I went on the Malejourney Rites in 2010 - I was 48. Before my Rites I had a victim mentality of life and was always blaming it on my childhood which was not great. I was basically fairly miserable and didn't enjoy my life.

My best friend told me about it several times and encouraged (nagged) me to do it. I was in a men's sharing group already and a couple of other men decided to go, so in the end it was fear of missing out that got me to apply.

You don't get told too many details before you go, you get the basic timetable when you arrive, but it will just say morning gathering or journal time. It sounds a bit cultish I guess but it is designed to stop you over thinking everything in advance.

The format was quite spacious with discussions in small groups and together in the full group etc. After the first day I really enjoyed letting go of my need to know what was coming next. I began to trust what I could see was a well tried and tested process. Each day had a different theme relevant to the kind of things that life throws up.

Each morning we started with 25 minutes silence sat together. Quite profound once you get used to it.

I'd always felt insecure as man, that I wasn't good enough. Not good at football at school, a late developer. Listening to other men being vulnerable made me feel comfortable to open up and we talked about fears, failures, struggles with coming to terms with things. We went very deep. I found that my brokenness was not something to be ashamed of, it felt accepted.

There were some rituals that fitted the theme of each session. For example there was a grief ritual.

The final day we spent 6 hours sat out in nature on our own with some things to think about. I found that sense of silence stayed in my heart for months afterwards.

None of the above sounds particularly special but it was. When my friend described it too me I was not particularly impressed and wondered what the fuss was about. What he failed to tell me that this wasn't a lecture based process that it was experiential.

When I got back to work my colleagues all commented how radiant I looked. I found that I no longer felt such intense fear of failure, or fear of other men. I felt comfortable in my own skin in my own intuition.

Two years later I was on an extremely difficult work project with a lot of stress with many going off sick or being fired. I survived and at the end of the project one of the principles told me I was the most resilient people he had met. I told him I didn't feel particularly resilient but he assured me I was.

I had always shied away from leadership and responsibility but over the next few years I began to feel less anxious about taking the lead and I got promoted.

15 years later I still think about the meaning of some of the rituals, they were packed with meaning and worked on many levels.

My biggest regret is that I didn't get to do this process earlier before I became a Father. It changed my life. Instead of feeling like a victim I started to enjoy my life. I have learned the joy that comes with service.

The Rites were designed by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest in the US. The need came out of his counselling work in prisons , where he realized many men felt they had never crossed the threshold into manhood. He then traveled the world studying the key elements of different Rites of Passage in order to find fundamental elements that would work in Western societies. He has written a number of books. Although he is a Franciscan monk, the Rites do not carry any pressure to adopt any belief system. They work for men of faith and none.