Hello and welcome to a special episode of Ask a Dude. About 3 months ago, on an Ask a Dude Podcast, I read my list of what it is to be a good woman. At the end of that episode, Nick told us that he felt inspired to share his list of what it is to be a real man. Nick made his list and shared it with us during a recorded podcast sometime in May, roughly 2 months ago. We now refer to it as ‘the list’. The podcast is edited and ready to go. But we haven’t yet launched it on Sacred Truths. So, why the long pause?
The Ask a Dude series is a process for all of us involved. In many ways this is new territory for us and sometimes we are surprised by what we find. In this podcast, Nick and I discuss the process of making the list, sharing the list, receiving the list, and his reluctance or hesitation to share the list publicly.
Music by Pixabay
www.sacred-truths.com
Hello and welcome to a special episode of Ask a Dude. About 3 months ago, on an Ask a Dude Podcast, I read my list of what it is to be a good woman. At the end of that episode, Nick told us that he felt inspired to share his list of what it is to be a real man. Nick made his list and shared it with us during a recorded podcast sometime in May, roughly 2 months ago. We now refer to it as ‘the list’. The podcast is edited and ready to go. But we haven’t yet launched it on Sacred Truths. So, why the long pause?
The Ask a Dude series is a process for all of us involved. In many ways this is new territory for us and sometimes we are surprised by what we find. In this podcast, Nick and I discuss the process of making the list, sharing the list, receiving the list, and his reluctance or hesitation to share the list publicly.
Music by Pixabay
www.sacred-truths.com
Hello and welcome to a special episode of Ask a Dude. About 3 months ago, on an Ask a Dude Podcast, I read my list of what it is to be a good woman. At the end of that episode, Nick told us that he felt inspired to share his list of what it is to be a real man. Nick made his list and shared it with us during a recorded podcast sometime in May, roughly 2 months ago. We now refer to it as ‘the list’. The podcast is edited and ready to go. But we haven’t yet launched it on Sacred Truths. So, why the long pause?
The Ask a Dude series is a process for all of us involved. In many ways this is new territory for us, and sometimes we are surprised by what we find. In this podcast, Nick and I discuss the process of making the list, sharing the list, receiving the list, and his reluctance or hesitation to share the list publicly. This is Sacred Truths with Emmy Graham.
Emmy: Welcome back to Sacred Truths, I’m Emmy Graham, and today I’m here with just our ‘dude’, Nick Oredson, hi Nick!
Nick: Hey. Howdy folks, great to be here.
Emmy: Nick, thanks for joining me today. This is kind of a special “Ask a Dude” podcast because the last podcast we launched, I read my complete list of what it is to be “A Good Woman”. And then we responded to that, and one of the things you said in that podcast which was weeks, maybe even months ago, you felt inspired to create your own list on what it is to be “A Real Man”. And that you wanted to explore that on “Ask a Dude” and share it on the next “Ask a Dude”.
And I would like listeners to know that we actually did that as a group, the three women, Heather, Deborah and myself with Nick. He read his complete list; you read your complete list, Nick. And then, we….there was a long moment of silence afterwards and we responded to it. It was a very potent list.
What’s happened though, is, um, you were feeling very hesitant about launching that list publicly. And you and I have had a lot of discussions about the process that you are going through, having created the list, having read it out loud to the three of us. And it would be really important today I think, maybe we can talk about this process that you’re still going through, as much as you feel comfortable with that.
Nick: Yeah, sure, it’s been um, startling on a lot of levels and unnerving feeling the reaction that I had to reading that list, and the idea of it being public, having my name connected to it. And having it being public forever. That’s really how we have to really think about things like this even if at some point we took it down, you know, for some reason you have to assume it would be on the internet forever.
Emmy: Right.
Nick: So that’s how I think about it and so, when it came to saying to myself, saying, “Okay, Nick, now this is going out on the Internet forever with my name on it connected to that set of ideas, that list I really hit a wall in my own mind.
I felt such an intense sense of dread about that proposition, about putting it out there, just this pit in my stomach feeling; I felt like I needed to acknowledge that and not force it as much as I want to.. well, let’s see, as much as part of me wants to get it out there, there’s a significant other part of me that’s really having a strong negative reaction to this idea because it feels so permanent.
There’s no ‘undo’. There’s no, I can’t go, “Oh, we’ll put it out there and see how it feels, if a month or two goes by, you know, if I’m still uncomfortable, I can take it down.” That’s not how the internet works. That’s kind of where I ended up with it.
Emmy: So, Nick, if I can interject, when you… before you read your list, you qualified it with something like: these are the things that I was programmed to believe, many of them I rejected right off the bat, some of them I learned to reject and others I didn’t even realize I was doing it until much later in life. So, we’re under the impression that you don’t operate by the list anymore. Does that not free you?
Nick: Well, I felt like,,, I really thought through that frame really carefully, when I was saying it to make sure that that part of it was really clear. We’ve talked about it a couple times, something I can tune into and listen to and also actually something that’s making an ongoing commentary, kind of, on my life.
As I’m doing things, this voice is saying, ‘you should do this, should do that, this and that, this and that.” So it’s definitely something that I experience being in me but not controlling me. And that frame was accurate: there were things that were rejected right away, things that took some work, things that I didn’t even know were happening.
So, I can’t think of a clearer way to say it than that…and so I… that isn’t the problem, or some version of that. I mean, it’s possible that it would be really easy for snippets of this to be taken out of context, for sure, but that ship has kind of sailed already as far as this project, like I feel like we’ve covered all kinds of things where things I’ve said could be taken out of context or things that any of us said could be taken out of context, and really put, not misinterpreted, but could be taken out of context and the meaning would be completely the opposite of what we were saying, many of these things, the whole thing really.
So, checking in, I don’t feel like that’s it, so taking things out of context, if someone intentionally or accidentally does that or that there’s some problem with that, well that feels so far out of my control, that’s just a risk of the job. This is not risk free, what we’re doing, none of it. And so, this is an explosive topic potentially, this is a topic that… there are people who are intentionally distorting reality for different narratives,, there are people saying they’re looking for the truth, and they’re not, and as far as I can tell they are intentionally lying about these things.
And so when I check in and feel that feeling, that’s not it. I don’t think, there’s fear there, but that’s a fear I can work with, there’s something else going on here.
Emmy: Yeah, that’s really interesting.
When I think about the list, I know, Deborah commented and said, “That’s a monstrous list.” And we talked about the list, the three women, and concluded that it was a life destroying list, and I think we were all in agreement on that. It’s a dark list but I would like to add is that for me personally, the list answered so many questions. I think several of us said, something like this, we’ve met men who operate from many of the things on that list. It answered a lot of questions about the mysteries of my past.
And I think as Deborah said a lot of history is explained. It explains what’s going on today, it explains so much and it has, as nasty as it was, it’s so much better understanding than being in mystery for me personally.
So I do want to say, it’s a positive thing, and even today, when I’m out and about and I’m watching men in my life, and I say, “OH! He’s operating from THAT on the list!” I get it. I see it and I actually have a little more compassion because I understand that it comes from some place that is almost out of our control initially.
It’s somehow downloaded, like my list was downloaded to me and as you said, “I still hear my list in my head like, Oh, Emmy, (shaking head) Oh, oh!” there’s some voice telling me I need to stay with my list and so it’s active within me today, as I image perhaps yours is. Soo it does help me understand, it does help me have compassion and so, the biggest piece of it is “OHHHH!” The mystery.
The veil around the mystery has been lifted, and I see it!
Nick: (Long pause) Wow, just listening to you talk about it, talking about that day and that experience and then what’s happened since and all that, I’m just thinking, ‘Ohhh, this has to get out there, this list has to get out there somehow,’ and it’s just really increased my desire to work through whatever this is and get this out there.
And I think that’s been a theme of “Ask a Dude” was that we did go into some really dark places the whole time really, and even kind of covered parts of the list even though we didn’t say it was the list. We were referencing it, we haven’t even made it yet, but we were referencing it and I’m sure we were talking about behavior that was list driven. And so that was a lot of the experience was going somewhere dark and then feeling exactly what you described, the relief of knowing the truth. That the truth has this essence to it that is nourishing even though the content of that truth is dark and scary and really hard to look at.
As I’ve been working through whatever was going on in me around it, I thought maybe I should go through and edit it a little bit, and that would help and at least then get it out there. But then I thought, NO! we can’t do that, or I can’t do that; there’s a fidelity in what we did, that feels really important to me, and whatever the list was, that’s it, that’s the list!
So I kind of bounced around in that space too, and I was thinking would it help to edit it, change it, are there some things I’m not ready to share, later, or something? Nope, I can’t do that either.
Emmy: Is it part of the… I have to think how to say it, is it part of the dark sacredness of the list is that you never reveal it? Are you wrestling with that, maybe?
Nick: Well, yes, we’ve talked about that too, that one of the things about, not just the list, but any conversation about shadow masculinity, or the dark masculine, that’s one of the rules is that you never talk about it, you don’t ever explicitly talk about any of this, any of the things we’ve talked about on this podcast ever! You don’t even talk about it with yourself! It’s not even an internal conversation, something where you’re sitting there keeping it some kind of secret or something, it’s just black! It’s in shadow completely!
I can feel that when I check in, I can feel that alarm bell going off. I’m going to get in trouble for talking about this. There’s going to be some kind of consequences and they’re not going to be good. But I’ve felt that the entire time, the whole time we’ve been doing this, that alarm bell has been going off because that’s what we’ve been doing is, is revealing, shedding light on these shadow elements of masculinity as I’ve experienced it.
I’ve been aware of that.
I haven’t forced it, I’ve felt that alarm going off, that’s just what we’re doing here, that’s part of this. If it’s a real risk, or a perceived risk or possible consequences or it’s all made up in my head, I don’t know and it’s a risk. If there is a risk, I’m willing to take it.
So…that’s not it!
It’s driving me crazy!
The only thing I can think of, or feel, if I’m checking in, it’s in my stomach; my stomach is telling me, NO! don’t do it! It’s in the pit of my stomach. It’s a feeling that some things are just too dark to share, it’s just too awful. And I really hope that that is navigable, that whatever this thing that is coming up, or this block that I’ve hit I really hope it’s navigable, I hope we can get this out there. For all these reasons.
If I’m hitting this this incredible wall around sharing it, that means there’s an enormous amount of energy around it. It makes it even more important to share it somehow.
Emmy: Yeah. Right and I’m not here to convince you to launch it, I’m not here to persuade you, nothing like that, I’m really interested in the process and I want to say, I speak for myself, but I may be speaking for Deborah and Heather, too. I’m not sure any of it was surprising to us.
Nick: Wow.
Emmy: Because we have encountered that from men, everything on your list I’ve encountered somewhere, even if it was only once.
Many of the things on your list I’ve encountered over and over and over. And it is the thing and we (women) bang our heads against the wall, “what is that? What is it with men?” We get together and we say, ‘what is that with men!’
And if I can point to the list and say, “Oh, he’s operating from #17 on the list!” Okay, that’s a start…we can get somewhere. Maybe I don’t understand how they’re operating from that, but suddenly, I have witnessed every single one of the things on your list, I have experienced with a man in my lifetime.
Nick: Wow.
Emmy: So, it’s not shocking, I think, to most women.
Nick: Wow, and I think you did mention that, or you said something along those lines. I think everyone has said something along those lines kind of all the way through this whole thing, this whole series, where there’s an awareness that there was something and there was an energy signature around that something and there was behavior that was really puzzling and also hurtful. But also like, “What is happening!?” you know this black box: an event, and then this mystery box and then a behavior that was like, “How did that get to that?! What is happening here!” (laughs) If I’m describing it right.
Emmy: Yes, very well, and I think for women, I can only speak for myself, when you read your list, I think the most difficult part for us, for me is: okay, that lines up with that behavior that I’ve witnessed or experienced but how does someone operate from there!?
WHAT IS THAT?
And what does that feel like, because it is so life destroying, everything on your list was determined to destroy life, and I feel like one of the things Heather mentioned I believe, everything on MY list was geared to acceptance: do you accept me, do you love me, subservient. Very, very different. Which one could still say, “Gosh, how do you operate from that?” but your list was just ‘ohh, what an awful place to operate from, what an awful thing to carry around and then act upon. Ohhh!’
Let’s destroy life is pretty much the motto.
Nick: Yeah, it was stomach turning, and it’s turned my stomach listening to it again. So, anyway this whole conversation has really motivated me to respectfully sort through this, somehow get this out there.
Emmy: This is Sacred Truths by Emmy Graham with music by Lemon Music studio from Pixabay.
This concludes our first part of a special episode of “Ask a Dude” with Emmy and Nick. Please join us for the second part. Please visit our website at www.sacred-truths.com. Thank you for listening.