Our strength as men
This is a holiday which many consider a commercial holiday, but which others cherish as a reminder to take time to breathe and give thanks both for the courage to love others and yourself as well as the courage to allow others to love you. Love may not arrive with the person of our dreams delivering hearts and flowers. Love may be the man or woman at the gym who takes times to say hello. It may be the customer who genuinely ask how you are. It may be that teacher or student who remembers that the relationship is more important than any of the academic tools. The academic tools are, after all, only useful if we remember that they are just tools to use to take care of each other and Mother Earth.
Too often we men think our strength is our ability to do tasks and to physically protect others. We may talk about the women in our lives needing our protection, but we secretly knew that we need the women to insist that we honor the emotional and spiritual parts of ourselves and each other. We men always knew that women are taught to honor the strength of emotional and spiritual health. It is not surprising that women when widowed and otherwise single do much better health wise than most of we males when we are single.
For the most part, we men manage to persevere with regular nudges from the women in our lives who keep calling us back to our emotional and spiritual center. Gay men either have a woman who do the same for them or learn to embrace those parts of themselves.
Some men will resort to some numbing agent (as well some women) – alcohol, drugs, work, sex, toys, sports, etc. Some of these agents work longer than others, but eventually they all fail. Our bodies will just wear out from the unnatural repression of emotions and the struggle to prove our worth – or we will have what is euphemistically called a mental/emotional breakdown. Sometimes, we reach what the 12-step program calls our bottom and find ourselves in a treatment program where we learn that our true strength emotionally and spiritually is in the courage to embrace our emotions and our spiritual core – to be vulnerable – to be fully present. This is why women are often the strong ones and the ones to keep calling the family back to the center – back to the core of who we are as emotional, social, and spiritual beings who are meant to live in harmony with the rest of creation. Ironically when we live from the center of our core we are also stronger physically, more creative, more able to diagnose and solve problems. We are stronger in every respect.
Perhaps valentine’s day is the perfect day to honor not only our spouses/partners and our children, but to honor our ability to love ourselves and each other as men. We do not need to compete to be strongest. We can all be strong, talented and capable. It is the sharing of our combination of gifts which allow us to live in harmony with each other – to love each other.
Written February 14, 2018
This is a holiday which many consider a commercial holiday, but which others cherish as a reminder to take time to breathe and give thanks both for the courage to love others and yourself as well as the courage to allow others to love you. Love may not arrive with the person of our dreams delivering hearts and flowers. Love may be the man or woman at the gym who takes times to say hello. It may be the customer who genuinely ask how you are. It may be that teacher or student who remembers that the relationship is more important than any of the academic tools. The academic tools are, after all, only useful if we remember that they are just tools to use to take care of each other and Mother Earth.
Too often we men think our strength is our ability to do tasks and to physically protect others. We may talk about the women in our lives needing our protection, but we secretly knew that we need the women to insist that we honor the emotional and spiritual parts of ourselves and each other. We men always knew that women are taught to honor the strength of emotional and spiritual health. It is not surprising that women when widowed and otherwise single do much better health wise than most of we males when we are single.
For the most part, we men manage to persevere with regular nudges from the women in our lives who keep calling us back to our emotional and spiritual center. Gay men either have a woman who do the same for them or learn to embrace those parts of themselves.
Some men will resort to some numbing agent (as well some women) – alcohol, drugs, work, sex, toys, sports, etc. Some of these agents work longer than others, but eventually they all fail. Our bodies will just wear out from the unnatural repression of emotions and the struggle to prove our worth – or we will have what is euphemistically called a mental/emotional breakdown. Sometimes, we reach what the 12-step program calls our bottom and find ourselves in a treatment program where we learn that our true strength emotionally and spiritually is in the courage to embrace our emotions and our spiritual core – to be vulnerable – to be fully present. This is why women are often the strong ones and the ones to keep calling the family back to the center – back to the core of who we are as emotional, social, and spiritual beings who are meant to live in harmony with the rest of creation. Ironically when we live from the center of our core we are also stronger physically, more creative, more able to diagnose and solve problems. We are stronger in every respect.
Perhaps valentine’s day is the perfect day to honor not only our spouses/partners and our children, but to honor our ability to love ourselves and each other as men. We do not need to compete to be strongest. We can all be strong, talented and capable. It is the sharing of our combination of gifts which allow us to live in harmony with each other – to love each other.
Written February 14, 2018
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