*** This entry was originally posted to LiveJournal October 24, 2007 ***
Okay. So, the weekend.
For starters, I'm still physically worn out from it all. The energetic expenditure was colossal. It was an amazing experience, and it was emotionally grueling. I don't think I even fully realized how much so until it was over.
An incidental theme that kept recurring through the weekend was trusting myself, and also trusting other men. So of course that theme fit perfectly with the work I'd been doing right before the weekend. I just LOVE the way I create those kinds of opportunities for myself! I learned--and demonstrated--that not only CAN I trust men (myself included), but I also DO.
I discovered, in one of those moments of serendipitous insight, that at least a part of that loving nature that I put out to the world is motivated by fear of not being loved back. That doesn't mean that the loving nature itself is inauthentic, nor does it mean that it ISN'T central to who I am. It is. What this insight means is that a piece--not all, a PIECE--of the motivation for the actions I undertake to make damn sure other people GET just HOW LOVING I AM is the fear of not having that love returned. I hope I'm making the distinction clear. Anyway, I think that's good information for me. Real unconditional love, after all, carries no expectation that it will be returned. So this is another lesson in taking another step closer to that ideal.
If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll remember last year's post-NWTA entries about how afraid I'd been to let my power out and how I'd kept it under "lids" for so long. This is essentially that same idea, and it's yet another lesson in that area. So last year I discovered my power and took a tentative step into it. This year I stood in it and took another big step inside. I'm still adjusting to being comfortable in it, and that will come--though only if I stay in it. I am an immensely powerful man, and yet it's so seductive for me to forget that.
Remember, when I speak of "my power" or of "masculine power" I'm not talking about the all-too-common perversions of that concept such as aggression, domination, intimidation, or machismo. I'm talking about the power that flows naturally from an integrated, mature adult--which, in my case, is a masculine power. That loving nature is actually the core of and key to that power. Funny that I'd hide my power behind its own source. I picture that like putting a kink in a hose and doubling it back on itself. That's not the way to get a very good flow.
I also had numerous opportunities to notice--and to have it pointed out to me--how readily I deflect positive feedback. I'll chuckle it away or do a "Thank you, but . . ." It's yet more of that same stuff. So my stretch now is to receive positive feedback with something more like "Thank you, I know." :-)
So between the Dad stuff of the past couple of weeks and this past weekend, I'm carrying a greater sense of myself as MY OWN ADULT MAN--not just my father's son, not just some guy who's startING to figure it out--than I ever have. James Douglas Powers is emerging from under the shadow of James Emerson Powers. It's about f*cking time.
I'm confident I could write more, AND it's almost 7:30 and I'm still at work. Nuts to that. I'm out of here. Anything else I'll save for subsequent entries.
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