HERCULES
REFLECTIONS YARO – MARCH 2018
MEN DO NOT KNOW WHERE THEY STAND AS MEN!
I spent over 10 years working with men by starting men
groups, leading men gatherings and training men leaders. Now, currently, I am
observing the many attempts in our culture to demean masculinity.
My first 3 days men group was in the outdoors of the Blue
Mountains in NSW in 1990. The theme was called “FROM SLAVE TO HERO – a meeting
of men”. At that time, we were 50 men coming to celebrate masculinity and share
the stories of our growing up in a rigid society and culture of ignorance about
the masculine qualities of strength, courage, aggression, self-reliance and
competitive team work.
Today we read in the newspapers about the good thing for
women seeking male partners is to have a “BETA” male vs an “ALPHA” male. As if
those definitions, based on animal behaviour of males, is a nice choice. “We
love Beta males was a statement of a couple of young women in the February
Currier Mail (Sunday edition). They wanted to meet men who displayed the
qualities of cooperation, sharing and being soft.
Dr. Jordan Petersen, a well-known psychiatrist and author
and speaker on YouTube states: “We,
(the Western Society)
are suffering of the crisis of masculinity. Boys are encouraged from birth, by
an apologetic culture, to believe that traditional (DNA based) qualities like
strength, forcefulness, competition and self-reliance and team work are
negative and destructive. He stated further:
“This notion is so stupid that it is very hard to know where
to begin. Forcing men to become more agreeable, nice, less competitive will
certainly be the death of masculinity”. He blames the left-wing academics for
the ‘mumbo-jumbo ’of political correctness that is impacting public life. Why
do we have “women studies” at the universities but no “men studies”. Most
Universities that offer Social Studies courses are not obsessed with
intelligent conversation but instead we are having an ideological conversation,
says Dr. Peterson.
As a retired academic, I still remember clearly the
conversation I had with a couple of the so called “radical feminists” of the 1990’s
who were obsessed with changing children books using “he/she or some other
neutral term. They also supported the extreme Feminist movement ‘manifesto’ to
eliminate all ‘violent’ and ‘aggressive’ commentaries in all children’s fairy
tale books. Fortunately, the idea was not successful.
So, today, more than ever, Men work is needed to guide the
discussion at all levels of men meetings about how young men can be encouraged
to free themselves of the burden of their cultural pressures and their
childhood oppressions, to accept their failings and celebrate their successes
and take control of their lives and stop being responsible for the burden
imposed by political correctness and a culture of down grading what is a man.
Do not suppress but express yourself honestly and authentically.
WHAT TO DO?
It is clear that men are at the centre of a huge crisis. The
older men are attacked for their “inappropriate behaviour” - certainly, some are truly
deserving this public exposure and punishment by law. However, the media is ‘painting’
all men with the same ‘evil brush’ and the young men are lost and seeking answers.
I am indebted to Dr.
Jordan Peterson, a Canadian academic that I quoted earlier to some suggestions
he has for the men of this generation:
“Treat yourself as if you were someone responsible for helping
and caring. Consider what would be truly good for you. This is not “what you want
“nor “what would make you happy” – for “Happy” is, by no means, not synonymous
to good. You need to look at the future and think: “what my life would look
like if I were caring for myself properly”?
You must determine where are you going, so that you can
bargain for yourself, so that you do not end up resentful, vengeful and cruel. You
must keep the promises you make to yourself, and reward yourself, so that you
can trust and motivate yourself.
Do not underestimate the power of vision and direction. There
are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be
unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways expending opportunities.
Start a discipline you care for. Define who you are, Refine
your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being.” J.B. Jordan “12 Rules for Life: an antidote to Chaos” Allen Lane, (Penguin
Books), 2018.
“The thousand and one statements that are
made every day – “Isn’t that just like a man”…”Women are more sensitive than
men” – have to be swept from the minds of everyone, like the tattered autumn
leaves from the garden path before it is possible to think clearly at all”
Margaret Meade, 1949
MY OWN REFLECTIONS:
Sam Keen wrote a book called FIRE IN THE BELLY. I was very
taken by his stories about fatherhood and wrote an article about my story of
being a father. Perhaps one meaningful answer to the ‘moral relativism’ that is
sweeping the West now is the idea of being a good father. He states:
"There is no way for men...to
recover wholeheartedness, to become passionate and truly free, without
rediscovering the central importance of the family." To rediscover the
family, we, as men, must rediscover ourselves as fathers and parents, and place
this role of the many roles we play at the centre of our lives. It is within
the context of the family that we live our lives, and it is here that we
receive our deepest wounds and most profound joys”. (Fire in the Belly)
As fathers, we give our children many gifts along with many
wounds. Paradoxically, the wounds and the gifts are two sides of the same coin.
When we give time and attention, we heal the wound of abandonment. When we
acknowledge a child's accomplishments, we give the gift of confidence. When we
support the free expression of feelings, we give the gift of self-esteem. In
essence, if we show with our dedication and time, our love, attention,
nurturing, it will demonstrate that we truly value our children and then they
will come to value themselves and us.
We must be willing to be available to our children as often
as we can, and to be with them as often as practicable. There is no substitute
for time with children. They know it and so do we. As fathers, we can no longer
afford to use such excuses as "college expenses," "personal
growth," "bigger houses," " more cars, gadgets, or other
toys" to justify our abandonment of our children. For at a deep and
profound level all men are the fathers of all children whether they are
biological or not. We must go beyond the personal to the communal, and work to
heal all of the damage our forefathers still perpetrate through us. Such damage
is evident in the many violent acts that men perpetrate even today.
When I conducted many men workshops, over the past ten
years, I discovered that I am not really teaching about how to be a man, but
learning how to be a man! When men asked me “what to do to become a better
father to my children”, I had only one answer: “become aware that YOU need to
change”. Change must come from within and not from the cultural, religious and
social introjects. One important option to develop yourself as a father, that
has been largely overlooked for centuries, is the importance of fatherhood as a spiritual practice.
Yaro Starak
Yaro Starak - Gestalt Psychotherapist.
Men leadership training
Author of books on Gestalt Psychotherapy & Group
facilitation
PLEASE CHECK OUT OUR PROGRAMS - www.gestaltarttherapy.com
