Working with men

Am I a Predatory Male?

by Marc Itzler

menThe air is thick with it. A choking, cloying, cloud of guilt.  A dense fog of shame and self-doubt.

Men are gasping for clean air, for vision, for direction. We are looking outward, at the explosion of revelations and accusations of sexual abuse, misconduct, and harassment towards women.  Looking in, we are evaluating, assessing, judging ourselves.

“Where am I on the spectrum?”

Where indeed?

“what is ok to say?” “What Can’t I say? “Is this flirting or is it harassment?” “Am I a ‘good’ man?” “Have I always treated women with respect, dignity, and honesty?”

“Or am I a ‘bad’ man?” “Have I ever left a woman feeling demeaned, abused or frightened?” “Ever scanned her body with lust in my eyes and pure animal desire in my loins?” “Have I ever ‘persuaded’ or coerced her to let me into her deepest enclaves?”

What every man knows, if he is honest, is that within us, we all have the capacity, even perhaps the tendency, toward sexual control, conquest, domination, and subjugation. The very idea of it releases chemicals and hormones into our bloodstream.

To what extent we are first, conscious of these visceral forces and secondly, how well we are able to transmute them into gentle intimacy, sensitivity and respect, is the extent to which we can call ourselves ‘good’ men.  It is a very fine line to walk.

We want to feel our masculinity, our power, our potency. We relish the fire of desire burning within us. We want to release the beast that would ravish and consume innocent beauty.

But, we as 21st-century men, are not merely animals; subject to the blindness of instinct and passion. We have evolved to become more than our primordial drives. Hidden, deep in the dungeons of our darkest thoughts and fantasies, what men truly seek is connection. Closeness. Love.

In the pure heart, in the sentient being of every man, we yearn for intimacy.  No boy is born abusive or violent. We are all in essence subject to the same needs. To be seen, touched, adored, loved, desired, accepted.

So what is the difference between a good man; kind considerate, respectful, gentle, trustworthy and a bad man; abusive, manipulative, controlling, aggressive and violent?

The answer is strategies. Good men employ strategies to get their needs met and so do bad men. Some strategies make women feel appreciated, respected, well treated and loved. Other strategies make them feel abused, used, controlled and in danger, but it is all still strategies.

So then, why would any man choose strategies that would hurt, frighten or disrespect a woman or a man for that matter to whom they are attracted? Why would a man consciously attempt to coerce, demand, force or threaten in order to get his needs met?

The current generation of middle-aged men, myself included, were brought up in a culture that tolerated if not occasionally promoted the idea of racial prejudice and sexual misogyny. We grew up watching ‘Carry on’ films where women were objectified and abused as part of the script. This is what is being acted out by so many men now because we are still using the strategies that were modeled to us at a young age. This in no way lets us off the hook. Responsibility for our actions is ours as are the consequences.

Things were different in the 70s, its true. Values and behaviours that we now take for granted were not commonplace. Not just in the realm of sexuality but also in racial equality, homophobia, xenophobia, respect and care for those with disabilities and so much more. I sometimes watch TV clips from 70s comedy shows that would, and could never be even conceived, let alone written and broadcast today.

There has been an evolution.  Society has become more sensitive and more discerning. We now ask more of ourselves. We demand a higher standard of self-awareness, of values, of behaviour. Just as slavery and apartheid went from acceptance to first condemnation and eventually abolition, our society now demands that as men, we raise our game. That we know we are now subject to a higher bar, a higher level of self-awareness and self-regulation. What was ok is now not ok because that is how we grow as Human Beings.

I was able to grow into adulthood and learned to not mistreat or abuse women. As a boy, I did not slap girls on the butt at school or pull their bra straps. Even though it was ‘ok’ then. Some girls even appeared to like the attention. But I could not bring myself to do it. I actually felt like a weirdo because I was too shy to ‘flirt’ in that way.

I was raised by my parents to be a kind, respectful and gentle person so, no matter what fantasies fly through my head, my behaviour to women is and always will be, considerate and kind. This is what I have passed on to my two sons. This is why they also are kind and loving to women. And this is what it all comes down to. Teaching our sons what a good man is. Modeling what a good man does. Setting the example based on an evolved future, not an anachronistic past. Good men become good fathers. Good fathers raise good sons who then become even better men.

As the media splashes out condemnation and accusation, deriding the ‘awful, disgusting, perverts’ that have now been so heroically ‘exposed’, let’s not just scream at them to be better men. They were using the strategies they thought best. It was all they had and for some, all they will ever have. There are millions of Harvey Weinsteins and Louis CKs out there that nobody hears about. Men that go on abusing and harming women day after day, unseen and unhindered.

Condemnation cannot be the final response. It must be a clarion call to awaken and empower good men to become good fathers, good women to be good mothers and together raise good sons. That is the solution. That is the evolutionary path. Let my generation be the last one that fails to provide the right strategies to their young men.

If we can be good role models, leading by example and make integrity, honesty, and respect, the drivers of our values, then eventually, we will see the end of women suffering at the hands of men.

Tears – Our Healing Force.

by Marc Itzler

The Science of Crying. Tears Can Reboot your Genetic Code!

Repression kills our emotions. All of them. Our sadness, despair, and abandonment are all safely locked away, out of sight and out of our conscious mind.  Repression also buries our joy, our feeling of connection,

of being loved, valued and accepted for who we are.

From our earliest moments of life, we are compelled to control and inhibit our natural expressions of laughter and crying. We are forced to abandon the most basic and uniquely human form of language.

It is well known and understood.  That in order to begin to ‘feel’ again, to live with an exposed and open heart, we have to risk encountering loss, grief, and loneliness. So we find ourselves trading in intimacy and emotional bonding in order to avoid the emptiness and fear born of our deep, hidden painful memories. Our un-expressed and unheard cries for safety and security, for love and acceptance.

In his groundbreaking book ‘The New Primal Scream’, Arthur Janov describes how our brains handle extreme trauma and emotional overwhelm. He explains that the brain has a particular way of coping with more stress than the body can handle. He states…

“Ordinarily, neural information about hurt is relayed to the Thalamus. When the pain is not overwhelming, information is then sent to the hypothalamus which initiates a variety of responses, including crying. That makes up the healing process.  When repression exists, information and tears are rerouted away from the hypothalamus. If this did not occur, the excesses of hypothalamic activity in blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, for example, would be lethal. It is therefore important that the hypothalamus not accept all of the input. The excess neural energy of the pain is rerouted and finds its neurotic destination in the Limbic system and it is because of this bifurcation that full healing cannot take place”.

Basically, he is saying that as infants and children, when we are forced to deal with more fear, trauma or pain than we can handle, the brain puts some of the emotion into deep storage where it is locked away, and so we can no longer cry and release this element of the wound. It does this to protect the organism, to keep us alive!  Over time, the Limbic system fills with more and more ‘censored’ pain and the effects on our bodies and lives from this emotional pool of unfinished business manifests as many dysfunctions. These can include psychological problems including self-sabotage, addictions or other types of anesthetics, which allow us to function with some sense of normality. It also affects our physiology. Our bodies become sensitive and we may develop allergies, intolerance to certain foods and damage to the immune system. It can even repress diseases that can lie dormant in our systems, unable to be exposed and treated and so continue to poison us throughout our lives.

But there is an even more dramatic effect that is less well known about what happens to our bodies during a lifetime crippled by early repression.  Stinted by the inhibition of our freedom to express both our pain and our joy. Our evolutionary pattern or genetic code that runs our bodies during our life can actually stall in the face of deep repression! This means that we are running on a faulty code, a fundamentally dysfunctional system breakdown at the level of our DNA. Our ‘operating system’ begins to crash.

So when we begin the process of reactivating the lost pain and traumatic memories, when we begin consciously healing ourselves by allowing the limbic system to re-open and slowly release the old wounds. We are actually allowing our bodies genetic code to reboot. We are in effect, switching ourselves off and on again! This is why it so crucial to find a way to open this portal and begin the process of revisiting and releasing this deeply buried mass of pain and sorrow.

Janov goes on to write…

“Weeping is healing. Feeling is healing.  Repression is ‘anti-healing’. Every process of our brain and body has an evolutionary rationale.  To block weeping is to run against the sweep of evolution. That is why those who weep deeply seem to ‘restart’ the evolutionary process – beards begin to grow at age forty, wisdom teeth develop at forty-five, breasts begin to grow at age thirty-five.    

The genetic code can now proceed to its destination;  that destination is growth, healing, and health.  Not a bad job for minuscule droplets of moisture. Imagine!  Tears have the power to transform our physiology, change our personality and re-fire the evolutionary engine. What has seemed like weakness to so many of us turns out to be one of the most powerful forces on earth”!  

From Seriousness To Sincerity. JoinThe Laughing Rebellion!

by Marc Itzler

Do we have to be angry to have strong feelings?  Do we have to be upset to show that we care about the madness of the world?  And do we have to inhibit our humour and joy, to show that something is really important to us?

This tension, this apparent contradiction in our lives, when we feel the pain of those suffering, both around us and in distant lands, and yet we know, that to dive into that space, makes us feel dark and contracted, heavy and negative. We feel guilt and shame and frustration.  So we look away, we scroll down or we switch off and get on with our lives. But inside, we still care, we still ache.

It is only human to feel empathy, to go into an experience of another’s pain, in order to know it and be there for them. It is a loving act but, it also feels like it spreads the pain out. It expands the very suffering that we anguish over.

This vicious cycle can be so overwhelming, that many of us choose to avoid or ignore the reality of life as it is for us as a global village, as a species, sharing our beautiful little blue ball hanging in infinite space. It’s just too much to let it all in. The corruption, the cruelty and torture, the suffering and the despair of our fellow humans and creatures of this paradise.

We struggle to even work out how we got to this point, let alone where we go from here.

What we do know is that we are in a serious situation.

But are we served by making that state of affairs our state of being?  Is our seriousness actually empowering us?  Or does it send us into a state of collapse, of defeat, of resignation?

How can we not cry tears of sorrow?  How can we not hang our heads in despair?

When we face our greatest fears, the loss of our life or the lives of our loved ones, the loss of our liberty or maybe even worse, the loss of our very hope, then what are our choices? Where is our power?

What happens if, at that moment, we decide to let go of seriousness and yet, remain deeply sincere in our truth?  What if we can stare fear in the face….and begin to laugh, really laugh, to know that at our deepest core we see the truth and choose to remain free?

Laughter is so often seen as a lack of capacity to understand the gravity of a situation.

It’s frivolous, it’s selfish, it’s a sign that you’re not getting it!

But when we really try to understand laughter, when we get real about what laughter and a sense of humour actually is, then we begin to see that it is, in its purest form, the greatest expression of understanding that we have. Laughter is our bodies reaction to a moment of ultimate clarity, it is how we express the recognition of truth itself. It is what makes satire both deeply funny and deeply moving all at once.

This is because laughter is Intelligence! It is the ultimate expression of rebellion!

A rebellion against guilt, against shame and self-doubt. A rebellion against fear itself.

A rebellious person is a dangerous person. Dangerous to the system, to the status quo. They will not be easily controlled and they will not be easily silenced.

Un-hindered by the fear of condemnation and judgment, the rebel is not playing by the book.  Not keeping to the script.  A rebel will laugh in the face of their own fear, even their own demise. But an intelligent and awakened rebellious and joyful person is always, always sincere!  They are led and guided by a bigger picture, a bigger perspective. and that creates an immense freedom. The laughing rebel lives a liberated life. They live an authentic life and a life of courage and truth. Laughter relaxes us, it unites us, it connects us and it heals us.

That is why we must move from seriousness to sincerity. From emotional enslavement to personal power, where we can care, more than ever before!

We can desire and fight for justice, equanimity, and dignity for us all and we can stand strong against the headwind of corruption, against the mass insanity and indoctrination, that would have us on our knees in a state of futility, worn out by the sheer size of the challenge.

The dark forces of this world want us to take it all very seriously.

When we are serious, we are open to their message of hate and division. Open to the script of tribalism, nationalism, religious separation and isolation. When we are serious, we are open to dis-ease and disinformation. We can be controlled because seriousness is fear. It is blind faith and blind action.  The serious and scared are easy to control. They are easy to manipulate and indoctrinate.

So if we want to be a part of creating a new world, a new way of living, then we have to renounce seriousness and embrace the power of humour and laughter as a force of vision, of perspective and as an expression of our true authentic being.

Laughter is the expression of this powerful state. It is the manifestation of our deepest truth. That is what the sages and great mystics of history have always taught. Laugh in the face of fear, celebrate, dance and sing in gratitude because that generates power and conviction in ourselves, it engenders individual thought and values and right now, more than sorrow, more than sympathetic sadness, this world needs sincere, laughing, courageous rebels!

Dump the script and step off the stage!

by Marc Itzler

StageEven if it is our belief that we live many lives, we still only get to live this particular life once. With this script and this cast.

Looking at the average kind of circumstances that existence hands out across 7 billion people, how blessed are we to have this life? Safe and secure enough to explore the deepest truths available to humanity.

Most people would give limbs to have half our opportunities and environment, with such relative security and stability. A life of comparative luxury, allowing us the time and space to discover our most fundamental limiting beliefs. The very core issues at the heart of our ‘story’, and the power to make positive change.

But it is essential to remember that doing something positive with our lives doesn’t mean we avoid negative consequences and reactions from others and ourselves.

There are ALWAYS, perceived or believed negative consequences for any challenge we face.

If there weren’t any, then we would be doing or would have done it by now.

So we need to really feel into what our perceived fears are.

They may be hidden and subtle. we are very used to making excuses for ourselves and finding external reasons to not act in our highest self.

For instance, take physical health. We all know exactly what is required to achieve optimum health for our age and circumstances. That is not a mystery. There would appear to be no negative consequences in getting fit and healthy. But they are there. If we begin to exercise and work on stretching and strengthening our bodies, there will be the challenge of feeling pain and exhaustion. If we become conscious of our eating, then we fear to feel hungry, or are forced to find a new way to deal with cravings, and eating to contain fear or emotional turbulence.

If we want to heal ourselves because we feel unwell, then we have to get real about our illness and take responsibility for our recovery.

Everybody wants to feel well and healthy but we don’t want to face the feelings that the challenge will bring. We don’t want to have to heal ourselves. Everybody wants to have the best possible quality of life, but few are ready to overcome the obstacle they face to achieve that.

Every day we make small repeating choices, habits, rituals, call them what you like, and those small decisions all work toward a certain outcome. So making real change, going beyond the point of no return, means to make a daily, in fact, at first, an HOURLY conscious commitment to empowering the decision. the change will be permanent if the inner commitment is permanent too.   so this is about turning up the awareness level to our actions and assessing their impact on our decisions.  No small action is either judged as good or bad, just the question comes – ‘is this action aligned with my decision to grow or not’? It’s almost like giving away the part we normally play, the thought we have and the words we say. it’s like letting go and handing it to something bigger than us. trusting that true inner voice over the louder entrenched voices.

It’s about turning our focus to see the STRUCTURE of limiting belief, Inhibition, self-sabotage, and addiction. NOT THE CONTENT! Why?

The metaphor is thus.

There is the theatre of life. In that theatre, there is a stage and an auditorium.

If we are on the stage, and ‘in character’ – we are playing our roles and following the script that we have committed to memory. (our beliefs and conditioning). We are in the play – in the movie, absorbed by the plot, the other characters, and our part in the story.

somewhere inside, we know that this is just a play, – a performance, – a script. But we also know that if we don’t follow the script, we will upset all the other actors and their roles will be exposed and invalidated. We have to stay in character – (behave ourselves and keep up the status quo). Not just to protect ourselves, but also to protect the integrity of the illusion for everyone else. Even if we don’t like the script, even if we see that the story is just that – an imagined reality, we still maintain our roles because we don’t want to be ejected from the stage.

We only know the stage and nothing else.

So if we see the idea of raising our awareness as a growing realization that we are on this stage, then the first thing we will want to do, is to see what exists beyond the stage. Beyond the script and the roles laid out for us. We feel compelled to start writing our own script. We crave spontaneity and creativity. We seek to find something beyond what we see and hear every day.

But how do we awaken from the dream? How do we get off the stage? We cannot ease our way out of unawareness, we cannot gently dip one toe into the void and expect to see what is beyond. In the end, we have to move to the front of the stage and jump into the darkness. We have to take the leap. Knowing that we may never be able to return to the illusion of our story, our script, our roles. We need to be ready for the character to die so that the actor can become self-aware and see that we are now no longer on the stage.

Now we are in the auditorium.  We are the director, the writer, the producer. Now we see that our beliefs and conditioning are not actually real any more than we decide they are and we get to write a new scene. A great liberation but also a great responsibility.

Now, if we don’t like the story we are writing, to whom can we complain? Who can we look to blame for our lives?

Ok, we get the idea of letting go of the character, but we have to interact with our world. We have to live in the marketplace. Eventually, we will have to get back on the stage, but now, we are the authors of our reality and can never again be just an actor, reciting the old script and the old moves. Now we are back in the play, but we are no longer in character. We have become self-aware and responsible for creating our own plot. This is a very different experience because we are now aware that we are on a stage and that we are not living according to the story going on around us. This may severely piss off some of the characters on the stage. The cast of your life. They will not be able to rely on you to fit the script anymore. They will feel destabilized and abandoned because they cannot take their cues from you in the same way anymore. You are now in the game but not OF it.  This can be a very lonely place. This is why we need courage. Why we need to learn how to integrate this new disillusionment into a life that still includes connection, intimacy, love, and community while retaining our innate sovereignty. Our own completeness.

We integrate through active contribution and giving of our selves in service. Part of the task of an awakened person is to share their realization with those around them and more generally, their fellow travellers. To assist them to also be liberated from the stress and anxiety of keeping up a performance, a set of roles and staying in character 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

“Hey! I’m just telling the truth!” Welcome to the Dark Side of Honesty.

by Marc Itzler

In 1979 at the age of 15, while living on his Ashram in Pune India, I asked a question of my Guru.

“How do we stay true to our own honesty and still be sensitive to other people’s feelings?”

I don’t remember the whole answer but the gist of it was that we are all responsible for our own feelings and deciding that we are ‘being hurt’ by others is always a choice and a reflection of our own insecurities. If someone feels hurt, that is their pain for them to own and deal with.

I took the answer and agreed with it in principle but I still had to figure out how to apply it in my life with the people I related to and cared about. This has proved to be a lifelong challenge and is still a work in progress.

What I have discovered is that there is so much more to honesty than just telling the truth. We have to also have integrity, authenticity on many levels and also vulnerability if we are to be sensitive to others while ‘telling it like it is.’

Being honest is a favourite tool of passive aggression and can be used to intentionally hurt or diminish another while hiding behind the veil of perceived truthfulness. Everything from “yes honey, actually your bum does look big in that” to “I can’t keep it in any longer, I am seeing someone else” can be a way of punishing and controlling another, especially when we know they are vulnerable or fragile. We all tell white lies to children or anxious friends and relatives because we love them and care that they don’t worry unnecessarily. We are protecting them. We also restrict and monitor ourselves in relationships to ensure we don’t push buttons or activate triggers. this is a strategy to protect ourselves from the consequences of ‘authentic behaviour.’

There are schools of thought that promote absolute authenticity as the only way of living an honest life. But authentic to what?
Ourselves, our partner, our children, our community, country or spiritual practice? Can we always override those around us so that we get to be honest and ‘authentic?’ Is that utterly selfish and if it is, is that ok or not?

In the end, it must come down to our intention. The conversation we can have with ourselves is, “I really want to be honest right now but why do I want to be honest”? Am I doing this to manipulate and control another’s emotions or thoughts? Am I doing it because the truth needs to be heard, the wound healed and the connection deepened, or because I don’t really care as long as I get to unburden myself and speak my mind freely?

If we can be honest within ourselves first as to our intention, then we can make a decision as to how, or if at all, we need to confess, judge, inform or enlighten someone else. That is true multidimensional authenticity, that is how we be true to ourselves, remain clear in our heart and soul and still take care of others and their feelings.

I believe it is important to remember that being authentic starts with our behaviour, not our words. If we betray someone’s trust, that is the issue we face. keeping it a secret is just a strategy, neither good nor bad. The act of betrayal, the lie, the conceit is where we lose integrity, where we become inauthentic and that is what can create pain and suffering in others, not the secret itself. Attempting to heal ourselves through so-called honesty and ‘coming clean’ have nothing to do with being true to ourselves.

So Honesty has a light and dark side, depending on our reasons to keep quiet or not and on our taking responsibility for how we feel first about what we are communicating.

The One Basic Concept That Can Completely Transform Your Relationship With Your Children And Yourself!

by Marc Itzler
Trust + respect = influence.
Trust +respect= influence.

I have, with their mother, raised two boys, now aged 29 and 30, and a stepdaughter aged 37. They are inspired, energized, healthy and balanced individuals because of one very basic but critical concept. Getting this new understanding and applying it can change the actual viewpoint from which we parent and so transform the very experience of raising a child.

Many of us feel that our children need to be protected and directed in order that they turn out as successful individuals. Others believe that parents should befriend their children to maintain trust and a happy relationship, by giving them space to evolve, without being controlled or coerced into a future that we think is best for them. In my experience, both these approaches lead to disaster!

Either a child experiences domination and suffocation or the alternative, being neglect and ‘boundary-less’ choice paralysis.

So how do we care for our children, help them and protect them? How do we decide which approach and how much stick to carrot is the right balance?
Well, here is a concept that can create an environment of healthy communication, clear, empowered roles and functional family connections.

The Concept is simply to move from having expectations of our children…. to having aspirations for them. That is it.

Just shifting our perspective from one to the other, switches the focus to where it belongs; with the child. Moving to aspiration means that we want the best for them. We want them to be self-reliant, inspired, creative, and healthy but inside ourselves, we accept that it may not turn out that way. Our children may face challenges, suffering and difficulty in their lives and on a deep level as parents, we need to accept that as a possibility and realize that they are here to live out their own stories.

When we think, speak, and direct from a place of expectation, we are attempting to engineer our children in order that they live out our story. In expectation, there is an agenda presented to the child and this is felt within them as invalidation, as disrespect, and as an experience of the parent, in essence, becoming the child.

We expect them to be successful not just because we love them but also because we need to be validated as parents through their achievements. A child feels this as an energetic abandonment, even if we are supportive and apparently ‘focused’ on the child.

This is the birthplace of unhealthy rebellion, of seeking identity through a separation that is beyond the natural desire to leave the nest. It is the root of self-sabotage. Where failure becomes the power, where identity is developed in a negative self-evaluation. This core issue is the environment in which the relationship between child and parent becomes conflictive, abusive, or even violent. This is how we can potentially cripple our children for life.

It’s not an easy shift but when we realize that we can, in aspiration, guide, support, care for and encourage, facilitate and organize, teach, and connect. Then we see that our children open up to the experience of our role in their lives.

In aspiration, we can build trust and influence, the two essential ingredients needed to protect and inform our children.

So the concept of aspiration allows for all the important dynamics of parenting; guidance, wisdom, support, and nurturing but also sincerity, boundaries, and responsibilities. It creates clear roles, for authentic modeling and allows for appropriate, lifelong friendships to develop within a safe, creative, and loving family space. This has been my experience and I am filled with gratitude for the strong and solid bond that I have with my children.