Men, Resilience, & Fake Compassion
Men, your compassion cannot be trusted if you aren’t leading firstly from a place of compassion towards yourself. Also, your compassion isn’t safe if it’s only being shared in order to get something in return for it. It becomes creepy, of other intent, and transactional. I invite you to check the motivations behind all of your behaviors and expressions.
External compassion for others without internal compassion for the truth of who you are, how you feel, and honoring how you function in the world(even if others may disagree with it) - isn’t compassion. It’s manipulation, which is birthed out of fear. Onto others and onto yourself.
Your capacity for external compassion is simply a reflection of the internal compassion you have cultivated for self.
And right now more than ever, we are saturated in a movement of flaccid, slippery, externally compassionate men. The ‘hands-on heart, loud exhale’ kinda guy - disguised as the “divine masculine”(whatever that means), who has lost complete contact with their own self-respect. He panders to and further enables victim consciousness in the world. Because the only way he can feel powerful is when he is surrounded by ‘victims’ to receive his care. It props him up and allows him to use compassion as an external blinding mechanism.
“Chris you’re using shaming language” - No I’m not, I’m sharing a clear observation.
If something someone posts on the internet can evoke feelings of shame in you(or feelings of anything really), there is a hell of a lot more work for you to do in reclaiming your internal sovereignty. So that you don’t live your life blaming everything outside of you for how you feel inside. For this is the most disempowered way of being which is currently programming the collective. It’s entitled and unsafe on all levels. It’s the “entitled spoiled brat” archetype, and it’s currently rampant.
You see, when a man has little respect for his inner law - When a man is fearful of being direct, honest, authentic, and real about exactly who he is, what he sees, and how he would like to be met, he will exist in deep lack - he will either, which he then takes out on the world.
This is sad and unfortunate. It says less about him, and more about how we as a collective have failed, misguided, crippled, and dropped him. A lack of healthy guidance can result in chaos.
For this type of man, who is essentially carrying out trauma/lack of love - compassion is simply a tool to attain. To be fed. To be valued. This is a dangerous individual. He will do everything in his power to appease you. To say exactly what he thinks you want to hear, in all the right ways, so he can have his hidden needs met.
I share this for 2 reasons.
So we can recognize this behavior in others in order to stay safe.
So that we can take better care of our young boys and men. So he can feel safe enough to express how he truly feels, and be given healthy tools to step fully into his own beautiful empowered self. So that his external compassion for others, is simply a celebration of the compassion he has cultivated for himself, internally.
We have failed men.
Most men suffer silently.
Suicide should never be an option.
Men, I invite you to express yourself; not from a place of trying to be received by others in a favorable way - but to honor your own internals first.
Your true conscious and aware expression is not totally welcome in our current narrative. Only small slivers of it are encouraged, and even in this case - only the parts of you which don’t make others feel uncomfortable is ‘allowed’.
This is ok. This is your challenge. To show up true, in spite of the unconscious insanity which pervades our societies. What a gift it is, for loving realness to speak and illuminate the things which remain unchecked, by an uncomfortable collective.
Men(and all humans), you must develop resilience as a core practice.
Men continue to lose their resilience daily, in exchange for a wallowing victim consciousness - which only creates emotionally reactive and untrustworthy men.
As a side note: Resilience, when it is dysfunctionally approached, can be to the sacrifice of emotional health. Resilience can be a shield to stuff your feelings down, internalize your trauma and take it out on the world. Resilience can be an avoidance mechanism. This is not what I am inviting you into.
I am speaking of an integrated and sensitive resilience. A resilience that is informed by your receptivity.
There are moments to fully be in and honor your feelings, and there are moments where you need to be able to place your feelings/fear aside for a moment and get on with it!
A man who is led by his emotions is the most dangerous man. A man who is led by his embodied self-awareness is a huge part of the medicine we require.
The sensitive resilience I speak of is one which allows all the necessary space to honor and feel your feelings. All of them. To allow your insecurities and traumas to be seen, expressed, and processed in a healthy way - so they no longer lead and dominate you.
The integrated resilience I speak of is a balanced knowing. He does not identify with his emotions and past trauma. He does not wallow in self-pity when something important requires his firm attention and protection, nor does he support and enable victim consciousness. He offers space for both aspects in himself and others.
1: To feel the reality of that which must be felt and healed through.
2: To stand back up and get on with life from a place of empowered sovereignty.
Life can be exceptionally challenging. A connected resilience allows him to fully meet and grow from this challenge, rather than collapsing into his disempowered stories and narratives.
When we look deeper, we see that resilience and compassion, in an integrated and balanced individual(man or woman) are one. Both inform the healthy expression of the other.
I invite all of you…
Much love
Chris
