowered hundreds of men to begin to create the lives they have always wanted through education and support in a supportive group-learning setting in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties.
“This is a great resource for men who want to reassess and enhance the direction of their lives,” said executive director of Breakthrough, Chris Fitz. Fitz completed the program himself in 2013 before becoming executive director of Breakthrough in 2016.
Participants of Breakthrough usually find it to be a very compelling, profound experience.
According to Fitz, Breakthrough has had a significant to enormous positive impact on the lives of men who have been a part of it.
“In my experience, I have met nearly 400 of the graduates and hear men telling me all the time that it has saved their marriage, their relationship with their kids whether young or adult and has dramatically changed their lives for the better if not saved their lives,” he said. “We help men build more deeply meaningful relationships, starting with the relationship they have with themselves.”
For each Breakthrough graduate, they gain the ability to eliminate negative self-images, and to take control of anger, fear, addictions, shame, and hopelessness. Breakthrough graduates discover their true power as men, and begin to realize their full potential as fathers, husbands, partners, friends, and leaders. This is accomplished in a way which respects and honors each man’s uniqueness and personal history, as well as that of the other people in their lives.
The Breakthrough Men’s Community Mission is to empower all men to participate fully and confidently in building deeply meaningful relationships and connected lives. The Breakthrough workshop is a guided, life-changing exploration where groups work together, hands-on, to tackle the challenges all men face.
The foundation of this is the Breakthrough Men’s Community education program. The natural extension of this commitment brings clear and positive thinking about self, others, and the world; a celebration of uniqueness and a break from restrictive rules imposed by society while creating community support systems and encouraging all people to act as leaders, allies, and advocates.
“Fred had a strong belief that the way men are raised in this culture is damaging,” said Fitz. “We are brought up to believe that boys must sacrifice their humanity to be ‘real men,’ and that the only way to relate to other men is to compete with them. Because of the way we’re raised, there is a lot of distrust in other men.”
A major tenet of the program, says Fitz, is that men need the support of other men to heal and regain the humanity that has often been socialized out of them. Another emphasis of the program is that experiencing emotions is a good thing, and it seeks to emulsify the oil-and-water-like relationship between vulnerability and traditional male culture.
“Most men coming to Breakthrough are facing a big life challenge, but many others aren’t in crisis and are just looking for deeper meanings, meaningful friendships, and a sense of community,” says Fitz, who emphasizes that Breakthrough isn’t geared just to men who may feel broken in some way. “At Breakthrough, we believe every man can benefit from the program.”
Fitz says program graduates include men from all walks of life—their backgrounds, educational and occupational pedigrees are as diverse as their various ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations. He says the average attendee is between 40 and 45 years old, but adds that there have been graduates as young as 18, all the way up to men in their 70s.
A 2008 Blue Shield study on Breakthrough confirmed that the word “transformative” best described the Breakthrough experience, and that 91 percent of survey respondents used the words “enormous” or “considerable” to describe the impact that Breakthrough had on their lives.
But such transformation comes with a level of time commitment that sets Breakthrough apart from other programs of its kind. The program is 34 weeks long, which is broken up into two 17-week sessions. Each of these sessions has 14 evening classes, two all-day Saturday courses, and one weekend retreat. Most of the work is done in small groups, where participants learn to put the lessons into action.
“Practice makes perfect, and it takes time to rewire the neural pathways so we can live our lives differently,” says Fitz.
He emphasizes the importance of taking one’s time and going slowly, providing men with the support to practice things like affirmations, identifying triggers with issues like anger addiction, and taking time and space to contemplate and reflect.
Breakthrough is a nonprofit organization, and tuition is on a sliding scale.
“No willing participant has ever been turned away for financial reasons in 30 years,” Fitz says. Many of these referrals are given by women, who, he said, have a more instinctual understanding of the benefits a support community can provide. “
Women get right away what we’re all about,” says Fitz, adding that a similar program called Breakfree was created for women.
The course’s teachings come from a variety of approaches and disciplines. “We are not affiliated with any religion, but participants often say that the teachings fall in line with their own spiritual beliefs,” Fitz said. “We don’t see ourselves as doing therapy or counseling. Guys in the program learn how to listen and learn how to be listened to, sometimes for the first time in their lives, especially without anyone trying to fix you.”
Each year, 80 to 120 men complete the Breakthrough Workshop. At least 40% of those men come to us through therapist referrals. Our workshop is well respected among the community of local therapists with the other 60 percent being referred by word-of-mouth.
“We hope to gain a big following in Santa Cruz, we want to prosper in other areas because profound change can happen in Breakthrough,” Fitz said. The Santa Cruz course will be held at the Monterey Coast Preparatory School in Scotts Valley on March 10. Visit breakthroughformen.org for more information.
The success of the Breakthrough Workshop is largely based on a mindful approach to compassionately listening to ourselves and each other.
We create a safe, warm, accepting environment where attendees are invited to relax, experience what is going on inside, and express whatever thoughts, feelings, and responses arise in regard to something they wish to explore. Each person is allotted about 20 minutes to share in this way.
Principles and techniques of mindfulness and compassionate reflective listening are modeled and briefly explained for the benefit of newcomers. Anyone is welcome to attend, so long as they are willing to listen to others without interrupting and keep what others share confidential.
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Breakthrough Men’s Workshop
Tuesday Classes
March 10 thru Aug 11 • St. Philip’s Church, 5271 Scotts Valley Dr.
Attend a free introductory meeting to learn more about the Breakthrough educational workshops or contact [email protected] • Breakthroughformen.org