by Joel L, Western Australia
In spite of the focus recently given to the number of women who are students of Universal Medicine, there are also men. As one of those, I felt to explore some recent discoveries about expressing as a man.
Warning: this might be a bit like someone is explaining the landscape in a foreign land that they have not yet seen for themselves. The words may be familiar, but it is hard to grasp just how beautiful it is.
As I have mentioned in previous articles, the most profound shift in my expression as a man has been the recognition that there has always been a desire to recognise the sensitivity and tenderness that lives (not too deeply) behind all the bravado, drinking and standard mateship rituals.
I am coming to realise that my tendency to ‘close down’ (create a Man cave) was not because I was unfeeling but because of how much I was feeling. Feeling so much, but not having practised expressing these feelings, meant that the words usually came out in a clumsy or generally unproductive way.
The battle to try to explain what I meant/felt reinforced my view that life in the ‘man cave’ is not so bad (certainly easier). If my communication caused a reaction in another person, it was easier to blame myself and go back into the man cave rather than honour the fact that what I was feeling might be true. As such, the man cave was a safe haven and an easy retreat.
More recently, I have been popping my head out of the cave. I am finding a whole world of feelings that I have never really had to put into words.
I am learning the difference between not reacting to someone’s reaction to what I say, and to closing down… turns out there’s a difference. I am learning that someone reacting to what I say is not always a sign I said something wrong… and that sometimes it is. I am learning that the less time I spend getting my portfolio of achievements together and the more time I allow myself to be ‘real’, the more real life and other people become.
Finally, I am learning that other guys feel similar things and have the similar desire for tenderness to be their benchmark for life. What a world it would be once this becomes the norm, rather than the exception.
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
I feel we need to scrap education! Just start right back to the very beginning, the real basics, and make this the foundation, such as relationships … the relationship we have with ourselves .. how we feel about ourselves, are we able to say how we feel? if not why not. Do we have true body confidence, how are our relationships with others? Working with young people I see this the whole time, as in how they are not used to having these conversations, but when we do have them, just how important they are to them ‘Feeling so much, but not having practiced expressing these feelings’.
“the sensitivity and tenderness that lives (not too deeply) behind all the bravado, drinking and standard mateship rituals.” What you describe here is very across the board, these are the standard behaviours men feel safe to be in to define themselves, yet underneath is that gorgeous, sensitive, aware and tender person. And doesn’t it highlight the call from other role models – men to show other men it’s safe to be who you naturally are, not what’s expected or you’re told to be.
Life is all about learning to be and learning to be and express the tender, sensitive being that we naturally are is a gold star.
Allowing our sensitivity to shine forth, ‘I am coming to realise that my tendency to ‘close down’ (create a Man cave) was not because I was unfeeling but because of how much I was feeling.’
I work in a male-dominated industry, years ago I observed that young men had this arrogance that they are going to change the world and make their mark on life and the industry. I have spent 40 + years in the same industry and have grown up with these men who started their careers in this arrogance and watched how these same men have mellowed as they come to their own realisation that by trying to out-compete each other and change a system that cannot at present be changed because they are feeding it by using the same attitude and work ethics as previous men before them. They have come to the realisation that they have missed out on their marriage and their kids that have now grown up not really knowing their Dad but seeing him more as the distant provider. These men are asking the question, was it worth it? Interestingly I am seeing a shift in attitude as I know quite a few young men who now they are married and have young children are rejecting the lifestyle of their fathers, they want to spend time with their wives and children and to do this they have taken so-called ‘lesser’ positions within a company so that they can spend more time with their families. I applaud these men that have the courage to say no to the brutal way we live in a society that we expect men to be the breadwinner, the go-getter without considering that men are just as sensitive as women and have feelings too.
Mary there may come a time when men (and women) set a standard across the board to respect their family time, and work positions that require incredible dedication and time could be shared by two or more workers, instead of one person “at the top of the pack” so to speak. We may all begin to wake up to the harmful ways we approach life and work, and find easy and self supportive ways that tackle what’s still required in business and for the world, but prioritises love and care of ourselves and others – a rich way of life indeed.
Isn’t it the best when we honour what we feel, rather than overriding it for whatever ideals and beliefs are held, that, like you say, when older are reflected on as ‘why did I live that way?’
“I am learning that other guys feel similar things and have the similar desire for tenderness to be their benchmark for life. What a world it would be once this becomes the norm, rather than the exception.” And the way to achieve that is to live that so one becomes a reflection for others as the reflection of Serge Benhayon has done for so many who are now reflections for others, as you have become Joel.
“….. the more time I allow myself to be ‘real’, the more real life and other people become.” What we sow is what we reap is so true and being ‘real’ is one of the greatest things we can sow.
We are championed and rewarded in life for what we achieve, so to not subscribe to that is going against the grain. Yet, when you see someone who is at ease with themselves and in their flow with no attachment to being liked or defined by what they do, and equally committed to life, work, love and truth, that is inspiring and a reminder of what we all have at our fingertips.
There is so much in this blog. What struck me is that we have a choice about how we approach our lives, we are sensitive beings and we can honour that or we can retreat from that. One of the ways we can tell which we do is in our response to others when we speak, “I am learning that someone reacting to what I say is not always a sign I said something wrong”.
The man cave relates to anytime anyone retreats away from life, I can certainly see I also go to cave time instead of looking more deeply at interactions and respecting and honouring my sensitivity and ability to speak up.
I believe what you say to be true Melinda as a friend of mine recently expressed that because they have been unwell they have retreated into their cave. Having read this blog and the comments it is so easy to now see that when we allow our sensitivity to break free of the protection we surround it with we feel naked to the world and its censor of anyone who is prepared to be sensitive.
We are all equal sensitive beings, ‘ there has always been a desire to recognise the sensitivity and tenderness that lives (not too deeply) behind all the bravado’.
“My tendency to ‘close down’ (create a Man cave) was not because I was unfeeling but because of how much I was feeling.” If we can accept sensitivity as our base, it would explain a lot of behaviours we go into, and the issue is not in sensitivity, but in not fostering and allowing its full faculty to be activated so that we are robbing ourselves of an ability to know and prepare for what’s happening around us and is to come.
I’ve had that same feeling of thinking I’m ‘wrong’ after expressing what I felt true within. Now I know that there is not right or wrong expression, but rather one that is well received or not. If there’s no openness on the other side but reaction, I find that this can be an opportunity for both of us to go deeper and revise what is happening beyond words. This is not always a path eveyone wants to walk, but at least I can do it and understand why things happen rather than suppress me. This makes me grow and connect with others much deeper.
What you share here is a level of sensitivity all children have naturally but which they learn to squash because people around them do not want to live to that level of sensitivity. In fact, we are far more able to deal with what life presents us when we allow ourselves to be sensitive and acutely aware of what is happening energetically not just physically.
Yes Lucy, that is key. Considering the energetic factor in the way we relate with others is something that allows us to understand what happens without taking it personally. As ‘Everything is energy, therefore everything is because of energy’ (Serge Benhayon), learning to observe how energy works and affects us, should be basic teaching at home and school in our early years.
Yes, learning to read a situation offers space to respond rather than react. The reaction takes us out of the driving seat and straight into the boot of the car to be buffeted around till another stop is brought into our lives.
There is so much unexpressed tenderness that lives in the heart of every man. We live in a society where that is the norm, where men and women don’t know who they truly are and live in a way that only confirms them in all that they are not.
Great that they are all starting to pop their head out of the cave and express, ‘More recently, I have been popping my head out of the cave. I am finding a whole world of feelings that I have never really had to put into words.’
So True Joel, we all have our own version of our man-cave with an aversion to stepping out-side its safety-net, but once we let go and step outside, we find like minded brothers and sisters acting normally with-out the imposition that these deep societal cave dwelling beliefs, and what they have held us under do to our way of living!
When I grew up there were so many images of men being hard, tough, physically unbreakable, and their strength coming from being impervious to feeling. I can see easily now the lie in this and the pressure such images and stereotypes place on men, as we are all deeply sensitive, fragile, aware and tender. This is how we are born and our natural way of being.
When we communicate we do get it wrong sometimes because when we don’t express for so long we start getting our words mixed up, or what we want to say comes out all wrong, but I am learning that it is far better to express than it is to hold back our expression.
The world at the moment is fed on reactions and opinions, which are often reactions anyway. No wonder nothing changes.
I agree when we retreat back into our caves it is because we are super sensitive, and we feel a great deal, the more we realise that it is never personal, and live life accepting our sensitivity and tenderness the more able we become to embrace it without retreating.
“I am learning that other guys feel similar things and have the similar desire for tenderness to be their benchmark for life.” that is spot on Joel, nearly every guy I speak to feels the same, the desire for tenderness, the depth of love we naturally feel but often have to cover up.
We always have the opportunity for learning, ‘ I am learning that someone reacting to what I say is not always a sign I said something wrong… and that sometimes it is.’
You write with such simplicity and yet what you deliver has great ripples! Feelings may be unfamiliar but that does not mean they are not felt because we can be so used to burying them that we finally deny their existence,
If you’re in a cave and someone else is in a cave then who on earth will encourage anyone to come out? Someone has to be prepared to make the first move.
Having lived in a house of suppressed expression for the best part of 30 years as a couple we have had to allow the other to express and have the understanding that things will come out wrong from time to time.
Yes, what a world it would become Joel. I am practicing this being tender in the corporate world, and it turns out that there are many men that are open to being met with more tenderness, and have discussions how they really feel.
We simply have to lead the way and I am inspired by men who are prepared to do that. Hopefully it will be like a very contagious disease!
Yes, where everyone lives and expresses their tenderness, ‘I am learning that other guys feel similar things and have the similar desire for tenderness to be their benchmark for life’.
When we react to another’s reaction, we just feed the emotional mess all the more.
Well said Elizabeth, for with any emotional reaction we have there is something in it for us to learn.
In fact there is no real hiding for no matter where we go our level of love or lovelessness is felt. We can deeply go into contraction, yet there is our essence awaiting to be lived any way. So it is our level of honesty that sets us free from the bounds we have created that hold us small and limited to the grand love we are from.
Yes Joel what a world it would be! This could also relate to woman in some ways, learning to express how we truly do feel and that we are just as tender as the men and super precious too. A far cry from where humanity is at. But it starts somewhere and the Students of The Way of The Livingness is certainly surrendering to the natural essence and way of being.
“I am coming to realise that my tendency to ‘close down’ (create a Man cave) was not because I was unfeeling but because of how much I was feeling.” – Great realisation, I think our feelings can seem overwhelming when we bottle them up and hence then want to get away from that intensity by withdrawing, but the more we can allow ourselves to observe all that we feel, without judgement, the more we can tune in with what is being shown to us and how to truly respond to that, like if something needs to be expressed and how or if it’s just showing us something for our awareness and learning…
We get shown things continually for our awareness and learnings, giving us an opportunity to observe, and respond if needed.
I agree, what a day when men can share what they feel without feeling any restrictions in that. I’m already experiencing that with men around me and it’s quite amazing.
Closing down because we feel too much was a new concept for me, but makes so much sense, be we men or women. Learning that withdrawing and protection serves no one, least of all myself was only one of the many amazing things I have learned since coming to a Universal Medicine presentations. Living with an open heart and learning to respond, not react is still a work in progress, but is a more loving way to live in the world.
Popping your head out of the man cave…testing the waters in which we all swim… I see a tiny turtle that is slowly learning it is not the hardness of his shell that protects him but the delicateness of his inner most self.
Love this analogy!
Gorgeous analogy Liane, we are all super delicate and tender within, just need to let go of the outer shells of protection we have layered upon ourselves, and essentially go back to being as open as we were when we were children before we started to form the shell.
Yes it is common to say that men have no feelings and are insensitive and rough, but I love how you share that actually the bravado is because men are feeling so much and it is a reaction to not knowing what to do with that. Makes so much sense.
Familiar patterns, which we tend to see as ours, are not our best friends but something we have befriended to avoid feeling how lost we can be.
The man cave is an illusionary safe prison that actually disables and disempowers us from standing strong in who we truly are. Whilst we might feel safe it is just an escape from the intensity we are sensitive to in life.
The man cave is simply man ‘caving in’ on himself and not living and thus sharing the warmth and tenderness of his inner most self.
Yes it is a very confirming and supportive signpost for others to allow their sensitivity expression.
“Finally, I am learning that other guys feel similar things and have the similar desire for tenderness to be their benchmark for life. What a world it would be once this becomes the norm, rather than the exception.” This is a landscape of a foreign land to the one I was raised in, however, as I live longer and gain greater experience of it so it grows in familiarity and it is now the landscape of my home. It is the landscape that is everyone’s natural state – tenderness.
Yes, it happens as we get older, we start to see different things as we reflect on life. We have an opportunity to reflect on situations that we were convinced were someone else’s fault and consider that we may have contributed by the withdrawal or unwillingness to feel what was being shared at the time.
Very true Lucy. However, imagine a world where tenderness is the accepted norm and then I wonder what growing old would be like?
Yes, I wonder if we would naturally pass over younger because we would be less attached to being here
Or live longer so that so that we gain greater wisdom and understanding in order to be more prepared for our next incarnation.
We are so deeply sensitive we think the only way to deal with life is to shy away, yet thanks to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon we have been shown the true way we can live, one which we all know deep within, just have been too scarred to give it a go in full.
I love your blogs Joel, so light-hearted yet so very supporting for anyone to read. Great you are coming out of, have come out of the man cave. I am doing the same as well, letting go of the notion or thought that retreating away from life is the answer as it definitely does not work.
Thank you Joel for dispelling the myth that men are not as sensitive as women. The whole world has played into that myth and it is time to set the record straight.
‘I am learning that someone reacting to what I say is not always a sign I said something wrong… and that sometimes it is.’ It always comes down to honour our sensitivity and our willingness to open up and make mistakes.
“The difference between not reacting to someone’s reaction to what I say, and to closing down” – thank you for reminding us that they are different. And “the more time I allow myself to be ‘real’, the more real life and other people become” – this is super important to remember, that the world won’t change until I do.
It’s a beautiful blog Joel as it opens the reader up to understanding the process men experience as they return to their true expression of themselves, and how much sensitivity they have as they rediscover the way to be themselves again despite the world sometimes reacting.
My man cave was not so much a cave in the physical sense but a cave within me in which I would eagerly retreat when the going got tough and I reacted to the world around me.
Is it not surprising that we came home from the hospital dressed in something blue the transformation of what the world felt we should be, had begun. When could we practice and explore our tenderness? The more men that pop their heads out of the cave and express the traits we are all born with, we are showing others the strength of tenderness.
It’s quite amazing to read this now, a few years on from when it was written and feel the development in yourself Joel and so many more men who have committed to opening up and being honest about what gets in the way of them showing how sensitive and tender they truly are. Reading this now, I felt how amazing that reflection is to have in my life – men that are tender, caring and sensitive, that look you in the eye and that respect and honour the women before them. This is the way of the future, lived by us for the future of everyone, right here and now.
This is beautiful to observe in men, as when you look closely I see a tenderness in all men’s heart. Just they may have closed themselves off from feeling and living that, but when we allow each other to be, simply be, we are so tender and all the bravado will have no place to go.
I agree Joel – the normal we are expected to mold ourselves to does not support us to live who we really are. In fact, it misguides us to think we are not enough in simply being ourselves, and even worse that being who we are is deemed ‘odd’. To live our true potential is to live from our tenderness as this is what our true normal is. And the more we openly talk with each other about this the more we realise that we are not so different, and how natural it feels.
‘I allow myself to be ‘real’, the more real life and other people become.’ I can so relate to this and often find myself wondering where was I when life seemed dull.