I’ve been crying on and off for the past 5 days. By the grace of God and some of the most important men and women in my life, I was shown exactly how deficient I’ve been in my man duties.
I’ve written some interesting things over the last couple years. Writing about getting fired, and learning about my inner tyrant and how I began the work of changing an emotional legacy into a way to help heal myself and the world. Writing about what I saw when it came to how men were attracting dating partners and hopefully illuminating some patterns there. Today I write about coasting on “last year’s recovery”, as my friend Hamza would say.
Recently, me and 20 of the most powerful, generous, loving, feminine-supporting men that I know spent 3 days in a house together. We were there for atonement to the feminine. Not the eye for an eye kind. Rather, we were there to be shown that our energetic credit card debits had FAR EXCEEDED our credits, and that if we could see that, REALLY see it, would we be willing to make a commitment to something greater. In “getting ours”, we had overspent funds that didn’t just belong to us. These are funds the feminine toils away in the world to deposit into a common account. We had become oblivious to our impact. All of us. We had been using and abusing our predilection to support the feminine as a way to make ourselves feel better about our resentment, our feelings of powerlessness, and our desire to feel superior.
For me, after 7 years of the practice of Orgasmic Meditation and all of the transformation of the work that goes with it, I had started to use what I learned AGAINST the very feminine that I had promised to serve. Similar to the way you can use what you know about someone you’re intimate with to hurt them when you’re fighting. I began to use the access I had been granted to overpower, avoid or otherwise undermine the feminine in my life. Mostly for two purposes: One, to avoid being called to be the man I’m capable of being, and Two, to maintain my ability to feel special and exempt from the former. I found ways to justify not doing my practices. Not feeding my soul. Not taking care of myself, physically, spiritually or emotionally. I allowed a sludge to build up. I was coasting on last year’s recovery. I was slowly dying inside, endlessly proving to myself and everyone around me that I am special, and that I did not have to do all the things that everyone else had to do to keep my soul scrubbed clean.
And then, when I slow down, I look around and I see what the women around me are creating, able to hold, able to handle. How they live in their feminine AND their masculine. They can birth an idea AND manifest it into existence, both through consistent attention on the idea AND consistent attention on the concrete actions to create it. Plus they are working on their spiritual and emotional growth, keeping their bodies healthy, earning a living, making sure there’s food in the fridge, keeping a todo list in their heads a mile long, which they frequently revisit and reorder and complete items on. I see them do it all. Knowing that if they don’t do it, it simply won’t get done.
And then there’s the men. Well, let’s be honest. There isn’t the men.
There are boys. Mostly boys. Boys who like to dress like men. Boys who inhabit 25 and 35 and 45 year old bodies. Boys who look like men dressed like boys. Boys who run hedge funds and have second mortgages and drive too-expensive cars paid with the second mortgage. Boys with gym memberships, sitting around talking about their dating life with the disdain of a unaffected middle schooler. Boys who still think their INTENTIONS are good enough. Boys who have become so adept with the language of change and the comfort of inaction that they think buying carbon offsets is the same thing as saving the world. Boys who have such distorted visions of their rights and those of others that they would rather kill or rape than have to sit in the discomfort of rejection. Boys with beards riding longboards down the street, one foot rhythmically kicking as though outrunning adulthood in slo-mo. Boys who have done such a kickass job convincing the world that they just can’t quite GET IT RIGHT when it comes to growing up that the women have all but given up too. Instead of searching for a man, the women now just get the good job, build the good credit, buy the nice house, lease the sensible car and then go out and pick themselves a nice man-sized boy to take home and care for and fuck. Boys who have set the bar of expectation so low that a woman is happy if you put the seat down, earn most of your share of the bills, don’t break anything she likes and remember to do something nice on most of the important days of the year.
“Not me”, you say.
Yes.
You.
Me.
Most of us. Sitting in the false notion that what we’re doing is good enough, and DON’T EVEN THINK about encroaching on our personal sports/craft/armchair/aficionado/artisan/foodie/time. Except most of what we make important, isn’t. And most of us are living at about 20-40% of our capacity. And then we have the gall to complain when we’re asked to do more, be more. It’s like a teacher is saying, good job, and I know you can do better, and we look down at the C+ and promptly flip that teacher the bird and say, in that feigned tone that only a 13 year old boy can pull off, “You don’t understand, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I CAN DO!!! I’m outta here.” and turns on one foot and leaves.
So fellas, it’s time to level up. It’s time to do all the big and little things you said you’d do. Without her having to ask every day if it got done. It’s time to handle what you said you were going to handle, or communicate proactively why you aren’t and update your due date accordingly. It’s time to look at your behavior, to REALLY look. Time to look at your calendar with a longer view than that morning. Time to pick up the food you drop and wipe the counter when you get it wet and the thousand other million things you let go of without doing. You know. And if you don’t know, get yourself a mentor, or a coach or a therapist or a sponsor, or preferably all four. Because the time where it’s okay to not know is past. It’s not cute anymore. It’s not endearing. And you don’t want to attract the woman that thinks it is. Seriously, knock it off.
That is all. PM me or use the comments to discuss.
Keith, my friend,
I want to start by saying a profound AMEN BROTHER P!
I have spent the better part of 50 years observing people and the relationships they have. I have taken, what I saw as their “best practices” and incorporated them into my life. I’ve had some successes and some incredible failures! But, what I’ve tried to do is LEARN from each experience. I have a pretty vast database of those lessons. LOL
At this time I want to take a second and appologize to you.
When I first met you I did not know one damn thing about you, your past experiences, childhood, challenges, successes or disappointments and yet I immediately disliked you. I thought to myself, “What the fuck is this guy doing in the position of power he holds within this community.?” “What the hell can he teach me or anyone else?” And, sadly, “What an asshole.” You PISSED me off before I even could remember your name. I avoided you at all costs and was stressed when ever I was faced with seeing/talking to you. I thought “Deliberate Violent Communication” was your excuse to be mean, rude and sadistic. You said something to me in men’s group once that caused me to reconsider my relationship with OM and made me question my relationship with woman. What you said about me was not true.
BUT, and this was a defining moment in my life! When my son was killed, I took a serious accounting of my relationships, ALL OF THEM!!!! And when I came to you, I realized that I wasn’t mad at you, I didn’t hate you, I didn’t ever even see you! I saw ME in you. I resented you for having the power which I always craved, the attention that I have never had, and I was really mad that you had Elenore, one of the prettiest, smartest and strongest women I’ve ever met.
So, the apology…
I am sincerely sorry and ask for your forgiveness for jugding you unfairly based on my assumptions and my own jealousies. I ask for your forgiveness for not seperating our common flaws/strengths and letting you have yours while taking ownership of mine when I saw myself in you. I am sorry that I allowed my judgements affect the way I dealt with you. I allowed myself to see you as superior to me and did not treat you as an equal. Deep down inside I believe that we are so much alike that we could sit for hours and share common experiences and beliefs and laugh and cry together. I should have expected a more equal type of relationship with you and let you choose whether or not you desired the same of me. I defaulted and lost an opportunity to be your friend.
So, here’s my comment regarding your insightful observation and expression regarding the failure of men to step up to the plate and “play like men and not boys”.
I have started a program and I’m writing a book entitled “Exploring Our Positive Passion” the sub-title is, “How To Have More Enhanced And Fullfilling Relationships”
OM and my son’s death were the last pieces of the puzzle I needed to complete my premise and flesh out my philosophy.
Positive Passion starts with my belief that men are “controlled” by two passions… Violence and Sex. We as a society/culture have chosen to celebrate our violent passion and try to suppress and denigrate our sexual passion. The results over the last 10,000 years have been disastrous. Then there is the realization that men have “lost their game/mojo and have “learned” to get to climax by devious means and shortcuts. I hold women partially responsible by “allowing” men to treat them “badly” and “as lesser beings” and still give give into what men think “they” want.
I teach women a philosophy that I’ve been developing for years and have finally felt a strong desire to share with the world.
Relationships would be far better off if Women “Elevated” themselves and took “healthy” ownership of their sexuality (not to be confused with society’s “need” to withhold their sexuality and use it in a power game of man vs. woman).
Then men learn how to become women’s equal partner in mutual desires.
God, when this happens the SEX AND SOLID RELATIONSHIPS, (which everyone really wants) are FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE!!!! And the non-sexual, that’s to say the relationships we have with others are so much more dynamic and fulfilling.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Thanks for your awesome words. And just so you know. I still struggle with letting my “No” walk into a space before I do but, I’m getting better ALL the time.
Be well.