Project Ibasho
Guiding Principles
Guiding Principles
From the Founder
These three principles came to me at different moments in my life — through a psychologist, through neuroscience, through my own experience of confusion. They were not discovered all at once. They kept surfacing, one by one, as I went deeper into this work.
They are offered here, not as academic theories, but as wisdom principles — the kind that apply to all of life — to help us better understand the crisis of boys and young men.
" To Have a Healthy Relationship with Others, You First Need a Healthy Relationship with Self "
Lele Diamond
But the societal messages boys receive work against this from the very beginning. When boys are told to suppress their emotions, be hyper-independent, and be dominant, they are being steered away from the self-awareness that a healthy relationship with self requires.
This is why it benefits all of society to shift the messages we send to boys and young men — to new messages that enable them to develop the self-awareness they need, build the meaningful relationships they deserve, and contribute to a healthier, more connected world for all of us.
Behavior is Contagious
We are wired to absorb and mirror the behavior of those around us. When divisive voices dominate — in public life, on social media, in the messages boys receive — that divisiveness spreads. It becomes the norm. Society drifts toward disconnection not because people choose it, but because they absorb it.
But the opposite is also true. Connecting behavior is contagious. Reparative behavior is contagious. Collaborative behavior is contagious.
This is why Project Ibasho works within existing school communities. When parents who share overlapping social circles learn together — when they sit alongside teachers and witness each other absorbing and digesting new understanding — something shifts in the whole community. Because of our mirror neurons, we don’t just learn information. We absorb each other’s openness, curiosity, and willingness to connect. The community grows together as one.
The conference is not just an event. It is behavior contagion by design.
Confusion Leads to Depression
Boys receive confusing messages. Society tells them to suppress their emotions, be dominant, be hyper-independent. But their inner experience — their longing to connect, to be loved, to belong — tells them something completely different. They cannot reconcile these two things. The confusion is disorienting. As researcher Judy Chu observed: “Boys learn not to feel what they feel and not to know what they know.” And disorientation, when it has nowhere to go, becomes depression.
When boys understand why they feel the way they feel — when they can see the impact of societal messages on their psyche — the confusion may lift. They begin to understand themselves more clearly. They can separate the societal messages from their own self-understanding.
This work requires the combined lived wisdom of everyone involved. Lived wisdom that shows us, again and again, that connection matters more than winning.
To the fathers: your role in this work is essential. And you don’t have to do it alone.