1. The Initial Conversation

The start of a journey discussing and exploring the current state of Men's Therapy and Spirituality. Have we got stuck in a model of Masculinity defined by the Human Potential Movement and Counter Culture of the '70's and '80's? Is the limit of Male therapy and Spirituality 4 Archetypes, a Bonfire and getting in touch with our Grr? Where are the Men? particularly since COVID. Is there more and if so what's missing?   

Oliver Baum has worked with individuals, couples and groups as a Therapist and Spiritual Mentor since 2009. Specialising in Family Systems and Psycho Spiritual Therapy Oliver integrates a diverse range of therapeutic models, philosophies and spiritual practices into his work and trainings. Oliver currently operates an international private practice from the UK. 

Gary Wright is a renowned psychic medium and gifted story teller with decades of experience as both a participant and facilitator of Men's Groups. His stellar reputation across the UK and internationally has led to him being frequently consulted by celebrities, artists and peers. Gary provides guidance to those already working with spirit as well as those just starting out. With a background in the arts, Gary often works with creatives and those in the artistic fields to overcome blocks and limitations.

Thanks for listening!

Find out more:
For Oliver's Psycho-Spiritual work with Individuals, Couples and Groups, please visit www.oliverbaum.co.uk.

For more information on Gary's work www.thewrightmedium.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is all the things.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

So my name is Gary Wright, um, and my day job is that I'm a working professional medium, but I teach uh spirituality, psychic development, mediumship from people who are just starting right up to a professional standard. I'm one of the senior tutors at the College of Psychic Studies and a medium in residence for the Atlantis Bookshop. And this year I was very pleased to have my first publication. I'm also the co-author of a set of Oracle cards called The Oracle of the Veil.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

My name's Oliver Baum, uh, and I work as a psychotherapist, spiritual mentor, and systemic facilitator, um, and have done for about 16 years, uh, mostly specializing in um family systems work, psychotherapy, and general spiritual development uh with people, um, helping guide them along their paths, as it were. So I thought we'd start today's episode by um just looking at what brought us to this conversation. Um Gary, do you want to say something first?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Yes, it was in it was interesting because it it started as a very natural, natural chat, didn't it, about men's work and um uh the development of men and why they don't always look at groups. We started there, didn't we? And we were having that conversation just about we didn't come up with any kind of marvelous revelations in that part, apart from us saying we should do that, be a very good podcast. And I said, yes, let's do it, it'd be good. And um also you I always find what you're you have to say so interesting. I thought, well, that'd be good, spend a few hours with you. Oh well, thank you, Gary.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Let's hope you were right, that's all I can say, but anyway, yeah, I mean it was lovely how this sort of came about. Um, it it has been a sort of gentle easing into it, and just it was just sort of those conversations, and there's sort of a sense, although I think both of us are coming from slightly different places on it, of maybe dissatisfaction with certainly in me, anyway. I'll own that uh in sort of the relationship between masculinity and spirituality at the moment. Um and also I I don't know, I've have this sense inside of me that there's more, there's something missing without necessarily knowing what that is. And I suppose I'm kind of hoping that our conversation um sort of unveils some of what that more might be.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yes, well, well remember, because that was the conversation, because I also said to you, well, it's been a bit tricky, really, sometimes. I see the development over, I mean, six 18 years now I've been teaching uh what I have been teaching. And before that, I was a theatre director. Um, and I loved working with with women call themselves actors now, the word actress has kind of moved into a different thing, but male actors um were always very, very interesting of where they would go in their emotions because they found them often very easy to access, because they didn't find them easy to access in life. And I did a little bit of work um with some actors um sort of June of this year, actually, and I found that had changed quite a lot with younger people that they're much more available with what they want to express in themselves. And the people coming through my classes, there's been a much more um much more intake of men who want to work at a very high standard and a very high level, who want to be develop their psychic side, their intuition, their sense of self in a much more serious way than maybe when I was training. I think I was in a class with two men and about 16 ladies. Now it's I can't say it's 50-50, but we're definitely up, we're we're up on that. It's a good 30%. Of people really looking at themselves, but there's still that where do people go more to go deeper in looking at um in wanting to understand who they are as men and where men fit into society and in a sp in a spiritual way. What's what is their spirit? What does spirituality mean for men? Um, so I really so it's going to be very interesting to see where we go.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah, and uh I I I sort of I suppose part of what brought me to this conversation was partly frustration, noticing, particularly since COVID, um, the workshops I run, which are mixed in the main, um they wouldn't be 50-50, but you know, we probably have about a third men. Um, and then that completely dropped away. Um, and and uh now I would say in my workshops, and certainly in the last few years, I'm lucky to get any men coming. But that's run alongside in in sort of one-to-one work, a new generation coming through. So they're they're sort of recent graduates in their early 20s, and they might be going into their um first corporate roles. Um and they kind of know they have an awareness that I don't think my generation had, or not many in my well, let's put it this way, certainly I didn't have, that they're they're making a bit of a devil's bargain um and that it's not going to give them the fulfilment that they want, um, sort of bigger picture. So they're again they're looking for something more, they're they're sort of on the treadmill, they're doing it with awareness. Um, they've often got partners who are involved in spirituality in one way, shape, or form or interested in it, and that sort of encourages them as well. Um but there's yeah, as you said, that the they they certainly have the language for their feelings, much more than certainly my generation. You know, I've got two sons, and um, and that's very much the case with them. Um, but they don't necessarily have the framework. And and the good thing about that is it encourages the seeker energy. Um the bad thing about it, or the potentially bad thing about it is it it it can lead to feelings of being lost, feelings of anxiety, and sort of facing existential questions that most people don't really come to, and or most men anyway, don't come to until mid-life. But they're getting hit with it in their early 20s, early to mid-20s. Um and I love the energy behind that generation um and the desire to I suppose almost to become whole, but to really to connect, to feel connected, but without knowing exactly what that that means.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yes, it's a very interesting it's a very interesting one because I have done for the last couple of um years, I've been working or sort of assisting in a meditational facility on several festivals and retreats, and they've had men-only spaces on them. And it's been very interesting with some of the people, and I've sort of said, thinking about this subject, why why are you why did you come to this workshop this afternoon, this day, this event? And often it's oh my girlfriend said it I benefit from it. And and so you're here because she's wanted to get you to go. Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily come. And they get sometimes get a lot out of it, and sometimes there isn't a navigational point. And one of them came to speak to me and he said, Well, I don't know if this is doing me any good because I don't know why I'm here. And we got talking about what he wanted and and and the heart of things, and he uh and there was this heart that mattered, and he said, Unless I can really feel something, I can't really join in. There was a he needed to know why he was being asked to do things, which was absolutely brilliant because he challenged everything, he became the nightmare in the group for the facilitators. I thought he was fabulous because he said, Well, actually, I don't understand why I'm being asked to do that. So, quite often there's this jump from what's being asked and how people feel, they know what they they can express what they're feeling or not feeling, which is really good, but they don't always know what what the vision is or what they want to get out of it, and so they will they'll turn up at things with quite a seeking spirit. And I I look at people being slightly just sometimes slightly disappointed that they haven't got the answers or or something hasn't clicked for them, but they also haven't known what they're looking for as well. So there's a sort of sort of big gap that's kind of happened between what's being offered what people need, and somehow there's a sort of gulf which I'm finding, and it's to do with the sort of the the having a real heart in things. Um because I think sometimes um definitely my generation of uh we're similar age, but my generation of it's and I started doing men's group things in my mid-20s with people who were in their 40s, and I very much was the odd person out, but um it had a sort of brutality, it had a sort of lots of people shouting at each other, and I now see that if any of that starts in groups now around young people, they just switch off because there's not that's not the way to reach them, it seems, or they're not wanting to respond to that. And I don't even know if I actually I want to be screamed at anymore in a men's circle.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, it's it's uh it's funny, it's a bit of a hangover, is it? That's my sense from previous generations that haven't been questioned. You know, I mean, to certainly in men's work, you know, if you've got Ayn John, um, he the work of David Dieter and people like that, and it's all really, and you know, there's any number of other books, and it's good stuff, there's nothing wrong with it particularly. But I've whenever I've felt into it, I've always there's always been something missing, or there's something that's not quite right or not quite gelled for me. And I think you're right, it is the heart, it's the bringing in, and actually it's more than that, it's also the soul in in a lot of ways. Um it f it feels often limiting, it's sort of it's sort of capped to archetypes at the archetypal level. You know, you've done your worry a bit, so there you go, job done. Um, and actually that isn't, you know, there is a lot more to life and beyond than that. Um I'm just I I just I'm I'm remembering the workshop I ran on Saturday, and it and again it was a mixed one, but it was a guy who was there. Um, and I'm I I can be quite bad at describing the whys. So um I'm gonna have a think about that one after you've come in just now because I think that's a really good point. Um and and I remember at the beginning, one of the guys in particular uh was struggling to find his feet with it, but then by the end, by the last exercise of the day, and we did we'd done a breathwork session journey and all kinds of weird and wonderful things during the day, but the very last exercise, all of a sudden, it came to life. And I just remember looking at him, and it was his heart chakra, his heart center was just wide open, and it completely changed him in that moment, and it was beautiful. And I and that's where I could see that the work he'd done during the day really, really landed. Um, so yeah, I I I mean, just to sort of reinforce what you've said, really, that the the importance of bringing heart in rather than just kind of the I suppose the more the will center, you know, forcing stuff, pushing things, that kind of the hangover from the human potential movement process groups, you know, that I'm I'm thinking particularly sort of the Gustave groups where everybody's at their growing edge, which often just means they're rude to each other. Um yeah, I I think we've moved beyond that, or at least I hope we've moved beyond that.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yes, no, but well, well done for the workshop because whatever happened, you you know, whatever happened to him was partly down to you as well. So that's great that that kind of happened. But I love an archetype, me. I I and actually the next deck of cards I'm doing are all on archetypes, and I really do love an archetype, but we can move through, you know, you can have a half an hour conversation with you with somebody, and you can move through, you know, 12 different archetypes and that, you know. So this thing of we've got to be in one and one, I think it's great to be able to embody a force and a power and a dynamic and a and a vision that the archetypes really help you to do. But I think they can, if you get stuck in one, uh, the warrior energy is not necessarily always um useful for you know trying to sort of do something quite get your point across in quite a tender way, and so it's being able to sort of bring a sort of um challenge to oneself, but but a heart towards everybody else, and um there are these very um beautiful moments that I think when somebody lands into their heart chakra, which is and into their feeling space as well, with what they know what they're feeling, something does fall away, something there's a transition part, but that transition when I've ever looked at it is always very new and very gentle, and so has to just be then grown. It's like a it's sort of like a little plant struggling through the soil, and it's quite vulnerable suddenly, and then has to be kind of held in just a nice way, so somebody gets used to it. And um I remember being in a men's group at one point, uh, which was actually having an awful lot of fighting in it. It was it was there was there was everybody fighting, and there was me, this other man actually sitting on the edge going, What is going on? And um, I said something to him, and he said, Oh, well, it feels like you changed something, but you're missing the old patterning. Um and it's in those moments, isn't it, where you you've just transitioned into something else that you need that kind of tender side, you need that heart, because the heart doesn't necessarily in society open very easily because we're not encouraged to do it really so much. So I think all the the men's movement of the 60s and 70s and 80s all stood very well because it created spaces for people to still talk about, and there's still a point to it. But I do think maybe uh it needs a gentler approach sometimes. And uh yes, you talk about people coming up against their edges, and it's an opportunity to be rude, and uh, just leaves me very cold. I just think, okay, please, we've just moved into that. It's the afternoon where everybody's horrible to each other, let's not bother, really. So I check out quite quickly because it's not really a set of language that I'm very necessarily very comfortable in calling people, really. And I can be quite strong and quite bold and push back, and I'm the one that pushes back against that, and then get accused of not joining in. I'm going, well, I've just joined in, I've just told you what I think. So it's it I it goes very wrong on those moments, but I think it is about developing a heart space.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah, yeah, it's a job, yeah. I I'm I'm picturing various scenarios where the the people who tend to be the ones to speak up first in those situations. Uh I was about to say I'm I'll try not to be judgmental, but no, I'm going to be judgmental. Um they're often the ones who, you know, they want to show off a bit, let's put it that way, or show themselves up as being sort of the alpha in the pack, but they haven't necessarily listened or heard what's going on around them. You know, it's much more, I suppose, egotistical, let's put it that way. Um, and so they'll say something and then the other person will come in and retort back, and then they're the ones who get it in the neck for being considered aggressive or whatever. And it's like it's that classic sort of passive-aggressive um interaction that can happen where the person who's actually sort of defending themselves is the one who's accused of of being the aggressor when the other one is is is actually the aggressor. Um and and for me, I mean that dynamic in a relationship, just for example, if I'm sat with a couple, will just will just completely destroy any connected energy between them. It just completely goes down a little bit of a sinkhole. Um, and I think that's the same in groups as well. It's almost like there's a sort of succubus in the room that's sucking the life out of things. Um yeah, and it doesn't it doesn't build that safe space where you know you you're talking about those those sort of sprouts and the vulnerability one it it takes to um to have that revelation in the first place and then to hold space for it um and to allow yourself to be held if you've then got someone sniping in or b or being not to put too fine a point on it, being a bit of a dick about things, then you know that space is not going to be safe for that that spout sprout of newness to be nurtured, to be really, really uh born. Um and maybe that's what I find is missing in or uh is is that sense of something being born into the world.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yes, well said, yeah. Yeah. It is about a birth thing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. I I remember being in a situation where it was taking down the people pleaser in yours in yourself and who's going to be first to do this. And all the people who were the people pleasers went first. And they stepped into they stepped, it was very interesting, it wasn't a very well-held exercise because it it lent itself to those people who wanted to help to start first, where actually they should have been challenged. Like, are you where are you doing this from? They were like, Oh, I'll go first. And all the people who've been always the purple to go first wasn't necessarily always the alpha males at that point who wanted to identify as the people pieces, but it was a very interesting point where I've always been, I was very lucky growing up as a child, really, where because I worked as an actor and then a dancer, it was I always had to be in touch with how I felt because I was a body worker, really, from a very uh early age, really, in in having to use my body as an instrument. And so I was always on what was at what what I felt really, and to coin that odd phrase at the moment turns up in sort of spiritual circles, what's alive for you, and think, well, if I understood that one until somebody really had to explain it. But so I'm always very good in those moments of going, actually, where am I with with this? And um, so quite often I'm having to work out what's exactly happening because I need to, I'm also one of the young people who need to know what I was that when I was young, I needed to always know why I was being asked to do something. So um again, it's about finding a sort of self-nurturing place, really. And I've watched men's groups really go through that beautiful into that beautiful heart space and men's retreats and things, into that beautiful heart space. But because it's so unfamiliar to s to the majority of the group, it kind of pings back on a bit of elastic to this sort of standoff, slightly aggressive, I've got to say it, where's your kind of fighting spirit? Where it always amazes me what would happen if we could sit in that energy more, that very vulnerable space where men don't always find it easy to sit in their heart and really and be vulnerable. Um, it tends to get sort of um cut short in a way. So I'm longing for somebody to run a run a retreat that says sit in your vulnerability or sit in your heart space for a week, and I shall be there. I probably need to run one myself, probably if I can do it.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, there might be something in there, Gary. Yeah. Yeah, but I I I mean, as you're talking, I can really feel into the difference of that. And and and and actually I was I've sort of so so you your your um growing up sounds much more embodied than mine. Mine was sort of sort of boarding school chopped off at the next. It's so I can sort of go and run the Raj somewhere or something. Um, not that it existed anymore. Um And so actually getting back in touch with my body, getting in touch with my Phoenix has been excruciating at times. Um, I never forget the first group process weekend ever did when I was training as a psychotherapist. And I literally I stood up almost in tears during an exercise and just went, why the fuck are we doing this? What is the point in wallowing in all these feelings? And I just stormed out. It was not my finest moment, to put it mildly. So on some level, I get the discomfort at sitting in those spaces of vulnerability because it that's what it was for me. But at the same time, uh, you know, having done this for a long, long time, I really get the importance of it as well. Just that the capacity to be able to stay in those moments for even if it's just a little bit longer than is comfortable, just staying with that softness, staying with the hard space. Um it's so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

It's all those little gateways, isn't it? Really? Which is what I always think those moments are. They're a gateway into something else. And um, when I was training as it was very interesting, I was talking about this on Monday. When I trained as a medium, and I was whether or not I went professional or not and gave up the working in the theatre and things, and I've always been around creative things, and I still do do those creative projects as well. But majority, you know, I'm very busy now, so I have to really think about where things fit. But I I I sort of was walking past on my way to work, and I could see in my mind, I could see a doorway, and I thought if I walk through that doorway into the world of being a professional medium, my life will change. And it wasn't just about the structure of my day, it would change. I mean, I I could give it up and do something else, but there would be an energetic change in my in who I was as a person. And there was that moment of looking at that gateway, and it took me a long while to think. Well, actually, well, so I didn't leap through it. It took me a good couple of weeks before I thought, oh, okay, let's shift my thinking into that space. Um, but those gateways, they are very vulnerable to walk through because something changes and you never really know what's on the other side. It's a bit like a little mini death, really, isn't it? Um, but you're into those different spaces, and it's there that you can only go through it if everybody's heart is is with it and behind you, and and and saying, but I think what you said, what you know, while we're doing this, while we're sitting in this misery, I think is very valuable as well, really, because for you that was very honest, really, isn't it? And and saying that is probably what a lot of people in the room have thought and felt.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Uh yeah, it's interesting, but uh as the only man in that group, which which is very common, has been very common throughout my trainings. Um, it's interesting because yeah, I mean that that that's a whole different dynamic, but there was almost in that space. Well, this is what we should again, it's these shoulds, this is what we should be doing in group process, you know, whether it's mixed or female or all male. It is good, I think, that we we challenge the status quo, the the sort of formulas, you know, respectfully, obviously, that we've come from. But yes, is kind is kind of almost like a yes and rather than just sort of complying or colluding with whatever it is the facilitators want. Um, that one may come back and bite me at some point, but anyway.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Um, being a facilitator, I hope you hold a massive responsibility, isn't it? But it's it's um it's like when I'm training people to work professionally as a medium. I've I've I never try to change who they are as a fundamental as a person. Develop and expand and go beyond what you think, and you have to change yourself. You know, people a lot changes. Somebody said to me years ago, it's actually not working, you're not really extra expanding your psychic ability, but you are. But she said to me, Really, it's the self-knowledge that enables you to be able to then do work in those other realities as well, which was quite wise, actually. But changing allowing people to be who they are and go beyond what they want is I think always very hard as a facilitator to do. But when those moments I've been able to create that space, people have shot through at quite a speed because they know they're not being asked to not be themselves, but just be just to find in a different way of being who they are with a different view of something. And I was wondering, you know, whether that suited men really, in many ways, whether men uh and three people I've trained who are now out there working professionally, um, well at the college, and there are others as well. Um, the men have really responded to being able to be invited to go beyond something rather than told that this is where they should go. So there's something about men that love an invitation.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Well, the uh yeah, I mean, the masculine arguably needs to be feel received. Um in fact, I'm not sure that is arguable, actually. I think and so when we do feel that invitation, we we feel that call towards something, it's very, very powerful. It's it's a lovely feeling. It's it's sort of that that's the kind of feeling if it's the right thing that they certainly I can feel in my soul. Um and you know, and you know, I've I've I'm in your classes, and and that invitation is always very, very present. And there's there's a I don't know whether it's to do with the training, I mean I think it is, it's the it's the raise in or the broadening of my bandwidth, my sensitivity and my capacity to hold more and more things. That's it's surprised me how much I it's it really has stretched me in a good way. And you're right, there's something about being invited in rather than shoved through the mincer um that is very powerful.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

It's interesting this thing of always with um group work, is it's it's it's being able to hold the individual one's individual self in in the tribe or in the group or in the kind of team or in the brotherhood or whatever words kind of shaped around sometimes in the um in often the men's work and the men's movement. There's often this sort of we're dropping into sort of a we're all in it together feel. And um I often wonder it it never I'm a single child, so it never really suits me those kind of I've gotta be in the I've got to be in the in the in the teams, you know. Um so there's something always for me about whether I feel I and I I kick back quite, uh it's not always my finest moments either, really, but I kick back sometimes with the sense that I've actually got to join into the team because am I losing something in myself? Which I think is often a fear of very much what I've heard very much in a fear of men of losing something, not the joy of gaining something, the fear of losing something. And they so they they in me has always sat in a very odd resistance in myself of oh, hang on, if I'm joining into this this great big thinking of you know, this where am I gonna suddenly lose me? And I've always chosen to hang on to me. And the last ends group I was in, somebody came up to me at the end and gave me this wonderful hug and said in my ear, I've loved watching you do everything that was asked for you, but in your own way, which I thought was a compliment. I don't think it was, I took it as a compliment.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Uh that reminds me of a workshop I went to um run by the Center of Systemic Constellations once, and uh it was on belonging. And so you had a group of twenty, I think it was about 26 of us in there, who all didn't feel like we belonged in a group together and therefore belonging, and it was the most uncomfortable experience for the first half hour or so well. We it dawned on all of us what was happening. It was that was brilliant, it was a really, really good day that. Um, but yeah, I yeah, it's sort of that. I mean, I suppose on one level you could call it a battle between ego and um and truth, but actually it's probably a bit more, it's it's subtler than that. It's more about the sort of you know, not wanting to lose that sense of I don't know, autonomy? I don't I don't know. What's your thoughts on that, Carrie?

SPEAKER_00 31:16

It's an interesting one because I can only talk talk about it from my point of view, because obviously when I'm teaching people and holding spaces, I try to I always want people to be the individual, which doesn't make it easy work sometimes because they well, who are you as the individual? And they go, I'm this, and you okay, that's gonna be a challenge to teach. But so, but from my point of view, and I think the reason I teach like that is because I don't ever want to feel I want to be very authentic. I have to feel that I'm that I'm turning up as me fully. And if I if I don't understand why I'm being asked to join into a group event, and it's there's something to do with being in service as well. I don't mind going into service, it's what I kind of do quite a lot for people, but I like to know what why I'm doing it. So again, it comes back to this desperate need to know why, which might be a desperate thing to want to be in control of any space I'm in, which I don't think is always the case, but there is something about letting something go to allow something else to take its place. Um but you it's often a often this sort of group thing doesn't always work, and I always admire the people who say I'm sitting this one out or sitting this bit out. You know, we're much more now consensual in things like if something's not working for you, you don't have to push yourself through it. Where when I first started in things, you were doing it, and if you weren't doing it, somebody screamed at you or why you weren't doing it. But there is this very gentle thing of stepping in and trying, allowing something to fall away, but also knowing why what you're searching for. Often I'm when I'm talking, especially young people, they they again it's what I started at the beginning with. They need to know why they're reaching for something. If they know why, they can find it, rather than just go through it and something will happen to you. I know right action sometimes does lead to right thought beyond the in the body, but sometimes I think if we know why, we join in a bit more enthusiastically. I don't know if I've answered that.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

I've got the word held in the important and and it's you know, it's scary, and maybe particularly as men, it's scary to the idea of being held, but it's also essential, particularly again, going back to you know, the sprouts, as it were.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

It's often those those trust exercises, isn't there? And I think when people start doing those trust exercises, you know, people are falling back off tables and being caught by people. Uh if you're if you've been a dancer, you put yourself in serial in some very difficult positions where you've got to trust the people. So I don't find those things very difficult. But they don't necessarily that mean that actually something immediately develops with the person that uh somebody's caught me, stopped me, cracking my head open. I don't immediately feel that there's there's a there's a any closer to anybody because I still don't know who those people necessarily are. It's something about the sharing space and it's something about the hearts connecting again, really. There's often, you know, those extreme kind of challenges that you have in spirituality, and they're there in oneself anyway. But often we, you know, especially in those early men's movements, we're all about breaking people down. But breaking people down doesn't necessarily mean that you you might witness somebody else going through something, but you don't necessarily know them anymore, and there's something about that connection, so there's a connecting point, and um a very wise person said to me this summer, well, the promise of suddenly ending up with loads of friends at the end of anything when you're on a retreat is ridiculous because it's a moment in time, and sometimes that is lucky and you end up with a really good mate, and sometimes you don't, but it depends how the hearts connect on the on the thing. And I thought it was very, very wise actually, a very wise observation of spaces because it's about we we go to these things to connect to ourselves necessarily. Um if we connect to somebody else, sometimes that's a big benefit, but it's it's it it it again depends on what what one wants, what one's seeking, and what one's lacking, really.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Yeah, I mean, there is something, I suppose, the expectations people bring to to groups. I was just thinking, you know, I I remember going to workshops and sort of right, okay, the end of this weekend I'll be enlightened, job done, sort of thing. And then inevitably the disappointment afterwards um when that hasn't happened. And that actually can mean you miss out on some of the nuance and the um or I missed out on some of the the the gentler stuff there. But I'm all there's yeah, I just and the image I've got in my mind is is literally just two people sat opposite each other in silence, just with the sort of the infinity sign between them moving, just the flow of energy just very softly, very gently moving between them. And for me, that's you know, that would build trust much more strongly, and that that kind of sense of connection and and um sacredness than sort of any sort of standing on a table and and doing a mini stage dive into a group of people kind of thing. Um I've just had a flashback back to a concert I did at school when I did a stage dive, and then someone tried to pull my trousers down on as I got back on the stage, but anyway. Um just I'm just trying to think those moments of connection that you've felt in groups, what what have been, and and actually not just with other people, but really with yourself as well. Have there been any sort of you know, what's been present in that environment that's allowed that?

SPEAKER_00 37:48

It's very interesting you said that because I've just remembered something um when you were talking. Um there was I was on this, it's just a mixed group of men and women, and I was on this um, it was a week, and I hadn't really spoken to this woman, although we'd had a laugh in the queue for um it was a it was very hot August, and there was sort of we we ended it, she said, Oh, I said I said, What's for lunch? And she said, uh Lichan wasp fratatus, because everything was covered in wasps, and that was the only time we'd had this conversation until the last day. We'd never been paired together, we hadn't seen it's a very big, it was about 50 people. So, you know, you didn't often get a chance to speak to many people, and they did a they did a silent, dark, dark um you you sat in you sat for four hours in the dark. I've done some things in my time, and um opposite somebody, and they covered you with sort of see-through black cloth, but the fact there was no light in the room didn't really kind of help, really. So you were sort of this had this soft veil put across you in the dark, and you sat and you had to just sit and connect to this person, and we're still this was 20 years ago now, we're still very good friends now, but we had not spoken until that time. So there was something about just being sat with somebody and just being in somebody's energy that and yes, I'm psychic, but I wasn't doing that then. But and she's quite intuitive and psychic as well, she's a musician. Um, but we kind of got each other, we absolutely understood who each other were, and we've we've had this very good friendship, but it was the most unlikely space to connect because it had no words, so there's something about moving past words into a space that was just actually very beautifully held, but we had to create something together, yeah, yeah, and actually that is key.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

It's that yeah, it's the co-um, well the co-element of it, I suppose, isn't it? It's that rather than the more abrasive, which isn't necessarily co-creative. You know, if someone goes in all guns blazing in a group, it doesn't it doesn't nurture that space for co-creation for that for for the relational side of things.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

No, it doesn't, and and it's a very interesting thing there because it is about those gentle holding of spaces that happen between they have to happen between two people as well. And I think groups are wonderful because you see other people's kind of processes and hear other people's say, but it is also what you what you develop in yourself, and we spoke about that moment, we've spoken about that moment quite often, and we still remember being, and it was like it was yesterday. Um, and she said about those parts and places of of on what was happening, and she talked about that moment actually quite recently, earlier this year, and she said it was about the fact that you turned up and were quite happy to see what happened. And it's in that it's it's in that sort of surrendering point as well. Um but within that space, oh I lost slightly lost my train of thought there, but it was about because I haven't really thought I haven't really discussed it with anybody apart from her, so it's it's kind of a very new thing. This but there is this part of just being able to just appear with no expectations, and something else happened. So there is so there is something very much about surrendering to softer energies, and maybe we miss those. Maybe when people are going to groups, or what gets us to go is the content and the marketing of it, you know, it has to be very dynamic to catch us. But dynamic doesn't always necessarily mean that it has to be noisy or challenging. This was quite challenging for people just to sit with somebody and not speak. I loved it. Yeah, I mean, I do I talk a lot because of all the work I've ever done. So if somebody says to me, please just go quiet for four hours. I actually really like it. I'm quite quiet in groups and it and unnerves people. If I'm in a group, I'm quite quiet because I'm generally listening to what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Yeah, so this the so what's coming up for me in that, so there's a willingness and an openness to be present within a group, and then there's also something about capacity. And we're a conversation we had before, we talked about um mirrors in a group, how mirror uh how sort of a mirror is held up either to you or or you hold mirrors up to other people within group. Um, and there has to be a willingness to look and maybe even a capacity to look in that mirror and be with the reflection without wanting to take a hammer to it. And I think the the sort of temptation is if we don't like what we see um for whatever reason to take is would be to kind of destroy it on some level. But even that's possible in a gentle way that doesn't sort of I don't know, bludgeon the person holding the mirror. It's interesting. I'm just noticing the language I'm using is really quite violent in all of these, you know.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

I hadn't noticed well, I hadn't now you point it out occasionally, but um but it is an interesting one, isn't it? It's about it is about these points of smashing through something, and I think um I did a love, I did a I did an in-conversation talk on Monday with Gerald Dean Beskin, who's uh who runs the Atlantis Bookshop, who's a great storyteller and has known everybody and met everybody, and she's wonderful to sit with. We sit, we um we sit and we people ask us questions and we sort of chat away, really. And it's sort of a Christmassy tradition-y thing that we do. And it we it's laughingly called Mr. Wright and Mrs. Always Wright. Um but we were talking about uh things where things are marketed, and had we have we lost because uh because the spiritualist movement now is is a kind of big industry in some ways, uh, have we lost the ability to just discover, which maybe after the you know, the second world war and coming in through the 50s and everybody getting themselves back on the on their feet, and the 60s movement being a very pushing back against that and finding something else, but still that trauma of the difficult challenges of the last well, the last century really meant that things had to be often very hard, and you know, and corporal punishment was still you know alive and kicking off in schools and things, so there was an awful lot about things that had to be smashed and changed and new ways of being found, and I feel that in this part we're fine, we're wanting to find this time of in the in the history of the world, we wanted to find things actually very quite in a quite dynamic but in a very gentle way, and it's it's it's a question around intimacy, isn't it? Where is the intimacy sometimes in in one's self-development, one's spirituality, and and where does the intimacy sit with with men sometimes? And how that sometimes is an uncomfortable space for everybody, actually, it's not just men. I know women who find you know sitting in in vulnerable situations and having to work out how they feel about something deeply challenging as well. So there's a softening of a discovery, um, which I'm not sure we're we're always completely used to either.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Yeah, so uh again, yeah, so it becomes rather than smashing down boundaries, which I suppose you could argue in the 60s and 70s was needed from the sort of the more uptight that had come before. Um, but now it does feel more about sort of remembering and revelation and and unveiling and coming back to who to more of who we truly are, you know, the truth of things rather than having to sort of smash our way through things.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

There's often in men, quite often, quite a lot of grief um that I see and hear and and know in myself. Um I went to I was on a retreat at one point, which was a mixed retreat, but they kept dividing the men and the women up. So we were sort of a mixed retreat, but there was big moments where you know one group went one left and one went right. And um most of the men spent the entire time in tears because of the separation, and quite a lot of the people were couples, because the separation from who you were brought into a kind of grief, and there's something around always end uh different endings. Um, that when you're challenging yourself and you're trying to go beyond something or understand something in yourself, you are having an ending in some ways, and um it's sometimes a wonderful ending, and you you're you're glad to be free of a different way of thinking or a different attitude, but it still is an ending, so there's still a sort of loss there, and it's sometimes in those moments of grief that that heart does open, but it does require people to feel incredibly safe, yeah, yeah, and and and I mean I'd argue those moments of grief are almost essential in life.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

I mean, I think midlife particular. I mean, I I mean I'm talking personally, but also I've seen witnessed this in other people as well. The sheer depth of the grief, the loss of of pretty much everything that's gone before. If you really, really want to sort of throw yourself into this work, um it it can feel utterly devastating. Um and then the sort of the the sort of terror of the emptiness that can feel of the feeling that can come after that is also pretty bloody frightening as well. And so in some ways, you know, I understand why people sort of do everything to steer away from this. Um men and women. But it I just it's essential. I I really do think it's an essential part of the process. I don't think there's any avoiding it. You know, that grief of separation, particularly if you think of it from a non-dual point of view, the that that feeling of being separated from the divine, you know, that's the ultimate grief, and all other griefs mirror that. So if you really get into the depths of that, which is pretty horrific to feel um, but the transformation that can come from that space is is um, I mean, I would I would just go as far as to say it's miraculous, and and you're right, that you do need to feel safe um or held or and held enough to be able to go through that.

SPEAKER_00 49:57

There's those moments as well, which is always very interesting with grief, where we think of it as big endings, you know, divorces, loss of parents, some people are really unfortunately loss of children, um, loss of pets and things can be big stirs for people. But actually, we have them the whole time, you know. The end of a good book or a good film can be equally make you feel it's not as devastating, obviously. You can feel a sense of an ending or a loss. So I think the more times we we can realise actually we have lots of endings all the way through the day. I mean, you can end a good meal, can't you? And think, well, actually, that was really wonderful. You know, and there's just a different kind of energy that comes in, and the more we can sit with that and think, well, actually, I have these this I drop into this little feeling, maybe momentarily, or maybe just for a couple of minutes or an hour or so. It doesn't have to be a long period of time. You know, we're not talking that devastating grief where you're rocking in the corner in pajamas, you know, with when your your whole world is collapsed. But the more we can just see that there's actually a series of endings happening all the time, I think it means that we're much freer to be able to sit there and think, actually, I could feel something else. You know, I feel this today, but I actually could feel something else. And there's a there's so it does give one a sort of sense of hope, really, or a sense of um hope's probably not the right word. I want a different word on that. Um a sense of transformation, you know, a sense of going forward, a sense of things actually uh moving. So it's worn in a in a lighter way, really. Um, I spend my life talking to people about endings and grief that was working, you know, and often grief of somebody dying. But I, you know, it's it's very interesting that sometimes, you know, just especially working in the theatre, just a wonderful job ending, and you're thinking, Oh, am I ever going to get another job that was going to be as wonderful as that? And actors and dancers spend their life going, Am I ever going to get a job ever ever again anyway? Because we always think it's gonna be the last one quite often. Well, lots of us do.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Yeah, because yeah, I don't yeah, because I suppose you are it's sort of something ends quite decisively, and then there's sort of there's a precipice that in front of that. Yeah, it's interesting. I've sort of just noticed I'm going into a bit of a reverie here, but that there's a it's it's sort of the dance here between grief and possibility. Um and the two sort of open each other up, or or maybe grief and the space that that leaves, then leave space for possibilities and for whatever it is to come in. And again, yeah, what I'm really with is the softness that's required for that. But there's a real strength as well behind that softness, and maybe that's you know, as maybe soft is is you know, link I don't know, flaccid, what you know, not necessarily particularly good words. Whereas actually there is a strength, there's courage, there's heart in that too.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

There's a sort of soft power, isn't there, really? Sometimes there was a very interesting, very powerful uh young man who was in one of my classes for for a good year, and he was supremely gentle. And he would have been described as what we often call, you know, very he had a masculinity that was very light, and um that people would often say, Oh, actually, yeah, there wasn't a lot of and he annoyed some of the women because he was so sort of gentle, he wasn't even so he wasn't feminine, but he had a gentle, he had sensitivity. But he won everybody round because we I had also had somebody in that class who was very disabled, and he was always the person who checked in to make sure they were okay. He was always the person who just spotted the fact that the glass was they couldn't get across to get a glass of water, so he always just kept a little eye on her, and this wonderful kind of soft power, but it was it it ended up as almost one of the most powerful energies in the room, you know, in in this space. It was incredibly powerful and it softened everybody watched it, everybody softened. This was a group that were going to be together for a year. It was it was I was teaching something slightly different at that point, and um so they but they all echoed that, they all echoed that sort of gentleness and that time, um, where lots of people did come in wanting to, you know, change and smash doors down, and he did everything very, very gently. And he was one of those people that you know was nearly 40 but looked 22. So everybody had slightly gone, oh, he's probably just nearly, you know, he was sort of got pigeonholed quite quickly as the person who probably didn't know very much. Where you know, he was he was the only person I've ever known to say, well, when I started my second PhD, and everybody went, really? You know, because most people don't do two, and he was doing two, uh, or started a second one on a completely different subject. Um, so there was an interesting kind of soft power, which I always remember that often if I'm in a bit of a difficult situation. What's the soft power here as well? As or do I need to hold quite a strong boundary? And there's always that choice.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Yeah, and there is that choice. It's I'm reminded of um a Sunday afternoon thing with a local healer, and there was a guy there who was who was a Sufi healer. Um, and you know, he he looked like a geography teacher. He had the grey shoes with the velcro and sorry, the stereotype of a geography teacher, rather to offend all geography teachers, um, and the leather patches on his tweed jacket and stuff like that. And he was tiny, there was like nothing of him. And then I got paired up with him and we went in to do a healing, and all of a sudden he started chanting in Arabic. Um, and the energy in the room, the strength of it was just like woof, and it was it was night and day, it was incredible, and then that was very much the sort of forceful energy I would suggest. But it was all all the more powerful because he was actually had a very gentle spirit underneath it as well.

SPEAKER_00 56:42

That's what, and then we're back to archetypes, isn't it? Yeah, even if it's easier to hold a different archetype, yeah. And I think the people who can uh really hold those different archetypes and move between them all through the day. Um, and there's thousands of them, you know. I mean that's a sort of second deck, and we've managed to get it down to 60 different archetypes of ones that people would would recognize or ones that might be quite challenging, and um but there's this sort of that I I know several people who can just move from a very kind of strong position to a very gentle, and they they've they tend to be very successful in the world because they know what to bring. And and somebody said, Oh, I often feel uh, you know, she's quite conscious that she does it. Should I? I hope I'm not manipulative. I don't think I am. I just know that in different spaces I need to be different people, but she's very much herself in all of them, so she doesn't jar, but she knows when she needs to be quite strong, she knows when she needs to be very much the mother, and she avoids going into things like the wounded child. So she's very conscious of them. She's done a lot of work on herself, but she has a tremendous flow.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

That's interesting. I I mean, sort of uh I'm seeing with sort of like a grid of the sort of we've we've mentioned the dark feminine, the light feminine, the dark masculine, and the dark, uh the light masculine, and the interplay, the dance between those. Um, which I'm I'm I have a feeling we'll probably end up talking more about in a in a later episode. Um I'm really aware that I'm I'm putting off the ending here. I could talk forever on this.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Yes. Yeah, no, it's a very interesting, but there's been it's but talking through the things we talked through. I mean, there's various things have come up, haven't they? Yeah, but you know, we haven't we haven't solved what do we we haven't even solved what do we what would we want uh a retreat or something to look like if we were you know if we were looking to go on one or be a part of one or run one or whatever. But it's been very interesting of what of looking at the the theme has come through a softness, a gentleness, a heart space, a a closeness, and how to get that closeness in in a way that's also challenging, but also a way that's comfortable to walk through. It is those doorways that open up, and those gateways always open up. And when you put yourself on a retreat or a workshop or a course or a or whether you're just reading a book of something about that's going to you're you're looking to change yourself, there is a there's part of you that's wanting to go on a journey, and it's about how does that journey become can you get the most out of it, feeling the most secure, but also not for it not just to sort of wash over you where there is a challenge. It's the it's the little grit in the in the oyster that creates the pearl thing. It's probably quite uncomfortable, but something rather beautiful comes through it. But but there is that rich for me, there's always that part of me that if I'm gonna get roughed up, I'm gonna go on the defence. And if I'm on the defence, I'm not really with my feelings. You know, I I'm great at roughing myself up. I don't need somebody else to do it for me in a space. Thank you very much. I quite give myself much quite a hard time on my own, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

Yeah, there is many of us need other voices, do we?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

No, no, not always, but sometimes uh what people recognize in you is rather beautiful, yeah. Um, which is the benefit of of groups and the benefit of of things, but there does need to be that point where um there's just an there's an openness, isn't there? So we've actually covered quite a lot, actually, really. Yeah, I think we have. We have. Great. Well, thanks, Gary. Thanks, Gary. It's a pleasure to always a pleasure to sit with you.

unknown 1:00:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:43

And I look forward to the next one. Thank you. Yes, so do I.