Veils to the Soul
Season 2 ... Masculinity and Spirituality. An exploration into the current state of the Masculine in Therapy and Spirituality.
Season 1 ... Birthing Spirit in the Modern World. An exploration of what's between us and our Souls' birth, and how the Modern World resists that birth, but needs it - if it's to survive and thrive!
Veils to the Soul
5. Men Seperation, Isolation and Endings.
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In this episode Gary and Oliver look at the particular problems Men face around Separation, Isolation and Endings. Do Men suffer with loneliness and longing in a different and particular way? Is a stint in Clown School the answer?
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
Veils to the soul masculinity and spirituality with Oliver Baume and Gary Wright. Today's episode is men, separation, isolation and endings. Um I suppose kind of this this episode has the potential to be the bleakest of all of them. Um purely because it it is such a strongly felt feeling, I think, particularly in men and particularly in the masculine, that sense of isolation, that sense of separation in the world. Um and and sort of staring into the potential for connection also brings the potential for loss and the terror that, you know, even if it's unconsciously felt, is is I think always present within that. I mean, I I mentioned this last time, and I've got a little theory that um, you know, boys when they they have that initial sort of baby-age separation from their mum feel it even more acutely than girls do because they they kind of look down as it were at themselves and realise that they'll never be like their mother. So that separation is all the more um uh poignant might be one word for it, but terrifying might be another word for it, depending on depending on the circumstances. Um and I suppose what what we were looking at, or certainly my my take on this is is you know how that plays out uh in the spiritual circles, whether it's men's groups, but also just more generally in practice. Um I mean it could be said that the the very first separation is the separation from the divine, you know, if you if we take sort of being cast out of the Garden of Eden kind of thing. Um that idea of being fallen, um which I'm not sure I'm I necessarily agree with, but the the sort of the idea of that. So every set separation, it could also be argued, sort of brings us back not only to a very primary wound as humans, but also a very, very primary wound as souls, spirits, etc. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_01I agree with that actually. I do agree with that. It's very interesting. I was I'm just reminded as you were saying that, I was talking to somebody uh a couple of days ago who was it was a lady actually, but she said um that she had grieved when she was young, she had grieved leaving what she called God. And then she came to realise it was the spirit or the universe. But it's very interesting if that first separation is you know arriving on earth and arriving in a body, you know, as a soul. I think probably can be quite and a big separation to start with, and then you've got that one of arriving into a world and being kind of identified really. And the soul doesn't like a lot of uh being the soul doesn't like being boxed, because as soon as you're born, you know, you're male and a weight and a name and a surname and a national insurance number, you know, though you might not want you know that that's what's being given to you. You know, you're quite e the soul is quite quickly um structured, and now that I think is a loss if you've come from quite a free place already.
SPEAKER_02That's got very deep very quickly. That has, isn't it? And and I mean, even on a very human level, there's I mean, there's you know, you know, being in the womb and all things being well, you know, all your needs are met, and then all of a sudden you're popped out into this sort of stark world of coldness, um, and probably given a whack on the bum to make you cry so your lungs get working and and all the rest of it. Um yeah, so it it's that sharpness to it, is what I'm feeling.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's a very interesting subject, this for me, because um loss and and endings and isolation is something that you could say has been always been my kind of work or uh pathway here in some ways. Um because I was one of a twin that didn't didn't make it, and it's quite unusual for the for a twin to be born um still born and then another one be around. I'm so old I'm pre-scans, you know. So it's an interesting kind of point um that I I didn't and nobody told me until I was um well to quite a lot, quite old. Um I can't remember, but I was well well into my 40s before before it the subject came up. Um and I said to my mother, and she know I didn't think we needed, I didn't think you I didn't think you needed to know really. Didn't we didn't think about what we're telling you really? We just she was rather shocked because suddenly I was I appeared. I thought she might be other one, but they wasn't sure. She'd given up on the fact of having a child. So I constantly searched for the other bit of me. So that sense of isolation and loneliness has been with me since well, it's not now, because I've kind of sorted it out, but from a very young age I had a sense of something being missing or being lonely in some ways, extremely lonely. I can remember sitting there in maybe five or six, being very aware that I was on my own and I shouldn't somehow be. People around me, but that sense of isolation was very, very strong. So it's a very interesting subject for me, and it I think it starts in in people very early, and I think it starts in men, uh, and boys as well, very early as well.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting because the I've worked with the inutro, um not not necessarily gone as far as stillbirths, but we're where a twin has been miscarried or whatever, and the impact it can have on someone's life um is is remarkable. You know, whether it's survivor's guilt, having that sense of always either having a presence with you or um um or just that that something missing um is it is is so powerful and it can really, really have an impact on on people's day-to-day existences. And and and then if I add to that as well, because I I mean I think for a different reason, I've always had a sense of of something missing. But it's it's always been more of a sort of um or maybe I've projected it onto sort of the romantic side of things. And you get into sort of ideas of twin flames and all the rest of that, and soulmates and things like that. And again, it's all of these things that I don't know whether they're designed to soothe the idea of separation or they just show how innate, almost how powerful that sense of separation, loneliness, um, of being apart, away from home, really is. Um there's a there's a fantastic photo I think my sister sent me a few years back, and it was me, and I I must have been about six, and I've got I've got my arm around a girl. I have no idea who it is. And it's the look on my face that I've got I'm in my sort of Sunday best, as it were, with a little shirt and tie on. And I've kind of it's like, oh mission accomplished, right? I'm here, whatever I'm here to do is done now, and I can go. And it was there was I can really see it in my face in that picture, and and obviously it's not that wasn't the case. Um, and it's probably my cousin or something in the picture, I don't know, but it's um but I d I don't know, I think you're right, it does start very, very young, and it is almost innate. I mean, maybe we are born a bit, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01It's it is a very interesting thing, really. I mean, that we are a herd species, really. You know, we are, you know, we're not you know, we're not a set of tigers or a set of polar bears who really just wander endlessly on their own. You know, we are people who seek out connection, you know, and you know, a mammal who seeks out connection. We're sort of group orientated. So I think from quite a young age we want, you know, we have that really thing of interacting. But it's very interesting, isn't it, what one wants. And I I was thinking about because I knew we were doing this. I was thinking about this this morning and thinking, do when did when did I start feeling lonely? Which I thought was quite I've worked out was quite young. And do I not feel as bad now about it? No, I don't feel a sense of separation and isolation, and nearly as much as I did, uh because of sort of working the thing out with the being a twin. But there is this sense of of interesting being interested in connections always, really, with me. And where that fits, and uh is it always um is it always fulfilled in me? And I came to the conclusion that the answer was no. So there is a still sense of an ending and an isolation and and things, although I can be quite a private person, I I like to connect, I like to connect to groups of people, but I'm not always somebody who's great in a group. I run groups, so I think when I find myself in one as a participant, they're not they're not as easy for me.
SPEAKER_02Not as easy, yeah. It's it running a group is is is a great way of keeping one foot slightly out, or at least part of the foot out, or at least I would find that. Um, although saying that I remember trying, you know, building a group and a sense and the up with the idea that it would build into a community, um, and then realizing about sort of half an hour in that oh, actually I can never be fully in this if I'm the facilitator. Yeah. Uh and I remember really sort of feeling the loss of that. It was very, very strong. Very strong.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's an ending in itself when you realize if you are running a group, you're always slightly on the outside of that group. Um, because you are other, really, you know, your your job is to be in a different space. So it's a very interesting uh thing of this, but it's also again it it echoes what we were talking about before. Um one has to identify what one needs to sort of help with one's loneliness. What kind of connection do you want with somebody? You know, what is it? Is it romantic? Is it friendship-wise? And can you also bring that to you? I was thinking, you know, can I bring a sense of uh completion to myself? Or do I always am I always looking outside for somebody else to complete a bit? That's I don't look outside myself nearly as much as I did because obviously I spent quite a lot of my good 25 years looking for longer than that, good 30 years probably looking for another part of looking for my other twin. And when I realized that, that eased a lot of that kind of anxiety. But there is still that point where one thinks, oh you know, new friendships, new circles, new new experiences, you know, is somebody looking, you know, it's are we are we all looking for that? And are are we all looking for that? I think there can be an assumption that everybody's looking for a looking for a good mate, where lots of us actually are lucky enough to have one. So it's it's also identifying actually what is supporting that is you know, what supports you not to feel isolated and that and and being grateful, really, because I think we are slightly, oh well, I am really slightly hardwired to to still be looking outside myself, you know, what else do I need?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and to focus on what's missing as well. I mean, there is yeah, it's easily done it to slipping into that trap. Um, I mean I suppose the ultimate connection would be connection with the divine. I mean, if again I'm scraping my memory here, but uh if I remember rightly the Aramaic word for peace, which I can't remember what it is, but it means connection with God. So there's that sense of having that sense of wholeness and peace within us comes from that connection with God rather than the divine um within us as well as outside of us. And again, it reminds me of what what you were talking about about being able to hold our own hearts within those spaces.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes. It's interesting because you talk about that because um the connection with the divine, because you know, I might put the word divine in there and say spirit, possibly, or I might say divine, depending on what mood I'm in. Um but as a me as a working medium, there's always something to there's I've always got somebody to talk to. Always somebody about. Okay, you know, it's always somebody again. What do I think of that? Whatever hours of the night or day it is, you know. I might during the day think, I might ring somebody up and just ask them what their opinion is on that. But if you know, if it's three o'clock in the morning, I do say, is anybody about? Somebody just always voice comes back. Which sounds a bit mad on one level, but there is a sense of that has helped greatly to feel connected always to something, which has made a huge difference in how I approach the world, really. Um, because there is that separation from the divine, and sometimes I think we lose we lose quite early on. We come, you know, come into quite a sort of quite mechanized way of working, you know. And we've also lost that connection with our own intuition, our own and our own divinity. You know, we everything's highly mechanized. You know, somebody said to me the other day, oh, I'm replying to all my boyfriend, you know, my new boyfriend's texts by AI. And I thought, I didn't say anything because she she didn't ask my opinion. But I thought, you're not exactly getting in touch with how you feel if you're kind of just saying, write me a reply to this, she's working ever so well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, oh yeah, I I know someone who's actually built a whole load of AI software specifically for this task, which is both amazing and terrifying at the same time.
SPEAKER_01But it's kind of like the only thing I could think of in that was if you send that off and they ask you in a conversation, you know, a practical physical conversation later, not a text conversation, what you meant by that. Are you gonna remember what you said if you're not really connecting with it? And so there is this part where actually coming back to oneself is probably the starting point to feel less isolated. But that does require one to come back to themselves on their on one's own, which is a challenge in itself sometimes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and there is a bit of a paradox in that, it's it's it's getting the balance right. Yeah. I mean, you know, you know, uh, and particularly around suicide, men's sort of sense of isolation, and again, it does come back to not articulating needs, not being able to reach out for help, um, the desperation that can come from that. Um so I wonder if there's almost a bit of a dance that's needed. So there is there is the yes, we do have to retreat and um literally I'm my address is Hermitage Bridge. So I'm kind of like I, you know, I love my hermit in time. Um but it's it's something here about being able to move towards people and also come back if we need as well, and having that dance, that interplay between connection and I suppose solitude, it becomes then solitude rather than loneliness. Um, because there's a there's an active choice in that, and within that space there's a connection to something else, whether it's ourselves or or spirit or divine, you know, whatever word, the earth even. Um yeah, I I suppose what I my mind's going now is uh is how this plays out in groups.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's very I was thinking funny enough, I was thinking that this morning actually, because I I I was thinking on that that was my next question to myself this morning when I was thinking about this. I and I've kind of and I I sort of looked back over a few groups I've been in, you know, uh and am I in contact with with people in them? And yes is the answer for a couple of those, but there's more more groups that I'm not in contact with people uh that in, not because of any particular thing, it's just drifted that into that way, and there's people I am very still in contact with in some groups, and I I thought, what's the difference here, really? What's what's what's why's that happened? Well, so in some ways they're just just a different life has happened for other people, but in many ways it requires an incredible effort to nurture that those new friendships and those new relationships. You've got to really work on it. And I I came to the and I I didn't come up with any great conclusions, but I thought are men good at that? Are they good at nurturing friendships with each other?
SPEAKER_02I mean stereotypically no, basically. Yeah, I came to the conclusion that they are probably no. Um and you know, women are are considered substantially better at that, and I you know, I've witnessed that. Um whereas, you know, if if I was in an all men's group and all of a sudden some people, you know, were really pushing for something to grow from it, I think yeah, I can feel the discomfort that I might experience in that depending on people.
SPEAKER_01But it's very interesting because um um it was you know, the other thing about this is endings, and I was in a situation last year where and I got on really, really well with this man on this workshop whole song, partly working on it, they were a part participant, but it was a different kind of space. And um what we spent a lot of time talking, you know, to early hours of the morning, and we you know, one person that you know I felt very comfortable and safe with, and at the end he said, I've loved absolutely you've been brilliant this weekend, or this week rather. I um but just so you know, I never keep in touch with anybody I've ever been on a retreat or a workshop with, it's just not something I do. But thank you very much for this moment, and it was kind of I mean the sense of oh, bearing in mind they don't live far, they physically didn't live far from me as well. So I'd slightly gone into that, oh, before I knew where they were anyway. But the honesty was very um, I admired it and it was very integral, but there was an ending and a disappointment because I thought, oh, as a rejection, yeah, because rejection's part of it.
SPEAKER_02That that has a different edge to it, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I did because they did it so beautifully. I couldn't say I felt rejected, but I definitely felt a line had been drawn under something. You know, an ending had happened, it was it was over for them, therefore it was going to be over for me by default, really. Um and then on and then there's another tree, and then there was a kind of very interesting kind of energy that has stayed very kind of day uh weekly, really. We kind of, you know, have been in touch, you know, sort of pretty much most week by text or conversation or something. So it's sometimes whether we what you know, but it's about voicing that and saying, well, this is what you know, back to what I need. He very clearly said, This is what I do and this is what I need. So don't be offended if you text and I do you don't get reply, because I don't do that, which was really clear. Um, but of course, in the second situation that happened in another on another thing, uh I I did say to somebody, oh, actually it'd be really nice to keep in touch. And they said, Well, actually, that was what I was just about to say. Um, but that has meant that we've actually both know, both quite conscious people, that we have to make incredible effort to keep that going because it's new. It's not something well I've known somebody 20 years, you just pick up where you left off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of new, so it's had to be really um nurtured, really. It's had to be it's a bit like a plant. It's had to be, you know, watered and staked and and you know, covered from the frost. You know, it's been it's had to be really nurtured, but it's it's quite nice actually, nurturing something new.
SPEAKER_02And how is that uh Mean that process, because if it's if it's a process that's sort of I mean alien might be a bit strong, but unusual for someone. I mean, I'm just wondering what that takes. So there's a commitment to it.
SPEAKER_01It's a commitment, and I think that's that's the thing. It's uh and that was the question that came up really early for for me, as soon as they said that. And and you know, because they're at one end of the country and I'm at the other. But occasionally we London is a place where we both occasionally get thrown to work, but they also travel a lot. But it was immediately I thought, oh, I've been asked for a commitment. And uh what I what what I felt about that, you know, have I got space for a commitment? Actually, am I going to see that, you know, is this something I want to do? You know, but it is about making a commitment. And a commitment doesn't necessarily have to be physical time, but it is a commitment of the heart. I think you know, commitment always has to start on the heart, really, and then has to be kind of nurtured practically. But if it's not there at the heart and you're nurturing stuff practically, it's never gonna work. So um I've had to really kind of make an effort, we've had to make an effort, and sometimes we we do have to schedule an appointment because we're both incredibly busy to speak. Um, and that's been really quite nice, actually. But it is that thing of hitting that commitment is another thing to look after, and I think men often do feel overburdened with things, you know, they often choose to look after a lot of things, and maybe not everything that they want to look after needs looking after in the way, but I think men do tend to gather things to look after, and um and is that avoidance of isolation?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we gather all these things so that we're not alone.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and then something comes in that means that we're we we you know that could possibly fulfill that, and then we're asking for a commitment, we're being asked to commit to something, and do we really want to do it? You know, do we really want to do it? Which is why I worry about marketing for groups and retreats and things where they always talk about you're gonna be thrown into this marvelous community for the rest of your life. Because in many ways, that's not the facilitator's choice, that's the participant's choice, and you never know if that's gonna work or not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I I I I know what you mean with that. I'm always a bit cautious with that. And I I know one group I do run, it does say, you know, sort of get together with like-minded souls or something like that, and and that may be true, but it doesn't guarantee that a community is gonna be built through that or from that. It may be just a place where people can, you know, they can kind of come top up their cups, and then go into the world. And there's nothing, there's actually there's nothing wrong with that at all.
SPEAKER_01No, but it there often is in a marketing thing over and over project. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that is often about a need that people really want. But it's very interesting, really. Um a long while ago I was uh working um on a play, and uh it was it was really one actress and a lot of actors. So I know actors. Actresses often like to be called actors now, but you know, one female and there were about eight men. And she said uh she was an older lady and she uh she had a kind of uh she had a a a way of being, you know, she could she had everybody charmed, she was incredible, past now, bless her, but um she said at one point to this group of men, Well, I've never met a man. And they all looked quite strangely at Bacco, and she said, No, women when they come from women are a part of a woman. Men or boys when they come out of women are ripped apart from that, and they're never going to be that, and often men, as they're growing up, reject a sort of feminine identity, and no man can really reject a feminine part of a feminine identity because they come from a woman. So no man can teach another man to be a man, you can only come to that by thinking you're a spirit. It was slightly on the text, which she was on this play as well, but it was a very interesting thing that actually quite often um we don't kind of come through with a this is me, we come through with a what am I lacking as a man? Ooh, yeah, and I'm wondering if we are lacking anything really, and we're just we're carrying a bag or carrying a t-shirt saying we're in lack of something. And what we probably should be thinking about is working on abundance, but there is somehow a wound in men that says I'm in lack of something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I I do, I mean, it it is I do wonder if, in part, anyway, that is going right back from that sense of separation. And I I wonder this, which which sounds like um the actress.
SPEAKER_01Yes, what she was saying is it it was to do with part of a part of a scene in a play, you know, being separated from her all the boys were going off to war, and she was trying to work out that it had to play the separation, but um, but she said, you know, that she she'd grown up with a lot of men and she never knew she'd never met one in the way that they all say they were. She'd met this these incredible souls and spirits, as she put it, that actually were complete, but they always felt they weren't.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's amazing. That's sorry, that's really opens up all kinds of stuff for me and just feeling into that and thinking about it. And and I just what I'm wondering then when people turn up, particularly for therapy groups and men's groups, they're turning up with their lack, they're looking for you know, if it if someone's doing some I don't know, a warrior type um archetypal journey on a on a weekend, people will probably be turning up or a big proportion of them because they feel a lack of that energy or feel that they need more of that energy in them or in their lives. So actually, I I just wondered whether I mean and I don't think this is just a men thing. A lot of people's relationship with spirituality and personal growth um does come from a place of lack.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and sometimes one does have to grow and one is in lack of an understanding. But but I I do feel that we're probably not in lack of the resource within. We've just kind of forgotten it. So I often when I'm teaching, I'm teaching mediumship, so I don't tell I don't tell people how to be a medium, I get them to remember it. Um and so that's that's a point that I'm thinking actually, is there something about remember uh you know, there was something that I went down all sort of rabbit holes where I was thinking, you know, is there something about remembering masculinity or remembering something for men? Rather than turning up thinking, you know, you're you're really you've got to find all these things that you didn't know you you didn't, you know, you pick them all back up or learn how to be, rather than actually remembering that you are resourced in a way, and there's a part of you that is always going to be able to replenish yourself because it's it, you know, there's part of us that is eternal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I'm reminded of um I think it's the Simpsons movie, but it might have been one episode where Homer sort of has some kind of it does mirror a shamanic journey as well. He he gets sent into the underworld and gets dismembered, literally ripped apart. And has his arms and limbs all pulled off, and then he's is literally remembered as as he comes back into the world. And it is that that I suppose that therapeutic journey. And I think um from what I understand from a lot of acting training um can mirror this as well, there is a sense of sort of shedding everything. Yeah, literally dismembering everything in order for us to then remember the essence of something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so you do have to kind of lose your your you can't lose your physicality as a performer because it's what you're working with, but you have to lose your habits and abilities, you know. If the character doesn't move like that, you've got to move, find the way they move, you know, and you get amazing actors like you know, I always think of Don Suchet doing Poirot with having that wonderful walk. Is it John Suchet? Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, the wonderful walk of Poirot with those tiny little steps that he has, you know. Um, and so you know, because if you see John, if you've never seen John Suchet, he doesn't walk like that. You know, he is he has quite strident. Um so there's this part of actually losing something to find a new space. But if we're constantly thinking we're somehow in broken or haven't got some, I don't want to use the word broken really, but I'm I'm struggling to find another one. We're we're in lack of something. We're always gonna think I've got to rebuild something rather than just think it's there, let's just re find it. And then refinitely within the finding of it and understanding it. There's a lot of F's in there.
SPEAKER_02I do I actually I wonder if broken is the right word, particularly at the sort of sort of more depressed end of the spectrum, or at least a sense of being broken. And uh when you're in that really isolated, I am totally on my own space. Um, and certainly it's been a couple of periods of of time in my life when I've been in that, and there is a sense of utter brokenness, yes.
SPEAKER_01And nothing matters and nothing works, and nothing fits. Yeah, I think I do uh yeah, I mean I couldn't get and there was another word not coming, so maybe broken is right, but um it is that point where I think at your lowest dead, but then it is about rebuilding something. But it is a very interesting thing to to think about remembering, you know, it's in there somewhere, and that and that's it, and that point that that kind of I suppose almost bottom of the U.
SPEAKER_02Um that is where that remembering can come in, you know, it's the the sort of chink of light that comes in in the broken space. Hmm.
SPEAKER_01And also uh it's an interesting thing because you mentioned endings in what we were talking about. There, you know, and we think of ending, you know, we think of people dying, you know, we've got grief, we think of you know the end of a end of a job, end of a career, end of a life. You know, we think of these big endings because there's end, you know, I always say there's endings every day. I mean you can you can finish a pack of biscuits and be slightly bereft, you know. Um or something, is that finish a good book, finish a good film, you know, it's something there's a final point, you know, there's something's ended. But it's a very interesting point that we forget that if we're we have to go towards an ending to bring in something new. You know, to find something new in ourselves. We have to put down an old story, we have to end a different way of thinking. And because I think we're not good at especially in the West, we're not good at endings, we're not good at grief, we're not good at the death of something. It's sometimes I think we can get trapped in a kind of I feel isolated and I feel lonely and I feel that, but we won't quite put that down because we it's always we've always known it as men. So rather than thinking actually there is a point where I could have a life full of connection.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and I mean the avoidance of grief and probably shame as well keep definitely does keep people stuck, and I think particularly men. Yeah. Um I mean grief is that process where we deepen it and broaden into things. So that something new can be reborn. Something new can come actually maybe not even, but maybe something can be remembered even. So it may not even be something new coming in, just something that's truer.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and creating a space to hold that. Yeah. It within. Again, it becomes back to holding of the heart. You know, if you can hold your one your heart, you find something, you find the ability to build something within quite beautiful. But it does require finding creating space. Somebody said to me once, how did you do this? You know, something I'd done, I changed in my outward life, um, career-wise. And they said, Well, how did you get there? And I said, I just stopped doing all the things all the things I weren't weren't getting me anywhere, and then I had the space to do that. And she went, Oh, because she thought there was gonna be some big profound answer, and there wasn't. I just went I just made space and then worked hard, didn't it? So, but it is about making space within one's hearts and going, actually, what do I want to build? And committing to that, isn't it? There is a you can't have greatness without vision, and you can't have greatness without a commitment to it, really.
SPEAKER_02And the courage to move forward with it as well, I suppose. And again, we're back to we're always coming back to the heart, which is I suppose on one level not surprising.
SPEAKER_01No, it's not sorry, it's not surprising. Um but it's an interesting point of the loneliness and the isolation and being able to express does require us to come back to going, what do I want? What do I need? Which requires us to go back into ourselves and have a little look, really. What do I need in this situation? Yeah, and I don't think as a society, because we're all often marketed and told what we need, we're very good at going back to ourselves at the moment, going, well, actually, what do I need in this? What does this need? What do I need to do this? What does this what what structure around this is going to make it work for me? And I think we, you know, we battle a bit, especially as men, have been too of thinking we're being very selfish if we go, what do I need for me? But that will mean that, you know, if we can go, if we can do that around isolation and loneliness, we've we're starting starting to answer the question, aren't we?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. What about when people don't have an awareness? Because I'm I I'm thinking particularly um I notice this sometimes with couples therapy where where the the husband has has been very might have been very, very successful, but has been very much out in the world. Um and so they've had the career, they've had the the cars, the boat, the you know, whatever it might be. Um but what they haven't done or even to to a degree had any awareness of um is a more inner sense of themselves. So they've not really, you know, they've not even thought about returning to themselves. But what they have done is they've been kind of good boys all the way through their life. Um and then I don't know, maybe their partner wakes up um for want of a better way of putting it, or decides to go inwards. Um and then they're left floundering, going, Well, I've you know, I've done everything that's been asked of me. You know, what what do you want now? You know, this is unfair almost. And there is that sense of sort of injustice and unfairness that kicks in. Um and they really can flounder. And that's that's something I don't see as much in women. I mean, I mean maybe there is, you know, the sort of the masculine being having more of an outward expression and um the feminine being more inner is is part of that.
SPEAKER_01And I just think in some ways, unfortunately, it's been expected of men and women, it's still even in society now, it's changing slightly, but women haven't always had those opportunities. So they've not been asked to step up in the same way as men have. They've had to fight to get into those positions where men have been expected, you know. They've well, you know, you're a man, you could become a CEO of a company where women, you know, often women will say, well, there's not many out there, you know. So I think that has not helped either of uh either of the genders kind of understand each other just the way that the world has been. But now that is shifting a bit more. I've never been one of the good boys. Okay. So I've never been been the one that goes, I'm gonna turn up and do what society wants me to do. I've always been a fat rebel, so uh there's a part of me that would always really look and go, what do I want? But I know what you mean. It's an interesting conversation uh conversation around that. And I did have one in the summer with a man who said to me, but I don't know what she's now asking me to do because she's asking me to talk about my feelings. And he's been in a he was in an industry where you couldn't really, you know, be asking to, you know, you just ploughed ahead and you you trod on anybody where he got to, and he was very, very successful, and now he suddenly needed to become this very heartfelt man because that's what she required. And then in the end they split up because he couldn't find what she wanted and she couldn't find what he wanted. So it's a very interesting uh point between the two. Uh something I don't quite know the answer to, but I think uh becoming conscious in oneself is changed for lots of people, especially if they have been building a kind of outer world, you know, uh it's not the easiest thing to shift into to kind of again say what do I want, or what you know, am I missing something? It's it's it's tough. I don't know if I've answered that at all, really, myself. No, but it's one that confuses me sometimes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean it's a it's an interesting question, isn't it? And and then uh it it's is the feminine going to uh potentially lose in if you know there's more opportunities in the world of work and it uh come through, um is the feminine then gonna potentially lose something in that? And is there then gonna be a space for the masculine to gain it? And and actually I don't think that doesn't feel as if that's gonna happen for some reason. But um yeah, there's something quite entrenched in that. That's my feel anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it it's to to go back to it's it's a feeling thing as well, isn't it? What do I feel? And what and asking men to go back into feel. And in that space, they have to look up we're back to we're back to the heart again here. But I think very successful men in the world have some sometimes very strong clear values. They might not be values that everybody shares, but they have a they have an anchor point. I think finding an anchor point for some men is really important. You know, what matters to them if they can't consciously go into themselves and express what they want, you know, they don't know what they want, but what really matters in the world to them? And to try and work back from there, really, because they're often I think we all we all have a set of values somewhere, but it's can we you know find what we want in ourselves again? That's the challenge, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Actually, the the paradox in that is is the anchor point, certainly from a say more Buddhist perspective, would have to be let go of as well. So we can spend all that time building up that's that sense of anchor point, that sense of connection in the world, yeah, and then face having to lose it. Yeah, step into that void.
SPEAKER_01Um it's coming back to that thing, isn't it? To then kind of work from back out. So exactly what you mean have come to me and they've gone, well, I've done all this and none of it matters. You know, they're at that point where they've built built up everything. You know, they've got you know three flats around the world, and actually it's all a bit empty, and I don't want any of it anymore. You know, everything that they they wanted, they built, and then they didn't none of it, none of it has made them feel feel anything. But I suppose that's also a point to start with. Well, you know, what what are what what does feeling mean to you really? Because again it's back into a you know, they're thrown back into an isolation. And maybe that isolation point in men is something that they all we all have to go to, feeling an isolation to come back through and come back out into something else, to build something else, to birth something else.
SPEAKER_02Well, if we if we are, you know, if there's a going out and then a return to our essences, then yeah, arguably we have to lose sight of our essence in order to feel the loss and the longing to return. Because longing's a really integral part of all of this.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And the it's an interesting thing with longing, isn't it? Because it's it it I suppose longing does take us back into ourselves somewhere. We long what are we longing for? And often we're longing for something different. Um I worked with somebody years ago, um in professional capacity as a medium, who and she doesn't if you mind me talking about this. Um Um and all of her family, um, she lost a couple of brothers uh to suicide, and uh they would come in and they would say to her constantly as they were growing up, I wish I was dead. And she realized that and one of them did kill themselves, and one of them kind of created an illness which then took him across very youngly. She felt that he'd built up this thing of, you know, almost fulfilling what he kind of constantly said. Both the boys had said this throughout. And she realized, you know, sadly a bit too late to save them that what they were asking for was something different. Ultimately, they wanted something different. And the the the difference that they wanted, they could only express was being so different from where they were, it was death. And it's an interesting point of thinking, you know, do some men get caught in that point where they think the only difference they can make is to to end it. But there is that comes from a place of longing for something different.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, defin definitely. I I do wonder sometimes if there's a sort of fundamental mistake that that some some people who end up committing suicide make in that you know, there is a part of them that is so so desperate to get out, to return home, to do whatever. But but it's not them, it's not a purest sense of it. It might be sort of ego-based or whatever, it's it's identified, you know, whatever it is, but they're identified so strongly with that part of themselves that there is no other option seems to be available. And yet if there is, you know, again, the pause allowing space, the return to a the heart um has the potential at the very least. And and actually really feeling into that longing um opens, you know, opens up the potential for for a return and and a return much more to the sort of truer sense of self or self with a big S.
SPEAKER_01And that's hard to do on your own, isn't it? Yeah, is sometimes hard, very, very hard to do on your own. If you're in those circumstances where you don't know how to reach out, it is very, very difficult. Because unfortunately, and you know, taking in a an attack towards yourself isn't about divinity and or a divine hand on anything, it is about a kind of desperation. Um but it is about that, you know, from so I think when we get into a longing, again it's a gateway, isn't it? Whenever we feel longing, there must be it, we're you know, our our spirit or our soul is asking us to look differently at something. You know, what am I really longing for? So there's it's it's probably I'm just after this is just coming to me as I'm speaking. It's almost like there's a part of us that is saying, I want something else. You know, that once that longing comes up, it's asking us to look at what we want. You know, and I think if we can see longing like that, maybe it's not quite so frightening. Yeah. So maybe it's a nice sort of sit-down, what's gonna happen now? It can maybe longing can become exciting in some way.
SPEAKER_02And again, it's a return to that, isn't it? It's that looking at it as exciting as a potential opportunity. Yeah. Rather than, you know, just okay, this is terrifying, which fair enough it can be, but it's also um, you know, a a lack. Maybe it's not a lack, maybe it's an opening.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. Yes, and I think men do tend to fundamentally uh feel sometimes what they're in lack of, again, so we can't we would talk about lack, what they're in lack of, we're actually coming around to a point of aloniness being an opportunity to remember something, it sh it could become exciting if we can catch ourselves in that moment. Or remind each other to you know there's an opportunity there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's interesting, because I was just gonna I was I was gonna say, so how could this be sort of integrated into a men's group? And there is something, you know, that that sense of of people just reminding each other. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's reminding, you know, there's a there's an opportunity in there. Which is probably a new way of looking at looking at it for lots of people actually. You know, what what can we fix? Actually, no, what can we what can we remember? What what's the opportunity here rather than thinking actually there's something broken that needs repairing. Actually, there's something exciting that that is awakening.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, awakening and growing. Yeah. Got a nice shift, isn't it? Yeah, it is. So and I'm I mean, don't make you, does I feel into that? It it's just softens it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I'm feeling I've just thought, oh, I have to have to really remember this in myself, really, because you know, sometimes I am somebody often kind of goes, oh, I've got a longing for something else, and I've what have I got to build now? You know, a bit weary sometimes rather than oh actually this be quite fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, that's quite interesting. That that sort of that sense of you know, what do I have to build now? That's interesting. The sort of being bigger and sort of successful and all the things that make men men on the surface, but actually do they?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And actually, is it about is it just about being in some ways, you know, oh the small things often do make a life, don't they? You know, and being silly and having a laugh and things are often really beautiful, but we could probably forget them quite often if we're constantly striving for what we're building. You know. Yeah, I've got a a friend's son at the moment who's just gone off to be a clown. He's 18 and he's gonna gone off to clown school. I didn't actually think I was.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, is there a school spoke?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. He was talking, he got to France. He was talking to me about it the other day, and um I said to him, what made you kind of want to say? He said, I just he said, as a man, he said, you know, he went to a very, a very, very um formal boys' school. I won't name it, but it's one we've most of us have heard of. But um he said there was nobody, there was no laughter. So he he decided that actually what he was going to do was put laughter back into the world. And he's incredible, he was always gonna go towards the arts. But it he said, Isn't it interesting that we're in a world where that where silliness and fun and a sense of the ridiculous is all being lost?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So you think how many people find clowns scary?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, and I saw we talked about that for interestingly enough, and he said it for him, he said it it's it's how you build your he's going off to learn how to build your character. But he said, is it because there's a sense of being able to put a put a set of responsibility down? So he's a very I mean he'll I think he'll create something very, very interesting. Um and it'll be interesting over the next few years to see uh how that all develops in him. But he did it because he felt that the gift to the world was every people, all these men he were all these boys and men he was around, were all going towards something very serious, and he felt that actually the world didn't need more seriousness, it needed more fun. So it was tremendously interesting to kind of just sit there and think, Oh, this is gonna be very interesting with where he's going. I think we could all learn from that pretty much. I think that's fantastic, yeah. Really interesting, actually. A very inspirational young man.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, you know, you know, 18 and he's he's doing that. That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, and and as fault to get into one of the best places to learn and you know, do this. I'm gonna do it properly. And he did say I'm lucky, you know, that I've got uh, you know, I I speak multiple languages, he can do that, and he but he wanted to do something that went across language into into fund because joy and laughter is is universal, but I don't often see that in men often a sense of being silly, especially in men's groups sometimes and retreats and workshops. They focus very much on what on it's not a lot of laughter, it's gotta be serious, it's got to get somewhere, it's gotta realize something, gotta do something, more striving, more pressure, more. But actually, can we just be a bit silly? Yeah, probably you know, a bit of dance in the morning probably doesn't always do it, you know. It's gotta be, you know, be people gotta perhaps sometimes have permission to be silly. But it does bring people's, it does open people's hearts somewhat.
SPEAKER_02Well, there's that, you know, that I mean it's not even a belly laugh, but those those sort of guffaws which are are almost painful. Um and then uh the feeling afterwards, and then for me anyways, it's sort of my chest might have constricted because that I'm laughing so hard, but then the relaxation afterwards is so opening, and whoever I might be with in that moment, the connection is beautiful after that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, often when I'm teaching, I get people to laugh because it really changes the energy quite a lot. People get very in their heads and it gets them back into their bodies. But there is that sense of, you know, if you lose your way, that again, you know, coming back to that excitement. The excitement could be something, you know, quite we might need to look for the silliness to and the and the lightness to be able to journey through that, whatever it might be. It might be about something quite serious, but there should be the entry point should be exciting.
SPEAKER_02And again, this goes back to what we spoke to before about the sort of the relationship between anxiety and excitement. And I suppose what's needed to tip the scales in favor of the excitement and away from anxiety, and that lightness, that humor. I mean, I use humour a lot in in workshops and things like that. Yeah, for that very reason. We could be to dealing with incredibly difficult and traumatic um things, whatever they may be. But actually there's still space for humour, you know, honouring um what has gone before as well. There is still space for that, and there's a way of just sort of almost creating a dance. So you sort of go deep, lift the spirit a bit, and then go deeper a bit deeper the next time. And it's just it's a balance with that. Um and you're right, rather than getting sort of stuck in a kind of worthy space of duty and and striving and doing, it's being able to just step back a bit from that and have a bit of a laugh.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Yes. My father, who uh adored, um had a sense of the ridiculous all the time. I mean, uh, you know, the jokes got less as he got older, but and the laughter got less as he got older and more in pain towards the last couple of years. But there was always a laugh, and there was always a joke every day somewhere. I mean, you just didn't get them hourly, you got them maybe, you know, every three hours, or maybe you know, slowly every 12 hours. But there was always that sense. He never lost that wit and that sense of laughter. And it it's what he said is always what kept him going. I mean, let's not even go into the Alzheimer's test that he had, which he didn't have Alzheimer's, but he he ended up having the entire room in hysterics. Follow the laughter, and he found my father. Um, which I'm also reminded of sometimes in times of loneliness, that actually the points of connection sometimes are on light on on something light and something silly.
SPEAKER_02And that's that's actually that's a really good thing to to observe and to point out, because even if someone's at their lowest, it doesn't mean they have to be met at that point. No. It can be it could be at a you know what might sort of therapeutically maybe be considered shallow, but that lightness allows something else in. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And also I think sometimes when to witness people's loneliness or isolation or grief, um, it can be witnessed and acknowledged, but it doesn't have to but if you enter into it as well, you can you can hold it with a lightness, you know. I mean, I spent my life talking about people's endings and grief, really. You know, as a medium, I'm I'm off I'm I've got a lot of sad stories by the end of the week. But often there's always a moment of finding a likeness in there and a laugh in there.
SPEAKER_02And um it it's very important, I think, to just be able to to find the transition points in there back to the heart, actually, because the heart, the heart lives and grief as well, being and and again I I'd said the same for for longing, there's not a lot you can do. But you know, it's if if you you know you can literally certainly if if I'm with someone who's working through their grief, I can witness it, I can be with them, but that is about it. I certainly I'm I'm you know, I I can't I'm not that I necessarily would, but it's not something that can be fixed or changed. I used to despair when you know people come and say, Oh yeah, I've been to the GP and they give me antidepressants, and I say, Oh, what's going on for you? And you go my grand died last week or something. It's kind of like no, actually, this needs to be needs to be felt um and shared.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And and longings and endings and loneliness are often about an ending, somehow they're triggered by a grief or an ending. But we need to talk about that more as well as that, because again, it's another transition point, it's about entering into something else, but that could take somebody nine days, nine weeks, nine months, nine years, it doesn't matter. But but providing they actually can be met in it. And at the more time, I think we can all, you know, people you know, often people say to me, Oh, I haven't lost anybody, and I'm not going to be a very good medium, I haven't lost anybody. And you said I said, But you finished a good book, haven't you? You finished a good holiday, and then like, oh yeah. You know, it's not the same as losing a parent. I totally get. But there always is for all of us a series of an ending. It happened multiply times through the day. And I think if we can get used to that a little bit more, we can maybe not sail through grief easily, but at least be ready for it, at least not be frightened of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's the it's the running away from it, I think that the yeah, I can feel the contraction around that, and again the closing of the heart.
SPEAKER_01Mmm. Yeah, it's an interesting um it's an interesting point with loneliness and there's and there's uh with endings and isolations, because they all we always feel that they're actually always gonna go on forever. But they are a little bit like um they're a little bit like a flower that does open and it's like you know, opens generally, and there's always space in that, you know, they're often really tight when you hit those grief points or those learningness points, they're very, very restricting. But they do open, and there's and those those are the moments where you something else can happen.
SPEAKER_02With Gary Wright and Oliver Baum. For more information on the work of Gary Wright, please visit www.therightmedium.co.uk and for Oliver www.olbaum.co.uk produced and edited by Oliver Baum with additional editing and music by Fiat.
