One thing I’ve always known is that there is joy always, in everything, if only I can find it.Mind you, it was hard to find joy in my life for a very long time. I know my story is only a variation on every other man’s story, and only a question of degree, but I did not have a great start in life.
Unplanned, unwanted, rejected at birth, and then subjected to everything that follows from that – humiliated, shamed for my very existence, oppressed physically, emotionally, spiritually…. A perfect recipe for the squashing of human potential. Of my potential.
Broken heart image
I guess each man reading this has his own variation on the same story of oppression and limitation, his own knowledge of the things that limited his potential and growth, his ability to become who he truly was designed to be.
I believe that each one of us who gets to a point of recovery – whatever that means for the person concerned – has survived because of a unique survival mechanism.
For me, survival came in the shape of my rage, for it fuelled my energy to live, and it overcame the inhibiting effect of my fiercely repressed shadows of fear, shame, guilt, sadness, over responsibility and…. well, many more.
My rage allowed me to build a life. But, as you may imagine, at a cost.
Was it an accident that I found MKP when I was at my lowest point? No, I guess not, for the universe does indeed move in mysterious ways.
And what did MKP provide for me? A counterpoint to everything I’d experienced before, for sure. Support, from men – imagine that!
An accepting, non-judgemental environment. The opportunity to explore my shadows safely.
The opportunity to heal my emotional wounds, step-by-step, always supported, and more than anything else, always loved by the fine men in this organisation.
Learning that I was lovable, that I was good enough, that I had a right to exist; I would never have imagined it possible.
But more than anything else MKP provided me with a family – my iGroup.
This group of men, who I have come to know more intimately than I would ever have dreamed possible, has been by my side for years now, meeting every two weeks, or as often as each of us can, establishing bonds of brotherhood and friendship which have really enabled me to experience the meaning of connection and love.
To say that MKP has been a major influence in my life doesn’t even begin to cover what it has done for me.
It’s been the forum that has allowed me to express myself as I truly am, with kind but firm challenge, unwavering support, and the opportunity to grow in ways I would never have expected.
And of course along the way there have been difficult times, in exploring the shit that was given to me by others, stuff that was never mine, and which needed extracting for me to be who I was always going to be.
Healing - triumphant man
My brothers in MKP and the organisation itself have been the means of my redemption from the betrayal of my own birth family.
And from this place of personal fulfilment and continuing development, I now know the meaning of joy, which suffuses my life in every way.
At the times when I didn’t know how I would survive, I could never have imagined the benefits, the support, the wholesome brotherhood, of an organisation like MKP.
With thanks, Bob
