In this issue we revisit the feminine or softer energies of manhood. We refer to it archetypally as the Healer/Lover/Bear/Owl. It is the place we be relational to our self, others, and the world. It is where we learn to connect and feel, while paying attention to what has heart and meaning.

The dark sides of these energies are the impotent and the addict. The impotent is incapable of mustering any form of commitment and therefore is evasive like a shadow and tends to be dependent, compulsive, incapable, and avoidant. The addict is incapable of truly being relational. A phantom leers ahead of the person much like a haunting ghost desires to keep all comers away from the person. It is an inflated and active form of creative adjustment that can show-up as histrionic behavior. Often, the need to take center stage, to be the life of the party, and to charm others into liking them are indicators of this situation. However, antisocial disorders can also occur, such as an angry independence and autonomy that can be expressed as assumed and false authority to rule over others and often leads to addictive behaviors surrounding work, sex, food, and other self medicating chemicals as well as to sadistic behaviors. Rage often hides and protects the real undeveloped self.

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Bountiful Blessings
Herb Stevenson

Deep Caring
The Lover/Healer or the Impotent/Addict

The ability to connect and feel by paying attention to what has heart and meaning.

The Lover/Healer

At a very early age, many young boys are indoctrinated into the warrior energies, even though they are hardwired for both loving and mystical experiences. The young boy, often, is gayish in his exuberance for life and fully in balance with both his masculine and feminine energies. He is completely comfortable within his body and in his relationship with others. Life is ecstatic. Then, suddenly and often sternly, the child learns from his father, mother, teachers, peers, etc. that young boys are expected to behave in a particular way. They are to be more manly as defined in the image of John Wayne, Charlton Heston, and Robert Mitchum or Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, and Jonas Salk or Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle, and on an on and on. We are to become good workers, soldiers, warriors, hunters, providers, procreators, protectors, etc.

Many of our childhood heroes were dual in their presence. Their public persona was viewed as the manly image portrayed as role models for all men to somehow mimic, while newspapers often revealed a much different private self, such as the philandering Babe Ruth and the soft spoken John Wayne. Amidst these conflicting images, all young boys were and continue to be asked to define what it means to be a man.

The Lover energy of all boys and men is what supports our ability to connect and feel deep within our soul, while paying attention to what has heart and meaning. It is how we can be intimate in life with our self, others, and with life. The Lover energy is the source of much that is beautiful, inspiring, idealistic, and visionary for a mature man.

As we age and learn to creatively adapt to our environment, we learn that those with more power, influence, or force will often humiliate and determine how we will behave. Implicit to this process is the fact that at an early age, we tend to lack the internal support and authority to maintain the core of what we know to be true and right for our self. We begin to submit to cultural, family, and social pressures to be more like some image of what is proper and correct behavior for a man. Conformity becomes a means by which to belong and at least to minimize the punitive redress.

The Uninitiated Lover
The Impotent Shadow and the Addict Phantom

The Impotent Shadow

A shadow is something that hides in the background, unable to fully embrace his power and therefore to be fully present in any situation. He is passive in his approach to life and therefore in his contributions. As the Lover/Healer, the shadow surfaces in various forms of impotence such as being dependent, compulsive, incapable, and avoidant.

Casting of the Shadow

As noted above, the male child has a developing Lover at birth. Being nurtured by their mothers, the Lover is at least given some free reign during the early dependent months and years. As the boy begins to develop his warrior energies, he must build a wall between his mother so as to find the independence to experience his masculine energies. Often mothers will not allow such a wall to be built, thereby creating a sense of dependence. Or, if the wall is built, the child does not receive any support from the father for the Lover energy, thereby creating an avoidance. "The problem is that the child is left with the impossible choice of either remaining feminine in order to stay in a human relationship--the only one known at this early stage--or breaking their feeling ties with mother to become masculine". The father contributes to this dilemma for the young male child by often being unavailable physically or emotionally. This can lead to a creative adjustment that "big boys" don’t need time or attention, or are not emotional - cry babies. "What the father needs to do is to take his son to him, emotionally and physically, to hold him, to show him that he loves him. The boy needs to be assured that he can depend on his father for relationship. Fathers need to nurture theirs sons in order to show them that while they do have to separate from their mothers in order to achieve a masculine identity, they do not have to forfeit warm and intimate relationships in the process".

Recasting my Shadow

For example, I was raised in a family where men did not touch their sons once they could walk, except for acts of discipline. As I matured, I watched my father hold his father’s hand while he died. An immense healing seemed to occur at that instance where his father wanted to be touched by Pop (my father). I asked Pop, who was 62 at the time how long it had been since his father had endearingly touched him. He replied since he was two. I was shocked at the 60 year gap and suddenly realized we had a good start on our own as I was 40 years into the same experience with him. A short time later, I expressed interest in showing more affection. We struggled through hugging, handshaking, and finally as he reached his mid seventies watching John Wayne movies and sitting holding hands. Some years later, I am still touched deep within myself from those memories.

Impotence as Shadow

The passive approach to embodying the Lover energy leads to immature men that do not know how to fully embrace life, their family, their being. As a result, they lean towards being emotionally depressed, paralyzed, and dependent, where love is shown more by what I can do for you to provide, protect, and solve problems. Unfortunately, this type of love feels fruitless and unfulfilling. Emotional depression, paralysis, or dependency can develop from the shock and fear of having our psychological boundaries invaded, of having been physically, emotionally, sexually, or spiritually abused, of having our existence threatened energetically through rejection and abandonment, or having been smothered by ‘mother’. Regardless of the source of the invalidation, our internal authority of what is real or what is Memorex (a memory much like an exact tape recording) is questioned with each attempt to coerce us to change our desired behavior and what we know to be true; e.g. "Big boys don’t cry", "You really don’t feel that way", etc.

The invalidation leads to a combination of repressed rage protecting fear of not only attack and criticism, but of an even more primal terror - annihilation1 - the end of existence. He becomes a series of rote statements about who he is and how he should behave, instead of a human that can enjoy and embrace the beauty of his internal and external worlds. In many ways, he has been forced into purgatory...the place between worlds with little or no way of knowing on his own that he has been exiled from himself and the experiences of life.

Vulnerability is not Intimacy

Hence, early in life, we learn to close down our sense of openness so that we can not be embarrassed or humiliated. We learn that vulnerability is not a virtue. For a man vulnerability means that you are totally open and exposed similar to being embarrassed and in a worst case scenario to being humiliated and shamed, both experiences that one does not have the right to exist. Vulnerability is not what mature men seek, it is intimacy. Intimacy consists of a fully present man that is able to show-up while being receptive and sensitive to life. By combing the warrior to ensure proper presence and boundaries, we are able to be intimate with other people whereas vulnerability means that we are not in contact with anything but our internal experience of being totally exposed.

Unfinished Business

The Wounds and Unfinished Business of men seek healing through repetitive situations. The wounds of childhood surface over and over until we begin to believe that certain experiences are facts, when, in fact, the repetitive situations are our individual attempts to find a way to heal our self. When the "same ole same ole" cycle of habitual behavioral patterns surface, stop and ask "what is it that I am trying to heal that is hiding behind this hardening perception of how life is or of how my spouse is or of how my marriage is or of how my job is? What is it that I really want and that I am unable to seek directly"?

Because the male libido is strongly associated with his Lover energy, the Impotent Shadow is the result of a castrated male child, invalidated in his masculine energy to take action and set boundaries and unable to embrace the beauty of life. Often, he will hide in his manly activities of work, athletics, and ‘productive tasks’ while never experiencing the joy of any of them except as means to not validate his masculine and feminine energies.

The Phantom Addict

A phantom leers ahead of a person much like a haunting ghost desires to keep all comers away from the person. It is an inflated and active form of creative adjustment that can show up as histrionic behavior, such as the need to take center stage, to be the life of the party, and to charm others into liking them or antisocial disorders, such as an angry independence and autonomy that can be expressed as assumed and false authority to rule over others and often leads to addictive behaviors, surrounding work, sex, food, and other self medicating chemicals as well as to sadistic behaviors. Rage often hides and protects the real undeveloped self.

The Phantom Addict displays Lover energy first by reaching out to another that is perceived to give him pleasure. However, because the Phantom Addict cannot readily hold boundaries, he ends up surrendering his freedom and his sense of self to the other person or pleasure object (chemicals). This process clearly depicts the phantom as a mere ghost or illusion created by the person as a means to self protect. As such, in reaching out to another in an idolatrous love, the possessed man actually disappears into the other, and for all practical purposes ceases to exist. Lacking the presence and boundary clarification of his masculine energies, he is a mere illusion. The Lover energy, on the other hand, in its fullness, urges the man neither to self admiration nor to self-annihilation. Rather, the Lover inspires a man to simultaneously affirm and transcend his individuality. The question for the mature male Lover is not "to be nor not to be". It is how to be, in an enjoyable relationship with another, that is how to safely be intimately engaged.

As the insubstantiveness of each experience develops, the need for more and more often leads to a complete and utter addictive dependency that always comes up just shy of complete satisfaction. He compulsively finds himself locked in an endlessly repeating cycle of ecstasy and disappointment. All of his farewells heap upon him a burden of regret and grief which no mortal man can bear. At some level, he knows that he took a turn through a creative adjustment that has led him away from himself. As such, he is completely aware that he feels guilty for his original correction and moreover grieves the losses that he has incurred from having followed a ghost instead of "real relations".

Addictions point to the elements of the individual and collective psyche that have been misdirected and/or repressed, and to the male developmental stages that have been interrupted. It is clear that the absence in our culture of secret and ritual male bonding, such as sweatlodges and vision quests, and healthy male initiatory organizations designed to convey the spiritual truths of masculine identity, as once was military duty, is more damaging to the souls and to the physical health of men than has been acknowledged.

When a man apprehends the Lover in his fullness, he embraces the liberating experience of being a finite and worthy self, intent on joyful partnership with another. His presence is healing.

The Healer/Lover

The road to male maturity is paved
with feminine bricks

To be fully mature, the masculine energy requires the integration of the feminine parts of our self. It is often noted that a man becomes more masculine when he has incorporated his feminine energies. This does not mean that we become sissified. It means that we are able to be vivid and spontaneous in our imagination and appreciation of life. Moreover, we understand that in surrendering to life, we are steadfast in our boundaries of whom we are. Feminine energies of the Lover rebalance the perceptual frame of life so that we begin to normalize the full range of emotions that support men to understand appropriate and healthy grief, sadness, anger, disappointment, etc. as well as joy, happiness, ecstacy, etc. For example I cherish having had enough of a relationship with my mother and father to feel sadness about (and a sense of loss after) their passing. I realize that life is not meant to be happily ever after...it is to be fully lived ever after. In short, the Lover energy enables us to "know the fierce and terrible joy at the heart of all things."

Sexuality is not sensuality

Sensuality is to fully embrace the senses or, if you prefer, the sensual, whereas male sexuality tends to be focused on the act of sex, generally reserved to the phallic experience instead of the full body sensual experience. Phallic energy is warrior energy whereas sensual energy is gently surrendering to the wholeness of yourself. Many men that have not embraced or were forced to relinquish their Lover energy, do not know or have not experienced anything beyond the hunger for sex and therefore do not know the difference from a hunger for sex and a hunger for sensual experience, for procreation and, most importantly, for a comprehensive sense of well being. Instead, it becomes a search for something to fill an undescribed and unfulfilled lifelong yearning. Regardless of religion and other cultural norms, when allowed to form a healthy Lover energy within our self, we seek pleasure that can soothe our soul, not our penis.

Compassion--a form of deep Knowing that Heals

Compassion is a form of deep knowing that comes from empathically understanding the horrifying predicament or painful situation of another. It is not mushiness, but full heartedness that can only come from the long, hard, and painful experiences of a mature male. Strength begets gentleness and gentleness begets strength can only be understood when a man has accepted that within the many difficult, initiatory learning experiences was a wisdom that can provide support for a fellow man or woman. Compassion is heartfelt caring created from having completed similar odysseys that lead to a deeply empathic knowing.

Appreciation

Mature males need to appreciate the art that they create as well as the feelings for other people’s creations. As such, the mature male has compassion for his weaknesses and genuine appreciation for his strengths. He knows that what appears to be a weakness is often a hidden strength, and what appears as a strength may disguise a hidden weakness.

He knows that he is part of something far beyond himself therefore knows that he has a personal relationship with all of mankind as well as with his brothers and sisters in the natural world--the waters, the land, the sky, and the plants and animals that we co-exist with on this planet. Moreover, he knows that there is something beyond what we can know and that this Great Mystery somehow touches our soul.

Appearance

A man need not be ashamed to fully appear, nor to fill up all of his space. Rather, it is in the comfort of mature masculinity that males can more fully show-up and take their rightful place in the world. Because he can love and care for himself deeply and authentically, he can also reach out to others with care, concern, empathy and love, without feeling the need to rescue, take care of or fix the other person. For example, after fifteen years I got fed up with acting as if our family was Caucasian, when in reality we are more native American. I decided to claim my heritage as a biracial Native American man. At the time I was a very successful consultant, driving a Mercedes Benz and living the high life of material wealth. I soon discovered that most of my clients did not appreciate this newly discovered heritage and 70% of them immediately hit the road. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that my wife was addicted to painkillers and not in any mood to let go of her addiction, and that I was deeply buried in the Impotent shadow lover. After much self searching, I realized that if I did not fully claim my place in the world, it would not matter to anyone, except me. One inch at a time, one day at a time, I worked to rediscover the Lover in myself. I am still on the journey, yet I find that though I am not joyful everyday, I do feel a sense of contentment about who I am having reclaimed all of myself.

Spiritual practice

To access our Lover, we can return to daily prayer, meditation, active imagination, dream interpretation and psychotherapeutic support. We can pay attention to how often we mindlessly return to our same old patterns of responding to our children, our partners, and our self and try to add one thing each day that brings joy to those relations.

For example, today, I plant flowers, roses many, try to daily meditate and pray. I found out the prayer is actually letting the hidden parts of myself reveal what are my intentions for the day and how I prefer to live my life. With steadfast determination, I discovered that they come out of the shadows and begin to support the changes I want to make. After all, it is my life and I am responsible for all of it.

Bless the Interruptions

Learning to fully appreciate the hard work of another regardless of the results is an art in creating hope. Each day, try to brighten someone’s day with acknowledgment of them as a person. Welcome interruptions to our daily patterns and habitual thoughts so that we can see the Great Mystery has nudged us to try some new and different; and bless the interrupter, as it is often only a spiritual messenger in the body of a child or loved one.

Embrace the Great Mystery

Mystical experiences can happen in any moment, if we only slow down long enough to look, listen, and learn. Embrace the great Mystery of life, else we go through it without ever really having lived. Once the mystical touches you, your soul will never be the same.

Embrace the Souls of others

We all yearn for intimacy, which is a safe and contained way to allow another person to see and be seen within me and vice versa. I cannot embrace another safely without the full presence of my masculine energies. Herein, I can take action and set boundaries that will enable me to surrender to the intimacy of allowing another within me.

Definitions of Integrity

"Integrity is: (1) an inner psychological harmony, or wholeness; (2) a conformity of personal expression with psychological reality - of act with desire, of word with thought, of face with mind, of the outer with the inner self; and (3) an extension of wholeness and conformity with time, through thick and thin. Though integrity can be, and must be, expressed in individual actions, it is not fully realized except in terms of continuity. Thus understood, integrity may be defined as psychological and ethical wholeness, sustained in time...Integrity is not a painfully upheld standard so much as a prolonged and focused delight." --Robert Grudin

Adapted from Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette, (1993) The Lover within: Accessing the Lover in the Male Psyche. New York: William Morrow & Co.

Footnotes

1. Interestingly, annihilate means to destroy utterly, and, in physics, it means to convert (matter) into radiant energy, especially by collision of a particle with an antiparticle. If we combine the two meanings into a psychological construct, the child’s reality is destroyed utterly by the mother or father with an opposing reality more palpable to the parents; ergo, the child’s existence is turned into radiant energy not acceptable in this world.

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Deep Caring The Lover/Healer or the Impotent/Addict