The Ethos of the Sacred Masculine part 3 - Know your shadows to know your wounds

We all have shadow aspects of ourselves. These shadow aspects of ourselves are informed by our trauma, by the pain we have internalized and carried from our earliest experiences to the present. We can continue to let our trauma define us, our pain to control us, or we can make the choice define us, transform our pain and discover our gold.

It takes work...a lot of work, but doing that work helps us become the kind of man someone else can feel safe around, because that man knows himself and is centered, balanced, and grounded. He is aware of his pain and trauma and although he has moments where he may struggle with it (like anyone else), he also knows himself well enough to recognize when he is struggling and do the work he needs to do to get back to balance while also taking care of himself.

 When you know your shadows, you also recognize your own toxic patterns. These toxic patterns are informed by the behaviors you learned in order to protect yourself in situations where you were helpless and didn't know what else to do. Nonetheless these behaviors can also cause pain and harm to yourself and other people. You may not intend to harm anyone, you may be doing the best with what you know, but once you recognize your shadow behaviors then you take on a significant responsibility to change those behaviors and change yourself.

It is the responsibility of any man, when they recognize their shadows, to do the work on themselves to change the behaviors, so they no longer perpetuate the cycle of toxic behavior, in their own lives or the lives of the people around them.

When you heal your shadows you heal your relationship with yourself and with the other people in your life because you start putting those relationships on your terms, instead of continuing to let them be dictated by the shadow aspects you live with. How you heal those relationships is up to you, but what's most important is that you do this work so you can also bring yourself genuine healing and release from your shadow.

A creative approach to shadow work

Picture courtesy Taylor Ellwood

One of the practices I’ve integrated into my own men’s work and a practice I share with my clients is shadow work. Shadow work can come in many different forms, but regardless of what form it takes, it is absolutely essential for calling out the shadow within ourselves. A shadow is a behavior a person engages in that sabotages them. Shadow can show up in many different ways.

For example, one of the ways that shadow can show up is in how you communicate. If you make passive aggressive comments your shadow is coming out. You aren’t speaking up for yourself in a clear and transparent way.

Another example of shadow would be choosing to engage in deceptive behavior, where you are saying one thing, but doing the opposite behavior, or choosing to act on a behavior but not being honest about what you are doing. When we act on shadow behavior we undermine our relationship with ourselves as well as with the people around us.

So how do we draw the shadow out and work with it so that we can transform it into gold and improve our lives in the process?

image courtesy of Taylor Ellwood 2023

There are different processes that are available to help you work with your shadow. One of the processes I like to use involves creating a shadow mask. I have one of my shadow masks, for passive aggressive communication depicted here. I paint the front of the mask with the face I show to the world. I make the back of the mask a collage, where I share what I tell myself to justify my behavior.

I take these masks and place them in my office where I can see them each day. I reflect on them each day and reflect on how my behavior shows up each day in my interactions with myself and other people. The masks call on me to be honest with myself and honest with others. They call out my shadow behavior where I can see it and make it visible to me, even if no one else sees it.

I have a ritual planned for the masks, when I recommit myself to the sacred masculine work. In the meantime, they keep me company and call me to accounts.

3 best practices for handling moments of weakness

I’ve never handled moments of weakness well, yet I’ve had many such moments in my life. Early on in life I was taught that I wasn’t supposed to show emotions and so I learned to bottle them up. This didn’t work very well…in my early 20’s my emotions came pouring out, demanding to be felt and experienced. It was and still is an overwhelming experience. The feeling of emotion isn’t a weakness but I was taught that it was…until I learned it wasn’t.

Shame is easily the hardest emotion I struggle with. I’ve gotten the practice of beating myself up down to a fine science and its only been recently that I’ve finally begun to learn a different approach that is allowing me to heal my shame and even so I still struggle. Tonight I’m writing this article because I am feeling shame around a few matters in my life, and I am reminding myself in the writing of it what my own best practices are but I am also sharing them with you because I hope they help you, in a perceived moment of weakness to help you reorient yourself and get some healthy perspective.

So what are the best practices that I use when I am feeling moments of weakness that crystallize into shame?

1. Journal early and often. Keeping a journal on hand, whether a pen and paper or electronic journal can help you express what your feeling and work out what’s going on in your head and heart. I recommend keeping the journal private because its a place where you can be completely unfiltered but also express whatever is going on in a way that lets you make sense of it and put it into context. I find that when I externalize my thoughts and emotions it helps me make sense of them. What I write isn’t necessarily the conclusion I come to, but it is a way for me get a lot out of my head and heart and put into a place where have an objective record to look at. When I can see an objective record, it helps me recognize that whatever I’m expressing isn’t larger than life.

2. Practice self love each day. When I started learning how to love myself I discovered that it helped me counteract the moments of weakness I was feeling, because it allowed me to realize I was lovable no matter what the experience was. For a long time whenever I’d feel weak or ashamed or something else, I would also feel I wasn’t worthy of love. When I started my self love practice and applied it to those moments of weakness and shame it helped me start changing the underlying narrative around moments of weakness and shame. I became compassionate and forgiving toward myself and this also extended over to other people. You can do this as well.

One practice I do involves saying “I love myself” to myself in the mirror until I believe it. I will look into my eyes and state this phrase as many time as it takes until I genuinely feel love toward myself. Try it. Go to your bathroom and close the door. Look in the mirror and say, “I love myself.” You may feel awkward or weird initially, but saying it again and again will help you normalize this experience and make it easier for you to start believing yourself.

Another practice I recommend is making a vow to yourself about the life you want to live. Say this vow aloud to yourself in the morning when you wake up and at night when you go to bed. By saying this vow you are reminding yourself of what a life of self-love looks like and you are directing your focus and effort toward manifesting it. And it works. I created a vow and stated it each day and my life has changed significantly by continuously making the effort to state what my life of self love looks like.

Finally, I recommend asking yourself the question, “If I truly love myself, would I allow myself to have this experience?” This question can help you check in with yourself about experiences you are having and help you make conscious choices around whether or not you want to continue having these experiences. It has helped me get clear on who I want to spend my time with and the activities I want to do and it motivates me to continue to change my life.

3. Normalize the simple fact that we all have moments of weakness. We all have moments where we feel shame or weakness. What helps me know this is attending men’s groups where I can share my struggles and hear the struggles of other men. While what we share may not be exactly the same, oftentimes the emotions and challenges we deal with are similar. It helps me realize I’m not alone and helps me accept that the moments of weakness are normal…I don’t have to always be a strong man. I do want to be an honest man, and normalizing the hard moments of life makes it easier to be honest and also opens the door to genuine change.

Find a man you can trust and start sharing your experiences. If you don’t have someone like that in your life, I encourage you to connect with me. I coach men on these very issues and I am more than happy to be an accountability partner and coach that helps you take the next step on your own journey to sacred and powerful masculinity.

How to recognize and release shame

Shame is at the root of toxic masculinity. I share how to recognize and release shame so it no longer keeps you in a disempowered relationship with your masculinity.

How to Release Grief

I discuss the emotion of grief and why its important to release it and how you can do that.

Men's Relationship with Fear pt 2

In Part 2 of Men’s Relationship with Fear, I discuss how to normalize the fear that you feel so you can bring it out from the shadows and start working with it as an ally. We also explore how sharing your fears with other man can be an act of empowerment and liberation.

Men's Relationship with Fear part 1

Let’s get real about fear and how we deal with fear. Fear is a part of life. Men have been taught to ignore and repress their feelings of fear in the futile hope that denying that a feeling of fear exists will make that fear go away. I share why this approach doesn’t work in part 1 of this series.

The shadow of insecurity

Recently I was feeling conflicted.

I was at a crossroads about a major decision. Should I go this way or that way? I didn't know which way to go.

Should I commit to going to grad school, get another degree, a mountain load of student debt or should I commit to becoming a men's coach and do the work I know I am called to do around helping other men?

I felt weak and indecisive, paralyzed about making a decision even though in my deepest, truest self I already knew the answer. I kept questioning myself and my choices, scared I was making the wrong choice, trying to stay in my comfort zone instead of challenging myself to grow, even though that growth might be really uncomfortable.

One of my shadows had me in its grip and it wasn't going to be easy to shake off.

Can you relate to that?

What I needed was to address the shadow head on from a place of grounded and rooted masculine awareness, from a place of true strength.

The strength that can only come from knowing yourself, choosing yourself and acting on that choice in your best interests.

Fortunately I had some help and I did a deep dive into my shadows and encountered that shadow which had me in its grip.

It was the shadow of my father and a memory I had when I was 12 years old. I was at the dinner table sharing a compliment I had gotten from a girl about a book I was reading.

He said, "If you're so smart, why can't you get better grades?"

It was just one incident among many in my life where he tried to crush my spirit and make me small.

And here he was again reaching from the past to try and make me feel small, to try and make me feel dumb and keep me from realizing my potential.

But I wasn't going to let him do that. And I had help.

For so long in my life I had tried to white knuckle my way through my shadows, fears and insecurities, but what I have learned is that you don't have to go on the journey alone. You can go with brothers who understand and can relate to your experiences because they know the territory. Their stories aren't the same, and neither are their experiences, but they can relate.

I confronted this shadow with my brothers and I changed the story on a deep level and came out the other side feeling confident and grounded in myself, knowing that I can move forward with my decision and let go of the need to be in the comfort zone.

If you've ever felt something similar, felt lost, scared and indecisive, and you've tried and tried on your own to make the choice, but kept finding yourself back in the comfort zone numbing yourself with alcohol, drugs, porn, video games or other distractions, or just stuck and unable to make a decision, there is a better way.

Allow me the privilege to take you on a journey...the journey to discover your sacred masculine power and discover the deepest abiding strength you have within you.

If you're ready, sign up for a free sacred masculine strategy session and let's explore the challenges and shadows in your life by shining a light on them.

https://www.inneralchemycoach.com/

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