The Path from Destruction to Integration

Every man has two predators inside of him. One of these predators he has to conquer. The other he has to befriend.

Until he acknowledges
each one individually,
he’ll be at their mercy.

His life will either self destruct around him in a blaze of fire, or he’ll be the explosion that leads to a lifetime of pain in others — mostly women. Too often women he loves. Or worse, “women” who aren’t yet women, if you catch my drift.

This past summer I sat in a dark retreat for an extremely long time. Sometimes I would wake in the dead of night, without a sound to use as a reference for the time and instead see the faint yellow glow of eyes staring into me from the darkness. And I felt like prey. Intellectually I knew I was alone, physically my body felt otherwise.

It was a stark reminder that the most dangerous predators weren’t out there in the dark — they were in here, inside me. And they’d been hunting me my entire adult life. I have a feeling, if you’re a man reading this, you’re going to relate deeply as this piece unfolds.

What I’m writing about here may feel mythological or philosophical and perhaps that’s because it’s the best way to frame it. But the consequences do not play out in fairy tales or Disney sagas.

They play out in rehabs, divorce courts, and jails. This conversation is not a popular one and many people will read what you’re about to and pretend that nothing I’m talking about is real. I’m here for the truth, if you are too, keep reading.

The Predator
Hunting You —
The Inner Predator

There was a time in my life when before leaving my bed, I would have consumed two Five Hour Energy drinks. Two. In about a 3 minute period. Anything to get my heart rate jacked up and allow the feeling of adrenaline to overpower anything that may be trying to come to the surface.

My day would include a series of high intensity workouts, a lot of work, and would then transition to a cocktail of, well, beer or cocktails, marijuana, and porn.

Steven Pressfield talks about an idea, a duality of sorts. One he’s named resistance. His theory, as I interpret it is this: if you initiate a positive process such as deciding to write a book, start a business or a family, get in shape etc — an energetic equivalency will be initiated, in the opposing direction.

In lay person’s terms — if you decide to write a book that will require 10,000 units of discipline, creativity, and structure, 10,000 units of procrastination, distraction, and chaos will show up to meet you.

I remember clearly having clients hire me back in my weight loss days, saying they were committed to a process of losing fifty pounds. Lo and behold a week later, without fail, something big would show up in their lives to derail them.

I’ve seen this with clients in my recent years who aren’t trying to lose weight but are working on saving their marriages, kicking addictive habits, and building empires for themselves.

We all know the cliche of a man who’s built a dream life for himself, only to self destruct and burn it all to the ground. We ask ourselves, “How the hell could he do that, he had it all?!” And with the next breath we swear if it was us in the same position, we’d never succumb to the same things he did.

Recently, the University of Michigan Football Coach is in jail for impregnating a woman on his staff then committing both breaking and entering and assault as the story broke. This was a man at the top of his game — so what happened? And what happened to every other cliche example of a man we could swap out in his place.

He was being fucking hunted. And he got got.

As we all are. Hunted not just by resistance, which we will never conquer, but more so by the voice inside of us telling us we don’t deserve what we have. That we’re not worthy. That we’re not smart enough, capable enough, or allowed to be who we are.

Or worse — that we’re worthless, useless, or dumb.

For years there was a predator who lived in my chest quietly whispering in my ear that no one would ever read my writing, love me for who I am, or want to be in my life if I was anything less than perfect — every single day. Thus my daily list of necessary habits listed above. Necessary to keep the whispers from getting too loud.

It crawled out of closets as I struggled to sleep sitting on the edge of the bed laughing at me. It put its arm around my shoulder after breakups nodding along with my self loathing. And it found me every time I was deciding whether to drive right home, or stop by the liquor store first, reminding me that I could always stop drinking on Monday.

If you want to know what happens when you ignore this predator, look at the hopes and dreams you’ve given up on — not consciously — but with a collapse. And then look at what you’re doing to compensate for not living in integrity with the life you actually want. Look at your addictions, no matter how great or small, or how many.

Listen to the voices that tell you you’re less than. The voices that remind you you’re unwanted or unloved. And the actions you take to prove those voices right.

The predator is stealthy, my brothers. He’s more patient than you are, and crafty as can be. And he’s beatable. Killable. Destroyable. And until you’ve crushed him from your life forever, you can still lock him in a cage and ignore him until you bring the final ax down on the back of his neck.

Step 1 is to acknowledge his existence and track every time he’s getting the better of you. That’s as far as we’re going today.

There’s a predator hunting you internally. Know that.

The Predator
That Is You —
The External Predator

In a sentence, when I’m asked what happens when you don’t befriend the predator that is you, my answer is blunt — you end up on the Epstein list. Gross, but accurate to an extent.

Now, I’m not equating male sexuality with criminal abuse, not at all. And, I can’t go twenty minutes without reading about a guy showing up at Home Depot to meet a thirteen year old girl, so we as a male society have some reckoning to do, don’t we?

Here’s what very few people want to hear — men are predators. Most of us anyway. It’s in our DNA to hunt for food. We’ve long been tasked with being the pursuers romantically and sexually, and "pursuer" is nothing more than a polite and domesticated way of saying — predatorily.

Now I want to be very clear here — there is a MASSIVE difference between pursuit and predation, but the two live on the same spectrum.

And until you can acknowledge the predator, he will influence your pursuit. He will not make it clean. He will not make it safe. He will turn you into a hunter rather than an interested party who’s willing to pursue. I hope you can feel the difference.

Before a man has befriended this predator, he is out there, hunting. Key here, is that instead of being interested in the whole person, he has objectified the woman he’s seeking. He’s not seeking to know them, to understand them, or to respect them. That would in fact require seeing them as human.

Instead he’s hunting conquests, notches on his bedpost, stories to tell the guys in the locker room on Monday. He’s looking for the drunk woman at the party, the heartbroken woman who needs more of a shoulder to cry on but will allow being undressed as a salve for her wounded self worth. He’s looking for younger, less experienced, and easily influenced. He’s not looking for his equal in any regard because she’d smell him out a mile away.

This hunter evolves from a mix of evolutionary biology and a lot more wounding. It also thrives on fear of hurt around the feminine, un-metabolized rage at unresolved mother wounds, and a general lack of self worth. Can you feel that too?

Can you feel how a healthy, healed and actualized man wants partnership where he can be met by a woman of equal power — and this is not that?

Now here’s the societal conundrum. We celebrate this man up until a point he crosses the line. We celebrate the celebrity rock star or the wealthy playboy and his conquests. Think Leonardo DiCaprio and Dan Bilzerian. We imagine the power they must hold and the life of sexual abundance they must experience and we covet it.

It’s not until they actually does end up showing up at the Home Depot or an island full of politicians that we go, “Woah woah woah, this is too much. The harem was great, but now you’ve pushed it too far.”

And yet even before it goes that far, there is a cost. A cost to women who have been manipulated and used. A cost to broken relationships and destroyed families. And a cost to the man who may go decades never experiencing true connection or intimacy because he can’t stop himself from solely being a hunter.

If you don’t befriend this part of you, you will literally be a predator. Know that too.

I know because I have lived as this man. Within legal and consensual limits, but still morally bankrupt. I’ve sat across from women in bars and thought, “Say whatever you need to say here, this is almost a done deal.” I wasn’t interested in who she was. I was interested in the outcome. Many times I didn’t even know her name, nor did I care.

No force. No coercion. But zero relationality. Just hunting. It made me very effective — and deadened something human in me.

That’s the predator I’m talking about.

How do you
know if you’re in
healthy pursuit or
unhealthy predation?

This is a key distinction in an UNcivilized Man’s life. Let’s break it down a few simple ways:

• Predation has a buzz to it that pursuit doesn’t. Pursuit is exciting and invigorating — it’s heart opening and connective. Predation has an addictive quality to it — it’s heart closing and disconnecting.

• In predation, you’re hyper focused and goal oriented — I must have her. In pursuit, you’re relationally oriented — I want to get to know her.
• In predation there is often lying, hiding, or secrecy. With pursuit, it’s all out in the open with no desire to hide from friends, brothers, or family.
• In predation, you’re not interested in giving her full choice, you want what you want and are willing to manipulate or deceive to get it. In pursuit, you want her to play an equal role in the decision process at each step of the way.
• In predation, rejection feels like it’s going to kill you. Like you’ve driven hours to your dealer’s house desperate for a fix, only to find him not home. In pursuit, you have the ability to turn her down yourself. And if she turns you down, it may sting, but you know you’ll be just fine.
  
  

How to
Channel and
Direct the
Second Predator

Befriending the second predator requires two pieces:

1. Admitting there is a predator archetype and working through any shame or guilt you have around that
2. Befriending him and thus learning where else you can direct his energy.

Befriending here doesn’t mean letting him run wild and smiling at him from the sidelines. It means understanding what he’s actually hungry for. The predator toward women isn’t hungry for women — he’s hungry to feel powerful, to experience intensity, and the feel of being alive. Once you understand that, you can redirect him toward experiencing those feelings in a way that doesn’t destroy.

You can feed him without feeding him humans. You feel me?

Today, I use this energy on the Jiujitsu mat and by applying it to big business goals. I’ve redirected it creatively by producing long form pieces like the one you’re reading here, and in my Substack. I’ve used the consensual yet alternative role play of kink as a powerful way to use my primal predatory energy itself with women who want to experience it.

All of the above have one thing in common — they’re intentional containers. They have walls around behaviors, check points, and most importantly — other people who are there with me.

If I started hunting business deals with reckless abandon, my team would call me on it. If I was hurting people at the jiujitsu school, I would have a hard conversation coming from my instructor (and an ass whooping from him too). And if my play partners in the bedroom felt unsafe, they’d be letting me know with zero hesitation.

The After Effect
of Integration

Potent men are highly directed, aren’t they? They’re clear about who they are, what they’re after, and speak and think powerfully of themselves. They have purpose, clarity, and most importantly — people trust them.

They trust them because they know they’ve done the work to integrate the parts of themselves most men split off or pretend don’t exist. There’s a feel to an integrated man, a calmness to him, and an integrity of his words, actions, and energy.

He’s relational. He’s powerful. And he’s aligned.

All of these show up in his life as a sense of ease, a sense of rooted power, and a sense that he’s a safe man to be around. None of that makes him any less deadly or powerful, when he needs to be.

I’ve used my conquered predator and befriended one alike to write three books, build an International Men’s Movement, and chase surf all over the world. I’ve used it to kick addictions, deepen into an intense spiritual practice, and attain a brown belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu.

It works, and it’s powerful.

The call here, brothers, is to do the work necessary to become the man who knows which predator is showing up in his life and has the skills to work with each one.

The UNcivilized Man is a blend of the primal and the divine, the saint and the savage. And to fully express himself as such, he’s both conquered the predator urging him towards self destruction, and befriended and redirected the predator pushing him towards conquest and extraction.

He is a powerful man. He is a safe man.

Thus, he is an UNcivilized Man.

Start by tracking which predator is running your life today.

Yours Uncivilized,
Traver

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If this resonated with you and you want to begin this work in earnest, I work with a select group of private clients per year. You can apply here.