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
12. Camping
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Gary and Oliver's aversion to roughing it takes centre stage, do we have to go camping to reach Enlightenment? What's the purpose? Where's the intimacy? While acknowledging the importance and vitality of single sex spaces they ponder on the question on everyone's lips, Is a collective wank into a barrel really the height of Male Spirituality?
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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
Fails to the Soul Masculinity and Spirituality with Oliver Baume and Gary Wright. And today we're going to talk about camping or around camping. It was one of the first sort of things we talked about, I think, when we were just having a chat about the possibility of doing this. Why there's a sort of the stereotypes around what a men's retreat or an a men's group has to include. And as somebody who has been very averse and I mean actively avoided all men's groups and retreats, in part anyway, because I don't like the idea of roughing it. We decided to talk call it camping, but it there does seem to be a thing that all men's retreats have to be in the woods. And on the one level, I get it. On the other level, I wonder if there's an element of masochism that goes with it. And that that's kind of sort of the the idea of a monk, sort of self-flagellating aesthetic monk. Um feeling you have to put yourself literally out of your comfort zone. Um and again, I I get I get the the the what's behind it, hopefully, but actually there are other ways and means to my mind of doing it. Um yeah, and I I don't I don't know, it just never quite lands with me. Never lands. I remember visiting a shamanic friend of mine uh down in Cornwall. And I was sat there and she had a friend of hers there. And I and I was I was having a bit of a rant about this, and I've just said, well, they're they're all the same, these men's retreat, or they all the stereotype is anyway, all the same. You know, there's a few archetypes, there's a sweat lodge, there's a fire. At some point there'll be something where everybody beats each other up with giant um earbuds or something like that. Um everyone will get a bit muddy. Usually people will take their kits off at some point. And um this the girl who's um just said, oh my partner's running a men's retreat this weekend. And I went, oh, really hoping that she would challenge me. And and she goes, that's exactly what they're doing. Oh great. So nothing that has come my way has really made me um really want to put myself beyond that discomfort. And don't get me wrong, there is an argument that means that then I should probably do that. I mean, particularly as a therapist who's all for shadow work and you know, and from the Buddhist perspective of going against your preferences, I'm all for that. But you know, I can walk up my front door and go left rather than right, kind of thing, to challenge that that kind of preference. I don't need to go and sit in a muddy or bury myself alive. Admittedly, that wasn't a men's group, but that that's another one that I've kind of like. Um but anyway, yes, that's my um I don't think that counts as a rant, but my sort of thoughts anyway to begin with.
SPEAKER_04But it's quite funny, really. I mean, that is funny. It's funny to go, oh, it's all a bit like that. Oh, that's exactly what they're doing. Um it's very funny. Well, it it's an interesting one because it this might sound like I'm often very pro retreats and men's groups, um, which I I've had a I've been on a lot, but I've had very mixed experiences, really. Not all of them, a lot of them very good, really, if I'm honest. Um I've never camped, bizarrely. No, none of them have ever been camping. But to be fair to all the men's kind of groups that do run, um you have got uh often these retreat centres that you know hold a large amount of people are often out right out in nature in the middle of nowhere. So are they on the bottoms of farms and things? So I think sometimes that that for you know is always gonna be the case of where is it gonna be? It's gonna be in some retreat centre somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Um, although I did stay in a very nice, very, very posh hotel for one of them, actually, that was in very nice grounds, but it was all everything, you know, had a rose garden and all sorts of things. Um but yeah, uh quite a lot of quite a lot of the other things you've sort of said uh were all happened really. I don't know about rolling around in the mud, really. I mean, I don't think we've quite done that one, although I know somebody did fall over once, one point, and into the mud, wasn't me. Um but so I think location is is one thing, and I think but I I do find that having done a lot, and I'm questioning myself of why I've done so many, really, why we're doing this, because they've often been similar ish in them in their shape, and I the old cynic of having done them 25 for about 25 years sometimes goes, Oh, we're at this bit, oh we oh here we go. And the last one I did, we all had to be interviewed, and I said, I definitely don't want to do anything like this, and it was quite different, to be fair, but it was still uh it still ticked an awful lot of boxes. But the the thing that kind of concerns me now, and thinking about Evangelist, quite often when they're being marketed, they're all about there there's quite a theme, and I've kind of looked at this because I knew we were doing we're talking about retreats and things, and quite often they use the word power. Oh, you know, men coming back to their power. But when I've been on them, it's not often about power, and nobody really uses that word or really looks at what the word power is, but they quite often talk about anger a lot. So quite often you're in a room with a lot of people shouting and getting themselves very upset and very worked up. But anger isn't anger can be powerful, but ultimately you have to balance it, balance it with something else. For it to be, you know, if anger's not balanced with wisdom, it just goes destructive, you know. But wisdom and anger can really get things done, and you could say that is a sense of power. But it's often rather tricky, you know, of uh what does you know what are we trying to do into getting in connection with power? And what's that why is that word so heavily used on men's retreats, but rarely explored with any depth in my experience? Other people would say, well, you obviously weren't there for that bit, but I haven't ever seen it on that level.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting, isn't it word power? Because I I I mean that is used in a lot of marketing, not just for men's stuff, but for women's as well, and and and you know, everywhere in between kind of thing. And you know, as I'm feeling into that, I mean that's really uh the from certainly from a marketing point, it's it's going straight for the solar plexus. And and so everything then sort of uh has the potential to stay in the lower chakras. Um and I just I I can feel it, there's almost like a freeze response, and it's probably in fairness, you know, a lot of people who are in the sort of therapy and spirituality world, you know, uh will potentially have issues around their solar plexus. Um and issues with empowerment. But the power thing, that kind of there's something punchy about it as we're talking, and it stops things going up into I'm probably jumping ahead a bit here, but it stops things moving upwards into the heart.
SPEAKER_04Well yes, that's often been my experience. It's been, you know, this visceral kind of um, you know, lots of movement, which of course I love, haven't been an old dancer, because where often do you get to, you know, as a man dance loudly for you know every day for seven days on something? You know, I mean I quite like that, but it does drop you into your body, all that kind of sort of dancing, but it does tend to drop you into kind of quite a lower space. And I don't know if you're dealing with sort of anger and power, whether you can really create a lot of connection with people, or or if that's really be encouraged to overboil, you know, this say what you think a bit. Whether anybody's really going to feel quite safe enough to really make quite deep connections. I'm not saying they don't happen, I think they do, and they have happened to me. And the first men's retreat I ever went on, I'm still in contact with the person I was with, and that was about 20 well over 25 years ago now. We still kind of chat, but it's not for me. I'm now looking for something that's a little bit less kind of angry, I think.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting because anger anger sits on top often in the mo as as the emotion, it's usually a cover-up for something else. The anger's easier to go to than the sadness or the hurt. I mean, it's it's often hurt. Um, that's underneath it. So I I wonder if that focus of on anger also keeps people at a certain level and doesn't allow the dropping down or it limits the potential for the dropping down to that more vulnerable space where people can connect.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I've seen lots of people be very, very vulnerable in circles and things, but um and in group in groups as well as retreats, very, very vulnerable vulnerable. But um and go past the anger as well. But I think the focus is often the focus is not on healing or transformation, it's on sort of purpose or power. And there's just a bit it often feels purpose and power for me feel very pyrotechnic, you know. They're kind of they they go up and they explode and they're bright often. But do they have they got the longevity, or are you just ripping a plaster off? And sometimes I sit and question stuff, and I'm not, I don't think I'm I do I I say I try and say very little when I'm in men's groups and retreats, because I like actually sometimes being a be just being a student, and I haven't got the responsibility of holding the circle. So I'm very much there for me as trying to navigate my inner world, but often I can really see what's happening. So I don't say very much, but often I look and I think actually tearing through these very complex emotions sometimes in a week and not building in a kind of sense of safety, I I have to sit and question it, which is why I'm not why this year I'm not planning to put myself on one. Um, because I'm having to question where's the sort of safety point? Where's the bit that encourages somebody to be able to sit with themselves? And what happens when the group kind of moves away, you know, where are you? Um so it's a it brings up a tremendous amount of questions, retreats really. Retreats without big follow-up stuff. Um, big, you know, big follow-up groups or or connections, or people keeping their eye out for each other, which I know when people go back to their own world, people don't have time. So it's about how we look after people, or how people are looked after after those things, really. Um, yeah, as I said, I've had more bad experiences than good ones. So my experience is is somewhat coloured. Fair enough.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we we'll get some good information out of that. Um safety's really interesting, and and that that also brings me to because it as a man to kind of admit to a need for safety, I don't know, there can be a lot of judgments and maybe even shame around that potentially. And so I wonder if if that it's not uh thought of as much as it might be, the you know, the importance of that space being held in a safe way. And you're right with follow-up and all the rest of it. I mean, have you got any um sort of examples of when when a space was held really s safely where it felt right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, yes, I it's interesting you say that because I think the problem I had on the first uh retreat that then went into a group that I ever did, and this is probably nearly I'm I shudder to think how old I am. I've got to be 110, as I often say. Um, it's gotta be about nearly I was I was about it's gotta be nearly nearly 35 years ago, bit shy of that. And it was held by this very, very interesting man, um, who's past now, bless him. He wasn't, you know, he was he was in his early, you know, he was in his late 50s when I met him, really. And you know, he smoked smoked like a chimney and drunk like a fish in one level, so he was never really gonna set to make old bones, and he he knew that as well. But he was very, very conscious, and he said, and he'd been in the men's groups since the 60s. So this would have been really kind of you know early 90s, probably, no, mid-90s. And um he said, I don't want I I'm not looking for things that are screamy and shouty, but I'm looking for people who can have depth, and you can only have depth if you have connection. And if you've got connection, you've got a sense of kind of safety because you're connected to yourself and somebody else. And so he ran an incredible um space where if anybody really raised their voice, he would he would always question them. And he was a bit like, why do you feel you need to raise your voice to say that? You know, why you know he he said if if you've got in a rage, you know, you don't need to necessarily start screaming in a space to to um explore it. He found that all of that was a very well, he used to use the word he says very tacky way of doing it, if you're all screaming, because quite often it becomes a little inaudible for the people listening as well. So he said, chances are you're not going to be heard again. You've probably done all that. And so he held a very interesting space where you know you had, you know, he teamed up everybody with one other person, and you kept your eye out for that other person, you know, and he he and he gave you an opportunity to say, Do you feel your other person is good enough to be able to hold that? And several people said, Well, no, I'm not sure they are, I'm not shown with the right person. And it was very, you know, this was way before we had all the kind of consent stuff that is very, you know, placed in now, quite rightly, but you know, it was much more than you know, don't say anything, just get on with it, kind of thing. But he could encourage people to say what they wanted, so you felt very in control of your journey. And yes, there was all those things that you talked about, there was all the you know, the fire and the dancing and the people whipping their clothes off at some point. So well, all that was there, as on often that was on men's stuff, but it was done in a in a way where you knew the next bit was always based on the bit you knew why you'd done the last bit because you when the next bit came in, you thought, ah, now this is really supporting me for what we've just done. So it was a bit like going through a labyrinth in a way, you didn't quite know where the end point was, but you knew there was a structure to it, and that for me was the first experience, and I've never actually found anything quite like that since that real flow um of of work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's uh yeah, wow, yeah. Because that uh there's something, I mean maybe this goes back to the punchiness of looking at power and purpose that can jar rather than create flow.
SPEAKER_04And he's were his words were always a love and authenticity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, so you know, he if you know, where where I've often seen in men's groups people screaming at each other going, Where's your anger? you know, reclaim your balls, and you're thinking where he'd say, Where's your authenticity? Where are you being authentic to you? So it was often very light, very quiet, very and you know, that group ran from that initial kind of thing. That group ran for about five years. Well, okay, yeah. And then people, you know, had children and moved, and it it eventually kind of like all things had its day. But it was a very interesting reflective space um that was always very um, very much on you know, on a sort of self-respect and a respect, and not this thing, oh you've got to earn it and trust it. You know, his thing was, and it was quite challenging, you know, when somebody proves they can't be trusted, then you stop trusting them. You don't stop, you don't, you don't ask them to win it, because you you know, you they never know where those goalposts are, and you could keep moving them. Trust them, and then when they prove they can't be trusted, then sort it out. Don't kind of set somebody up in this unknown land. And that's often, I think, what I've seen sometimes. But bringing a group together very quickly, in the way that men's groups have to come together very quickly or men's retreats, isn't an easy thing. I'm not criticizing anybody who's put one on, but I'm just saying, in my experience, uh I've often thought, why we do I I but it it says a lot about me. I need to know why I'm being asked to do something. I can't do something just for because somebody says I'll do it. You'll find out of the other you know, the other side of it.
SPEAKER_00And and what about what about when things aren't held? What do you think or uh yeah, they don't feel safe? What what do you think contributes to that?
SPEAKER_04Um what do you think contributes to that in the world?
SPEAKER_01So so if that was a sort of almost like an exemplar of a really well-held men's group, what would be at the other end of the spectrum?
SPEAKER_04Oh, I think it's often a lot of real heart in there, and I think people really come at it with a heart, but they don't ri they haven't really thought about what they want to achieve. So quite often, for me, I've watched things and I thought, well, why are we doing this? Oh, well, because it's a men's thing and people think they should. So why are we sitting around a fire? It's not really been explained. Are we just doing it because that makes us all feel like we're a bit more primeval and we're dropping into something? And um we could have done this in we could have done this in a you know, sitting on chairs in a in a room, you know. It's sometimes something else something external is created. I think for for anybody doing any work, the internal's got to matter. But often I think what happens it's a bit like let's do this externally, because it feels like this is what men need to do. Like, do I really want to dance to rave music at half past ten in the morning? Not really. Do I want to move to something that actually has kind of quite a sort of heartbeat energy? So I think everything you do when you're running a group where you're asking people to peel back layers has to be really thought about. And if it's a bit egotistical or you're in it for the money, I think it's gonna go wrong. But I think you you notice if something's really worked by how the if the friendships outside of it build, if they don't build and everybody just goes their separate ways, I don't think anybody I don't think people have done a very good job. That's interesting. Yeah. I mean that's my thing. I but I also think, you know, you have to uh you have it's funny, isn't it? Everybody's, you know, well, you're the individual and you've got a matter. You know, in these groups, and then people start, you know, saying, you know, my buddy, my brother, my something else. And you think, well, but they're not in the ways that, you know, you're not really my friend, you're not you're definitely not my brother, because you know, we're not related in that way. And it's all that kind of bro, bit that can sometimes get laid over the top, and not people are not growing it from the ground. You know, like do you are you expected to have the great conversations at at a dinner table, or do you hold the space for somebody to have the great conversations? You know, and and I know men can overspeak a lot. So I think time needs to sometimes be held. But if you've got 90 seconds to say how you feel, chances at the end of that you might feel you're a bit misheard.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Where if you really, you know, are sitting there and saying, well, actually, got half an hour to have a conversation with somebody, is it gonna be better? And I think for everybody it's gonna be tricky because I think some people can talk about how they feel and some people can't. And the other rant, I'm on a rant now. The other thing that drives me slightly mad in men's groups is is when the facilitators, and I've seen it a lot, pick all their favourites quite early on. And yes, yes, yes, uh, you know, being authentic and hands up, I've never been one of those, I've never been the favourite of any facilitators. But I did see a man once sort of fall apart and cry, and he was very much the what I thought the facilitators like, a big sort of strapping Viking looking man. There was about five people around him putting him back together, and when the sort of pseudo-intellectual did it two days later and called it into a into a corner, somebody said, Oh, you're just doing that for attention. And I was like, Really? Really? Where's where does that really you've just said that out loud and we all gotta feel safe with you? I don't think that's really right. So I think running a you know, running a men's group, you really have to lead. And you have to lead because you really want the heart of it to work. And I think, which is why I've never kind of done it, because the other thing I I think you you have to do when you're running a retreat or a men's group, it's probably much easier if it's smaller. And once it becomes a commercial enterprise, you need numbers. Yeah, and so where's the heart? What's the heart in it, really? Where is it? Is it really about building something, or is it about thinking, well, actually, I've got to sell this amount of thing things? And if you're hiring a venue and all of that, I absolutely get it. It's it's really important, but maybe it's a thing of starting really small with just you know, like two or three other people and seeing how that works.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and actually, I I mean I wonder if that allows space for experiment then as well, because th there's definitely a sense and and in some ways I understand why, because of you know, marketing people then know what they're getting, etc. etc. There is a sense for me that there's a lot of shoulds around and and I think generally there's a lot of shoulds, or or a lot of things are inspired and fueled from sort of the human potential movement in the 70s and the 80s, and haven't really moved that much further on um since then. And and as you said, people don't challenge it. They don't want to say, they don't turn around and say, you know, why is it that we're doing this exercise? It's just well, we're doing it and you know, you'll see at the end of it kind of thing. But the I don't know, is there uh is there much of an experimentation within the field? And I do I do wonder if men men's groups particularly are prone to this. You know, maybe that male need to um for purpose for that sense of a we are here now and we are going there gets in the way of that more organic just sitting there and go, okay, well let's just see where we go.
SPEAKER_04It's a funny one because I think uh it's a very popular thing in men's groups and exp spaces that I've been in to say what you to say what you think about somebody else. And you know, can you, you know, and it's sometimes dressed up that you know you're giving them this amazing opportunity to change, but often it's a judgment. And I've often watched people say to you know, in these things, to say to somebody of what they feel about them. And I've I've looked, and I I'm quite observant when I'm in a room, and I'm like, you haven't sat and spoken to that person all week, but you made a judgment, and now you're gonna tell them in a group in in front of everybody else. Well, how shaming's that, really? And you know, I I've never been able to, you know, I don't want to walk up to somebody and go, I think you're this, because I try not to make those judgments. Yes, we all make judgments, but I am not gonna say it in the mid in front of everybody like it's cold, hard fact. And I don't often understand why those things are, you know, it's like, oh, men are people pleased as they don't say what they feel. Well, let's let's change that and rip a plaster off and let them say whatever they want, regardless of what the other person feels, and you just think, Whoa, yeah, you lose the relational side in that. Well, it's just brutal for brutal sake, but how do you build back? You're not gonna build that back if you've just been shamed in front, you know, you found something quite shaming that's been said to you in front of maybe 30 other people, and then you go and have a conversation with somebody and you go, Well, why did you say that to me? And they say, Well, I thought this, and then you explain it. But what happens to the extra other 29 people? You can go around everybody going, Oh, just so you know, I've had this conversation. It doesn't get worked out in front of everybody, but it gets planted in front of everybody, and energetically that's really tricky. And I don't think the fact that everybody's taken their clothes off together two days before really makes any difference. You know what I mean? It it's like, what are you well uh it's got to be, and this is I think why men's stuff is so difficult, uh or any group stuff is so difficult. One thing has to energetically really dovetail into the next, and then you need to be really thought about it. Otherwise, you're just box ticking what men expect on a men's retreat. And I do know, you know, there are the people who I know people who just through the summer just go from one tree retreat to another to another to another to another. That's their that's their August, you know, July into August into early September. They just go around them, and maybe they get bits from each, and maybe you know, lots of people get a lot from all of that. But I think you probably there's a pressure to deliver something really interesting, and there's a pressure, I think, to for it to be, you know, as good as somebody else's model, but and I think energetically looking at why everything needs to fit together, it's probably not that easy to to do, really. But I think it's essential, otherwise it just becomes a bit of a kind of parody, really.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's it. And then it's I've I'm trying to think of another way of putting this, but this is what just popped in. It it's almost like wanking rather than making love. It it it loses something, it just but it becomes a a kind of I don't know, it's just something people do kind of thing.
SPEAKER_03I guess I see your point really.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, three things.
SPEAKER_04On some retreats that's been the exercise. Oh but um but it's again, isn't it? Why what's the intention? I mean, I don't think, you know, I don't think necessarily wanking and making love are necessarily always comparable on some levels, but it is to do with what the purpose is, isn't it? And if the purpose is clear, then both of them could be rather beautiful experiences. But if they're not clear and it's just like let's do this now, where's the intimacy with the group or oneself? You know, it's just and I should bring up a good point. I mean, I was on a men's retreat where that was that was a thing. Okay, and it was like, but what's the point? And nobody could explain the point, and half the group went with it, and half the group sat there looking at each other, going, I don't know what I'm seeing him. And why? Didn't make anybody I didn't, you know, and it was really a really weird thing, and it it divided it, uh divided the room almost like north and south, really, and it was like everybody down one end of the room just was like, What? And everybody up the other end of the room was kind of it was just the most bizarre thing, and it's those moments where where I question where are we going? What's the point? And what is the real point of something? Is it just because it's a bit shocking, therefore you remember it? Or is it just because that's everybody thinks that's a great idea? But where's the line? And that's actually, if I'm honest, been the ex, you know, it's been exercises or or things and sometimes workshops on things where they're compulsory or not compulsory on a couple of men's retreats I've gone to, and it's often people come back and gone, well, I did it, and I don't think I need to do it again, or it was but rarely have I ever heard anybody say, Oh, my workshop was brilliant. I've I've never been able to, it's not my thing particularly, because what's the point? If you can tell me the point of it, I can do it, but you haven't really done the point. And then when often I question it, I'm the one that often in men's groups gets accused of not listening. Okay. So as I said, you know, there's a lot of as more wounding been created in men's groups for me than healing, I can have I can definitely say, and I still kind of can I can feel it now, still sit with some of that misunderstanding. You go, okay. So I give up most of the time when I'm there.
SPEAKER_01So you just out of curiously with the and and without wishing to pride, but what keeps bringing you back to them, do you think?
SPEAKER_04Because that first experience, I think I'm trying to trying to find it again because it was so wonderful. And I you know, and I I say going back, I mean, I didn't do them for about six, seven years, and in the last couple of years I've done a couple. But I as I said, that it's just not been it's just not been hasn't landed particularly. Um, but the first one was so wonderful, and you think at some point um maybe somebody else will do something like that. And sometimes when you read the marketing, you think that's really great. But you know, somebody in their mid-50s, I don't want to have to wrestle somebody who's 25. And thank you. I just I don't want to be injured, you know. You woke one body, well, it's broken, it's broken. You know what I mean? Uh it's you know, you break it, you're broken it. But I don't put, you know, so there's often a thing of as well, as a slightly older person, where does that fit? And there is a very interesting group at the moment that seems to be marketing itself to slightly more 40s to 50s men. But I don't often know why. I mean, you know, why does anybody go back? You sort of seek it out, you know, seeking, we're all seeking something at some point, you know. I mean, I think I've been personally, I think I've just just discovered a couple of things recently, which makes me think, why am I kind of searching for a group or something? You know, I think it's probably probably going to be a bit different in the coming months around that. But I do think men's spaces are very important, and I do think protecting them is important, and if we don't show up, they disappear quite easily. Lots of things have disappeared as you know, in the past, really, you know, groups and spaces I've seen, you know, for men and women I've seen disappear. And I think they're all under challenge. I don't think it's a given that what we've got today will be here tomorrow. Um, so I think it's also good to support them, but and you know, sometimes I make quite nice people, but I tend to make nice people around, you know, the people who are also having a bit of a struggle. We tend to all find each other.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, we're all kind of going, what did you think of that? I didn't get it. No, I didn't get it. So I don't know whether it's also reinforcing the confusion or whether you then bond on a wound. I think it's ridiculous to think if you're there with seven days, every exercise is going to suit you. I I'm not walking in with that. But when most you can't really see what the end point is, that's tricky. And if the end point is to sell up your next course, your next workshop, your next group, your next thing, which has happened multiple times when I've been on the end of a retreat, I go, okay. It's not easy because some by the price point, people are sometimes just priced out that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, uh it it's interesting because I do uh I'm not questioning the importance of single uh of men's spaces, single sex spaces. Um at all. And that's interesting because they you know, there's an understanding that they are important, but I be I struggle necessarily to articulate why. Um and maybe even particularly now.
SPEAKER_04Uh well I think there is a big thing to be said about men not being around the distraction and the uh uh of women. It's often been said, Oh, I'm really good, you it's really nice to be in a men's only space because I haven't got to worry about kind of impressing a woman. And I think men can very much get caught in that I can't really do this in front of a woman space. And I think some things are shared about, especially if people are sharing abuse and things have been by mothers or women or difficult stuff, or you know, I've been on men's retreats where men have been battered husbands at the hands of women. I think there is a really important space to have those, and for women also to have those spaces away from men to claim them back, I think is really, really key. But often lots of wounding has come in from other men as well in people's lives. And how do you then keep that safe? It's quite challenging, you know. You you can I can see the boarding school boys standing in those circles, I can see them straight away. The ones that I actually think in last time I stood here in a in a group of men, I was just taken off a bus and put in that space. You know, uh you can see those really challenging all the people who've been through the army and things. I mean, it's really key because you can see that kind of like starts to come back up for them. And so maybe they need to heal that, maybe they need to work on that, but they have to be incredibly safe for that. You can't just um because any single sex space is a challenge because it's not the normal of society, so it becomes challenging, therefore, it has to have much more safety brought to it because it's not most people's known experience. Now, I didn't go through a boarding school situation, so I'm not I don't know those spaces. Um and you've got complicated dynamics in, you know, I'm I'm I'm the single child, I'm not used to being roughed up, and everybody sits sits there and has dinner with each other because bigger families can move through that. I don't I don't have that kind of energy really. Um but for other people, there's much more kind of they can do that. So you're you've got a lot of needs coming in. But I do think the single spec spaces for everybody, there is an importance to the middle map.
SPEAKER_01I'd I'd imagine that there's probably this is an imagining, there's probably a higher proportion of ex-borders in men's groups than there would be in natural in in sort of the wider world or wider society. Um I just yeah, I suppose there is wounds to be healed there.
SPEAKER_04I think I think men's the men's bases, and I think that's also why I kind of go, because I believe that in the healing power of them. And I have seen it and I've seen it working, but I've also seen that when you're taking things away from conversations or an intimacy or a heart level, it all can become a bit brutal. And if it's brutal, how is where's the kind of you've got to make sure you're not inflicting more wounds and less. And I had a a retreat I was on that really went very wrong for me. And thank God I'm not a driver because I would have been in that car and down that motorway on my own. Just forget it. I the fact that actually it was logistically in the middle of nowhere and trying to get out of it and plan an exit route. But you know, I did have to ring somebody, and she was like, Do I need to come and get you? She would have she would have just walked in, sprung me out of there, and I would have gone. And I said, No, I'll stick with it. But it was worse. I mean, you know, it was just And I left a couple of hours early because there was a list of going back to London and they didn't particularly like it, but I'm like, I'm off. Um and you know, they did check in with me a couple of weeks later, which was oh, can we hand you an olive branch? And I was like, you just want me to say it was all right, and it wasn't. And I said, da da da, this is what my experience was, and they never ever came back to me, they've never spoken to me since. So that we're all in it together, sometimes when it's handed back, is not always great. You know, you have to, I think, have somebody's heart, and there are an expectation is always incredibly difficult, and you've got an incredible set of different different ex things, you know, different expectations, different experiences, different woundings, different healings that need. So I think there's a marvelous place for them, but I think they they're they have to be for me. If I was going to run one, and is it financially viable, all of those things, it'd have to be very small. I'd you know, I'd have to have sort of it would have to be, you know, I think doing one on your own is really kind of setting yourself up for a really difficult space. You know, you need do you need two facilitators, I think always, and you know, just taking something very gently, but and building through it, but also know exactly what the exercises are and why they lead into the next one, which is what I do in my daily life. But obviously, on a retreat, things have to be um much more much more held. And I've run retreats, you know, mixed retreats for people, you know. I have run them. It's not like I don't understand what the thing doing, but I think often men like to know why they're doing something. Women, I think, in my experience, will go with the flow when I'm teaching them, or I'll discover it on my way. Men need to know why. And sometimes the why is not available, but I think you've got to give them as much information to be able to try.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I mean, some of the elements are in what you've just said. Um, but if you if you were running a men's retreat, what what do you think would be the really, really key thing? So there's there's the explanation so that people actually understand why they're why it is they're doing things. Well what other things?
SPEAKER_04Well, it's interesting. I've thought about this quite a lot, really. I do think you have to get people out of their heads somewhere and into their bodies. And movement is quite a good way of doing that. And I think a really good playlist is uh is essential for any kind of men's thing, really. Because to be able to move, and that's quite challenging enough for men, yeah, yeah. Me as a dancer, yeah, love it, fabulous, absolutely great. But for most men, they're not used to necessarily moving their bodies in any particular way as an expression of themselves, and so unless you can connect somebody to their body, I think really early on, people are gonna always be slightly caught in their heads. I do think you need lots more discussion times with things in small places.
SPEAKER_03I think the um I think the challenge often um with with men's groups is actually
SPEAKER_04How you hold get people to discuss. But I do think everybody really needs to get to know each other quite quickly. I mean, the one of the best men's groups I was ever in had eight people over three days. But boy, did we cover some work. But it was wonderfully well held. And also everybody kind of got an idea who everybody was quite quickly. Well, when you go in a room with 27 people, if you're feeling a bit nervous and you can't even remember somebody's name, how are you ever going to get to a point of feeling really, really safe? So I think size and bodywork is really important. I think discussion's important. I think men do feel very, very don't have places to unburden themselves. So I think that wonderful disgroups of being able to, you know, say whatever you feel, and we'll kind of sit and hold it for you, I think is equally important as well. I can see why. I can see why people do sweat lodges and naked dancing and sitting in a jacuzzi together. I can see why all those things are done because there is a certain sort of disrobing and intimacy, which I think sometimes really does help, actually. But I think it's got to be done purposefully and mindfully rather than now we're just going to do this. And you have to work out what's, I think every point you have to work out what's in front and what we're going into. And does that support the movement, you know? I remember doing something, you know, it was like shame, and then it was some nude thing afterwards. And I thought, you can't get walk people all the way through their shame and then ask them to take their clothes off. Or it was the other way around. I can't even remember, it was years ago now. But it was somehow linked to two vulnerable moments together that didn't really need to be together, that then weren't held, but it was a bit like it was really odd. There was sort of one rolled into the other, quite. I can't even remember it because I just remember standing there thinking, I don't know why I'm being asked to do any of this. Um and so there's this very slow point, and I think you have to work out very gently what you're gonna do, what the point of it is, and often the point of men's groups often we use or or retreats, you know, it's all on men finding their purpose, and and sometimes these purposes are kind of they you know they're done in this big lofty way to change the world, but maybe it's just to be a better husband or to be a better dad or something, and and and people just you know, those things are will make a huge difference in the world, but they're kind of you know, like if somebody's just said I was on one thing once, and somebody said, I'll slightly change what he said he wanted to do, but he said he was gonna change the whole way the NHS was run. And I think he was sort of like a new just training as a sort of low-level nurse at this point. And I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna tell everybody, you know, what I think of the management. Well, he got the sack and had a nervous breakdown, you know, we all found out, but everybody encouraged him to do that. When you really think about it, he he one, he wasn't being asked what his opinion was, and to change a government organization just because you've got the passion to do it has to be that's going to take you years. That's your lifetime's work, not to be done in the next couple of months. So I think you have to make sure you don't set people up with unrealistic expectations of what what their power is. Because you were heard in a circle does not mean your boss wants you to know what you think of them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01Um that's uh what just popped into my mind there was was the will and force um versus uh a sort of openness and an allowing um because uh you know I d uh the idea of putting casting allure out, you know, maybe as as a life's work to transform the NHS is one thing, and that every step along the way that he uh he gets uh um gets closer to doing that is a plus. And so you don't have to achieve the absolutely massive goal, but you know, it sets you on a path, it sets you on a course of action, then that's fine. Um but it is there's a sort of grandiosity, isn't there? There is that expectation that every all our purposes as men, we have to stand up and beat our chests. And you know, if we're not saving the world or whatever, then frankly, we're not quite doing enough. But that is a recipe for failure, frankly, and shame as well.
SPEAKER_04Yes, and it it was just tricky, and maybe I failed because I didn't say something in the space. But why everybody was shouting, you know, yeah, tell them what you think, go in Mundi and say what you think, you know, we've all heard you, you know, what your points are valid. And I just wanted to say, why don't you go and be the best nurse you can be? And we'll let everybody see, I wish I could do that. I wish I was that brilliant at be that one person that everybody thinks, God, they're brilliant at what they do, you know, they've got so much, but you know, so anyway, he went, but you know, and I know I spoke because I spoke to him, you know, he went in and he said what he thought. Um, and they gave him, you know, he put him on a disciplinary. You know, then he you know, he he he got the sack because he went off, he had nervous breakdown, went off sick. But I had watched him be set up for this, it would be fine. And I'm like, oh no, it's so not gonna be fine. You can't do that. You've got to be valuable in an organization for anybody who hears you, and most organizations don't want you. I mean, it wasn't the NHS, he would say, but he did work for another government department. I just covered it up for the you know, the use of this, but it was you're never gonna turn around a whole government department if you're you've been there six months and you're on the lowest level of training you can do. So I think often it's about really helping that person just be authentic to themselves, and when it's a bit bit you've got to go out in the world and be marvelous, and maybe just being more joyful, you know. Often I say these things, you know, and it comes to me, you know, what you what's your great gift to the world? I say, well, I just actually want to be quite more, I want to be a bit more joyful in the world. Oh, yeah, okay. And get an awful lot of attention that sometimes, but it works for me, and so there has to be an equal celebration of everybody, and I think you also need in men's groups, you need to look at the different experiences and different cultures, and I think that's always very a big challenge if you're going very prescriptive with a men saying, you know, we've all got to do this, you know. We must all do this now, you know. It's not the easiest thing.
SPEAKER_01Uh it's interesting actually, cult culturally, how varied are men's groups? I mean, I again I have a stereotype image in my mind, and this might be totally unfair. Um but my assumption is that they're not very it's kind of very middle up class, um, very sort of uh either American or or British focused, and not very diverse generally.
SPEAKER_04Um well it's um it's uh I can only give you what what the groups I've been in, and maybe this is not just my experience. Um they've become more diverse. Groups have become more diverse over the years. I've I'm not in a men's group at the moment, but I've been more diverse over the years working in working with them. But then as I think as Britain as a country has become slightly more diverse, you know, as you know, we're talking pre kind of you know, easy movement of people within the EU, you know, they tended to be very either American, you know, very much white British, white American. And then they, you know, then they became much more kind of um mixed, I think. You know, we've probably got you know different generations of people who were refugees now, who were born here, you know. So I think they're much more kind of diverse than the groups of my diverse than they have ever been in London. But the retreats for me have always been very diverse because people will travel for seven, eight days. So, you know, a retreat, they have always been, you know, I've been in people who've flown in from New Zealand, and you know I mean there was one man I was on a retreat, but you know, he came from the Middle East, you know. Um I can't remember what part of the thing, but he came from uh I think he might have come from Doha, somewhere like that. I mean he came from a you know where he was just nothing there. You know, I think the Ger uh there's often lots of German people on retreats because you know the men's movement in Germany has been always being reasonably big. So, but loads of people in from loads of different spaces, and I think that's been really good on men's retreats, but I think that often makes them harder, slightly harder to hold sometimes. Um, because you know, my experience of you know growing up in the east end of London, you know, in my mid-50s, is not gonna be the same person who grew who grew up in, you know, is who's 30, who's just come from Doha. It'll be completely different. So it's gonna be uh you know, you've got those cultural mixes, but then it is about finding that one thing that all men link up to. And you know, that's the that's the point, really. I think, you know, you're gonna ask me what it is, in there. I am definitely, yeah. I'm not gonna let you get away with that.
SPEAKER_03I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Um well I uh yeah, I mean, as you were saying that, I mean, and I think we've managed to do an episode without mentioning this yet, but anyway, my I I felt that in my heart.
SPEAKER_04Hmm. And I I do know to say I do feel that often men feel quite marginalized, there's a lot of expectation on men, there's a lot of pressure. I think there is I think there's lots of pressure on you know women, but it's different. I think there is a collective wounding on men, you know, on a lot of things, you know, we have been the ones that have started the wars, at least been sent off to fight the wars. I think ancestrally there's an awful lot of difficult stuff happening happening there for men. I think men do feel quite sometimes quite unseen. I do think there's an awful lot of worry around intimacy with men, and I don't just I don't mean sexual intimacy, I just mean sharing and having conversations as well. I think there's an awful lot there that wherever you've come from, there is a natural point where you can meet and experience, you know, life together, really. Um but I do just think that has to be people have to be heard. One thing I often hear men say is, oh, it's the first time I've ever said this to anybody. And that I think goes across to all the groups, all the groups have even the all the retreats I've been in, even the jochi ones, people have always said thank you. It's the first time I've been able to say it. And that I think is a gift, even if they get the rest of it wrong, that at least one person's been able to say that. So it is about communication, but it is about community. And quite often the only place that men come together in men's only spaces is either in a competitive way because of sport, or if you're or you know, if you're one of those people where you've got a maturity male workforce around you, which you know equally sometimes can get quite competitive.
SPEAKER_01Masculinity and spirituality with Gary Wright and Oliver Baum. For more information on the work of Gary Wright, please visit www.therightmedium.co.uk and for Oliver www.oliverbaum.co.uk produced and edited by Oliver Baum with additional editing and music by Felix. Thank you for listening.
