When will we men stop trying to be ‘men’ and just start being more human? This does not mean to me to be more feminine (although a deep connection to the feminine is needed), but to just be a human being with aches and pains, passions and visions. Yes, we have different ways of being in the world that are in contrast to women. We have different expectations placed upon us by society in general. We have different modes of operation. We do have different experiences, clearly.

Yet, at the core we all have something that we crave and need, but somehow men have been convinced or conditioned we don’t or shouldn’t need them. Deep down I believe all men, as human beings, want and need to be seen. We want to be felt and heard if we are brave and vulnerable enough to get to the core of what we really feel.

Most of my life was spent in a tumble-dry around what it means to be a man. Then it was about being divinely or sacredly masculine. All of which led to comparison, judgment, and feelings of inadequacy. NONE of that felt good. It’s crap! Sacred crap, but still crap. I feel for men who, like me, just want to embody our own authentic sense of self in the world. We may want ‘more’ of what we categorize as masculine, but in reality we are just wanting what feels like our truest nature shorn of all the comparative bullshit.

So, we are really not lacking anything we don’t already possess in our Essence. We are all the masculine we can possibly be. We have just been wounded. Been through trauma. Been told how to be in the world. We have hidden the gold in the shit pile of cultural conditioning and shaming. It has been hammered into us to not be vulnerable. To not feel our feelings. To not express anything other than a warrior’s call to arms, or exude the goo of a spiritualized porn star.

Who is it that lies under all of that stuff? Who IS our human man? What pain does he still hold? What grief has gone untouched? What truth and passion has been cordoned off and set to the side in the name of trying to be something we’re not? Trying to just ‘get by’ and survive?

I continue to unearth that man every single day. Not usually in epic movements or illuminations, but in day-to-day feeling and expressing as well as reflections from my beloved mate, Kasha, and soul community. This is where my sacred huMANity comes to play, learn, and witness itself. I have been going back to some very painful times of my life that are serving as a springboard and a catalyst for a different me in the world rather than the ‘me’ that I feel I had been trying to be with mixed results.

These times are rooted in the teenage years and I feel they offer many of us a gateway to not just our inner health, but also our deeper relationship to magic, real spirituality, and the sacredness of our expression in the world. I will go into that deeper in future writings and videos.

For now, I just felt like connecting my man’s heart to yours, whoever you are, wherever you are. I sense there is an army of men out there who feel the same and who just want to feel and be the man that is uniquely them in all the flavors from the Shadow to the Light. I would love to connect with and serve any man who feels the call to fall into his own grace and heart-centered power.

I love you, Man.

Gabriel Amara is a SoulFullHeart Facilitator for both men and women.  Visit https://www.soulfullheart.org for more information about sessions, group calls/events, videos, community, etc.