When the phone rings and it’s Soul on the other end.
This article was written by one of the men I work with in men’s-work movement namely the ManKind Project. MKP for short. Justin writes about our experience of what happens when Soul calls. In our technology-driven Ego world, we (our Ego ) usually have no idea who or what is calling us.
When a Man is Called
Oct 21
It is not a telephone call. It is not your wife nagging you. It is a voice from deep within you.
You might ignore the call the first time. You will pretend that you never heard it. The ring was too faint. But you know. It was there.
When the call comes again, you might pause for a moment. The call will be louder. If anyone else could hear it, they would ask you why you didn’t answer. But you know that the call is only for you, and no one else can hear it. That is why you might ignore it the second time around.
Time will pass. It might be a week. It might be a decade. Who knows? It is different for every man.
Some men answer on the first call. I was one of those men. I was on the brink of divorce, and my life was a mess.
Something was wrong. I could not put my finger on it. I am sure you know that feeling. I had a deep sadness that rose from nowhere when I was triggered.
Looking back, I can see how deeply I had been wounded. At the time, I could not make any sense of it. I needed someone to help shine a light into the darkness to discover the shadow driving my destructive behaviour.
I wasn’t bullied as a kid. My dad was my superhero. And my mom would drop everything to do anything for me. How could I have possibly been wounded? But the wounds were there, and I had to discover them.
For some men, the source of their wounds is obvious. Other men may have to look a little deeper to find the source. Here are a few examples:
Source #1 A father that was absent while growing up.
Source #2 A mother that never loved you.
Source #3 Bullied at school.
Source #4 The death of a loved one.
Source #5 Not being “seen or heard” amongst your siblings.
Source #6 Being all alone as a child.
The impact of these wounds as a kid can come back to haunt men later in life. Some men act in ways that project their wounds onto their children and loved ones.
The third call might be when you realise that you are harming those around you, and you need to take action to learn about how your wounds are playing out in your life.
Answering the call means you are ready to take a closer look at your life and start the journey to healing.
Justin Spencer-Young
fastforwardbusiness.substack.com
Thank you Justin for that insight it was under 500 words, something I should learn to do.
“Answering the call means you are ready to take a closer look at your life and start the journey to healing.”
For men, MKP starts with accountability. “My word is my Bond.” How easily we make promises and agreements we fully intend in that singular moment. Then life takes over, in the avalanche of thing that requires our attention our promises, and agreement slip away, forgotten, overridden by the demands of now. It is a shock to see how often agreements go unfulfilled.
For most of us, self-accountability is difficult, the mind (Ego), always rationalises in its own favor. The Ego has patterns of behaviour that are rooted in the past and the individual needs help digging down to their origins.
I’m reminded here of the ghost-Busters here “Who are you going to call? The Ghost-Busters.” One of the great things about MKP is the set-up of small groups of men called I-groups who go through the steps of clearing (emotional charges) accountability (agreements) every time they meet.
Out of those meetings, patens of behaviour can emerge and so Ghostbusting can occur.
Sometimes we call these ghosts Shadows and then we really need the Ghostbusting help of a group to help the individual do that work.
I have written extensively about Shadow and how Shadow is the Soul’s defence against the colonising Ego of the Status-quo.
Acceptability and the drive to be acceptable at all costs drives a wedge between Soul and Ego. As soon as we are born we need nurturing and love to survive, the young Ego is especially driven to conform and be agreeable, to be acceptable. The rest of our lives follow this pattern of cutting ourselves off from what we know to be true to be acceptable. Even when we throw someone else under the bus to remain acceptable. Inside we know what we did.
Answering the call is the first step. David White has written a poem about this point in our lives.
Start Close In by David Whyte
Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third,
start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take.
Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet,
your own way of starting the conversation.
Start with your own question, give up on other people’s questions,
don’t let them smother something simple.
To find another’s voice, follow your own voice,
wait until that voice becomes a private ear listening to another.
Start right now take a small step you can call your own
don’t follow someone else’s heroics, be humble and focused,
start close in, don’t mistake that other for your own.
Knowing who to call for help is the second step. Finding a group, to begin with, is a kick-start.