MARCH - 2019 BLOG

THE DECLINE OF REASON

Dear reader,

This is the Chinese year of the pig. Many may say that is a fortunate year because the pig is meant to be calm, artistic, refined, intuitive, intelligent and well-mannered. Yet, there is another “pig” and that is the Boar. This one is wild, invasive, aggressive and a predator.

One way we may reflect on the year 2019 is to pay attention to the two aspects of this astrological pig.  One aspect is its fragility, passivity and close to the human and the other is the aggressive fighter and predator. This pig metaphor is a good description of today’s social malaise. We experience it in particular all over the modern world called the “Western democracies”.

This western culture may be considered to have a history of aggression and conquering the world for over 400 or so years (read about the British and Spanish empires) and now it is suffering of a huge surge of an overriding focus on sensitivity, being nice and a mountain of soft feelings. We can call this a polar opposite of historical events.

Perhaps it is time we examine and reflect on the “Boar” character of our culture, if not, we will suffer and become weaker and weaker as a democratic and free society. The “boar” polar opposite of being aggressive is not bad and may give us some strength to maintain a balance in face of the Political Correctness disguising as kindly oppressors.

One example of this trend is a report in the news about the well-known actor Liam Neeson. He gave an interview to promote the new movie COLD PURSUIT ( I recommend it). The movie is an amazing story of revenge and killing of bad guys by the father whose son dies of drug overdose and the father discovers that the drug was injected by a gang leader. His revenge is Boar-like.

Liam while at an TV interview, describes his own feelings about revenge that he experienced many years ago after his friend was raped by a black man. In all honesty Liam said that he went out at night hoping to find this “black bastard” so he could kill him in revenge. Although Neeson did not kill anyone and described his thinking as awful, he was learning that revenge is our human urge and is universal.

Well, the social media exploded against him. He was called a “racist” and the movie premier was cancelled. He explained and apologised in later interviews, but the fury continued unabated.

Reflecting on this story, we can become aware of the two “pigs” qualities used by the “political correct tribe”. The focus is especially on men. They are considered as pigs and not human beings. Well known men like actor Liam Neeson, psychologist Jordan Peterson, or comedian Kevin Heart (who happens to be black) and who quit as host of the Oscars and so on and on. YES! They are all men!

This blog is not meant to be a political, cultural or social argument of who is right or wrong, but a reflection on the PIG VS BOAR metaphor. For a more detailed reflection (for those interested), I am including here a report from the Quillette magazine entitled: Scholars Respond to the APA’s Guidance for Treating Men and Boys. You are free to comment here.

 Scholars Respond to the APA’s Guidance for Treating Men and Boys

Introduction — John P. Wright, Ph.D.

John Paul Wright is a professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati. He has published widely on the causes and correlates of human violence. His current work examines how ideology affects scholarship.

Thirteen years in the making, the American Psychological Association (APA) released the newly drafted “Guidelines for Psychological Practice for Boys and Men.” Backed by 40 years of science, the APA claims, the guidelines boldly pronounce that “traditional masculinity” is the cause and consequence of men’s mental health concerns. Masculine stoicism, the APA tells us, prevents men from seeking treatment when in need, while beliefs rooted in “masculine ideology” perpetuate men’s worst behaviours—including sexual harassment and rape. Masculine ideology, itself a by-product of the “patriarchy,” benefits men and simultaneously victimizes them, the guidelines explain. Thus, the APA committee advises therapists that men need to become allies to feminism. “Change men,” an author of the report stated, “and we can change the world.”

But if the reaction to the APA’s guidelines is any indication, this change won’t happen anytime soon. Criticism was immediate and fierce. Few outside of a handful of departments within the academy had ever heard of “masculine ideology,” and fewer still understood how defining traditional masculinity by men’s most boorish—even criminal—behaviour would serve the interests of men or entice them to seek professional help. Instead of passing quietly into the night, as most academic pronouncements do, the APA’s guidelines did what few such documents have ever done: They engendered a social media maelstrom, and likely not only lost professional credibility, but potentially created new barriers for men who need help.

It is tempting to excuse the APA’s guidelines as the by-product of a select group of scholars whose intentions were good but whose delivery was tone-deaf. In today’s hyper-politicized environment, good intentions are often converted into the currency of ill-will. Yet the APA was forewarned by at least one psychologist that the guidelines would not be well received; that the document’s overtly partisan language and politically progressive narratives would not encourage men to receive services, but to keep them away.

When it became clear that those warnings should have been heeded, the APA found itself in an untenable position. Unfortunately, instead of calming the storm by acknowledging the validity of at least some criticism, the APA doubled-down, releasing a public statement asserting that the APA supports men, and the guidelines had been misunderstood and mischaracterized. In the same statement, they explained, “When a man believes that he must be successful no matter who is harmed or his masculinity is expressed by being sexually abusive, disrespectful, and harmful to others, that man is conforming to the negative aspects associated with traditional masculinity.” In other words, according to the APA, these selfish, violent, and abusive behaviours are not an issue of a person’s character, nor are they related to a person’s individual pathology. They are about “masculinity”—especially “traditional masculinity.” For added authority, the statement was signed by three presidents of the APA.

What should we make of not only the guidelines, but the APA’s inept handling of the criticism?  To better understand these dynamics, three of us, Quillette columnist and psychology professor Clay Routledge, along with criminology professor John Paul Wright, and Psychology Today contributor Pamela Paresky, sought commentary from a diverse range of voices, including therapists who focus on men’s issues, researchers whose work examines the complexity of men’s lives, and writers with diverse viewpoints. While we make no claim that the comments below are representative of the full range of views, we gave authors full editorial control over the content of their commentary and encouraged them to feel free to address both the positives and the negatives within the guidelines. Since we solicited many responses, we asked each contributor to limit her or his response to around 300 words.

We are heartened by the criticism that emerged from the APA’s guidelines. Why? Because we don’t believe that most of the backlash resulted from crass political motives. Instead, much of it was rooted in a deep concern about men and boys. The culture wars have not been kind to men, and data from an assortment of surveys tell us that boys and men are not thriving. Documents can be edited, but goodwill is a commodity no one should erase. If the APA is truly concerned about the mental and emotional health of men, it will recognize the goodwill and constructive intent underpinning much of the criticism and consider the feedback as a starting point for a broader and more productive discussion of how to most effectively provide successful treatment for boys and men.

Flipping the APA on its Head — W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D.

W. Keith Campbell is a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia. He has authored and co-authored several books including The Narcissism Epidemic.  

I ran a little thought experiment with the APA traditional masculinity model: What kind of society do you get when masculine values are centred on emotional self-focus rather than stoicism; cooperativeness rather than competitiveness; submissiveness rather than dominance; and kindness rather than aggression? Would men be happier and healthier in such a society? Well, given how bad traditional masculinity is, reversed masculinity should be flourishing in other cultures. Oddly, the APA doesn’t offer any examples. The closest example I found was this hot take on Asian men (birthplace of Genghis Khan—literally the most badass male ancestor of all time). The APA notes that “at least among white college students, Asian-American men are viewed as less manly than white or black American men.” We aren’t told if that is good or bad. If you look at the massively underpowered and poorly sampled study, it turns out that 250 psych undergrads think masculinity lines up with physical strength and athleticism, and place men’s masculinity in the order of black men being most masculine, Asian men the least, and white men in the middle. The closest you find to the flipped masculinity script are peace-focused masculine cultures that exist as protected subcultures in larger liberal cultures (e.g., India currently protects Tibetan spiritual culture—explicitly nonviolent groups like the Jains, etc.). Without this protection, peaceful groups get killed off. When there isn’t war, cultural aggression is celebrated in ceremony and sport, like this proud masculine display at the India-Pakistan border. No traditionally masculine men at the border means no men of peace in the nation.

My Warning to the APA About the Draft Guidelines — Chris Ferguson, Ph.D.

Chris J. Ferguson is a professor of psychology at Stetson University. He has published one book on video game science, Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games is Wrong as well as a murder mystery, Suicide Kings.

In August, 2018 before the APA’s Council of Representatives (of which I am a member) voted on the controversial practice guidelines for boys and men, I shared with them a review I conducted of the proposed guidelines. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in interesting the Council in discussing the scientific merits and shortcomings of the guidelines. The version finally announced publicly has some superficial changes, but fundamental problems remain. Specifically, the guidelines lack a broad scientific base, particularly an understanding of biological contributors to gender identity, tend to use terms such as “traditional masculinity” in ways that lack conceptual integrity and are often stereotyped, and tend to read too often as a socio-political ideology than a balanced and nuanced scientific review.

I don’t doubt the need for practice guidelines for men. Men do struggle with many issues, such as lower school success, higher suicide and violence. A data-based, objective and compassionate document could have been useful. However, the APA’s practice guidelines’ obsession with “traditional masculinity” ultimately failed to help practitioners find compassion and understanding of those with values different from their own and have probably offended and turned away many men who might most have benefited from psychotherapy.

Unfortunately, from my view the APA has a poor track record of biased and scientifically misleading policy statements including practice guidelines. Usually such statements exaggerate the consistency, quality, and policy applications of a field of study. The APA’s statement on violent video games, my own field, does not resemble the actual science, which has not provided good evidence for links with aggression. Other statements on issues ranging from abortion to a divisional review of spanking have, likewise, stoked scientific controversy. In many cases, statements are developed by scholars reviewing their own work and declaring it beyond debate, a clear conflict of interest. At present, the APA’s policy statements often read like marketing tools rather than objective reviews. Fixing this will require significant change in how APA policy statements and practice guidelines are developed and reviewed. Until then, they should be regarded with scepticism.  

Who Will Mount Up and Ride to the Sound of the Guns? — B. Christopher Frueh, Ph.D.

B. Christopher Frueh is a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, Hilo. Under the pen name “Christopher Bartley,” he is author of They Die Alone and other hardboiled novels.

The APA’s latest manifesto is an embarrassment to the discipline of psychology. It is an abdication of scientific responsibility, denying biological and evolutionary realities in favour of a progressive fantasy pushed by “social justice” and “feminist” ideologies. It is harmful to all members of our society and dangerous to our national security. Masculine qualities like rugged individualism, courage, stoicism, ambition, and a willingness to protect and sacrifice for others helped secure the freedom and prosperity that so many now take for granted. 

At a time when many academics are virtue-signaling by whining about “toxic masculinity,” taking offense at every imagined “microaggression,” and listing their “pronouns” in their email signature blocks, we should ask where does this line of absurdity end? Perhaps the next APA manifesto will seek to abolish religion, athletics, heterosexual marriage, eating meat, etc. Whatever happened to common sense? And where does this take us? Will we next ban books, movies, and podcasts by people named Ernest Hemingway, Clint Eastwood, or Jocko Willink?

How will this affect our armed forces, police and fire departments, and all the other dangerous but important jobs that must be done? Who will volunteer to mount up and ride to the sound of the guns to protect our nation and its founding principles when masculinity has been smothered in our society?

“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

—C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943)

The APA Guidelines for Working with Male Clients: Ambitious but Severely Flawed — Roy Wayne Meredith III

Roy Wayne Meredith III is a graduate student of social work at Columbia University.

Practitioners should treat the new APA guidelines with caution. For starters, the document itself is poorly written. It frequently employs passive sentence constructions and modal verbs, such as “may,” “can,” or “it has been suggested that.” This strongly implies that the authors lack confidence in the robustness of the research they cite.

In some cases, this hesitation is clearly warranted. Psychologists such as Scott O. Lilienfeld have demonstrated that microaggression theory, for example, lacks construct validity. Seeing that its proponents classify offenses that range from calling on students too often to outright racist slurs as microaggressions, it is hard to imagine how Lilienfeld could be wrong. However, the authors fail to mention this and other glaring problems.

Some statements are so obvious that I wonder why the authors even bothered to include them, such as “inconsistent and contradictory messages can make the identity formation process complicated for some populations of boys and men.” No kidding.

Nevertheless, the APA deserves praise for emphasizing the importance of fatherhood in childhood development, the gendered bias that therapists often have against male clients, and the pitfalls boys and men face in educational settings. Furthermore, the authors correctly assert that racial disparities in criminal sentencing, health outcomes, and other measures of welfare are significant enough to compel therapists towards social activism. That these are still pressing issues, however, is even more reason to ground our solutions in research that utilizes rigorous methodology.

The APA Guidelines Are Unethical — Pamela Paresky, Ph.D.

Pamela Paresky writes for Psychology Today and is a senior scholar in human development and psychology at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Dr. Paresky’s opinions are her own and should not be considered official positions of FIRE or any other organization with which she is affiliated.

The APA’s code of professional ethics requires that psychologists respect clients’ “dignity and worth” and their “rights to self-determination.” It urges them to “take precautions” about “potential biases,” to refrain from taking on a clinical role when “other interests” could impair their objectivity and reminds psychologists that they must “establish relationships of trust” with clients. The new guidelines violate these ethical standards. The guidelines’ basic premises are rooted in a set of ideological biases that are likely to impair psychologists’ objectivity, ability to respect the dignity and worth of certain clients and make it difficult if not impossible to establish a therapeutic relationship based on trust.

The guidelines include, “Psychologists understand the impact of power, privilege, and sexism on the development of boys and men and on their relationships with others,” and “When working with boys and men, psychologists can address issues of privilege and power related to sexism.” Regardless of what a given male client brings to therapy, it appears that “issues of privilege and power related to sexism” can be addressed.

Some of the guidelines are positive. But psychologist Ryon McDermott, who was among those who drafted the APA guidelines, admitted in the APA’s own publication that they contain an overarching ulterior motive: “If we can change men,” he explained, “we can change the world.”

Changing men starts with the premise that there is something wrong with men. If these guidelines are followed, how will men who see themselves as “traditionally masculine” trust that their sessions will be used for their own goals of psychotherapy rather than to address their masculinity?

Any guidelines issued by the APA should be for more effectively treating the problems that clients bring to psychotherapy. Ulterior motives are countertherapeutic and undermine trust. These guidelines subvert the purpose of clinical psychology and will jeopardize the public’s trust in the profession.

The Passive War of Attrition on Masculinity — Natalie Ritchie, M.A.

Natalie Ritchie writes for Child Magazine and is the author of Roar Like a Woman: How Feminists Think Women Suck and Men Rock (2018).

For years, feminism has fought a passive war of attrition on masculinity, starving it of honour. With its 2018 guidelines, the inherently feminist APA has gone on the offensive. This assault is not as simple as misandrist pay-back by feminism for a history’s-load of oppression. It has its roots in the feminist need to be man-identical. When your idea of gender equality is a 50/50 breakdown of men and women in any given situation—that is, when you think that 100 percent of women should do what 100 percent of men do—masculinity poses a threat. Making men less like men (and more like women) becomes a backdoor route to making women more like men. Such gender denial is the new Aryanism; unscientific, unprofessional, immoral. Insisting that each gender is “wrong” and must be more like the other to be “right” cripples both and shrivels the human footprint to only what the genders have in common.

“Traditional masculinity” is a sorry litany of criminality, suicide, violence, and “sexism,” the APA claims. Yet it seems that the APA’s real target is the core male trait of taking responsibility. It was responsibility that channelled the male spirit of efficiency into the industrial and digital revolutions’ sensational wealth; that deployed the male instinct for combat to highlight both sides’ viewpoints to the max in the superb Western legal system; that kick-started democracy when the nobles heavied bad King John into signing the Magna Carta; that met Messerschmitts with Mustangs and Spitfires; that turned up to work (or risked livelihood and life to strike for the 40-hour week); that made good fathers.

Many of the male problems the APA laments vanish with taking responsibility. Yet “responsibility” only appears twice in the guidelines’ 36 pages, “responsibilities” once.

A Case Study of Traditional Masculinity — Clay Routledge, Ph.D.

Clay Routledge is a professor of psychology at North Dakota State University. He authored the 2018 book Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World.

Instead of focusing on the cherry-picked research, over-reliance on blank slate thinking, or the general progressive ideological bias observable throughout the guidelines, I would like to share a personal, but I hope helpful, anecdote.

The rule in our house when I was a kid was we had to participate in at least one sport or related physical activity. I wasn’t very interested in typical sports, so I decided to give martial arts a shot. I was just a scrawny kid with glasses who was regularly picked on by bigger boys so learning how to fight seemed like a good idea. I learned so much more.

For the first few years of training, I was still just a skinny kid, but I was developing a variety of psychological, social, and physical skills that would prove very helpful as I got older. Our martial arts gym was old-school, run with military-like structure. Workouts and sparring were intense. The training disciplined my mind and body, gave me the opportunity to work my way through a hierarchical system that rewarded hard work and dedication, and helped me become a strong and focused young man.

The training involved a healthy dose of traditional masculinity—aggression, stoicism, confidence, and competitiveness. Critically, using a traditional martial arts philosophy and traditional military-style teaching methods, this training took advantage of traditional masculinity to build positive characteristics such as dignity, restraint, personal responsibility, and a sense of duty to others.

Mental illness is a real problem that haunts even some of the strongest of men. And all of us, men and women alike, grapple with psychological vulnerabilities and life stressors. But I would argue that traditional masculinity is not the problem. Instead, it can be part of the solution to the problems that plague many modern boys and men. With proper guidance from positive male role models and institutions that give males a code to live by and connect them to a purpose-providing moral system, traditional masculinity plays a vital role in creating healthy men as well as building and preserving safe and prosperous societies.

Psychotherapy Is Meant to Be Personalized Medicine — Sally Satel, M.D.

Sally Satel is a practicing psychiatrist, a lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine, and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

The APA guidelines risk subverting the therapeutic enterprise altogether because they emphasize group identity over the individuality of the patient. 

Psychotherapy is the ultimate personalized medicine. The meanings patients assign to events are a thoroughly unique product of their histories, anxieties, desires, frustrations, losses, and traumatic experiences.

“Gender-sensitive” psychological practice, as the APA calls it, is questionable because it encourages clinicians to assume, before a patient even walks in the door, that gender is a cause or a major determinant of the patient’s troubles.

To be fair, the APA does emphasize that it does not intend to mandate changes in practice. But therapy is a delicate business not readily amenable to guidelines tailored to gender—or to any group affiliation, for that matter. So when the APA encourages practitioners to engage in vaguely defined activities— “address issues of privilege and power related to sexism” or “help boys and men, and those who have contact with them become aware of how masculinity is defined in the context of their life circumstances”—it seems more focused on a political agenda than on the patient.

Leading with an ideological agenda risks alienating the patient and thereby compromises a critically important phenomenon called the therapeutic alliance. In his classic book Persuasion and Healing (1961), psychiatrist Jerome D. Frank describes the alliance as “the therapist’s acceptance of the sufferer, if not for what he or she is, then for what he or she can become.”

Through that therapeutic relationship, the patient gains insight, a degree of mastery over himself and alternative ways of thinking about his problems. Frank believed, as do many therapists today, that the power of a clinician’s dedication to the patient is not only essential but may also be the most active ingredient in the therapy itself.

People seeking help are in a state of suggestibility. Therapists need to be careful about imposing their “gender-sensitive” worldview on them.

The New APA Guidelines Are Predatory — Shawn T. Smith, Psy.D.

Shawn T. Smith is a licensed, clinical psychologist. He is the author of several books, including The Practical Guide to Men: How to Spot the Hidden Traits of Good Men and Great Relationships.

The APA, not known for its high testosterone level, seems to view masculinity with the same distaste a Disney princess has for manual labour. They speak of masculine traits with deep suspicion, even though their safe world rests on the backs of men who possess those traits.

I won’t spend these few paragraphs repeating the efforts of those defending masculinity. Instead, I hope to persuade other clinicians to take a stand against the APA’s ideologically-driven guidelines for working with men and boys.

If the APA were truly concerned about males, they would strive to help those who are suffering by building on the time-tested virtues of masculinity. Instead, they frame the “patriarchy”—that nebulous bête noire of radical feminism—as the root of all suffering. Seeing the world through that tainted lens, their response to men and boys can only be that of the radical feminist: tear men down. Denigrate noble traits. Advance feminist ideology at all costs.

Under this APA policy, any man unwise enough to trust a psychologist is to be chastised for his alleged privilege and sexism, and he is to be re-educated into something far more docile and apologetic than a full-blooded man.

If the predatory nature of the APA’s new guidelines isn’t immediately apparent, consider the inverse: psychologists organizing ‘en masse’ to dismantle femininity, treating each female patient as an opportunity to reshape women as the APA sees fit.

People generally seek psychologists in moments of vulnerability. It is plain vicious to seize on that vulnerability for the sake of advancing an ideology. Ironically, the APA’s mercenary approach to the culture war—a war in which they have no business taking sides—exemplifies the destructive and ruthless qualities they wrongly attribute to honourable men everywhere.

Professional Best Practices Are Not Ideological — Debra W. Soh, Ph.D.

Debra W. Soh is a Canadian science columnist, political commentator, and the co-host of Wrongspeak.

I have several concerns regarding the APA guidelines for practice with men and boys. Perhaps a good starting point would be the belief that masculinity is an “ideology,” “socially constructed,” and “learned during socialization,” as opposed to biological and the result of hormonal influence. Secondly, the guidelines portray abusive behaviour as a natural extension of being male-typical, as opposed to being due to anti-sociality and negative views about women.

If we were to follow this suggested line of thinking, masculinity should be something that can be corrected and unlearned. As someone who has worked clinically with incarcerated male sexual offenders and violent offenders, I can tell you that therapeutic interventions informed by intersectional feminism and its ideas about “power and privilege” will have zero effect when working with these populations.

Progressive talking points, like calling gender a “non-binary construct” and openly advocating for “participation in social justice activities,” have no place in a document detailing professional best practices. They foreshadow a future in which psychologists must alter their therapeutic approach, not in the best interest of their client, but because this new orthodoxy is trendy, and they are afraid of having their licenses revoked. Psychological services should be scientifically-informed and cater to an individual’s needs and history, instead of being based on sweeping, politically motivated assumptions about their sex.

FEBRUARY 2019 BLOG

                                                         

       THE GENDER-IFICATION OF MEN

Recently we had in the news about the Gillette company ad about making men a better. The ad depicts a series of “bad” behaviours of boys and how and adult can correct them. This is another consequence of marketing that is getting a lot of support by the “political correct” madness that is formulating rules how we must behave. Men are the bad guys.

Yet, the most damaging consequence of the crusade against masculinity is its corrosive influence on the psychological and moral development of boys. From a very early age, they are told that they must curb their boyish attitudes and behaviour. They continually are bombarded by the message that they are not as emotionally intelligent, sensitive or as flexible as their girl counterparts. When they learn that masculine behaviour is considered by some of their teachers and other adults as something of a cultural crime, they naturally become disoriented and uncertain about their identity. (I have written about the emasculation of men in earlier blog post).

The Gillette ad now is a metaphor for the dichotomy that is permeating all aspects of modern democratic cultures. What is the truth? We ask. Had Gillette truly wanted to pave the way for actual change in gender inequities, they could have taken a far bolder step. The men who disproportionately figure in P&G’s U.S.’s executive (only nine of 30 are women; its 13-member board of directors features four women) could have acted “the right way” and in a truly radical way: by ending the absurd gender-ification and price discrimination perpetuated in the marketing of shaving products. That is, the men razor are blue in clour and defined by names as: “Mach 3 Turbo,” the “Sensor 3,” and the “Fusion 5 Proshield Chill Razor with Flexball Technology.” While women razors are defined as: The “Venus” that offers the illusion of choice with little differentiation, unless you care about how your razor smells when you’re shaving your armpits.There’s the “Embrace,” the “Comfortglide Freesia,” the “ComfortGlide White Tea Scented,” the “Comfortglide Plus Olay Coconut” and the “Swirl.” There’s also the “Cosmo Pink” and so on.

The point of this is that even Gillette products are now blaming men as negative and so the boys need a re-education. But if we’re going to get there any time soon, we need to stop seeing men as inherently problematic. We now talk about “toxic masculinity”, as though the Y chromosome itself was a poison, the unfortunate by-product of biology. The implication of the “MeToo” movement is that if all women have been victims, then all men have been culpable. In progressive circles it is an accepted truth that simply being male makes you part of the problem, an inevitable contributor to the status quo.

Frank Furedi, a sociologist, makes a clear statement of this invasion on manhood and the creation of a masculine psychological disturbance that needs psychological counselling. He states:

“The APA’s (American Psychological Association) guidelines are principally targeted at boys and young men. They warn that the bad habits associated with masculinity, such as “suppressing emotions and masking distress, often start early in life”. The APA contends that traditional masculinity is “psychologically harmful and that socialising boys to suppress their emo­tions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly”.

The medicalisation of masculine behaviour by the APA is designed to devalue boyishness and alter the meaning of what it means to be a boy.

That the guidelines are a political statement masquerading as a scientifically informed document is highlighted by its stated ambition of changing the world through changing men. One of the authors of the guidelines, Ryon McDermott, declares that if “we can change men” then “we can change the world”. From this standpoint, masculinity serves as the moral equivalent of a disease that must be eradicated.

The APA’s opinion reflects the wider cultural project of marginalising masculinity and altering the identity of boys and men. Our era, which constantly celebrates people’s identities, finds it difficult to endow the identity of the male with positive qualities.

On the contrary, masculinity has turned into what sociologist Erving Goffman, in his classic study “Stigma”, has characterised as a “spoiled identity”. Because of a constant barrage of criticism, masculinity has become delegitimated and often is portrayed as a marker for pathological behaviour.

A significant section of the psychological community has become critical of masculinity because of its dislike for men’s supposed aspiration for control and autonomy.

Since the 1990s, exposing the emotional illiteracy of men has become a growth industry. There are thousands of publications that decry the failure of men to acknowledge their vulnerability and refusal to seek help. Back in the 90s, critics of masculinity applied the terms high masculinity and hegemonic masculinity to those who refused to embrace the advice of psychologists. Today, the term “toxic” masculinity is deployed to disparage stoic men drawn towards autonomous behaviour and self-control.

Criticism of the “male desire for control” represents an attitude towards emotional life in general. That’s why, ultimately, the APA’s hostility to masculine values is not simply about men. Women who display “masculine” characteristics such as self-control, rationality and strong ambition also have come under intense suspicion.

In contrast, men who act like women are clearly preferred to women who act like men. According to the emotionally correct hierarchy of virtuous behaviour, feminine women come out on top. Feminine men beat masculine women for second place. And, of course, masculine men come last.

The weaponisation of the term “toxic masculinity” is one of the most significant accomplishments of the culture war that has raged in the US in recent years.

Gillette’s cautionary tale about men is widely echoed in US institutions of education. Many universities have launched anti-toxic masculine initiatives designed to resocialise male under­graduates. The term has become an all-purpose weapon wielded against male targets.

However, since the term implicitly equates masculinity with toxicity, virtually any assertive and self-confident boy or young man can become a recipient of this label.

The term toxic masculinity, like any other cultural stereotype, has no scientific value. But that has not stopped the Australian Psychological Society from stating that although the term is sociocultural and not medical, it is useful for exploring “poisonous” behaviours. As the APS’s use of the word poisonous indicates, it is not merely a sociocultural but a moral term of abuse. It is unlikely the APS would ever dream of linking the term toxic to femininity.

The term toxic masculinity is often used to draw attention to different forms of destructive and damaging behaviour such as sexual aggression, violence, homophobia and violent behaviour. No doubt these are malign and dangerous types of behaviour.

However, the representation of such negative traits as the normal feature of masculinity is motivated by the imperative of propaganda rather than a dispassionate view of human relations. Unfortunately, many policymakers have embraced this prejudice and are promoting campaigns against the moral authority of masculinity.

The Australian government’s recent campaign against domestic violence offers a textbook example of the casual manner with which a conceptual leap from violence to boyishness is made. Like the Gillette ad, the target of this campaign is to explicitly focus on the “boys being boys” attitude in society.

As someone who still remembers his mother’s reactions to her son’s mistakes and achievements with statements such as “Boys will be boys”, I find a campaign directed against her attitude deeply disturbing. From my mother’s standpoint, “being a boy” meant being a little bit rough, assertive, single-minded and ambitious.

The government crusade against this attitude signals the conviction that boys who misbehave in school grow up to be abusers of women.

A widely distributed video titled “Stop It at the Start” depicts a father sitting in his car by the school gate, incredulous that his son received a detention for “flicking up a girl’s skirt”. In the back seat, the offender’s young brother pipes up and asks why the teacher does not understand that it’s “just boys being boys”. Sitting next to him is his little sister, who casually remarks, “Yeah, I mean, I’ve already accepted that as I grow up I’ll probably be harassed and even abused.”

The sight of a young girl fatalistically acknowledging that her life will be plagued by little male monsters such as those sitting in the car is likely to instil any responsible individual with a sense of unease if not horror.

Fortunately, this fantasy display of anti-boy animus bears little rela­tionship to reality. The project of targeting children “at the start” will do nothing to curb anti-social adult behaviour. Its main outcome is to confuse children, especially boys, and reinforce the confusion surrounding the meaning of male identity.

The most damaging consequence of the crusade against masculinity is its corrosive influence on the psychological and moral development of boys. From a very early age, they are told that they must curb their boyish attitudes and behaviour. They continually are bombarded by the message that they are not as emotionally intelligent, sensitive or as flexible as their girl counterparts. When they learn that masculine behaviour is considered by some of their teachers and other adults as something of a cultural crime, they naturally become disoriented and uncertain about their identity.

Not surprisingly, a lot of young men find the transition to adulthood particularly difficult because values that are associated with being a man receive little cultural validation. In the absence of any clear cultural guidance of what it means to be a boy or a man, many are confronted with an identity crisis inflicted on them by the campaign against masculinity.

The corrosive effect of the war against masculinity is not simply confined to the world of boys and young men. Society suffers from the loss of validation for the values that are wrongly attributed to men.

The virtue of courage, the value of autonomy and risk-taking have played a significant and positive role in the moral development of humankind. Even, the much-derided ethos of stoicism has helped humanity deal with the threats and challenges it faced in difficult circumstances.

Whatever its intent, the campaign against masculinity is much more than a crusade designed to change men. Our version of what it means to be a human will truly diminish if society becomes inhospitable to so-called male values such as courage, self-control and risk-taking.

I trust that you will have your own reflections on the important subject. Feel free to comment here.

PS: here are some research facts on men:

https://www.chatelaine.com/survey-define-masculinity/#men-manliness

JANUARY 2019 - WISDOM

SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES

DEAR READERS,

I am now sitting in my cool room looking at the sunny Queensland summer (37C). Only a few days ago we had a celebration of Christmas and now it is no more. We are enjoying a real sense of Peace in this small world in Brisbane, Australia. Such a holiday or Holy-day is what most of us wish but not many can achieve the reality. Just open the TV on the 24 hrs news and we are filled with catastrophes like the tsunami in Indonesia, the Syrian war, bombings in Kabul, stock markets down and children starving everywhere. Michael Meade, the mythologist just wrote an article “ The Threat of Tyranny” and here is a quote:

“These are Titan times when huge changes sweep through the institutions of culture while great shifts disrupt climate patterns all over the earth. Amidst storms of change, it takes very little to tear the skin of civilization and reveal massive emotional wounds full of fear and anger, resentment and vengeance. Amidst growing uncertainties, it takes very little to incite rage and provoke violence."

Michael Meade

Read the full article here: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-meade-dhl/the-threat-of-tyranny_b_11435462.html  The threat of tyrany

So, as we are approaching the new year 2019, it may be a good idea to reflect about how, we as therapists and healers, can help by  sending a new message to all in order to generate a shift in that old negative perspective that shows only “doom and gloom” and  promote a new positive psychology.

 I therefore, wish to share an article written by the psychologist Christopher Peterson form the University of Michigan USA.

Positive Psychology: The Underpinning Notions

Christopher Peterson

Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan

Positive psychology, which has recently enjoyed a burgeoning base of research support, is “the scientific study of optimal functioning, performance, and wellbeing” (Langley & Francis, 2016). It asks not what is broken and needing to be fixed, but what is working, what is good in people and life. It wants to know what the positive experiences, characteristics, and practices are that enable individuals, institutions, and communities to live happy, productive, fulfilling lives. It is about flourishing and thriving, not merely surviving.

Accordingly, it gives pride of place to the characteristics of abundance, a focus on virtues and strengths, embracing positive deviance, and flourishing rather than languishing (Langley & Francis, 2016). We look at these in more detail below.

Abundance

Viewing people as competent, creative, and resourceful, positive psychology looks through an abundance lens to help people, organisations, and communities thrive and excel. Positive outcomes and performance can be facilitated, it says, as people access their inner resources and create the outcomes to which they aspire, rather than seeing themselves as victims (Langley & Francis, 2016).

Focus on strengths and virtues

This assumption says that everyone has strengths and deserves to be respected for them. At the heart of positive psychology is the idea that effort is better directed to strengthen what is working well than to try to “fix” what is “broken”. Concentrating on talents, positive characteristics, and special abilities allows people to deal with growing edges, or weaknesses. The corollary idea is that positive psychology itself is an ethical approach in suggesting that human beings and their systems possess a latent desire and capacity to improve themselves, and that this should be activated (Langley & Francis, 2016).

Embracing positive deviance

When positive psychologists talk about adopting a stance of positive deviance, they are acknowledging an evolutionary bias toward the negative: negative emotions, interpretations, and thoughts are often stronger and more numerous than positive ones. Human beings tend to respond more intensely – and automatically – to negative events. While that has been appropriately self-protective, especially at some earlier stages of human evolution, it now means that we are kept from devoting time, energy, and other resources to those projects and concerns which would move us toward greater wellbeing and success. Positive psychology proposes that we amplify our positive emotions, thus re-setting the bias from negative to positive. When we act from positive deviance, we go against the grain, thinking “outside the box” and suddenly gaining access to solutions that aren’t apparent with a deficit focus (Langley & Francis, 2016).

Flourishing and languishing

Hot and cold, night and day, and dark and light are all polar opposites, but – in the paradigm of positive psychology – mental illness and mental health are not. Langley cites the work of Corey Keyes, whose work studying the relationship between mental health and mental illness has shown that, rather than being at opposite ends of the same spectrum, they lie on different continua. Thus, the absence of mental illness does not mean the presence of mental health and treating the former does not ensure the latter (Keyes, 2005, in Langley & Francis, 2016). A person can be lacking any identifiable mental illness, yet be languishing if she has poor social networks, is chronically distressed, and/or is leading a very unfulfilling life.

Authentic happiness: What do we mean and why do we care?

Although philosophers such as Aristotle and Epicurus advocated leading the “good life”, they defined that as “pleasure-seeking”. Few people in the middle of a delicious meal, with a favourite beverage and good friends to share it all with, would say that they were not having a happy time. However, in his book, Authentic Happiness, Seligman (2004) explained that there is much more to a happy life than good times filled with pleasure.  He distinguished several levels of happiness.

1) The Pleasurable or Pleasant Life. This sort of happiness is also referred to as subjective wellbeing and consists of hedonic experience: sensual delights, high life satisfaction, low levels of negative emotion, and high levels of positive emotion (Langley & Francis, 2016). It is a life that successfully pursues the positive emotions about the present, past, and future (Pursuit of Happiness, 2016a). It is this level or type of happiness that figured in the work of Aristotle and Epicurus. The question for this level may be: “How do I feel? What emotions do I experience in the moment?” (Langley, 2017)

2) The Engaged or Good Life. As we satisfy the need for pleasure, we want more. We want to be engaged in a mindful way, as we come to realise the satisfaction possible through concentrating intensely on a task or activity which we are using our strengths to perform and which takes us out of our ordinary consciousness, perhaps into a state of flow, as that was explained by Csikszentmihalyi (1990). At this level, people use their signature strengths (Seligman and his colleague identified 24) to obtain abundant gratification, through enjoyed activities, in the main realms of their lives (Pursuit of Happiness, 2016a). “Doing” happiness at this level engages us in more of our wholeness than mere pleasure-seeking, but it is still not all that it is possible to attain.

3) The Meaningful Life. At the highest levels of happiness delineated by Seligman, we see a person imbued with meaning and purpose. Called eudaemonic or psychological wellbeing, the meaningful life involves personal growth, self-acceptance, autonomy, positive relationships, environmental mastery, and a strong sense of purpose in life. It happens when people use their signature strengths and virtues in the service of something much larger than themselves (Pursuit of Happiness, 2016a). The relevant question for this level of happiness is: “How do I feel about my life? Am I satisfied with my life generally?” (Langley, 2017; Positive Psychology Institute, 2012).

“Side effects” of wellbeing

The answer to that question seems obvious: we want to be happy because it feels good! Yet there is more. Research shows that higher levels of wellbeing are correlated with:

Being healthier (including recovering more quickly when one does get sick) Having a stronger immune system.

Living longer, with a better quality of life

Being more tolerant of pain

Achieving greater success in all areas of life (including the workplace) Having higher levels of caring and altruism

Being more resilient

Being more socially engaged

Having better quality relationships (that is, more satisfied in relationships and less likely to experience problems, but more likely to deal with any problems effectively)

Performing better academically

Considering oneself to be luckier (Langley, 2017; Sharp, 2014).

This article was adapted from the course “Positive Psychology: The Basics”.

References:

Langley, S., & Francis, S. (2016). White paper: The science and practice of positive psychology: Promoting human happiness, performance, and wellbeing. Australia: Langley Group. Retrieved on 28 October, 2017, from: hyperlink.

Langley, S. (2017). Lecture for Masterclass day on positive psychology topics for Mental Health Academy. Langley Group: Australia.

Positive Psychology Institute. (2012). Key terms. Positive Psychology Institute. Retrieved on 24 October, 2017, from: hyperlink.

Pursuit of Happiness. (2016b). William James. The pursuit of happiness.  Retrieved on 29 October, 2017, from: hyperlink.

Sharp, T. (2014). Get happy: Using the powerful principles of positive psychology to live your best life!  Positive Times. Retrieved on 24 October, 2017, from: hyperlink.

DECEMBER 2018 - GRATITUDE

GRATITUDE

Dear readers, this is the time now to reflect about Gratitude. The year 2018 is ending and 2019 is coming. I am grateful about many things past and to Michael Meade whom I consider my mentor for the last 10 years or so. He still inspires me with his talks and writings. This is his message:

“In these dark and confusing times, we need occasions of grace and moments of wholeness to rekindle our spirits as well as ease our souls. Holidays and holy days found all over the world are intended to bring us back to the sense that life is a gift continuously waiting to be revealed and that our souls can be a source of abundance through even the darkest times.

Cicero is credited with having stated that “gratitude is the parent of all virtues.” He may have been considering that becoming grateful, if only for a moment, can make us feel whole again. He may have known that the feeling of gratitude is secretly connected to the gift of life and that each time we experience life as a gift, our life takes on greater meaning.

Gratitude can be difficult to express because it comes from a deep place in the heart where pain can also dwell. Yet, as indicated by the old practice of “saying grace” to convey thankfulness, gratitude and grace are connected. Feeling grateful and expressing gratitude helps to bring grace back into the world.

The presence of gratitude also serves as an indication of the natural nobility in our souls. Although thankfulness may be expressed in words, gratitude appears in each act of consciously giving as well as in the moments of gratefully receiving. In that sense, the giving of even the smallest gift can be a genuine expression of gratitude for the gift of life.”

Michael Meade

Here and Now, other reflections emerge when we approach the new year: Faith, Hope and Love. 

Living in Australia, we call it a natural paradise. This vast continent is full of natural gifts to all. Looking at a Jacaranda tree in my yard, full of purple flowers, I am aware of the “treeness” and enjoy the process of change and growth. The tree expresses Hope in its capacity of changing (leaves, flowers, seeds etc) are a promise of new birth and growth. This renewal is a symbol of Faith that all is in process. The branches and leaves give protection and food to the great variety of birds, butterflies, caterpillars and moths. This is an expression of Love – a sharing of everything that the tree can offer. The roots carry nutrients and minerals for the tree and keeps everything growing with each season. Each process is ‘invisible’ to us. But the tree is giving of its Love to all.

As I reflect about this 'tree' metaphor given by Keith Buzzell (Parabola 2018), I become aware how all of humanity must express gratitude for the wonders of Nature. Simply by observing the natural rhythm of trees I feel an impulse of loving the full expression of living in all beings, human and non-human. I can recognise the “me” in the presence of what is surrounding me at all times.

That awareness stimulates a sense of eternity shown in the cycles of life and of Hope that Love is ever present in ALL. Finally, I am Grateful to C.G. Jung who was the first to formulate and describe the meaning of COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS, the universal phenomena that expresses all collective life.

REFLECTIONS ON THE SOUL

THE SOULCRAFT WAY

INTRODUCTION

This blog is a reflection for everyone interested in seeking the meaning and the WAY of the SOUL. Bill Plotking’s book mentions the word “Soulcraft”. This is a description of what I call “Soulwork”. I found that very few people really know about the part of us called The Soul. Therefore, I am offering here a summary of Bill’s book: Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche.  New World Library. Kindle Edition.

So, what is this phenomenon called SOUL? We can easily identify with our body and our mind, but the soul is an enigma for many. Here is a definition of what Bill is describing as SOUL and then followed by his process of working with the craft that helps us to discover our soul.

SOUL.

“The Soul is a person’s unique purpose or identity, a mythopoetic identity, something much deeper than personality or social-vocational role, an identity revealed and expressed through symbol and metaphor, image and dream, archetype and myth. Some other ways to say this: Soul is the ecological niche, or place, a person was born to occupy but may or may not ever discover or consciously embody”.

Plotkin, Bill. Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche (p. 13). New World Library. Kindle Edition.

SOUL POETRY, MUSIC, CHANTING, AND THE BARDIC TRADITION

Given that the soul prefers to speak in images and symbols, poetry — our own and others — is a natural pathway to soul. Poetry, “soul speech,” brings together the linguistic, linear part of the psyche with the imaginal, holistic part, enlisting the thinking mind in the service of soul, image, and feeling. By immersing ourselves in the rich symbols of verse, we enhance the ego’s ability to converse with soul. The subject matter and style of some poets resonate more with the spiritual descent than do others.  David Whyte, Rainer Maria Rilke, Mary Oliver, Jelaluddin Rumi, T. S. Eliot, and others, are extraordinarily soulful. The soul is enlivened and emboldened by poetry such as theirs.

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.
 When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.

Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion. RUMI

Poetry, dreams, nature, and soul weave through one another. Dreams are the poems of our souls. Soul is our deepest human nature, the under-dream stream of our lives. Wild nature is the ongoing dream of the earth, and our souls are essential components of that dream. Our individual night dreams are strands of the earth’s dream, just as our bodies are part of earth’s body. Nature offers herself to our senses in images, and poetry conveys those images. Immersion in nature is as effective a way as any to uncover and recover the soul. Soul-resonant poets are visionaries, people who have recovered their soul’s desires and strive to make those desires visible to others. Each one of us has this visionary capacity to sing the song of our souls.

BODY PRACTICES

There are several body practices, found in cultures the world over, that alter consciousness by shifting the body’s physiological state. These, too, can serve as pathways to soul. Consciousness-altering breathing techniques — from ancient practices such as yogic pranayama to modern disciplines like holotropic breathwork as developed by the transpersonal psychiatrist Stanislav Grof — act literally to inspire us. As we breathe in fully and rapidly, our biochemistry shifts, and we take in and join with the essence of the world. By altering the depth and rhythm of our breath, we can alter our relationship to the world and to ourselves. In addition to their use of breathing techniques, the many schools of yoga offer a great variety of physical postures (asanas) and movement (vinyasa) that not only stretch our bodies but also alter consciousness, thereby providing a doorway to soul.

FASTING

Fasting, as part of a vision quest or not, is another ancient and common method for altering consciousness. Literally emptying ourselves, we become a more receptive vessel for the gifts of soul. There are at least three ways that fasting works its magic on us. First, fasting (with or without water) for three days or more profoundly affects our nervous system and thus our consciousness. Most people report by the third day an astonishing clarity of perception, thought, feeling, and imagination. For many, hunger disappears, and a refined physical energy and alertness arise. Second, frequent hunger pangs remind our wandering minds to refocus attention on soulful intent. Third, as we grow weaker physically, our ego defences weaken as well. It becomes more difficult to maintain those everyday boundaries separating us from the vast mysteries within and without, the mysteries through which the soul might speak.

THE POWER OF SOULCENTRIC RITUAL

 Vision quests are grand and complex rituals. Much of their transformative power arises simply from the fact that they are rituals. Several features of rituals support the encounter with soul. Rituals are bodily enactments in real time and space, engaging us not only verbally, cognitively, imaginatively, and emotionally but also through our bodies, by way of symbolically rich gestures. As ritual participants, we are thoroughly active, not just listening, observing, or imagining but also living our deepest questions and truths, embodying our sacred symbols and life themes, and physically interacting with the archetypal qualities of the earth and the universal human experience.

Immersion in the ritual process draws from us more than we anticipate. The vision quester, for example, is not sitting in a room, feeling, imagining, and thinking. He is out on the land, in the wind, heat, and cold, exposed to the storm and the cries in the night. He is setting stones in the four directions. He is dancing her prayers, singing her heart out, crying to the earth and shouting at the sky for a vision, talking to the trees, the hawks, the moon, and the mountain. He is dressed in sacred robes, tying prayers into cloth bundles, adorning himself with flowers or thorns or mud, all in accord with the counsel of nature and her own soul. He is out on the land and fully embodied there. He is as fully present to his body and the breaking wave of his life as he has ever been.

Rituals are rooted in deeply meaningful symbols and the sacred objects that embody those symbols. The quester is in conversation with the quadrated circle, the wounded heart, images of the butterfly or dragonfly, the broken stick, the prayer arrow or God’s eye, the ancestor’s blessing, the parent’s ashes, the family’s coat of arms, the religious icon, the wedding ring, the medicine bag, the mask, the drum, the sacrificial fire. These symbols arouse the deepest desires of his heart, his greatest griefs and fears, the archetypal possibilities of the collective human unconscious, and his religious and spiritual yearnings. Through numinous power absorbed and emanated, they uncover sacred layers of his humanity. And they effectively awaken suppressed feeling, often provoking a profound healing crisis.

SOLITUDE

Through the practice of solitude, you, too, will discover the ways you are alienated from yourself and the world. You will come to grips with one of the most profound and implacable facts of the human condition: that in an essential way you are, in fact, alone. You were born alone and will die alone. In solitude you will learn how to live as a mortal human. You will learn to more deeply comfort yourself. You will learn how to move your attention from one place to another, neither avoiding nor indulging in the painful places. As a Wanderer, you must develop a relationship with your aloneness that is as profound and sacred as any other relationship in your life. You will come to belong to your aloneness as much as to any place, job, or community. “Solitudo” is Latin for nature. In true solitude, you remember yourself as a part of everything, a part of nature. You rediscover ease, inspiration, belonging, and wisdom in your own company.

ARCHETYPES

Archetypal forms and patterns exist not only in the human psyche but also in the outer world of nature. Wind, water, fire, mountain, rain, rainbow, bird, bat, butterfly, fish, snake, bear: earth archetypes. In the shamanic traditions, the apprentice learns his craft by using the refined powers of his imagination to become the various animals and qualities of nature, by merging with the earth archetypes and “re-membering” as he remembers he has always been nature. Moving from one archetypal nature identity to another: this is the genius of the shape-shifter within each of us. By becoming earth, through her forms and forces, we regain our souls.

The earth archetypes illuminate the edges of our understanding. We see the rainbow, and if we allow our imaginations to be generous, we discover the possibility of realizing our fondest dreams, the longing for treasure, the enchantment of the world, the thinness of the shimmering veil that separates us from the sacred, or the bridge to this world for the gods. We experience earth archetypes as significant, evocative, emotionally captivating, enchanting. Why are different individuals drawn to different elements of nature? Why those? Possibly these are the earth archetypes to which our (unconscious) psyches already attribute meaning, that resonate with the deepest possibilities within us. In its attempt to be made manifest, the soul takes every opportunity to resonate with any element of nature that stirs it. As we offer our attention to the world, we discover the beings to which we are most drawn. Our fascination with a facet of nature is how our souls say “Yes!” to an earth archetype that we, as individuals, especially tune to. As we open ourselves to that element of wildness, we discover a quality of our own soul that longs to be embodied in the world, sung to the world, danced, cried, celebrated. The earth provides us with not only the means to be physically born into this world but also the spiritual means to recognize our deeper identities.

THE ART OF BEING LOST

The art of being lost is not a matter of merely getting lost, but rather being lost and enthusiastically surrendering to the unlimited potential of it. In fact, using it to your advantage. The shift from being lost to being found (in a new, unpredictable way) is a gradual and indirect one. The way to encourage that shift is to first accept that you don’t know how to get to the place you want to be and then opening fully to the place you are until the old goals fall away and you discover more soulful goals emerging. Then you are no longer lost, but you have benefited immensely from having been so.

 Consider for example being lost in the woods, something few people can imagine enjoying. Suddenly, the world has shrunk; here you are, sitting beside a stream in a forest. You don’t know which way home is. You call out. No one answers; or, only the stream, the wind, and the ravens answer. Maybe you panic, maybe you don’t. It sinks in that you are really lost. Gradually, you become aware that everything you can count on now is right here, within reach, and there’s no guarantee there will ever again be anything else. You could have spent your entire life on a meditation cushion to get to this radical place of present-centeredness, and now you are here courtesy of dislocation! Like a shipwrecked sailor on a tropical island, this is your world. What will you do with it? You’ve lost nearly everything you thought was important; the old goals are irrelevant, and yet, here you are. Now what?

This is precisely where you must eventually arrive, psycho-spiritually, for soul initiation: you must be willing to release your previous agendas and embrace the soul’s passion as you find it here and now. By arriving more fully in the present, through being lost and accepting it, your life suddenly suffers a radical simplification. Old agendas, beliefs and desires fall away. You quiet down inside and it becomes easier to hear the voice of the soul.

CONFRONTING YOUR OWN DEATH

 In order to bring your soul into the world, you must continuously loosen your beliefs about who you are. The realities of death will help with that loosening. Shadow work will help as well; in the process of reclaiming your wholeness, you will find many fragments of soul in the shadow, where the unconscious has hidden them to keep you from accidentally stumbling upon dangerous secrets. Romance, too, if you take it deep enough, will surely shatter the restrictive yet fragile shell of the ego. Discovering the mysterious core of your consciousness will do the same. And certainly, spirit has some things to say about your true identity. When it’s over, you’ll want to be confident you made your life something truly real.

You will, therefore, look Death in the face before IT comes calling for you. You will reach your trembling hand into the dark shadow behind you. You will say yes to the dying that is as much a part of romance as its joys. You will discover what remains of consciousness after the mind is quieted. And you will forge your own intimate relationship with the Divine.

Confronting your own mortality, intimately and bravely, imagined or vicariously witnessed in graphic detail, is a powerful soulcraft practice, possibly an essential one. The embodiment of soul that you seek is not going to go far if you are living as if your ego is immortal. Put more positively, your soul initiation will be rich to the extent you can ground yourself in the sober but liberating awareness of limited time. (this very moment may be your last). The confrontation with death is an unrivalled perspective enhancer. In the company of death, most desires of adolescence and the first adulthood fall away. What are the deepest longings that remain? What are the surviving intentions with which you might enter your second adulthood? The confrontation with death will empty you of everything but that kernel of love in your heart and your sincerest questions.

As Carlos Castaneda was taught by his teacher, the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan: “ask death to be your ally, to remind you, especially at times of difficult choices, what is important in the face of your mortality. Imagine death as ever present, accompanying you everywhere just out of sight behind your left shoulder”.

In these ways, make peace with your mortality. One day you will find you are not so attached to your life being just one certain way. Then you will be better prepared to converse with soul and its outrageous requests for radical change.

Extracts from:

Plotkin, Bill. Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche.  New World Library. Kindle Edition.