How We Recover

Everyone is recovering from something…

Soon we will need to recover from the disconnection of being with other humans. (That will be another post) …

When I chose to participate in a year long leadership program, leading other coaches, practicing my leadership skills, practicing who I was within a team, and developing myself in a deeper way I didn’t realize that I would actually be confronting my issues with MEN. We were required to participate fly down, stay in hotels, 1 weekend per month. Our COST. There was no paycheck. It was in service of personal growth, it was in service of other humans, it was in service of humanity. I was excited. I was able to see my boys more often, I was able to see sunshine for an extra month. Living in WA State there is little sun. But I was excited. I didn’t know what was really happening, I didn’t know the spiritual exploration or the ways in which I would be confronted.

Some of the people on my team I knew, we had spent the year before together in my coaching training, some of them I knew by name. Some of them I had heard about and there were stories attached to their name but I didn’t know them.

My first weekend I met my leader who was a man. He was stern and quiet, confident, and seemed to give little fucks about who I was, and I immediately didn’t like him. Viscerally I was moved, as I am typing this I can still feel the feeling. There were 4 other men on my team. They were nice, funny, and they were speaking a lot of woo woo.. it was annoying but I liked them. They seemed like the brothers I never had and that felt fun, and safe. But as months went by, I would not look my Man leader in the eyes, and shared openly with my other teammates how much I despised him. We are trained to get underneath the thing that is in our way. What is it about him you didn’t like? What did it remind you of? Nothing really came to me, and one day, he confronted me in front of the group, he said “why don’t you look at me”? I said I don’t like you! I don’t trust you! He began telling me he was sorry for what other men had done to me!! I was infuriated.

How do you know what MEN have done to me, Righteously, I said. I was in tears, he saw it, he saw all of it. He saw me. I would be damned if I would allow a man to see me fully. He did. Months went on we worked together respectfully, but mostly stayed away from each other. I was still gathering evidence of what kind of man was, I was allowing things to unfold. Who was he? What did he want me to be?

I spent weekend after weekend with this team, we played, we laughed a lot, then men in the group were kind, loving, they saw me, acknowledged me. We did service projects together, we held each other, we demanded greatness from each other. I have never laughed so much in my life, I allowed all the parts that were silly, funny, and dorky to come out. They began without knowing it teaching me what it was to be a man. What was inside of a man. They began sharing themselves in ways I had never seen men share. I miss these men so much.

These men did not demand sex, attention, they did not say cruel or unkind things, they shared their hearts, they cried, they allowed, and we allowed. They showed me who they were.. They showed me who they weren’t. You see when I walked into this program I saw men as a “different species”. I made them different from me. They weren’t. I related to ALL men as a certain way based off of my experiences, based off of old beliefs, based off of old patterns of mine and the ones that raised me. I would not allow it to be different because that meant I would be required to be different.

At the end of every weekend we have an opportunity to acknowledge each other for our humanity, for who we are being. My leader asked me to acknowledge him, I acknowledged who he is being in the world, I acknowledged his whole life. Thus began a relationship, Thus began trust, Thus began intimacy (relational) It started with an allowing. I asked him to acknowledge me. He saw more of my humanity. He saw all of my greatness. My heart exploded with love, love for myself.

I began looking for a new coach to hire, my leader suggested a man, I had not met this man, but I decided to call him and interview him, this leader, I was beginning to trust, I was beginning to see what he saw in me. So I hired this coach. This coach was bold, he was confronting, he said things sometimes that were uncomfortable, and it was not easy, but I heard him. I started creating a life, I started having different relationships, I related to men differently, my practice was busier, my relationships with women and men were deepening. Life was changing. It was meaningful and beautiful. I trusted. I began allowing my relationships to change, I started hearing the feedback and not taking it personally. My leader and I started sharing in conversations, we started trusting each other, we even began hugging when we saw each other. Our relationship went from fear, anger, projection to kind, love, shared experiencing.

You see healing happens inside of healthy relationships. Healing happens when we allow. Healing happens when we confront the “thing” that has been controlling our experience in life. When we purposely go straight at the thing that has been hurting us, and running our lives, when we look at it fiercely in the eyes and say “you don’t own me” . We change. We heal. We learn to love.

Inside of me disliking men, inside of me not trusting my leader was a scared, hurt, and sad little girl. When I allowed myself to feel it, when I allowed myself to trust, I healed my anger and hurt towards men. I began deeply loving men, I began seeing them for their beauty, their deep wisdom, their masculine, and all that God had created them to be.

I still stay in contact with that leader, I still love all of those 4 men that saw me for more than just my body, or what I could do for them.

So whatever you are avoiding, or deeply disliking or hurting, I ask - as a service to yourself, GO RIGHT ON IN. FACE IT. Healing happens inside of healthy relationships.

Much Love,

J