Nine young men
Last evening I was enjoying dinner with friends who have gathered in Burnsville, NC for a reunion. These are friends who first met when working in Evansville, Indiana. I had arrived in Evansville fresh from some intensive training in working for/with those attempting to recover from active addiction and alcohol and other drugs. I was in Evansville because I accepted a job offer while waiting for my ex-wife to decide where she wanted to live with our son. Evansville was much closer to Pittsburgh than California or Alaska where we had been living when the decision to separate and divorce was sadly made. Little did I know that I would forge friendships and professional relationships which would last the rest of my life. In many ways I arrived in Evansville tired and somewhat broken. The woman who hired me and who would be my clinical supervisor and mentor, Beverly (ironically the same first name as my ex-wife) would lovingly challenge me to the person we were challenging our clients to claim. I was to learn to face parts of me which I had managed to avoid. She did not ask anything of me she had not been willing to face in her own life. I learned a lot about what it meant to be a professional counselor, but most importantly what it mean to show up in a relationship. We continue to challenge each other to grow.
It was also in Evansville that I first become a member of a men’s consciousness raising group. Essentially this was a group of men who had invited women into their lives that expected us adult boys to help each other learn what it meant to have an open, honest relationship with ourselves, with other men and with the women in our personal and professional lives. These women made it very clear that it was not their job to finish raising us emotionally. We learned that if we were to have healthy relationships with women we first had to allow ourselves to be strong, vulnerable, honest, loving men and not hide behind some caricatures of our idea of John Wayne whose idea of toughness was to deny most emotions other than anger.
I would like to think that the young men of today are much healthier than many of us were as young men although sometimes it seems as if the same John Wayne, judgmental, emotionally distant concept of manhood is in charge of the world. For many adult males it seems women are still objects to be used sexually, to raise children and to take care of we males. The “me too” movement has certainly highlighted how often this attitude prevails in the boardrooms and all levels of the workplace. We continue to be a culture which seems to think that there are good and bad people, that punishment is a good teaching tool, and that women in the workplace are to be tolerated even if we reluctantly admit that two incomes are necessary to pay the bills.
Yet, I know from my work and personal life, there are many men who do not need a combat situation or a professional sports platform to show affection to each other and to be nurturing partners with both the men and women in their lives.
Last night at the restaurant there were 9 young men sitting together having dinner. From where I was sitting there were enjoying each other’s company without alcohol and without the game of one upmanship which so often characterize our relationships as adult males. They genuinely seems to like and enjoy each other. When we got ready to leave they held the door for one of the women in our group who was in a wheelchair and spoke to all of us. They seemed very comfortable in their own skins with no need to prove anything. I would love to be able to sit down and talk to each of these young men but it is unlikely that will happen. They are for me, however, the symbol of the new world we can and are creating despite seeming significant evidence to the contrary. Regardless of gender, sexual orientation, age, income, job or religion I continue to believe that we can create a world in which we honor the sacredness of all as tough, loving, affectionate, creative, members of a common tribe.
Written September 28, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Last evening I was enjoying dinner with friends who have gathered in Burnsville, NC for a reunion. These are friends who first met when working in Evansville, Indiana. I had arrived in Evansville fresh from some intensive training in working for/with those attempting to recover from active addiction and alcohol and other drugs. I was in Evansville because I accepted a job offer while waiting for my ex-wife to decide where she wanted to live with our son. Evansville was much closer to Pittsburgh than California or Alaska where we had been living when the decision to separate and divorce was sadly made. Little did I know that I would forge friendships and professional relationships which would last the rest of my life. In many ways I arrived in Evansville tired and somewhat broken. The woman who hired me and who would be my clinical supervisor and mentor, Beverly (ironically the same first name as my ex-wife) would lovingly challenge me to the person we were challenging our clients to claim. I was to learn to face parts of me which I had managed to avoid. She did not ask anything of me she had not been willing to face in her own life. I learned a lot about what it meant to be a professional counselor, but most importantly what it mean to show up in a relationship. We continue to challenge each other to grow.
It was also in Evansville that I first become a member of a men’s consciousness raising group. Essentially this was a group of men who had invited women into their lives that expected us adult boys to help each other learn what it meant to have an open, honest relationship with ourselves, with other men and with the women in our personal and professional lives. These women made it very clear that it was not their job to finish raising us emotionally. We learned that if we were to have healthy relationships with women we first had to allow ourselves to be strong, vulnerable, honest, loving men and not hide behind some caricatures of our idea of John Wayne whose idea of toughness was to deny most emotions other than anger.
I would like to think that the young men of today are much healthier than many of us were as young men although sometimes it seems as if the same John Wayne, judgmental, emotionally distant concept of manhood is in charge of the world. For many adult males it seems women are still objects to be used sexually, to raise children and to take care of we males. The “me too” movement has certainly highlighted how often this attitude prevails in the boardrooms and all levels of the workplace. We continue to be a culture which seems to think that there are good and bad people, that punishment is a good teaching tool, and that women in the workplace are to be tolerated even if we reluctantly admit that two incomes are necessary to pay the bills.
Yet, I know from my work and personal life, there are many men who do not need a combat situation or a professional sports platform to show affection to each other and to be nurturing partners with both the men and women in their lives.
Last night at the restaurant there were 9 young men sitting together having dinner. From where I was sitting there were enjoying each other’s company without alcohol and without the game of one upmanship which so often characterize our relationships as adult males. They genuinely seems to like and enjoy each other. When we got ready to leave they held the door for one of the women in our group who was in a wheelchair and spoke to all of us. They seemed very comfortable in their own skins with no need to prove anything. I would love to be able to sit down and talk to each of these young men but it is unlikely that will happen. They are for me, however, the symbol of the new world we can and are creating despite seeming significant evidence to the contrary. Regardless of gender, sexual orientation, age, income, job or religion I continue to believe that we can create a world in which we honor the sacredness of all as tough, loving, affectionate, creative, members of a common tribe.
Written September 28, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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