Mindful Masculinity
Richard D'Ambrosio
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Our home was total bedlam that Thanksgiving. Six young cousins bouncing off the walls. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner when I wasn’t entertaining the kids and my in-laws. I love cooking and especially love caring for others by preparing them meals. I was raised in a large Italian family by a mom and dad who loved hosting family and friends in their home. Hospitality is core to my being.
My brother-in-law Tony was taking in the holiday festivities. During a lull, he came over to me. “You’re a different person Rich,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“A year ago, this chaos would have made you crazy. You’re so calm now,” he replied. “You’ve changed.”
What Tony saw was the intentional transformation I had worked on for about two years. The weight of a lonely, disintegrating marriage, a four-hour daily roundtrip commute to a demanding job in Manhattan, and all the responsibilities that come with being a father, baseball coach, friend, etc., had taken a toll on me.
I knew I needed to change me, to find better coping skills, if I was going to care better for my children and myself. (After several failed attempts at couples’ counseling, I had prioritized being a better dad and a better man.)
My journey to greater peace and loving kindness led me to reading books on my commute. Instead of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, I carried Jon Kabat-Zinn and some of his masterpieces, like Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment—And Your Life and Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.
I walked, metaphorically, with Thích Nh?t H?nh, especially indebted to The Art of Mindful Living: How to Bring Love, Compassion, and Inner Peace into Your Daily Life.
On that train, I met many wise writers and thinkers, some of whom I will mention later on this journey. For now, know that the most common thread they weaved into my thinking was the simple understanding of what makes a happy life – THIS very moment. It’s the only thing that is real and true. What I learned leading up to that chaotic Thanksgiving was the importance of being more present to myself and others.
Doing the work
Learning to be present is part of what doing the work means to me. At the end of last week’s essay I defined doing the work as “touching with intention those painful places in your life that you would rather not discuss, even with yourself. Doing the work means acknowledging where those experiences have led to deeply held beliefs and intuitive reactions to people and situations. Ultimately, doing the work means putting in place the mindful practices that help you and those around you thrive, instead of repeating the same painful mistakes over and over again.”
For so many men, we carry deeply held beliefs about what makes us valuable to society. We pursue lives and vocations based on these beliefs. We care for ourselves and others based on them. And very often, clinging to these beliefs causes us to reflexively make the same painful mistakes throughout our lives. This is especially true when we live so much of our lives on cruise control, unconscious to the effect these beliefs are having on ourselves and everyone around us.
These are all lofty and abstract thoughts. How does any of this apply to real life? Let me offer a few examples:
1.?You’re struggling to be gainfully employed in a job that society says reflects a strength and authority befitting a man. Your significant other (S.O.) is employed and is contributing to the bulk of the household’s finances. As the family is watching its pennies, you impulsively spend a substantial sum on a personal indulgence. Your S.O. chastises you for it.
How do you react? Do you feel a sense of failure? Do you feel less than a man? Do you respond aggressively with your S.O. in situations related to money? Do these feelings spill over into situations that aren’t about money?
2.?You’re on a third date with a woman. After some heart-to-heart conversations, you feel like you are building an emotional connection. She’s flirtatious during dinner and you respond in kind. When you walk her to her door at the end of the evening, you press in for a first kiss. She brings her hands in between your bodies and pushes back, saying your advances feel too strong right now.
How do you react? Do you feel rejected, disappointed? Do you feel you have the right to press further because she flirted at the restaurant? Are you angry?
Looking for advice, men bring up scenarios like the ones above In some of the online men’s groups I participate in. It’s interesting to watch the varied answers. Some are thoughtful. Some are misogynistic. Some boggle my mind – like the respondents didn’t even read the original poster’s scenario.
You are not your feelings
For me, this is where Mindful Masculinity comes in. My mindfulness practice has taught me how to approach situations when strong emotions rise. First, I need to return to my breath so I can slow down my heart rate and those natural metabolic responses which can dictate my reactions. I then try to perceive what I am feeling versus impulsively reacting.
Breathing deeply, I try to mentally welcome those emotions, no matter what they are. I don’t want to judge those emotions or ignore them. I want to see them as separate from me. So, I might think…
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The difference in how we reflect on our emotions is crucial to thriving as a healthy person. If I am growing in my practice, I am capable of identifying my feelings and can have a dialogue with them, as if they were a separate being I could talk to.
Finally, I decide how I want this entity to exist in my life. Do I want my emotions wagging their finger at me, telling me I am less than? Do I want them egging me on, telling me I have the right to be angry and take what I want from whomever I want?
With this process in mind, let’s re-examine the first scene.
In this situation your S.O. is a woman. Your unemployment makes you feel less than a man. Your emotional interloper of shame tells you: “Real men have solid jobs. They make more than their partner, especially a woman. And real men don’t rely on anyone for anything. You’re not a real man.” ?
By slowing your breath and being mindful in this situation, you have the chance to see that you are beating yourself up. You acknowledge that you doubt your manliness and wonder if your S.O. feels the same. Now, you need to decide what you are going to do with what you are thinking and feeling.
If you love your S.O. and you believe they love you, can you be vulnerable and tell them it hurts to not be holding up your end of the provider bargain? Are you capable of asking your partner how they feel about your situation? Are you willing to ask for help?
Now let’s think about the second scenario.
Slowing down your breath to concentrate on your feelings, what emotions can you identify?
If you feel angry because you think you were deceived, can you look back on the evening’s events and assess where this feeling came from?
Whether you feel you were misled or not, how could you initiate a kiss differently, so you could be sure what your date wanted before you leaned in? (After all, who wants those awkward moments?)
If the awkward point has been reached, what can be done to talk about it candidly and openly, so both parties feel respected and heard?
Mindful Masculinity
The steps described above are not easy to perform in a calm and easy manner when you first start out your mindfulness practice. If anything, they can feel uncomfortable. Even as your practice grows, being mindful and in the moment goes against decades of being taught to react instinctively.
What makes a difference for most people, and certainly for me, is returning to and focusing on my breath. I need to override those reflexive reactions so I can prevent myself from saying or doing something I am not proud of.
Even better, Mindful Masculinity can reduce the number of occasions where you find yourself experiencing uncontrollable emotions rising rapidly inside you. Men who are mindful are active listeners and observers of the people and scenes unfolding before them, and the internal dialogue inside their head evaluating those scenes.
Employing mindfulness, you can experience fewer situations where ambiguity, past trauma, rigid beliefs, rule your reactions. By paying close attention and being an active conversationalist, you give others the space to safely reveal themselves to you, so you experience them with a more complete and truthful picture of who they are. And if by chance you’re still in doubt, a mindful man builds a natural courage to ask.
Mindfulness is a lifelong pursuit. I have had moments of great clarity as a result of my practice and felt like it was easier to thrive, like during chaotic family gatherings.
The first step towards Mindful Masculinity is the internal decision to act. If you are tired of reacting in certain situations in a way you feel hurts you and those around you, strongly consider starting by reading one of the books above. Everything else that I will discuss about changing the way men view themselves and act depends at a minimum on attempting to slow down our minds so that we can see what’s happening inside us clearly and not react the way we have been negatively conditioned.
We men are taught that it is manly to be in control of our emotions. In its more traditional and unhealthy form, this pursuit of control often leads to stoicism, detachment from and suppression of our emotions, and the negative issues so often associated with traditional masculinity.
Maybe it’s time men turn the concept of manly emotional self-control on its head. We should brand Mindful Masculinity as the practice of conquering rigid and reflexive belief systems that threaten us and our loved ones, the same way we brand the martial arts and other practices associated with being a strong defender. How different might the world be if it were manly and cool for men to practice mindfulness?