3. The Heart as a Mirror

What happens when we're faced with a reflection of ourselves? Gary and Oliver look at the challenges that we can face when attempting authentic relationship. Can we see the good and bad of ourselves in the other and lean into it with an open heart or do we run away both from our Light and our Shadow? 

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_00 0:02

Veils to the soul masculinity and spirituality with Oliver Baum and Gary Wright. So today we're going to talk about the heart as a mirror and how that impacts on masculinity and spirituality. But I thought we'd start with a bit of a grounding exercise and a sort of look at the different heart centres, just by way of introduction before we start speaking on the topic. So, Gary, do you want to start with the grounding and then I'll I'll speak to the hearts?

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Yes, certainly. So if you're listening to this and you're not driving, please don't do this if you're driving. But if you're not driving and you're somewhere you can just sit quietly, just take a moment to concentrate on the first three breaths. Be very conscious of taking the next three breaths very consciously in and out. And then just visualize some beautiful long roots coming just out the soles of your feet. It's quite a standard grounding exercise, this one. So rethink about anchoring into the earth through the soil. And if you're in a big city or you're in a room that's not on the ground floor, revisitize those roots, going right the way through down to the earth. And if you're in a big city, as I said, go past everything we put in. The Mother Earth's quite cluttered in cities, pipe cabling, pipe work, underground systems, go right the way past that to a very pure, very dynamic, very strong, very healing space, just right at the heart of Mother Earth, and just breathe into that energy. Just breathe into that, thinking down. So you're going out of your head, into your body, into a centre, and just think about that energy just being brought down, relaxing. And also, I tend to put in visualize yourself with a lovely blue cable at the base of your spine, and it just follows the path where those roots absolutely beautifully. And that cable brings a real sense of balance through. Often get pulled one way or the other in society and the projection and things, and having that lovely balance point, which is both left and right, dark and light, that beautiful balance within, and just see that cable get attached to an anchor. That beautiful balance just comes in, enabling you to feel very centered, very present, very grounded, and very calm. And when you had just a moment of just feeling that energy, just start to come back to the space you're in. And really feel your feet on the ground as well. And just start to bring some conscious breathing back as you just come back into that space.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

And as you arrive back in that space, just allow the energy to move up through your belly and into your heart center, so the centre of your chest. And just spend a moment there just to breathe. And check in with how it feels. Does it feel open, closed, congested, clear Whatever it might be, just notice it at all just accept it just as it is And just breathe into that space And then take your attention to your human heart on the left hand side of your body And again just breathe into that And notice how it's feeling And again quite often say if we're grieving something My human heart can feel a bit contracted So just notice that How open, how closed And at a subtler level Just the nuance and the beauty of everything that it does And then bring your attention across to the right hand side of your chest the divine heart And just breathe into that space And again just notice it as it is And then bring your attention back to the center of your chest And allow all three to have their place And then just gently if you have your eyes closed open them And just wonder what the heart as a mirror might be like What happens when you're faced with other people who hold mirrors up to you What happens when you hold mirrors up to other people And I suppose I'm thinking of this particularly in the context of of group work and sort of therapeutic processes But I suppose it also happens in everyday life And sometimes it can be really, really difficult to see ourselves in another. It's often um there's a bit of a practice you can do in therapy groups where you find the person who irritates you the most in the group and actually really take them into your heart space because more often than not the reason that there's an irritation with them is because we're denying something in ourselves or there's something about us we're not accepting. Um and I didn't uh that can and does lead to conflict in group settings um because for whatever reason people can't hold that. I just wondered, Gary, what your experience of that might be.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

It's interesting. I mean, running groups as I do a lot, I see that the dynamic sometimes of when people close off to each other. And I've done it in groups myself, I've closed off to people, you know, when I've been in spaces, you get, oh, they're not really my person. But you miss that opportunity. If you can come back to yourself and think, actually, what is this? Why am I irritated? Why have I withdrawn? Why am I feeling in conflict? Why have I made a big judgment? If you can come back to that, then it all softens down. And the last time I was in a situation like that, I just very much dismissed somebody, a lovely lady, actually, she tended to ended up to being, but it's a bit chaotic for me. And once I kind of got myself past that, I had the most amazing conversation with her, and it's interesting, isn't it, that there's that moment where there's an opportunity to go through something in yourself and to meet something else. And we tend to sometimes just it's a harder option to look back at yourself and think, why am I here? Why is this not working for me somehow? Um, but there's always something else available, and if we can find that, it's rather wonderful, never easy.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah, and and I mean it's interesting that where that's just taken me. I I I've quite often done that as a uh in groups where I've found someone you quite often sat opposite me, that's there's something about them that irritates me, or whatever it is, and then I look inside and whatever. The worst thing though, or the thing I've certainly found harder is where the boots been on the other foot. And I've been the person who's clearly winding somebody else up in the groove, and so I'm on the receiving end of those projections, and again, that's another example, I suppose, when my heart can really um shut down. It's it's like you know, a bit of me wants to just go leave me alone, almost as if I'm being sort of attacked, even though I'm not really. Um and again, it's there's this dance, isn't there, within groups?

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Yeah, I always say to people when they come into groups, um, you have to people on especially on the first one, have to go slightly subconscious uh unconscious, not subconscious, unconscious. Have to go into you know, because if you really thought about it, you're unlikely to put yourself in those positions, right? If you really thought I'm going to put myself and talk about my feelings with a load of people I've never gonna I've never met, and I'm unlikely to see again in some types of workshops and things. You probably wouldn't do it, but there's that opportunity of being, you know, there's an opportunity of you know learning together. But um, yeah, I'm often the person that will irritates people in groups, I've discovered. I don't mean to, but I am the person that sometimes, if I don't understand something, will ask. But I can also be incredibly quiet in a group. I mean, it can be, you know, if I'm on a retreat or something, I can be days before I say anything, um, which is unusual because I I've all the rest of my world is talking a lot. So sometimes people can find me quite remote. So it's often in those spaces that it is quite difficult, actually. But and I had a very interesting where that happened to me. I found myself in a in a workshop space, a retreat space where one I was the oldest, which wasn't jolly, didn't make me feel very jolly that I suddenly went, Oh, I'm the oldest. I'm that person, I suddenly I was always the youngest in the room, but it doesn't last forever then. Um and uh it was just I just was the one that just found themselves on the edge. And I I thought, well, how am I gonna do this? Because if nothing happened, happened. Um, and I thought, do do I go into the trying to win people over? Or do I go really into me and see what's what's there? And I went in to myself and I realized actually I'm somebody who send tries to send out quite a lot of joy in a room. Um, I quite like making people laugh, you know. I can't I that's my natural way I show up in the world, is that? And I thought, I wonder if I'd if I could what do I do, what do I do if I bring all that towards me? And um it's taken me 50 years to realise that my joy is something for me, and maybe I don't always have to send it out someone, and it's absolutely changed, but changed the rest of my year. So when there's that difficult moment of thinking, can I really come back to my heart? Um there is a challenge in it, you know, it's often we want to distract ourselves with something else, but if you can do that, and that completely changed what how I, for use of a better word, show up in the world now, really. Um but it wasn't the easiest thing to do, and I didn't get an awful lot from the retreat that I was on, particularly for various reasons, but I got that, so it's one of the ones that I will always remember, but that wasn't what what I necessarily went to discover. So it was an extraordinary opportunity available there.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah, yeah, and it's I mean it is amazing how we bring our our sort of, I don't know whether it's sort of familial roles or whatever it is into these situations. You know, I I suppose I uh uh for me it's sort of that feeling of being responsible for or less so now for but being responsible for everybody's well-being in a room, um, which frankly is exhausting um and actually really unhelpful. Um, not just for me, but for everybody else. Um and it's you know it's quite ego-based, let's let's admit it. Um but actually yeah, being able to lean into I mean almost being invisible in a group as well as visible has always been quite an interesting one, certainly for me. Um but I just yeah, I just with beyond the sort of taking responsibility for our own stuff within a group, there's also sort of I don't know, when someone's speaking to quite difficult material, whatever that might be. And you know, how again how we can lean into that or not. And um you know, I I don't know, is there something here about I mean I can feel it in my body as I'm saying this, it's in my heart centre is is open and I can feel that on a on a almost impersonal level, that I can lean into somebody and then but I can still feel that my human heart is a bit sort of tentative. So there's a lot of story and history and whatever else in there that is this safe, I think would probably be the ultimate thing underneath it. And then on on the sort of the divine heart element, which is probably the the part that I'm I'm least in touch with, um, and I'm also probably the most fearful of because I know that it can be quite direct. I mean it's very it reminds me very much of of when we were talking about the dark masculine, it's that kind of energy. It can it can feel like that anyway, um, for me. And all of this is going on internally, and you know, I'm sort of trying to be present with other people as well. And I suppose it's a big ask of people. Um, and I just wonder how do you how do you balance it or am I just overthinking it?

SPEAKER_03 15:11

No, I don't think you are overthinking it. I think it's an incredibly um it's a real skill, isn't it? Um, because of the nature of the work we do, we're used to showing up, aren't we, in a professional world and working in those ways. But of course, when one's part of a group or or in any circumstances, if people are talking about different different things, when you're kind of equals, it's in that moment for me that sometimes I have my most struggles because what I can easily do is think, oh, psychically, or just you know, work with spirit and find out what's going on, really. Rather than actually allowing that person to explain how they're feeling, you know, you can think, what's your ways of getting around? So I have to be really, really present to listen. But I've also learned that actually sometimes people's stories, information, uh, sharings, whatever, sometimes you do just need to just take a pause and just go back into yourself, and maybe you do lose a little bit of connection with them, but maybe that's not a bad thing. Because there's losing a connection with them in terms of, oh, I'm not listening, and I just please be quiet because I I like can somebody else speak now? There's that, which is caused very much on the retreat and the judgment and a bit negative, but on another level, sometimes you just need to come back to yourself and thinking, actually, what is this doing for me and why am I here? And I was in a space once where somebody started talking to me. I was at a party, um a garden party, and they started talking to me about some very, very difficult stuff they were experiencing. Um man who was talking about his father. And um, I'd just lost my dad, sort of, he didn't know this a couple of actually a couple of weeks before. And I found myself going into the fact of how wonderfully blessed I was with my father, and that my you know, my experience could be could have been very, very different, different of life if I'd had maybe his dad. Um, so sometimes there is that moment of reflection that when you come back to yourself, sometimes actually it does enable you to go through another little gateway where you can also be present, but you have to just be able to make sure you can you've got to come back to almost that grounding and centering that we started with, really. Where am I in this? Um, because quite often, you know, the opening of a heart opens something in yours, and maybe that's not something that we were immediately ready for. You know, it's happening to us rather than maybe we we we've chosen it. And can we hold it? And we can we take that opportunity. Yes, we could walk away, yes, we could remove ourselves from the situation, and those aren't invalid sometimes, but if we can real sit with it, sometimes a bit of gold opens, a bit of a bit of beauty opens, some kind of sharing opens, but it's not always easy, but it is a matter of kind of for me having to breathe through it, really, and not go into either a fixing or a retreating space, but being able to kind of hold me and therefore be still present for them. And I did have to say to somebody once um when they were talking to me on a on a workshop I was on, I'm really sorry I had checked out then. I know that was terribly important, but can you just would you mind saying that again? And she actually felt very seen because she felt she she knew I'd checked out, and then when I admitted to do it, she said, Oh shit, I knew you'd gone somewhere, and she said, Yeah, and and then we had another conversation about why that was difficult for both of us as well. So lots of wonderful things happen, but we've got to stay with what's happening with us, haven't we, really? And not go into some kind of managing of the situation because it's always a kind of discovery.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah, and uh and the the interplay and the dance, and it's you're right, it's it's not a sort of fixed point, is it? It's it there's a movement backwards and forwards, um both internally and between two people. Um, and and I I'm reminded of the word courage and and core, the root word of courage being core, which is French for heart. And there is there is a courage that's needed to sort of push past those um, I mean, whether it's cultural, societal, familial limitations that we have in our bodies. Um I'm just I I remember this going back a long time, but one of the first groups I ran, and more often than not, the groups I'd run up to that point had been all women, and there was a few guys in this were in this group as well. And and they really engaged and it was lovely, and to feel that heart-opening presence with men was very, very different and felt quite odd and quite threatening to begin with. But again, it was that process of leaning into that all the time. Um that was beautiful, actually, it was really, really lovely.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

It's a very interesting one as well, because it there isn't, and I find that men don't find this very easy, women sometimes find this a bit easier, but sometimes we you just we have to honour the fact that actually there's something that what is true for us in our heart at that moment is to kind of say, Well, I can't do this bit. Not today, and that's actually also okay sometimes, isn't it? To to think I'm not available for for for listening for this. We I was uh in a very interesting uh retreat, three-day retreat, just after the pandemic, and it was sort of, you know, the first time we were we were all allowed to go back into a group, really. It was on conscious um space holding, really for people who held groups. It was very aimed at a very professional level of people who, you know, were facilitators, psychotherapists, you know, um, people who ran workshops for like I do. And so there was a lot of very, very conscious uh people. And somehow there was this man on there who'd done nothing and seemed to have slid into the space. And I thought, well, this is interesting, because We all introduced ourselves and so I don't run any of these. And I thought, oh, this is very interesting. And he was a great um catalyst. Uh he was terribly charming and very lovely, and I think we could all understand him, but he tended to bring the conversation constantly back to himself and didn't really, couldn't really listen to anybody's thing. So he would ask you later what you'd said. And you thought, well, this was like two hours later. And you know, this morning when you were talking, I didn't listen to any of it, but would you like to repeat it to me? And he did it to everybody, and everybody had to gently find in themselves a space where they could say, I'm not really available for a one-to-one bit of work with you. Um, because sometimes it was, you know, one-to-one. We all had to find that space and that courage to say, what do we need for our heart as well? And we did it all very beautifully. Everybody beautifully, actually. And we did it all very consciously in many ways, but we all had to be truthful because we all knew that we couldn't do some of the exercises with him because he wasn't present enough. And it didn't go into a big gossipy kind of him and us situation, but it meant that everybody had to say, I'm not available for this moment for you, or this is what I need, and I'm not sure not sure that this interaction for me is gonna work. And so it was very much also about what is the heart mirroring back to ourselves? Do we listen to what we need sometimes from it? And are we strong and courageous enough to be able to say no? Um, it was a huge um understanding, and the facilitator was incredibly gifted at holding the space, which gave us gave all of us the courage to be able to do it. But it really was interesting about consciousness and being conscious because it for in any situation, whether you're holding a professional space or whether you're just out for lunch or dinner with somebody, some things have to work for us for them to work for the other person as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah, gosh, I'm trying to yeah, I'm trying to imagine that. I'm curious about how you receive how you receive that because that's that's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Yeah, there was I think eight of us, so seven of us at some point all had to say, I'm really sorry, I don't think I can do that, really. Yeah, um, and he took it very well in in some ways because he blessed his heart, he was so unconscious, he didn't really take it all, he didn't feel that. And the facilitator was very, very good for him, and and they made sure he had his moment. But it was a very interesting one that we all had to kind of find in ourselves the courage to go, my heart needs something else. And if I'm coming into this very consciously of working with my heart, there are certain things I need, and that does mean that I have to find somebody who can hold that space. Fortunately, everybody can hold everybody else's process, but it is about whether we put ourselves in a situation, and we all did it, we all had we all tried to make it work, we all went through that gateway of trying to make something fit, even though we all knew immediately that we'd we'd it wasn't gonna work, but we all had a go. But it was why did we put ourselves through that? Because we all knew it wasn't it wasn't going to be a successful interaction. Um, but we all then had to find the courage to say something else, and um it's very interesting, isn't it, about whether we can our hearts can hold us.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Part of me wants to take a pause with that and just really breathe into the idea you know of can our hearts hold us? Because it's there's something so simple, or relatively simple, I would argue, to hold other people's hearts almost as a diversion from holding our own. You know, and I've I've often been in I mean some of the game in groups that I've been a participant in, I've been the one who sort of got lumbered with the person who no one else wanted to work with.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

And sometimes that's actually rather wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

It can be, but but it's but uh just uh the the different I'm just feeding into the difference between what you were describing and and and arguably the easier path of just saying um yeah, just you know, going along with whatever kind of thing and putting other people's needs in a moment that's supposed to be grateful for everybody before our own hearts without you know without making it an ego-based sort of selfish thing.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

And it's very much that, you know, if we if we have if we're not holding our own hearts, can we really hold someone else's? Or is the most compassionate thing for everybody in that space, the other person and yourself, to say, actually, I need a moment to kind of get around this, or this isn't gonna, this is not about gonna be available for anybody for me or or you today in this interaction, but it could be available somewhere else. What do we need in that?

SPEAKER_00 27:59

It's I mean it's interesting. I'm going back to the three hearts idea, um, which I for the life of me I can't remember where I picked that up from, but I'm pretty sure it's not an original thought on my part. Um, but I like the idea of the breadth as well as the sort of the depth, the grounding that you did. Um, the the two working together, the breadth and the depth. And the the idea of the divine heart, the the I would think of that as sort of um I suppose Jesus in the temple turning over the tables as a good example of that. The kind of fiery holy rage or passion or whatever you want to call it. Um and that it that can be just as loving and just as heartfelt as the softly softly approach. Um the being I I remember the therapy group I was in when I was training to be a psychotherapist. I mean the teachers nicknamed us the nice group or not in control enough. Um, because we weren't very good in group process of being sort of maybe more outspoken or again it's getting that balance and it ha and we keep coming back to the heart on this, but it's getting that balance from I mean I've been in groups where people have have frankly just been obnoxious for obnoxious sake, because they were well I'm at my growing edge or whatever it is. Um but there's no interrelational element to that at all. It's just again, it's ego-based, I suppose. Um But there's there is something about that interplay between the two people or a group of people, and that's where the energy for me anyway comes from. That's where quite often the healing comes from as well.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

I agree with that because it's only really when you can go past something that bit that healing energy is kind of released, really. And sometimes one does have to say something quite um strong. Um, and somebody, you know, you know, there's always that goodbye thing at the end of groups, especially if you're it's a retreat and you're you're not likely to see each other, you know, again. And um, somebody said to me once, I'm so thrilled. I might have said this in a previous podcast. Um I'm so thrilled that you did everything that was asked of us, but you did it your way. Which I don't quite know was a compliment, or they meant it as a compliment, but I was a bit like, uh yeah, because sometimes that I have been you know known to say things out, you know, somebody asked me something in a quite the other day, and I said, No, I'm not actually interested in that. That doesn't bother. I don't think about that in my life. It was to do with uh people's wealth, actually. And I said, I've sat with people who are incredibly rich and I've sat with people who are not, and it doesn't ever occur to me how much money somebody has in the bank, just not my thinking. And they found that extraordinary. They went, oh of course it must be. And I went, really isn't. I can't be, but I could be I couldn't be less interested. And um they found that very, very challenging. But that doesn't sound like Jesus tipping over the tables in the temple, but for them it was. It wasn't for me, I just was saying, just uttering thought. I could have turned around and said, Well, I've got brown eyes, it would have equally been been for me just factual. But for them, there was a really big, big moment in that where the the response was, oh no, you must be lying, everybody does. Um, so sometimes in that divine heart, it there is that gift of something different and a different opinion, which is always that as a that gateway, and of course we give each other that those divine sparks quite often in interactions with humanity, really, but we probably don't always notice them. You know, we think of the sun and the moon coming up in the stars being very kind of beautiful and divine, and you know, we think of that being kind of otherworldly, but there are moments where we do something that's actually quite extraordinary, and often it's when we're saying what's really true for us, because um I always find that the person is very, very themselves in a group. There's two ways of of it, you know, the archetype, there's two ways of viewing it. You either find that they're giving you permission to be exactly who you are, um, or people tend to kind of shy away from them because it's a bit too maverick. And I always take the first one myself. I think, oh, if they're doing it, um, it's lovely. And I was in this group once with this beautiful young man who's so lovely, and he came and said sat next to me one day and said, Oh, hello, I'm a poet. And I thought, oh, you're you're my kind of person. But he was also somebody who said, I'm not gonna sit in a circle like that, I need to lie flat on the floor. And he did whatever he needed, but he made it uh by the by the time that the end of the workshop had happened, everybody was comfortable and sitting in a space, and nobody had that rigidity because he wasn't gonna do the rigidity, and so everybody else thought, Oh, it's all right for him, I'll do it. And the facilitator was totally fine, but often sort of this sprawling mass of a body initially looked very unconscious, although he was totally conscious in being present, but he was also totally comfortable in his skin, which was rather wonderful. But he initially looked the maverick, initially looked the loose cannon, but he totally wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

And that's why that's one of the lovely things about groups, and particularly the retreats where you've got a few days or however long it might be, because I suppose that those initial judgments get to be challenged.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Yes, and it's in those initial judgments that I think the heart opens or closes. Yeah, I think it's in those first five minutes. I because if you do, I mean, I I'm very guilty of this on on a retreat myself, as if I go, I'm I'm not looking for an ally to back me up. I don't need one of those, but I'm rather looking for somebody to have lunch with and to sit with, you know what I mean? And to know who that is, and it's quite it might be the single child in me needs to find that person quite quickly, and quite often they find me quite quickly, and there's some lovely friendships formed in that over the years, and I'm still in contact with people uh now from workshops and groups, which is often quite rare actually. Um, but it is that moment of judgment straight away, and and then when I think for me, I'm now having to be very conscious when I'm in groups of not doing that, not necessarily when I'm running them, but when I'm being part of them, um of what am I who am I opening to and who am I closing off to? And what am I missing by that? Am I just looking for the people that I know I always look for in a group, you know, those the the funny people or the interesting creative people, or am I actually open to the person that I have nothing in common with? And I had an amazing interaction a couple of years ago with somebody who sat next to me and went, well, I've been in prison and I've done this, this, and this, and this, but I think you're the person in this room that I've got most in common with. And we had totally different backgrounds, totally different spaces. Our lives, nothing in our lives had matched up at all, but we got on really well. But we looked at the strangest combination to be sitting with each other chatting all the all the time. I mean, nobody could work it out. But I understood in that eventually that actually what it was was an authenticity because both of us would say at certain times, I'm sorry I don't understand this bit, because somebody needs to explain it to me. We didn't mind being a little bit other.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Uh I remember again, I was sort of thrown back to when I started training. I used to quite pride myself on being able to sort of suss out the group very, very quickly. And then at some point it dawned on me that actually that was hyper-vigilance, that wasn't any great skill, particularly. Um and and the ability to just sort of relax without trying to get everybody sorted, you know, who's a threat, who's safe, who's this, who's the other, um, without making those judgments. One, it's it makes for a much more, I mean authentic is the word, so it's a much more authentic and present experience rather than operating from uh past trauma or whatever it might be, which I suppose inevitably comes up in groups. But I'm I'm also wondering, do you think there's any particular difficulties, you know, uh for men in men's groups with the idea of the heart as a mirror that you wouldn't necessarily find in mixed groups?

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Yes, but I'm just gonna before I answer that before I'll give you my answer that, before I give you my opinion on that, um get to reflect back of what you've just said there about actually not needing to do that anymore. That's now holding your heart, isn't it? Which is what we're talking about. Yeah. So once you can do that, then it's fine, isn't it? It's it's once you see so so you've actually managed to get to a place where you can actually walk into a space and hold your heart and allow and surrender into that. Um it's an interesting point. The the mixed group and the men's groups. Um I don't think why we possibly started doing this really. It's often it's often for me and it and it may well be a way that it works for lots of people, but that sort of you the heart has to open naturally in safety. You can't force that that kind of energy to come through. You have to feel very safe. And I do sometimes feel that some of the men's groups, especially the ones I've been on, um, although I was reminded of one that I went on oh god 20 years ago that was completely different structure and when I was thinking about talking about this today, um, tend to be quite brutal. They want to break people down. And if we break people down and we get you past your ego or your people pleaser or your your all those other archetypes that you know come up in those men's places, you know, if we strip that away in a really aggressive way, you you're open. But that's not always been my experience, and it's not always been what I've observed happening with other people. They just sometimes just either, and people have admitted this to me later on, you know, they've just gone along with it just to kind of have an easier life and sort of try to get through it, or they've just just given up and just left or not not continued. Um, because there is something about somebody. If you know who you are, you can bring something else, but if you're still struggling to find your voice and who you are, stripping something away is incredibly threatening because actually you're whipping out a big bit of how somebody has managed to cope, identify, show up, whatever the words are. So I don't think often in the mixed groups, my observation is that they're not always so brutal in terms of forcing people to kind of um become different. You know, there's there's much more of a kind of discussion, much more of a gentle opening. I don't know if that's always created just by the women, but there's this sort of gentle opening where the men sing of actually let's break it, break through something in an aggressive way. It definitely doesn't work for me, and I've often had been the been on the receiving end of conversations, you know, with people saying, Well, I don't actually really find that also very helpful, really. Um, so it's what is that safe space and how could you create it?

SPEAKER_00 41:13

And what the men now need. Yeah, and there is there's something, I mean, what pops up for me in that is is something about that finding that space where it feels good enough, safe enough to to be able to develop that capacity to hold your own heart. Yeah. Um, because if you're sort of guard uh having to guard yourself, go on the defensive or or feel as if you're having those protective mechanisms stripped away, it's very difficult, I would I would think, for that to happen.

SPEAKER_03 41:45

And also it's it's about sort of teaching people to be able to hold their own heart as well, in a way. You know, marvelous skilled facilitators can can hold you through that, and that may give you a glimpse of that. But if they're not there, can you still do it? Um, so it's about actually being able to come back to the heart and know that you can sit in that space and move through the different feelings in quite an authentic way, and that sometimes for lots of people is quite hard, but it's never found in myself through a brutality. I don't know whether in the 70s and 80s, when men's groups were being formed, that was sort of echoes of those sort of Boy Scout camps and maybe the army and the way managerial things were structured, maybe allowed people to be um feel safer because there was somebody at the front shouting at you. Um but now I think people want to be able to express themselves and be heard and seen. Um and also I think it's a flexibility that men need sometimes. That you need that in a group. You need to be able to kind of move through with the flexibility of where are we all really? Rather than we've got to be finished this by 20 past 10, because if we don't do it 20 past ten, we won't get to lunch because the next thing we do is gonna take us an hour and a half. That doesn't always you need a structure when you're holding a group. I I know that more than anybody, but you also need a flexibility to allow somebody to drop into what they need to drop into, and sometimes that isn't a time thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Yeah, there's there's something there about the container, isn't there, that of So uh I mean I mean, I'm slightly too young to to know this, but uh from w speaking to sort of people who were around in the 70s and 80s in the human potential movement groups, but uh uh there was a sense that that that kind what they were doing the the container the purpose of it was challenging the rigidity in the structures that had gone before so that that were probably rooted in sort of Victorian era you know stoicism and and stiff upper lip and not showing it and expressing a feeling so everybody was just like expressing and showing everything in a way that that was supposed to break down those structures and and then as you say that's shifted now.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

You know you could argue that work has been done and now what it is is there's a much softer um uh longing and desire in people for you know what needs to come forward is different now but the work n hasn't necessarily caught up with that we still seem sort of stuck in that well this is what we should do um and that doesn't quite get challenged as you see as you've also said it doesn't get challenged enough you know people think okay well is this what's still needed yeah and I'm somebody who's been in those spaces and and challenged it and it's not always gone down terribly well um because you know are we gonna are we gonna see all these people if I think if you're working with a rolling group you can um a group that's meeting monthly or weekly or or by you know bi-monthly or whatever um you can form something else but if you're in a very sort of short window of maybe three or four days you have to decide what you need and how what your journey is and then everybody's working on something slightly different. So that thing of you know maybe everybody's got to be there for everybody else that team nobody left behind thing is kind of a fantasy because most people on retreats don't keep in touch you go back to life you know I'm as I said I'm quite fortunate that I've been in things and I do still talk to people and sometimes they've been you know 10-year friendships but um but you're still at that window of time you're in a particular thing and maybe I don't have something so much in common with the astrophysicist but I did in that I did for that for those four days but maybe our lives don't kind of fit together so easily um so it's about actually an opening of the heart and allowing those places to form rather than a kind of everybody's got to plow on together. I'm reminded actually I was thinking about this um probably uh one for another podcast really more in depth but 20 years ago I went onto a very very small um men's retreat um and we'd it was it was Friday Saturday Sunday everybody left Monday but two weeks before that we had a day where we all sat down and everybody said and the facilitators said what do you want and we all sat there going what they won't know what you want you tell us what you want and we'll do it and initially I felt my heart go I'm just paying for I'm paying for this and now you want me to design it was my float response I mean 20 years ago I mean it takes me to my early 30s where I was more arrogant person than I am now. But I was like how dare you expect me to run your space but actually it was still today the best thing I've ever been on because we built it together and and people I know all of those uh there was only uh six of us they also went we're doing it really small um but it was a very interesting thing all of those six people I know are still in contact with one of the other people and that was 20 years ago um but of course it was immediately incredibly challenging because it required you to say what your heart wanted and that was the most challenging one of the most challenging things I've been through I've been screamed at in men's groups and all sorts of things and sometimes I've just thought oh whatever you'll run out of steam in a minute and eventually they do but actually somebody saying what do you need no what do you need but can you ask for what you need was incredibly challenging you know 20 years ago it's but it's still quite challenging now but it was remarkable yeah that I can yeah that sounds amazing it reminds me slightly of a training I did where the and it was kind of what would you like to receive from the training and everybody wrote things down and put it into the middle of the circle we were sort of building the container and then there was um and what are you bringing to this training and you could see virtually everybody in the room prickle and just go I'm paying for this what do you mean for my freedom kind of thing but it comes down to that vision doesn't it and I think the heart opens much more if it has a vision. Yeah I agree so if it knows where it's going it knows what it can bring to it and so I think sometimes there is something about do can men ask to other men what they need and what's the risk in that the risk is always you might not get it and that's the risk and that maybe we can all logic out that one enough but am I willing to really be able to say this is what I need and see if anybody can sit with that yeah and there's I mean there's something about the sense of direction and purpose and potential sort of communality in that's very powerful and and maybe's lost without that yeah yeah not an easy way for facilitators to go I mean they cannot make their things easy I just thought this is really risky but they knew what they were doing and it was it was remarkable as I said and the the test of time is 20 years later everybody's still in contact with one of the other people. Yeah that's amazing you know and we actually had a reunion uh just before about 2019 actually somebody managed to great us all in one place together because we're all sort of around the world now a bit and um it was extraordinary because it was a bit like we'd all just sat down where we left off so so heartfelt was that and did you ever do that did you ever train in that well I didn't and I decided two weeks later I didn't want to do it so I did this. But everybody remembered everybody's story it was quite remarkable. And I was one of the younger ones and so a couple of them now are much older than me. So um they you know but everybody you know people retired people are grandads but everybody remembers that because everybody was put on the spot what do you want and can you ask