Hello Guys,
I hope you are well and enjoying your time and life. Autumn’s colours are beautiful, and from the 1st of November, the Holiday season officially started. 🎄😅
So, I always write from my perspective, drawing on my own experience and that of my closest circle, and my clients are mostly women. Recently (in the past two years), I became the luckiest woman on earth because amazing, lovely and traumatised men surround me. 😅 I love all of them, but it was a huge surprise how much they care about self-development (of course, I’m their best life coach🥰), against all the assumptions, they like and want to talk about their emotions, and what kind of traumas they have.
All the women’s magazines say that “women are from Venus and men are from Mars”. Yes, we’re so different in a million ways, but what I’ve discovered is how similar we are in our negative feelings, self-destructions or traumas. How they self-sabotage, and we do, it is very similar. And mostly, I want to talk about the beliefs that we share.
Before we start, I want to explain why I think this subject is very crucial. I have many traumas, battling with anxiety and depression, not to mention my ADHD. So I know these things first-hand. I thought I had to wear masks all the time to be loved and accepted. I saw these men around me and I was amazed by their kindness, friendship and how strong they are despite everything they had been through. As I said, I am lucky to be most of the time the only woman around them, so I am more of a “bro” to them than a woman (not for everyone and not always, though), which is absolutely fine with me, but like that, I can hear the “bro talk”. You know every girl would like to be a fly on the wall when their other half is with the guys on a boys’ night out. We think they watch football, have a beer and only talk about their favourite team, other ladies or hobbies. What else can they discuss, because they don’t talk about fashion or their feelings as we do?! At least that’s what we think.
Well, ladies, I have news, your other halves have feelings and they’re talking about it with their friends. Why with them and why not with you? Well, simply because they think they have to be strong in front of you, otherwise you will feel that they are just “crying girls”. This was one of the strongest beliefs that I heard from my friends. Let’s start.
“Big men, don’t cry”
I discussed with the “boys”, and they all said the same: “Boys are not allowed to cry”. Some heard from their fathers or other adults, which makes absolute sense. Old traditions, old wounds, old generational patterns come to the surface. However, what surprised me even more was that, if no one told them directly, they just “knew” because if they cried when they were kids, other kids started to laugh at them. The conditioning is deeper than I thought. Men from the beginning of time were conditioned to be strong, and crying is a sign of weakness.
Let me tell you something, crying is a release mechanism in our lives. That’s how the kids release their frustrations, and this is the best way to let go of the energy that is no longer serving us. A good cry is actually healthy because it releases toxins from our bodies and all negative energy. If you don’t cry, you push back those emotions until you will not be able to handle them, and you will explode…if you are lucky. Researchers proved that if you don’t let go of your toxic emotions, they can pile up and can cause even cancer in your body. Nowadays, the situation is improving, and we allow our men to be emotional and we cherish their soft sides. However, I often see that if a guy is opening up, we as women feel that he is too weak and we cannot see him as a man. It is a circle on both sides.
Women don’t make this emotional transition easier for the other gender. We want our man to be strong and do the “man’s jobs”, but also help us to clean the house. We want him to talk to us, but not too much because we feel overwhelmed by his problems, too. We want him to catch the spider, but what if he has the same trauma regarding this small animal like we do?! We cannot handle it, because we need to feel safe. Our man has to provide, but spend time with us, but not too much, because we need our own time, help, but don’t be too “womanly”…the list goes on, and on and on.
I think the solution is balance and communication. Like everywhere in life, balance and communication are the keys to a relationship as well. Give and take. That’s the basic. Give them the space to open up, to share. Also, we need to know what we want, then align with that person. Get the qualities, visions, and emotions that we want to receive in a relationship.
“All men must be a superhero”
Obviously! That’s a must-have recruitment! (And obviously, it’s a huge, fat bullshit! 😅) Have you ever thought about the expectations of our society in a man’s eyes? I mean, we all know that a woman has to be married, have at least 1 kid and a nice career before 30, otherwise she is a spinster and “will die alone”. (Or doesn’t have a pancake from her mother!😅 Sorry, Mom!!!🤣)
But what about the men? Our society isn’t soft on them either. If a man doesn’t have a house, car, wife, at least 1 kid and a salary that can provide for the whole family, he isn’t a man, just some kind of “pathetic loser”. My guys told me that it’s still very essential that, from their salary, they provide for their family and must have a higher salary than their wives, otherwise they cannot feel man enough. If they cannot use the tools to build anything, they think less of themselves. They need to fix the tap and cut all the wood, and be a hunter, or at least go fishing, because that’s so “manly”.
To be honest, feminism didn’t help either. I’m single and from a village, so I can shovel the snow from the porch, use a screwdriver and put a shelf on my wall, and I’m definitely able to open a jar.🤷♀️ But ladies, please, it will not hurt you if you ask them to open that jar, or let them do the IKEA wardrobe without a manual. 😅 I know you don’t mind having your hands dirty, but let them do it, let them be a man (unless they don’t like it when their hands are dirty…well then be a “strong woman” and help- if they ask for it!🤣 Yes, I know such a man!🤣- Sorry!! You know I love you!😅)
“Men don’t have traumas”
Nope, they are not allowed. That’s the women’s privilege. (BS😅)
Let me tell you something, because we are all human beings, we all have been kids at some point in our lives (I know, I know, there are certain people that you cannot believe or imagine that they have ever experienced joy or know what kindness means, but trust me, they were kids. 😉), and like that we all have traumas. You know why? Because every parent makes mistakes. They’re human. Humans make mistakes. Not intentionally, not because they purposely want to screw up their kids’ lives and then pay the therapist for years…no… they are just trying to do their best, because unfortunately for a human baby, we do not get a manual. Babies are not IKEA self that you have a manual and you still can f@ck up. Every parent wants the best for their kid, and they have never been parents before, so it’s the first time they’re doing it. With years, they become better. But they have pasts, too. They have generational traumas that they pass on to you. Not because they want to, but that’s what they’ve got for their parents. Your parents have beliefs from their parents or their own that condition you and your beliefs. Unless you work on yourself, you will pass them to your kids. Or you have siblings, and they just want to joke with you, but they condition you to be scared of spiders for the rest of your life…but because you are a man…well, that’s not cool. Or your parents don’t want to buy a new outfit for the masquerade, and you are a 5-year-old boy and have to wear your older sister’s Madonna costume, and you end up looking like a bad whore (True story from a friend.😅) …that’s a trauma for life. Yet, your parents just wanted to save some money.
No one talks about what these things can do for the long term in your life. There are obviously more serious matters, too. For example doesn’t matter your gender when you are born to a family they don’t want you, or maybe they wanted the opposite sex. You start your life as a huge disappointment to your parents, who should love you unconditionally. That’s a trauma for a life which is not gender specific. Not to mention when your teachers criticise you for something, or they give you the bad boy stamp. And we haven’t discussed the teenager dramas, the loss of the first love. I could write about the type of traumas for days.
The conclusion is that until you become a 30-40-year-old man, you are fully insecure, don’t have self-confidence (but you will pretend like you don’t have tomorrow), you feel useless, incompetent and unworthy, which most of the men (and women) avoid, so start to use substances (or the women sometimes begin to became the gossip channel), everything just not to face the problems.
So yes, men are traumatised too. Everyone should accept that fact and be more empathetic with others. Plus, I have some bad news…if you don’t face your problems, nothing will get better…but it can always get worse.
So, doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman. We are all human beings trying to do our best on this planet called Earth. We have more in common than we even can imagine. Listen to the guys as well. Listen and know that they have their own burdens and emotions, and let them show you the soft side, too. And guys, please let us know more; show us your emotional side too, so we can understand you better.
No one has to be always strong to be a Hero.😘
XOXO,
Krisz😘
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Spirit of Spitfire 