Tag: male power

By Wayne Vriend

What does manhood look like now, in these modern times?

What is it? How does it express? What does a deep and genuine self worth look like in a male expression?

Men aren’t generally given to asking such questions. It isn’t part of the current male persona. I want to ask the men I encounter: ‘Are you too busy subscribing to others’ ideas of maleness that you don’t have the time, energy, desire, or imagination to find your own?’

It is only our false selves who fear inquiring about whether our masculine expression is real or not. To ask the question is to be open to finding something lacking or missing and false selves have a hard time with that, given as they are to making do and finding a way. Our authentic self however, has no such judgments, or fears of finding something lacking or missing, but rather welcomes it as part of self loving discovery and change. The authentic self accepts how we were in life up until present time as part of our sacred process and journey.

In past times and cultures, one of the treasured male stories was to die in battle. Dying while fighting for a just cause was the ultimate bestowal of honor. A current honor story for men in the western world is career and home ownership. Men have always been afraid of being without a male story to live into and attempt to embody.

We are in a time of the ‘changing of the story,’ where our old stories are losing their appeal and coming apart at the seams, and new stories are forming, but not solidly here yet. Soulfullheart desires to be a conscious part of that coalescing into people’s lives.

Stand in front of a magazine stand and see for yourself. Fitness, photography, news, sailing, sports, technology, travel, architecture, cars, with sex sprinkled throughout, and porn at the back. All of it is an appeal to the ache in men to find male expression, male power, male passion, male-ness, and a stiff cock. It wouldn’t sell if there wasn’t a need.

Every man walking around has a boy part inside seeking his way home, to himself, to truly becoming a man. The ones who can admit that are actually our deepest current leaders of true masculine expression.

We ache for it, but our false selves also deeply fear what happens when just one man actually openly admits he’s looking for it, let alone finds some of it. The world doesn’t remain the same and it freaks out the powers that be in his world. He isn’t so predictable any more. He surely is far less controllable, way less nice, and things may in fact get messy before they get better.

And none of us can do this in a vacuum, without something to press against, without some story to affect, without something at stake. It is why you are here. Your world will change. Relationships will change. You will change.

In the archetypal movie Braveheart, William Wallace fires up his troops at the edge of the battle, with the choice between their lives or their freedom; both of which were at stake; both of which provided a deep sense of meaning to fight for. What is different today is that we have been lulled to sleep awash in freedoms and with no immediate threat to our lives.

Where’s the meaningful fight now?

What have you out of fear given up on? What power have you left laying around for manipulative and insecure men to gather up and use against you? What is it that you really want, standing in front of that magazine rack, attending that church, being in that corporate setting, bellied up to that bar, attending that family gathering? Could you say what you are feeling to those around you, and see where it takes you?

What is being asked for by the universe, by the Divine, in men is to cease from joining and giving allegiance to anything, be it an army, a church, a country, a family – any cult-ure where you are required to give over your power and autonomy to prop up someone else’s picture of manhood. You will only ensure that you will never find your own. For many men, that is the point. They are afraid of finding their own manhood. They are afraid to admit it. They’re afraid of of the journey it will take. They are afraid of themselves, and for good reason. They are truly powerful!

You already are a man. You are just still searching for what that means. Giving your authority away to an outside-of-you group, in exchange for some reflected pittance of your own power is fast becoming a done deal. The more we attempt to energize this gasping for breath story, the faster will be its demise.

For the moment, the new emerging story has more to do with letting go of that which we know isn’t us in order to make room to discover what it is. We will naturally go on to embody these new stories, but for now, we will need to find a grace to be with a feeling of vacancy. This however is not a vacuum at all, but a pregnant alchemy of something new seeking a critical mass in our collective consciousness.

SoulFullHeart Men’s Circle is a group of men called together by me, Wayne Vriend, to be a new exploration of what it means to be male, to be alive, and to be expressing that in the world. If this calls out to you, I invite you to join us. And, if you know men who would resonate with this message, please forward this blog to them.

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