We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Clay Boykin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Clay, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

Have you ever been swept away by a soul-stirring experience, something that left you with a profound sense of awe? Maybe you embarked on a journey or a quest to uncover something hidden within yourself, to sort through the myriad of voices clamoring inside your mind. Perhaps you discovered a place where you were deeply moved, where you found answers and meaning among those voices, where beauty and energy transcended the ordinary and connected you to something profound.
Welcome, fellow traveler. Join me as I share a defining personal experience that lays the foundation for the enlightening journey we are about to undertake. Perhaps it will evoke a memory or awaken a facet of your inner wisdom, a forgotten truth that will guide you in your quest for purpose and meaning, or simply awaken an underlying order hidden in your life.
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At the heart of eastern Turkey, on the Anatolian plateau, lie some of the oldest megalithic archeological sites in the world dating back to the Neolithic era. My pilgrimage there was not just a journey across the world but a voyage within. Amidst these ancient stones, I encountered a mystical presence, a dance of spirit and stone that mirrored and awakened new wisdom patterns within my own inner-mandala.
As I recall, a vibrational hum filled the air as I descended into the circular pit. Placing my hand on one of the towering megaliths, I felt a resonance reverberate deep within me.
In the fall of 2022, I found myself in the excavation site of Karahan Tepe, hidden in the plains north of the ancient city of Urfa, now known as Sanliurfa. For years, Gobekli Tepe, a renowned UNESCO site nearby, had been a focal point on my mandala and a place I thought I’d never see. I often imagined what it would be like to stand among its stelae, tracing my fingers along the surface of those towering megaliths.
Now, through a series of synchronistic and, I have to say, mystical events, there I was, standing amidst a wide circle of these intricately carved columns at Karahan Tepe––and what resonated through me was palpable.
Later in the day, at another site, I asked the lead archeologist if she ever felt strange vibrations, sensed a presence, and heard voices… and if she answered them. “Yes,” she said, adding that if someone could not feel the vibrations or hear the voices, they had no business being there. The same feelings I had felt must have been resonating with something deep inside her.
There was no doubt in my mind that the circular patterns at these sites represented a form of mandala. They had emerged in early pre-pottery Neolithic times from the hunter-gatherers––a time also referred to as the New Stone Age. Had they been compelled by some tremendous unknown archetypal force in the sky? A force so powerful that it moved them to design, quarry, transport, set these ten-to-twenty-ton megalithic columns into place… and then carve symbols into them, the meanings of which escape us today?
Of course, these stelae in their layout could have been used as the framework for some form of shelter, or other functional use, nonetheless, I believe there was a reason for the symbols to be placed as they were that went beyond the practical.
The next morning, I visited the museum in Sanliurfa. I could have spent days or weeks there but only had the morning. Rushing through the artifacts, I was stopped in my tracks by the small totem. One man held another on his shoulders and on that man’s shoulders, another being. While it is said to be a large vulture, I hesitate to admit I saw it as some form of alien or at least something otherworldly. Who knows? Regardless, it gave me pause, and the warm vibration seemed to penetrate me again.
That afternoon, on the first leg of the flight back to London, I opened my journal to study my pencil-drawn mandala. How many times had I drawn it in the front of a new journal? How many variations over the years? Had the same archetypal forces I had just witnessed compelled me over my lifetime to create these patterns version after version? In retrospect, it was as though I had traveled to someplace otherworldly, opened a mystical portal into my inner self, and gained access to some form of ancient knowledge.
Halfway to Istanbul, I rested my eyes and dozed off. I found myself back on the hillside in the circle of columns and symbols. Maybe it was just the jet engines, but I sensed the vibrations in my palms again and could hear the voices the archeologist heard. It was as if they were beckoning me to travel back with them to my formative years. It was there they showed me how they had gifted me with my creative and visual learning skills.
I woke wondering if the voices had been real or imagined. Whichever it may have been, I recall the many times throughout life when I became overwhelmed with these inner voices and left with an urging to repeatedly create these ornate quartered circles and four-box grids. These patterns would begin to appear while placing random words and thoughts about a subject on a page in my journal. Then, at some point, I would begin to visualize how these words fit together in context and then organize them into a four-section integrated pattern.
Often, I felt like Richard Dreyfus in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, feverishly drawing an image over and over but not knowing why. Each pattern was like a new frame of reference, a matrix, a new window through which I could gaze both outward and inward. Each time one was completed, I was left with a sense of wholeness and inner knowing. But then I would recreate it again and again, and find myself going deeper and deeper.
At the end of the movie, Dreyfus finds himself at the base of Devil’s Tower, the mountain of his obsession. There, he experiences a peaceful close encounter with aliens hovering in their ship over the mountain. Dreyfus finally understands why he is obsessed with this fixation and is left with a sense of awe.
The day a friend gave me the book The Power of Myth. I read Joseph Campbell’s description of a mandala, and suddenly, it all came together. I, like Dreyfus, was left with a sense of awe. In part, it read,
When composing a mandala, you are coordinating your personal circle with the Universal circle. You are pulling all those scattered aspects of your life together, finding a center, and ordering yourself to it.
As we were landing, I pondered the dream, and then it struck me. That was it! These prehistoric foragers had awakened the archetypal forces within me years ago. They had activated my inner-patterns of wisdom, my inner-mandala.
The synchronicities were profound. All these years, I had been guided to go within, gather all the scattered aspects of my life, find my center, and find order within myself. I had been guided to integrate the mandala into every aspect of my daily and spiritual life and even my professional career, but I never thought of it as some archetypal force to be embraced.
It was then that I realized how this bridge to the past had lent new meaning to my life and my own inner-patterns of wisdom and how it is possible for each of us to tap into this seemingly elusive force.
Truly, these ancients were compelling me to translate this knowledge into a form that would inspire others. The calling was clear…
It was time to write.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Clay Boykin, an innovative leadership development specialist advancing the use of Adaptive Thought-Pattern Recognition (ATPR) to empower individuals and organizations alike. Through this transformative approach, I help leaders and individuals uncover patterns of wisdom within their thoughts, allowing them to harness cognitive clarity in both personal and professional settings.

My approach is deeply informed by a diverse background: from my foundational leadership training as a United States Marine Corps Officer to decades of experience in corporate and entrepreneurial roles. My global leadership role at Motorola enriched my perspective with international experience, and my own startup journey deepened my understanding of adaptability and innovation.

Alongside my professional expertise, I draw on my passion for archaeology, including fieldwork at ancient sites such as Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. This journey has been further shaped by my studies in depth psychology and archetypal astrology, which together create a multidimensional framework for personal and organizational transformation.

As the founder of the Men’s Fellowship Network and host of the podcast In Search of the New Compassionate Male, I am also an advocate for evolving masculine consciousness and gender equity. My work in gender reconciliation has contributed to insights into leadership and organizational dynamics that address today’s complex world.

My forthcoming book, The Mandala Within: Activating Your Inner Patterns of Wisdom, A Guide for Intuitive and Logical Minds, is due for publication soon. I’m also the author of Circles of Men: A Counter-Intuitive Approach to Creating Men’s Groups, a guide for men seeking greater purpose and meaning in life.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The following is a slice of my personal story of Providence. It was first published in the book, Gender Equity and Reconciliation – Thirty Years of Healing the Most Ancient Wounds in the Human Family. Only while writing and submitting it fifteen years after scribbling the words above in the margins did I began to realize just how deeply Providence had been a steady, nurturing force throughout my journey, most often guiding me forward when I wasn’t aware.
Like many men, I had climbed the ladder of outward success only to find myself in a mounting inner crisis after 30 years. I vividly recall standing on the Empire State Building observation deck, gazing down at my tiny office window nearby. I thought, “I’ve made it to the top,” but what did that mean? I had experienced one failed marriage, a separation in my existing marriage, and a heart attack that nearly killed me. At only 53, I felt hollow, depressed, and lost. “Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going?
Where does a privileged, white, Western male go to be heard on a deeper level, to say in a mixed group, “I’m wounded, too,” without feeling judged?
That moment was in 2007, just four months after my heart attack–a mystical event in itself I’ll share for another time. When the economy crashed in early 2008, I found myself unemployed and sinking into my own dark night of the soul. Eventually, I got back on my feet, and in 2012, I started a men’s circle to seek answers to the fundamental life questions I was still grappling with.
“Men nurturing men” is not a phrase often heard, but that is what we were about, and it was successful. Our circle met weekly, and we found that while men could speak with their spouses or partners, there were things they could only learn from other men. We formed long-term relationships and supported each other through life’s joys and difficulties—cancer, addiction, depression, the death of a child and a spouse, financial struggles, and more—all while trying to heal.
Over time, many of us realized that we needed a forum where men and women could come together for healing and growth not otherwise possible. However, the dynamics would differ significantly, and we needed the background or experience to facilitate such a circle.
Once again, I felt stuck. I wanted to be heard and to hear from others along the gender spectrum, but where could a 64-year-old former Marine officer and former corporate executive go to heal the childhood trauma I never dared to share, fearing damage to my career? After all, I had an image to uphold, and admitting I was wounded seemed like a career death knell. The other men were in a similar predicament.
In the summer of 2018, shortly after my book Circles of Men was published, an unexpected message arrived from a friend of a long-lost friend. She had read my book and suggested I attend the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Toronto. This seemingly coincidental recommendation led me to an encounter that felt more than serendipitous—it felt divinely guided.
At the Parliament, I was introduced to William Keepin and Cynthia Brix, co-founders of Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI). During our initial conversation, it took mere minutes to recognize that the GERI program was the answer I had been searching for. Whether this sequence of events was synchronicity or Providence, I believe they were intertwined, as everything unfolded with such clarity and purpose.
Their Silent Witnessing exercise at the Parliament shone a light on the deep wounds carried by people across the gender spectrum, emphasizing the need for a safe space to foster healing and reconciliation. Inspired and deeply moved, I accepted Will’s invitation to participate in a weeklong facilitator training module just days later.
Looking back, I can’t believe how unaware I was. In my professional environment, I was considered ahead of my time in servant leadership and organizational change, which included gender awareness and sensitivity. Yet, the diverse international group of trainers and trainees in GERI exposed me to a new world I had been sheltered from.
The environment was much like our men’s circle, and my ego melted more and more throughout the week. Nonetheless, I felt so inadequate, awkward, and insecure that my voice dropped to a whisper for most of the week. This was met with the unconditional love of the others, which opened me to change on many levels.
As I opened up and began to confront my trauma and the shame I had carried for nearly a lifetime, something began to shift. The trauma and shame were not viewed as illnesses to be fixed but as a “growing edge.” This cast a new light on what had been deeply hidden in my darkness.
Sharing my deep woundedness was cathartic, but almost more importantly, a woman’s private acknowledgment afterward moved me to tears. She explained that my sharing was transformative for her, helping her realize that men are wounded and seek the same understanding and consideration she sought.
I will always remember what took place later that week. The holotropic breathwork exercise was different from any other I had experienced, and one of the most cathartic experiences of my life. There were many more healing moments, and by the end of the week, I knew my life trajectory had changed.
I understood what Cynthia and Will meant when they said, “An alchemy occurs when women and men share their deep wounds in a safe and sacred space. It is an alchemy that can be felt, often beyond words.” For this, I am forever grateful.
Providence continued to guide my journey. Overall, 2019 was a turning point. Twelve years after standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, I was back in New York City to help facilitate the first GERI workshop in partnership with the United Nations Committee on Spirituality, Values, and Global Concerns. The session was held downtown, just three blocks from my old office. The morning before flying home, I visited my old office building and returned to the Empire State Building’s observation deck. I looked down at my tiny office window 80 floors below, and this time, the words I quietly spoke to myself were different: “I know who I am. I know why I am here. I know where I am going.”
Additionally, that year, I had over thirty engagements which included several men’s retreats in the U.S., a young men’s retreat in Kenya, other work with the GERI organization, travel along the Nile River in Egypt, and a cathartic experience at the top of Mt. Sinai.
Then, in 2020 when COVID hit, I launched a three-year, 116-episode podcast series titled, In Search of the New Compassionate Male, where I interviewed men and women from around the world on the topic of raising compassion consciousness in men. It was sometime during that year that I found this old journal entry:
Of Providence

Providence is a prayer answered along a journey, an unfolding into a direction, the destination to which I cannot see. It is the sigh of arriving and knowing this is but a way station, an awakening along the path. A place toward which I did not particularly aim or perhaps a place I thought I’d never be.
Providence is a prayer answered that stemmed from my darkest moment, a journey and circumstance I did not consciously wish myself to go or be, but from which my trajectory changed and from which my unconscious self struck out in a new direction, not knowing what that direction was, or the destination to be.
Providence I cannot create but only seek, and seek some more, to find and do what is mine to do in the grand scheme of things and move forward in faith, in this belief not grounded in logic, and no longer sought after in despair.
I know this only by looking back at those things that brought me to a place and time where Providence has revealed itself with grace and a gift given to me: a glimpse of light, toward which I continue with a certain knowing but not knowing. And being good with just that, and in my own unique way. And with another prayer, and in peace, I rest knowing Providence is a prayer answered.

I was always skeptical when I heard extraordinary stories of the journey from strife and struggle to incredible transformations and seemingly impossible healings, but for the record, I continue on my healing journey, and I am no longer a skeptic.
In closing this chapter, in his 2005 Stanford University commencement address, Steve Jobs emphasized that you can only connect the dots looking backward, the idea that you can only truly understand the significance of the events and decisions in your life by looking back on them in hindsight. He argued that while you may not always see the immediate purpose or connection between various experiences as they happen, they will often make sense and reveal a pattern when you reflect on your life journey in retrospect.
Each of us has an extraordinary story of Providence and transformation. Some may know their story and carry the wisdom gained. Others may know it but have not looked at its significance or have diminished and buried the memory. And yet others are innocently blind to the road of transformation they have been on for many years.
We need only look back at our lives and connect the dots to find glimpses of Providence, and our journey of transformation.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My Why: I believe in inspiring others to find their own wisdom and live authentically. I want to contribute to future generations through healing and education.

My What: I offer thought coaching sessions. I’m writing a book that captures my ideas on wisdom and personal growth.

My How: I use an Adaptive Thought-Pattern Recognition (ATPR) approach to bring to the surface a person’s inner-patters of wisdom. I integrate ancient wisdom with modern thought to craft actionable mandalas, frames of reference, and roadmaps.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://clayboykin.com/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ClayBoykin-Thought-Coach

Image Credits

These are all my photos and creations: Clay Boykin