Women: How might your life be different?

A Piece For Women: Some thoughts on the Woman Within training When was the last time you felt like someone really heard you? Heard you without judgement or trying to fix you? Heard you and sat with you in your pain or joy without taking away what you truly feel about yourself - warts and all? How often do you have the time to hear yourself and touch your inner wisdom? What are the stories you tell yourself about the kind of woman you are? Are you loud, quiet, soft, ambitious, strong, caring, frightened, confident - or all of the above? Do you have a niggling sense that you’re stuck, or repeating the same patterns? Perhaps you want more from your relationships. Perhaps you just really want a relationship.

You might feel that there’s more to life, or you have more to offer. What if you could offer it by doing less, and being more? And how would it be if you could see what that was like, in a supportive place where you set the pace?

It’s an incredible thing to realise that all women - no matter where they’re from, how old they are, or what their life experiences have been - go through very similar things to us. And have done since time began. Women are many things at once. We take on roles - daughter, mother, lover, wife, grandmother, worker, and student. We plan, and dream, and look after other people. Some of us have to fight for our position in life, and struggle to be heard.

Every kind of woman does the Woman Within Training Weekend. Something many of us do is look at each other, make judgements about each other, and then make judgements about ourselves in comparison. We have preconceptions about what life is like for other women, and what they’ll think of us. Some of us are perfectionists, and some of us take a conscious decision not to care what anyone else thinks.

Everything is welcome at the Woman Within Training Weekend. Your feeling safe is the most important thing, even though that means something different for everyone. You won’t be asked to do anything that you don’t agree to. It’s an opportunity to leave behind those roles that you play so well, and to listen to who you really are. To learn by listening to other women, without needing to hear the whole story. To be surprised by what you hear when everything is quiet.

If you’re like most women I know, you’ve probably spent some time talking about yourself. To yourself, even. You might have thought a lot about what makes you tick. I know I had when I did the Weekend. What I hadn’t done was stop thinking. I had never stopped trying to explain everything and make sense of it, and feel instead.  I found out that when I let myself feel something rather than thinking about it, I get to the answer that’s right for me much more quickly; or at least something that I can work with.

The Weekend didn’t tell me everything about myself, or the exact direction my life should take, although it did for some. What it gave me, two years ago, was a very strong sense that I would be OK. A solid feeling, right at the heart of me, that I can still access any time I need or want to.

I also learned how to be quiet, both on the outside and the inside. I learned that I can listen without judgement, and in any situation I can choose how I react. I am powerful, in a good way, and I can be powerful without being “too much”, or aggressive. I don’t have to talk my problems away, but I can if I want to, and I will be heard. If I’m frightened of something, I know that I can be my own support, and if I need support, it’s there.

I can’t tell you what happened on my weekend. Partly because I’m very glad no-one told me what was going to happen before I went, and I don’t want to ruin it for you! But mostly because I can’t remember - I don’t remember the words, or thoughts, or what I did, in any detail. What I remember is how it felt, and I still feel it now.

After my weekend in 2009, I joined a circle of women locally. We meet once a month, and it’s my chance to reconnect with what I learned. Life has a habit of getting in the way of being a perfect human being, and I hope it never stops challenging me. The women in my circle listen without judging me, give me their full attention, and ask me what I need from them. I let them see all of me, when I need them to - warts and all.

The next Woman Within Training Weekend is 28-30 October 2011, at Juniper Hall in Dorking.  You can get more information at www.transitionseurope.com. If you would like to talk to someone about the weekend, or have some questions, you’ll find contact details on the site.

Karen M

Masculine empowerment

Being a man amongst men The men had been initiated. I stood, eye to eye, man to man with a "new brother". Then the drum sounded and I moved to the next man. The same vision. Eye to eye, man to man. Some of the new brothers had welled up and were crying. "This is awesome," I thought to myself…then I dropped the thought and returned to presence.

It was the closing ceremony of the March 2011 NWTA in the United Kingdom, and my first staffing with the global men’s organisation called The Mankind Project. I was honouring these men as new brothers at the end of their "New Warrior Adventure Weekend" (NWTA), otherwise called their initiation weekend.

For some of these initiates this might just have been the first time that they had ever felt truly honoured for all that they are by a group of fellow men. And as I did this, I realized that this was a life changing experience for me too. I was being entrusted, along with all the other 39 staff members, to honour and initiate fellow men for everything they are. And in doing so I feel I have received a transmission of masculine empowerment that will serve me, and the communities I engage in, for the rest of my life.

The container

I understood why several brothers over the years since my own initiation weekend had told me that their experience of staffing the weekend was even more powerful than the original weekend itself. Being entrusted to initiate other men having attended nothing more than a single MKP NWTA weekend might make people question the strength and integrity that this "initiation" into manhood holds. However in this organisation I am struck by how fantastically well it works.

This is because the "container" is so strong. In order to staff we must commit to being truly of service, to honour our commitments we make when signing up, to respect and respond responsibly to any emotional charge we have with another staff member so that the flow of respectful heart-full communication remains open, and to hold ourselves accountable if we feel out of integrity for any reason, e.g. if we have not walked our talk.

As staff we must commit to taking full responsibility for our actions, both wholesome and unwholesome, and there are reflective processes readily available and encouraged when we step out of integrity. And what I love is that within this container are the most wonderful heart-warming honouring rituals. These allowed me to truly serve in the knowledge that this service was being valued by my fellow brothers.

Home

As I serve in the world outside the MKP, this feeling of being supported is within me as a consequence of witnessing and being a part of these rituals. I know that things are not always easy for men and it feels damn good to know that I have support.

So, as I looked into these men’s eyes, my life was changing, my ground was forming. It is time for me to do my work, to live my joyful mission, to revel in this warm, heart-full and wonderful community, with joy and satisfaction that I have found my community of brothers.

Just before we stood eye to eye with these men, we staff were lined up and then invited to turn to the man beside us to talk for a minute about what "gold" we had received from the weekend. I was honoured to turn to one of the leaders of the weekend, and without knowing what was going to be spoken, in complete trust that my truth would be delivered, I spoke.

I heard myself speak of my strong sense that I had found a community which exemplifies so many qualities that I value in the world…integrity, service, responsibility, honouring, humour…I told this leader that I was feeling deeply satisfied, truly happy in knowing that I had finally found my community of brothers that I had silently longed for - for a very long time.

Francis E Francis is a healer, life-coach and 5 Rhythms teacher. You can read his blog at returntoinnocence.org.uk

Lost on the way to the City of Joy

Whenever I thought about joy, bliss, ecstasy, call it what you will, the image I had was of a golden city in the distance; I was always on my way there. I felt as if joy was something missing from my life. I believed everyone else apart from me was, if not full of joy, then at least happy. Was it me, and if so, what was I missing, or not doing right? Whenever I was at the top of a hill on my journey I was filled with hope and joy because the goal didn’t seem far away. When I hit rock bottom, at first I’d be lost in the shadows; then as my journey continued I’d be sustained by the hope that I had a destination in sight and mind.

But as I’ve continued on my journey, I’ve come to realise that I was so focused on my destination that I’d forgotten about my reasons for making the journey in the first place - and I’d also forgotten myself, the traveller. I never asked myself what was so important about joy, who I was, and how I would be different once I reached the city of joy. I’d always thought that everything would be good, full of bliss, joyful once I reached my destination. But in reality, what would have changed and how would reaching the city of joy change me? Would I be more joyful or living in constant ecstasy?

Looking back I can see the paths I’ve followed. Along the paths are both mementos to mark my passing, scattered objects that at the time I “had to have” because they would make me a happier man, complete me, or give me joy, and also battlegrounds where I’d overcome my personal adversaries.

Looking forward I can see my destination. I am part way between what was and what will be; I realise that another question for me is “What am I travelling to and why?” For possibly the first time I look at myself and realise that just by undertaking my journey I have changed - and I am, in some ways, closer to joy. I’d started my journey wanting to be different, improved, a better man, happier - and I’d believed that entry to the city of joy would give me these things. Once again, focusing on something outside me to get joy, happiness, bliss.

Now I’ve come to see that I have changed, and some of the things I’d set off in search of I now have, while others - like the city of joy - are getting closer. Looking at myself I can see both the shadows that I’ve carried and the light reflected from the city shining on my face. Perhaps it isn’t as far as I thought…. and maybe I am stronger than I thought; ready to walk another day, ready to do battle with another adversary until I turn a corner and realise that the city of joy has been there all along, while I just wasn’t ready to enter its gates. A happy man at home in the city of joy!

On the path to the oasis of joy

There are many mirages on the path to the oasis of joy,

solid and strong until you lean upon them

There are many mirages on the path to the oasis of joy,

cool and comforting until you reach for them

There are many mirages on the path to the oasis of joy,

loving and nurturing until you embrace them

There are many mirages on the path to the oasis of joy,

seductive and entrancing until you name them

There are many mirages on the path to the oasis of joy,

Real and true until you fix your sight on the true goal.

Shaky S

www.poetwarrior.org.uk

Fear of living the dream

I never thought it would be easy, but to hit the wall so close to the end feels almost laughable. I could use metaphors, similies and stories to share where I am, but for once I’ll try and use my own words and keep the stories to a minimum. For years I’ve been on a journey - or perhaps it’s more a series of journeys.

At first it was owning and dealing with the realisation that something in my life didn’t feel right. The old ways of keeping score (nice house, nice car, well paid job, lots of gadgets) didn’t feel relevant.

And true, it didn’t matter if the house had thirty bedrooms or three – there were still only three of us; it didn’t matter if I drove a Ferrari or a Ford - the local speed limit was still only 30 miles an hour. And as for all those gadgets that I apparently ‘had to have’, well, I spent more time looking for them than I did using them. I realised with the help of MKP that there was some transference going on. I was using a variety of things to cover my unhappiness.

For me the saddest thing was the realisation that I was sad. All that energy and money being spent by me to deny myself a basic truth. Lots of activity at the surface of the lake to displace a monster that was hidden in the depths and, I judged, laughing at me (so perhaps it’s sadness and shame).

The next question was “If what I’m doing doesn’t make me happy, what will?” I started to look at the burden of responsibilities (both imposed by myself and others) that I carried and began to own how many of them weren’t relevant or true anymore.

I would, I believed, be slicker, smoother, smarter and lots of other words beginning with ‘s’ as I did this work. But, me being me, I didn’t realise how long it would take me to heal from some of this work and the hardest part was (and still is) giving myself patience, compassion and time to heal. I never realised how many messages I carried (and to some extent carry) and how little space I had for me on that pedestal created for me both by others and by my own unconscious self.

Fearfully, tentatively, I started to dream my own dreams and that pedestal didn’t feel such a lonely place as I prepared to unfurl my shining angel wings and fly.

Bam! Then it hits me and once again they have hold of me; the fear, the sadness and the shame (I name them with the hope and belief that doing so weakens their hold over me). “Who am I, what right do I have to dream these dreams, what if I make a fool of myself, what if the dreams I dream are just an illusion, or just wrong?”

Once again, I sit with anger, sadness and shame (a familiar trinity). For the first time I can own those feelings and the fact that I really don’t know what to do or what I really want to do. What if I take off from that pedestal and then fall and hit the ground or more scarily, what if I take off from the pedestal and FLY....?

I really don’t know which I want, one is so familiar, but I now realise not serving me. The other, oh, the other - so new, so exciting, and oh so very scary. Which is more enticing though: the fear of living trapped on a pedestal not of my own making or the glory of flying free?

Shaky S

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness; May all be free from sorrow and the causes of sorrow; May all never be separated from the sacred happiness which is sorrowless; And may all live in equanimity, without too much attachment and too much aversion, And live believing in the equality of all that lives. www.poetwarrior.org.uk

What can I possibly gain that I don't already have?

The e-mail said an article of around 1000 words was wanted from a man who could write with passion about his recent completion of the NWTA and the benefits he'd gained. I immediately responded saying I would attempt to get something down in the next few days. The prompt response stated the deadline was Monday mid-day - it was now Friday. A full weekend approached. I replied "I’d do my best". Finding myself roused from a deep sleep at 4 am on Tuesday morning, I recall my commitment to send an article to a man I don't know, who compiles a publication I have never read. Now wide awake, I realize what day it is and that I have failed to deliver on a commitment to a man. That is NOT "my best"!

Now, at this point I could have snuggled down making excuses to keep me in my comfort, explaining the difficulty to find the time. I was so busy in the garden all Saturday, and that night was spent around a Halloween bonfire in warm connection with the men in my life. I was sharing deep inner truth and vulnerability, helping each to realize their unique gifts and our imperative to share them with the world. Feeling heard in a way I've never known from these men, I was able to take time to really listen.

And after that, I was sitting on the kitchen floor looking into the eyes of a 20 year old woman, for the first time really hearing her pain. She shared with me her deep hatred of men for the abuse and disrespect shown to her all her life, in the home, at school and out in the wider world. I have always found it difficult to relate to this woman since we first met, when she was 12 years old.

She has always been very defensive, aggressive and masculine. She revealed how she is intoxicated by the smell of men and deeply desires connection and union, but it will have to be with a man who has green or blue energy emanating from him - colours that she associates with love and heating. Most men are red, she explained, dangerous, she despises them. Finally, she told me that she had only shared these truths with 2 people: her best girl friend and now me.

Now other reasons for not making the deadline flood in. Very jet tagged from a long haul flight and having only 4 hours' sleep in 24 hour periods over the previous 6 days, I found myself sleeping right through Sunday, waking up at I0pm, and going back to bed a few hours later.

I was up at 7am to clean and prepare for one of my best friends and his new girlfriend to arrive later that day. It was important to me to prepare a beautiful space for them: ironed sheets, hoovered carpets, tidy living room and clean kitchen - not to impress, but because I value this man in my life for the friendship, humour, support and guidance we share and so I wish to treat him with the respect he deserves.

Then I was off to see a new tenant in an apartment I rent out. He'd written to say there were some minor repairs that needed attending to. I'd arranged the earliest time available to attend to his problems. Not because I worry about the rent or losing face, but because I wish to honour this man I've never met, wanting him to be comfortable in his new home. After a firm handshake and eye contact, I apologized he'd encountered any problems at all: despite the property becoming vacant while I was away, there was no excuse. Reassuring him that his happiness was my main priority, I swiftly carried out the repairs and arranged a plumber to replace a leaking tap by next week.

On the way home I popped in to see a friend who was also on the NWTA with me. We were both busy and we respected each other's time constraints, keeping our conversation focused; he lent me some equipment I had been considering buying and I gave him a contact around some work for him.

My partner and I shared a wonderful evening with my friend and his new girlfriend and left them to continue their night undisturbed with candles and romance in the hot tub.

Now where in all that could I have found the time to write a thousand words?! Are these valid excuses for not honouring a commitment? No, these are descriptions of some of the many changes that have happened in my life since I attended the New Warrior Training. There is no excuse for letting another man down, so I complete this piece at 6.30 am with deep apology and hope that the deadline contains flexibility.

Whispers of the ManKind Project were first heard when I encountered various men who were focused, loving and very present with strong eye contact. Commenting that I found it refreshing to meet a "man" as apposed to a "boy in a man's body", I was informed that these men had attended the training.

Just before I set off to attend the same training last June I spouted to my partner “Why am I, of all people, doing this?! What can I possibly gain that I don't already have?!" Half way through the weekend I thought I'd wasted my money and would only stay to support my friend. A day later I was shocked to see a man I have never known looking back out at me from my bathroom mirror.

For the first time I really liked what I saw. A 41 year old man looked back at me who was confident, loving and free to dance with life. My partner said I smelt different, my muscle tone was different, my voice deeper, my energy contained, and my focus intense. Although these qualities are not as pronounced now, they remain with me, and the changes I have found in my life in the months since the training have been profound.

I have recommended dozens of men to attend the training and am looking forward to future work with MKP. This organisation is changing men, and those men in turn are changing our world for the better.

Simon

MKP Men provide clean water and toilets in Ghana

As many of you know I have built an African Home Lodge in a very poor community on the coast of Ghana. And I’m passionate about introducing people to African life, culture and community in a way that deeply benefits the very poor local population. Over the years, when I’ve been faced by a deep need locally that I was not able to sort out by myself, I’ve turned to my MKP community to ask men here if they are able to help out. You men have very kindly helped out a number of times, particularly in my long-standing efforts to protect breeding leatherbacks and other turtles that come up on to the beaches to lay their eggs.

Recently the chiefs and elders in the community asked if I could help them by opening a number of clean water points in the villages and by building toilets.

 The lack of clean water and absence of toilets mean that children in particular suffer from illness, and often death, from diseases associated with poor sanitation. Several water points already existed, but had been closed by the water company because the community had fallen behind in its payments for the water. £400 was needed to open 6 water points which would supply clean, safe water for many, many families.

I put this problem to our MKP community and within 4 days a number of very generous men had pledged £800. I took the money over on my most recent visit. We are establishing a Water Committee who will regularly check the running of all the water points to ensure that each water point controller operates the water point properly. Once this is in place we will pay off all the current bills and open the points.

With the extra £400 Dzita-Abledomi village asked us to build their first ever toilet. With the help of volunteers we built the compost toilet you can see in the picture.

This toilet will be used by a number of families. It has two chambers. One is used, then closed off to compost while the other chamber is operating. After 6 months the compost is available to be used on crops as manure. The family members no longer need to go into the bush to go to the toilet and have the benefit of good manure for their farms. (Suitably inscribed, in case you can’t make it out, “Donated by MKP UK”! Ed.)

Prayers and libation in the blessing ceremony to open the toilet

The community have asked me to convey their deep gratitude to the men from MKP who funded this toilet. I am deeply honoured to feel our effect so far into this poor community.

Hugh N

www.meetmethereghana.com

Are you addicted to sex?

The popular idea of the ever-ready penis, always searching for relief, driven by testosterone, only takes us so far in explaining the relationship between men and sex. Of course, we are horny because we are made that way by nature, but underneath our biological urges to mate, to reproduce, how much of our male nature is driven by other pressures? How much of the way we behave comes from having a penis or not? How much behaviour is innate and how much is socialized? In the book Male Lust, Steve Bearman has something to say about this. He emphasizes how boys and girls are treated differently from birth onwards. Boys, he says, are given the message that it is not manly to be close, to reach out and touch, to express their need for intimate cuddles and hugs. They are encouraged to develop relationships with other boys that are primarily competitive: sports, teams, clubs, and fraternities all demand that a boy or a man knows his place in the hierarchy. (Even penis size can become the subject of competition in the locker rooms at schools!) 

Even though boys - like all humans - will search out support and help from others when they are scared, hurt or in pain, often they are given a message such as "Be strong" or "Big boys don't cry" or "Be a man": none of which helps them to heal, but simply makes them repress their wounded feelings and suffer internally.

The reaction of adults or peers when they express fear or scare is another thing that teaches boys that the honest expression of their feelings threatens their perceived maleness. Yet how many adolescents are given adequate support in the challenges they face, the immeasurably difficult tasks of growing up? From masturbation, through sexual issues to health issues, from changes in their bodies to learning about girls, boys have to face many challenges without much support other than that of their peers, who of course are just as ignorant as they are. 

Over time, Bearman says, boys learn to numb their emotions, to dull their awareness of their own emotions, and in the course of doing so, they decrease their ability to feel any feelings, joyful, painful or otherwise. And in doing so, boys - and men - lose touch with their bodies, they harden themselves (literally or metaphorically) not to feel anything, thereby losing their sensuality, their sense of aliveness, their tenderness and gentleness. This is seen at its most extreme in the process whereby recruits are hardened so they can abuse others in the name of military service, but there is only a difference of degree between this and the abuse of one man towards another in the workplace, say. 

Adolescent boys, says Bearman, are exposed to a social imperative to get laid in order to prove their maleness, long before they have grown up enough emotionally to know what “getting laid” means in terms of human relationships.

They are bombarded with sexual images on TV, in advertising, and in pornography: and these are compelling images which emphasize the domination of the penis, and which convey the idea that life can be experienced through sex, through penetration and through domination.

Directly or indirectly, boys and young men are handed sex as the one permissible vehicle through which it is still possible to express aspects of their manliness, masculinity and humanness which have been conditioned out of them in other ways. Sex, in short, is the one place where sensuality is permissible, where we can feel passion, desire, vitality and excitement; and of course it is the one area where true intimacy can still find its expression in an acceptable way.

It's certainly been my experience that sex - and in particular ejaculation - is sometimes almost like an emotional catharsis, particularly when I cry out at the moment of orgasm. From time to time, especially when my life has been stressful, it has felt as if my emotional life is pouring up out of my penis and into the world through my ejaculation: not an especially pleasant thought, for this is like a catharsis which deposits my unresolved emotions into the partner with whom I happen to be in bed.

Sex, then, may be the "answer" to many men's feeling of being dead inside. But the problem with this is that no matter how much sex one encounters (or its substitutes of masturbation, pornography addiction or lustful thoughts) it will never be enough to make a man feel whole; it will never be enough to express his enormous need to be close; and it will not truly allow him to feel his delight and vitality in being alive.

In short, if sex makes you feel more alive or less alone than anything else, it is an indication that vitality and closeness are missing from every other part of your life. 

So sex can become addictive to a man who has a great emotional deficit. Even if he is not engaging in casual anonymous sex, looking at pornography every evening on the PC, masturbating or trying ever more extreme fetishes or forms of group sex, he may still be showing his addiction to sex (or, rather, the impulse to feel which lies behind it) when he senses an urgent need to have intercourse, or experiences a desire to get off at all costs, or fantasizes sexually about the people around him.

And note that repression of these impulses is not the answer - for it suppresses the one outlet still available to him which tells him he is alive, which lets him feel his life energy! It is passion, not repression, that is the best ally we have in our attempts to be liberated from the bondage of emotional blankness. 

Healing these hurts and learning to be passionate and vital again requires that we get in close and stay close with every man and woman who we choose as our allies in the process of healing; it requires that we look after our bodies and we find our way back to every feeling that we somehow lost; and it requires that we reclaim our connection with other people, our feelings, our bodies and our masculinity.

Here are some extracts from the instruction manual for this process! I’ve taken all of these suggestions from Steve Bearman's work.

Reclaim intimacy

Bearman begins by suggesting that we can choose to redirect some or all the loving attention we give to people we're attracted to sexually towards all the other people in our lives, even those who we never imagined might be close to us. He urges us to communicate more, to share our fears and emotions, and to trust that others can be close to us: and indeed, to accept that being close to others is a natural state for the human species. No single partner can fulfil all our needs - we need human connection.

Reclaim feelings

The next step is to find our feelings and to experience them fully! In effect, he’s suggesting that we live with passionate intensity and feel everything that goes on in our emotional lives. Cry wet tears, he says, and laugh with your whole voice! Tremble with fear and giggle with embarrassment! Let your commitment burn brightly in daily life as you live with the excitement and passion that you currently reserve for sex! And ask for help in this - it's not natural to do it alone.

Reclaim your body

There are many forms of sensual pleasure -which, by the way, is something due to you as your birthright. I remember walking out of my house onto my land one day, naked, in the early morning, feeling the damp earth under my skin, the rain on my body, and simply relishing my connection to nature as I pissed freely onto the earth.

I've had similar experiences – not the pissing, but the connection - in deserts and on mountains, in forests and underwater. Obviously, sensuous pleasure comes in many forms: walking in the rain barefoot, dancing freely, breathing deeply, feeling the silken sheets on your body at night, the caress of another person, the splash of water on your face, the delicious feel of cool fresh water gliding down your throat on a hot day - indeed, sensuousness is about experiencing your senses wherever and whenever you want. But to fully appreciate this experience, you have to slow down and appreciate what your body and the Earth have to offer you.

Become sensual

If sex is our main connection with the experience of life's excitement and passion, its emotion and feeling, then of course we will become obsessed with sex and seek it out in any form available to us. But our innate desire to be close to others can motivate us to seek closeness - and get it. And when we fill our lives with those things that sex has substituted for, we are richer - and so is our experience of sex.

And Bearman makes the final point that sex transforms as our senses open up, because the desperation, the rush to get it, the urgency, and the fear and loneliness which corrupt our sexual experience are replaced with joy, passion, relaxation and vigour. In this case, sex becomes a celebration of love and intimacy, a place for healing, and a reconnection with our childhood intimacy and ability to express love. 

Reproduced with permission.

Further layers of(f) the father onion

Not so long ago, I took part in an Ayahuasca ceremony, sitting up all night in half lotus, “facing the music” like a warrior, feeling all the parts of my body and purging and cleansing, from deep within my cellular memory, anything that doesn’t serve me anymore - toxins that are held in my love handles to protect my system from their poison, my joints and knees that are beginning to restrict me, my spine that feels like it’s compressed, and so on. If there was anything that I needed to remember, re-experience, or feel whilst letting it all go, this was the time. Ayahuasca ceremonies can be beautiful and blissful; they can be hellish, re-living scary, painful places, with extreme fear, nausea, and massive physical purging. But I was up for it and ready to move on.

I recently redid my PIT and then joined the North London I group, having done my NWTA in September 2005. I recounted to my 2010 PIT men the time I asked my father why he had hated me all my life. This was a few years ago, the first time my brother and I had gone out for a drink with him without my mother. He was shocked, but told me that he hadn’t hated me, but kept me at arms’ length since I was a baby because I took away his wife and replaced him in her affections.

The women made me their special golden boy and taught me how to fear, hate and not be like men. I was there to serve, protect and be co-dependent with my mother, godmother and grandmother. I had no chance with the men and the men had no chance with me.

My father now realises that he projected his brother on to me and himself on to my brother. He always sibling rivalried me and acted the angry adolescent, as I was forced into father / victim role. I was very surprised at the emotion that blocked my throat and stopped the words from coming out as I told this story to my brothers in the room. I could not hold my face together and water came out of my eyes. I had touched something profound….

And the grandmother energy of the sacred Ayahuasca plants gently took me further. It took me to places where my father really hated me. Constant abuse and threats of violence.

“I’ll send you to boarding school!” lasted for a while, until I’d had enough and realised that we were so poor - and he was so tight with his money - that he was not sending me anywhere! So I’d remind him, ask him about it, and turn the tables on him. He had a terrible time in boarding school and his grandmother, who ran the family, hated him, while his unprotecting father hid behind work and alcohol, and his obedient mother did nothing.

So my father and I expressed hate with each other. I had a sharp tongue and would stand up to him, only stepping down when I knew he was beginning to see red and we were entering the danger zone: “DO YOU WANT TO FEEL THE BACK OF MY HAND?!” I remember once, far from the danger zone, walking up to him and feeling the back of his hand with my fingers and laughing “with” him. He doesn’t like me reminding him what a bastard and bully he was. He doesn’t go anywhere near his own childhood memories.

Grandmother Ayahuasca took me to the sheer terror that I would feel when I heard the key in the front door. The cold on my back and the churning in my stomach. I had no solution to our problems, though I was used to protecting my mother and brother, at whatever cost.

As we said goodbye to my father at Kampala airport, knowing that the Ugandan secret service might catch up with him and we might never see him again, he put his hand on my left shoulder and told me that I was now head of the family and I must take care of my mother and brother.

We’d been on their death list for a while, in hiding, out of touch with our family friends, school, and church. We were being followed, our phones were tapped and we’d had several death threats. As we boarded the frenzied refugee plane to England, with nowhere to go, the weight of it all burdened my shoulders. Even today my left shoulder still hurts.

Later, in the UK, I blanked out the feelings of hate that came my way and the panic I absorbed. Families were not a safe place for him: he was desperate to get away from my family and instead “serve the community that took us in.” I felt abandoned, but safer without him at home. I wished him dead, but we needed a father to provide for and protect us. We were only just learning how to shop, cook, clean, light a fire, stay warm and healthy in our shabby new home in a small town that had never seen coloured people before. (Staff took care of those things in Uganda.)

My mother was now my servant and I was riddled with guilt and OCD. We all had to survive, and we did so without causing our parents any further trouble. We internalised everything, took care of ourselves, didn’t know how to stand up for ourselves and dared not anyway: to cause any problems might mean the community would reject us - and we had nowhere else to go.

We heard and read about race riots, and the racist TV comedy of the 1970s emphasised the tension continually present around us. As a family unit, we were split. My protectors were my abusers.

Grandmother Ayahuasca showed me so much that I had forgotten, allowing me to feel it and relive it, watch and appreciate it, and then to see my father as the hurt little boy that he was throughout the whole experience. My heart was wide open with love and forgiveness.

I realised how I’d turned into my father, addressing my brother and best friends in similarly vicious tones, until I realised what I was doing and could begin to unlearn that “normal” behaviour. Once it was out, I could express compassion for my parents and what they’d survived; and I could forgive myself for the rage I’d expressed as I worked through my story.

I purged violently as I realised that I hated my love handles - a part of my body I could not feel unless I reached with my hand to touch their coldness - because that was where I safely stored the hate my father had for me.

I purged with relief as I allowed my body to relax and my spine to elongate naturally, rather than holding my father’s tension in my body, ready to respond to the slightest request from him, or cope with his loss of control, the flick of the switch that summoned his demon.

I cowered for most of my life, especially around masculine men. My shoulders actually hurt when they were pushed down and my neck up. Was I a coward then? Am I still?

I purged with the new information that I was not such a mummy’s boy after all, even though my mother stepped up into my corner after every round of emotional beating I endured from this damaged man. I felt I could protect my brother and mother, and her role was to prop me back up for the next rounds which she couldn’t fight.

It took me four months to refurbish their home, setting them up for their old age. I crushed our refugee furniture while they were in their flat in Goa for a few months. I replaced it with good stuff; it cost me a fortune, but I felt I was making them who I previously needed them to be: decent, stable, functional parents who were able to parent and protect me. I was also buying my own freedom, allowing me to move on in my own life without my old family home dragging me back into an unfinished, refugee-furnished past.

Bennie Naudé ran a short Emotional Freedom Technique course for survivors of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I did some amazing transformational work with him, with unexpected tears and emotions which stuck in my throat again during the final couple of hours. We tapped through the remnants of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, my previous inability to deal with the details of admin and money, wanting my father dead as a child but knowing that I could not replace him.

Working with Bennie got me over my addiction to haunting memories and old scripts that kept repeating, as different players showed up in my life to repeat the old roles. Thanks to Bennie, I can’t quite see the old pictures any more – they blur away into past insignificance and don’t have the charge they used to.

Now my parents are sorted out, it’s my turn for a safe happy home with my girlfriend as we learn about financial stability, peaceful abundance, blissful love, and everything else that we need to walk our paths together. I love my life with her; and as a family we are now better than I could have ever imagined.

My folks happened to be in London recently, so we spent an evening together, my brother and his girlfriend came around and we were a happy, functioning family, laughing as we played cards (my father used to be super-tense, shouting and sulking if he lost), joking as we chatted, listening to good music as we ate good food and planned happy days ahead. This summer we will finally clear whatever has been left lurking in the basement of our family home – our family shadow, maybe?

Thank you Ayahuasca, thank you Bennie, and thank you life for a perfect journey from which I have been able to survive and learn my lessons, picking up tools to authentically walk my path. I now gracefully let my love handles go, with gratitude for a job well done!

Kenny D

My Father - Warrior King

Some call them the hero generation, the ones who grew up in and survived the Great Depression and then fought to save democracy in World War II. My father was one of those heroes. I had the honour of spending his last few weeks with him, supporting him and honouring his brave passage into the next phase of his life on February 6, 2011.

Many years ago, as a boy in the Depression, he sold newspapers and magazines to do his part to contribute to a family with an unemployed father who had lost his job, house and car all in the same week.

Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he reported for service in the US Army, in which he served in the Pacific Theatre as the rangefinder of an anti-aircraft battery. He took part in numerous amphibious landings on various islands including New Guinea and the Philippines. Then he served as a Military Policeman in occupied Japan. He did his Warrior duty for his grateful nation.

When, as a boy, I asked him about how the war was, he would say he thought of it as protecting his mother and sister back in Chicago. That is all he would say on the subject.

He returned from the war, like so many of his fellows, wanting to prepare for a job, meet a wife and have kids - the 1950s American dream. After an apprenticeship as a wood and metal pattern-maker, he began his career and met my mom. Soon they had me, and a few years later my sister came along.

His idea of what it means to be a man and father was to be the best provider. He did that very well throughout his life by working hard, always seeking better paying jobs, overcoming unemployment four times, and ambitiously buying a house in a higher income suburb of Milwaukee to ensure that my sister and I would go to the best school system in the area. For me, this was a combination of his Lover and Warrior energies - caring with intention.

His Lover side had a fun side too. He would fly kites with me, go fishing with me, and we would sled wildly on some very steep hills, at night even! He also supported quality family time together with numerous family vacations - sometimes staying in lake cottages, sometimes taking us on cross country tours from Wisconsin to Colorado, or through Wyoming or South Dakota, and also visiting our nation’s capital to teach us about our government.

My father’s Magician energy was in his hands. He could make or fix almost anything, achieving true wonders with wood and metal. He had intuitive talent, and this extended to building bedrooms for us in the unfinished attic of our home, building his own garage and a basement recreation room, and also adding a carport/porch combination. He did extremely precise tool and die work, and just before his retirement he was making exact models of prototype electric tools that were in development.

His decline in old age was hard to watch, but his magnificent King energy showed in the sovereign way in which he dealt with his death. It was a lesson in bravery.

After a heart attack damaged a valve in his heart, my 87-year-old father was at peace with the realization that at his age an operation was not possible and that he would walk the path to his next life in a period of weeks. As King/Patriarch/Elder of our family, he blessed us all: my sister and I, his grandchildren and baby great-grandchild, grateful for our time together with him. He had only the necessary pain medication and bravely went through his process with dignity and loving kindness and appreciation for his caregivers.

In his life he walked his talk, and lived his ethics. He was a good man, son, brother, husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He was not an MKP brother, but I feel his life was a good example of being one.

Peter B

MKP & Minorities - Gay & Bi Men

Having just returned from the San Diego Gay/Bi Gateway NWTA I’d like to share my experience, some of the history of Gateways in our community, explain the context for these weekends, and peek into the future. After a Gay/Bi Gateway NWTA in Atlanta in 2004 I returned to the UK all fired up to have our own “Gateway”. Over-enthusiastic and without the necessary communication or leadership skills to enrol others in my vision (and maybe, just maybe, our community wasn’t ready for a Gateway) the notion of anything but a “standard” NWTA was met with significant opposition, even from gay Warriors.

And so I threw in the towel with anger and resentment about “being misunderstood and unsupported” – one of many shadows recurring in my life based on the lie that “I don’t belong”.

That was more than 5 years ago. I imagine that a lot has changed in those 5 years; I know I have.

Background

MKP officially supports Gateway NWTAs. There have been Gateways for gay/bi, African-American, Orthodox Jewish and Hispanic men, and men who are deaf or hard of hearing. Gateways are 100% Warrior weekends. They aren’t “black” or “gay” or “lover” weekends; they follow the same protocols and structure, involve the same energy, and they have the exact same intent: to initiate men into a new way of being.

The main differences are

• Approximately 75% of the staff and leader team are from the minority group (gay/bi, Hispanic, etc) • The majority of initiate places are reserved for men from that group • Men from the non-minority group who apply to attend the weekend are told about the structure of the weekend so they can choose to come or not. Some may very well decide that they’d rather do a “standard” weekend, while others have felt comfortable attending the Gateway.

Even after staffing two gay/bi weekends in 2004 and 2005 it took me a few years to “get” why these weekends are necessary and imj important.

For most men it takes a huge amount of courage to attend the NWTA. Maybe, if you think back to your weekend, the weeks and days leading up to it, filling out the forms, receiving that call, packing, driving down, arriving and being met at the gate (and of course the weekend itself) – you’ll know what I’m talking about.

So how about gay/bi men attending an NWTA where they know that the majority of staff will be straight?

Many gay/bi men grew up being bullied or “gay bashed” because of their sexual orientation or preferences. Many experience rejection from their families or friends for the same reason. Most countries in the world still discriminate against homosexual people through legislation, some countries imprison or kill gays; even in places where the law treats gay/bi people as equal, discrimination is commonplace in the workplace and in society; it happens!

Usually, those implementing laws which discriminate against gay/bi people, those doing the rejection, and the bullies, are men and women who profess to be straight. Given that this is the reality of many gay men I believe it’s unrealistic to expect them to trust they’ll be safe with straight men.

I believe that seeing this as “their stuff” and suggesting that they should just “get over it” is an attitude that comes from ignorance, the privilege and power of being straight, homophobia (a fear of homosexuals), and/or hetero-sexism (a belief that homosexuality is inferior to heterosexuality).

MKP’s response to this? Gateway weekends, where these men are explicitly told that they will be supported by men on staff who are either from “their tribe” or who are overtly and consciously their allies.

A number of gay/bi men (like me) do the “standard” NWTA. I regard myself as lucky because I’m not overtly gay (you’d probably not know if I didn’t choose to tell you); also, because I only came out in my late 20’s, I didn’t personally experience any gay-bashing while growing up. Now, in my early 40’s, I can pretend to be straight – convincingly - whenever it seems unsafe not to do so.

I had every intention of hiding my sexual preference on my NWTA; I just assumed that revealing it would NOT be OK – until the staff man leading a process on the Sunday morning opened up the circle with the words “As a gay man…” Instead of being rejected I was met with total acceptance. This was a profoundly healing experience for me that I believe set me up to eventually come out to my parents, family and friends and the world.

Not every gay/bi man has had the luxury of blending in with the (majority) crowd and some have experienced the reality of abuse that goes with heterosexism and homophobia (again, often from people who claim to be heterosexual: this is really important to “get”) for a long, long time before they even hear about the NWTA.

To then expect them to trust a circle of straight men on an NWTA is, as a Jewish friend said to me, like expecting a Jewish man to do his NWTA in Germany.

Or a black man to step into an all-white circle.

There is simply too much history to ignore. Yes, it would be easy to judge such a man’s fear and refusal to come as “all his stuff”. Easy and, imj, ignorant of the world we live in or, more to the point, ignorant of the world they live in.

The Gateway NWTAs offer an opportunity to consciously create a safe space for men from these minority groups to do their work. They still have to find the inner courage to step through the gate and onto the carpet; the Gateway concept simply creates the assurance that they will not be hurt yet again for their “minority” status.

San Diego Sept 2010 Gateway

The weekend was, like all weekends for me, the same – and different. I knew that about 75% of the staff were gay/bi but with few exceptions I did not know who was and who wasn’t. Similarly, all I knew about the men attending was that most (or potentially all) were gay/bi.

In the end it just wasn’t important to know who “was” and who “wasn’t”.

What was important was that the gay/bi initiates knew that they would be safe to be “out”, to be themselves. As with all NWTAs, the staff provided the structure and allowed the initiates to provide the content – their content. If a man wanted to take a deeper look at his sexuality then that’s what happened; if he came to the weekend for a different reason then we honoured that too.

We held them, challenged them and loved them just like we do on any NWTA. On Sunday we left, the world yet again imj a little safer.

Staffing a Gateway

This was my third gay/bi Gateway NWTA and it was the third time that I heard straight staff talk about their challenge and discomfort of being in the minority – some for the first time ever in their lives.

Staff were reminded not to assume that a man’s partner was a “her” or a “she” or a “wife”; non-gay staff were encouraged to ask gay/bi staff anything they were curious about or wanted to know about gay culture.

I know that I suppress more “gay” parts of me on “standard” weekends, telling myself that it either will not be welcome or understood. And so in my experience, the Gateways give conscious and unconscious permission to the minority group to allow parts of them out that they have learnt to suppress in a world that is predominantly “other”. I believe that that brings a quality of initiation to the initiates that is simply richer, truer and safer than non-Gateway NWTA’s.

Gateways are not better, or worse, or even that much different from “standard” NWTAs. And they are, of course, a world apart.

The future?

I would love to be part of and have a Gateway in the UK in 2011 and I’m wondering: could it be that our community is ready for our own Gateway?

I suppose what I’m really wondering about is – are you ready for our own Gateway?

I’d love to hear from you. Why not email me your thoughts to me at bennie@deepliving.com or post something on “chat”; meet you there.

Bennie N

P.S. Ever wondered what it’s like to be bisexual? Read about it here http://tinyurl.com/2dnl9nu