I continue my four-part series on male midlife thresholds and male midlife crisis on The Listening Room HQ with the third piece: The Midlife Crisis Decision Map.
This magazine note links the conversation between the magazine and The Listening Room HQ — my men’s practice – carrying the series’ practical focus on stages, fork points, and the choices that either trap men in repetition or open a path toward integrity and real inner work.
For those who want to follow the full sequence, visit The Listening Room HQ or read the pieces above. Each post builds toward practical language and tools for noticing stages, choosing differently, and moving through midlife with presence, clarity, and accountability.
This piece maps the repeating beats of midlife unraveling across psychology, mythology, addiction recovery, organizational burnout, and even astrology — showing how the same loop resurfaces in different guises.
Each post builds on the last, offering practical language and tools for noticing stages, making clearer choices, and moving through midlife with integrity and care.
At The Listening Room HQ I offer sessions that help men, and Maps, and Readings to anyone who resonates.
These aren’t about performance, quick fixes, or abstract theory. They are about presence, clarity, and gentle guidance. About noticing what’s real, what’s moving, and what needs tending.
Sessions, are space for men to be met as you are. Presence is the practice, and clarity emerges from gentle, grounded support.
Maps & Readings are for everyone provide context and insight. They’re tools to see patterns, understand cycles, and reflect on life’s current. Not predictions, but mirrors for awareness. You can read more about The Listening Room HQ Sessions for Men, and Maps & Readings for everyone here.
In a culture that often sidelines the midlife journey of men, this first post in a four-part series on The Listening Room HQ speaks to the archetype of the unsupported male midlife — the absence of elders, the lack of guidance, and the quiet crises that unfold when these are missing.
Stepping across a threshold isn’t just about crossing a line—it’s about entering a space where presence, movement, and attention meet.In this post, I explore how The Listening Room HQ provides a place for men to be heard, to hear themselves more clearly, and to engage in the subtle work of noticing and being present. You can read the full post here: On The Threshold
My latest post in The Listening Room HQ is about what happens when creative practice enters the space of men’s work.
Creative practice has a way of loosening what words alone can’t reach. It’s not about art as product, but about opening. A way men can meet themselves, each other, and others differently.
It’s not theory or performance, it’s a way of grounding, disarming, and opening what’s otherwise hard to reach.
In spirit, it sits not far from Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files, a place where correspondence becomes a kind of soul map. The Listening Room HQ works in a similar way though with men’s practice: gathering fragments, gestures, and creative practice into a field of shared soul work.
A couple of days after the first anchor, the Listening Room HQ is quietly taking shape.
Sunflowers and Van Gogh, my favourite painter, continue to be an inspiration. Each Sunflowers painting subtly shifts in light and energy — each one different.
The maps, the sessions, this craft is a side of me many of you haven’t seen before. A new way of holding presence, listening, and connecting, blending intuition, somatic practice, and knowledge from neuroscience and neurobiology.
Read the first post on the Listening Room HQ on Mondo here.
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers 4th version, Arles, 1888.
The Listening Room HQ is my men’s practice, readings, and maps — a side of me many of you may not yet be familiar with.
It is a dedicated space where I integrate my background in neurobiology, neuroscience, and genetics with intuitive, somatic practices, connecting the soul, the cosmic, the creative, and the other maps that guide this work.
It’s a new adventure, shaped by years of study and lived experience.
The sessions are designed specifically for men — thoughtful, often private individuals navigating challenges such as burnout, emotional numbness, or creative blocks. These are not therapy sessions, but they are grounded in presence, clarity, and a non-judgmental approach.
In addition to the sessions, I offer readings and maps that combine Human Design, Mayan Cosmology, and Western Astrology. These are available to all genders and serve as tools for self-reflection and guidance. You can learn more about the services here.
The Listening Room HQ blends science with intuition, offering a space for men to explore and connect with themselves in a meaningful way.
My work is shaped by an artistic lens, and INTJ’s clarity.
Today is World Poetry Day. Here is my favourite poem:
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin?
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …
I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.”
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
We have a beautiful photo display of exhibitions by Inês D’Orey, Inês Moura, Margarida Paiva & Anaïs Lalange, and Mafalda Santos on Mondo’s Instagram. Give it a look.
Mondo Bizarre Magazine 