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Articles
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Men Have Feelings Too
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Larry James
http://www.new-dating.com/search.php
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A Discourse in Support of a Safe Place to Express Feelings
Someone once said that women are the ones with feelings. Men are the thinkers and fixers.
Men have feelings too, however they often refuse to acknowledge them, much less talk about them; seldom to their spouse or significant other and especially not to other men. Most think it is a sign of weakness.
Not so!
It is a sign of strength and of courage. Men who get in touch with their feelings can reinvent themselves. It opens up numerous possibilities. It is possible for a man to be tough AND tender!
Often men get caught up in the business of the day and when they arrive home, they express their feelings in unintentionally destructive ways by literally "dumping" on their significant other. This doesn't work. The relationship can only go downhill from there.
For the most part, men have not been brought up to express their feelings at all, much less in a constructive way. Generally speaking, you can trace this behavior back several generations. Remember the song, "Big Boys Don't Cry?" It should have been, "Big Boys Don't Express Their Feelings." Bet your grandfather didn't. Most likely neither did your dad. He was probably the "rock;" the one who must be strong and not demonstrate his feelings lest he be seen as a weak man. Men are suppose to be macho. Oh, really? The truth is, most men lack the skills to express their feelings.
"But," you say, "that is a woman thing." Says who? The more you are in touch with how you really feel about things, the easier it is to communicate those feelings. I call this: getting totally honest with yourself!
Men are notoriously poor at cultivating and maintaining close friendships with other men. Often when you ask a man how many close friends he has, he will be at a loss to come up with more than one or two (if any at all).
Many times the people he will mention are the guys he gets together with over a beer to talk about the big game last Sunday or the other men he communicates with about business. Other men may talk about their childhood friends they no longer are in touch with. How sad. These are not the kind of close friendships with whom you can share your most intimate feelings. Intimate feelings? Is that scary, or what?
When we run from our feelings, they follow us. . . everywhere!
Feelings must be expressed. To stuff your most intimate feelings is to stay stuck with the feeling. What is the solution? How can you find a way to communicate your feelings in a way that feels safe and where you can always be assured of being heard?
One highly effective solution is to form your own "Men's Support Community." To be heard is to be healed. You learn to talk openly and honestly in an environment of absolute confidentiality where there are no rules about what or how you say what you need to say. The other men in the group only listen. No one offers advice. No solutions. The other men learn to suspend their judgments about what they think or feel about what you say. They are there to be your committed listener. Listening IS support.
Soooo. . . how does this help you? You get to "vent" all you want, anyway you want but this time without the destructive tones damaging the relationship you have with your significant other. Another way it helps is that you learn when you listen. You discover that you can benefit from the experiences of the other men.
You should have learned by now that a solution that you discover on your own rather than being told by someone else is almost always the better and most workable solution.
While it may be difficult for men to understand how only talking with no advice and solutions will work, I can assure you that after meeting and getting to know each other after about 6 to 10 weeks you will begin to notice a shift in the dynamics of the group -- to say nothing about your attitude about expressing yourself fully.
To be listened to attentively feels good. Knowing that you have everyone's full attention to how you feel can be a bit disarming for some men. In "Men's Support Communities" I have been involved with, in the beginning most men experienced some level of discomfort in only being listened to without anyone offering solutions. Men are fixers, remember? This is not the expected way for men to be. Or is it? As the group spent more time together, the bonding that occurred worked its own miracle. Frequency assists in the bonding process.
Men can learn a very important lesson from fully participating in a group such as this. They learn to empathize with women who are often heard complaining, "He never listens to me!" Once men experience the committed listening of the group, they begin to feel more at ease in sharing their deepest concerns about their relationship, their work and their life with their spouse or significant other.
Most often this is the salvation for their personal relationship!
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Larry James
http://www.new-dating.com/search.php
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