Learning to Love Men
On Sunday as I pulled up at my father's house I had tears streaming down my face.
I had been listening to Layla Martins podcast with Alison Armstrong called “How to bring out the best in men”
It compelled me to share what my father's day was like for me.
I grew up without a Dad. I was raised by a single Mother with no idea who my father was.
Five years ago a young woman reached out to me on Facebook, she was my half sister, one of three.
Since then I have slowly been building a relationship with my Father. It is lovely, and it is slow, and it is challenging…
Trusting men is truly challenging for me. I was abandoned in the womb, my Uncles and Granda lived on the other side of the world.
I never knew men.
I remember when my best friend's Dad, a loving father, gave her a kiss on our way out. I felt so disgusted, like I was actually going to vomit.
Even as a child the idea of a man loving me like that was so foreign that my whole body rejected it.
This dissociation from men mixed with the confusing development of attraction for them would lead to my teenage and 20’s being filled with experiences of attracting men who would repeatedly affirm my wounding.
They would reject me. Abandon me. Dispose of me.
But the wounding was not one directional. My wounding caused me to treat men poorly, belittle them, humiliate them, reject them, hate them.
Only a few years ago I was filled to the brim with hate for men, and it was poisoning me the most.
Now, I am working hard to change my relationship with men.
In the past years I have met so many beautiful, good, kind and compassionate men that the story I’ve been telling myself, the story I know so many people, particularly women tell themselves:
That all men are bad. All men use you. There are no good men.
The stories simply don’t match up anymore.
Yet as I walk this path to change my relationship to men I realise I must hold compassion for the part of me that has reason for not trusting, that has a history of pain still yet to be fully processed.
I cannot bypass the pain and force myself to love and trust all men. That is not authentic, that is not aligned with what my little girl still feels.
For now what I can attest to is that I have made a vow with myself, to heal my relationship with men.
So that I can love them and be loved by them, the way I've always deserved.
So that one day when I have a son, I can show him how to love women and be loved by them.
If you resonate with my story, as I know many of you will, here are a few ways you can begin to change your relationship with men.
-Allow yourself to acknowledge your fear / hatred / pain. Share it with friends, journal about it. Acknowledging it takes it out of the shadows and into the light which is where it can begin to heal
-Assess your pattern with men, do you always attract a certain experience: abandonment, unavailability, abusive. Journal how attracting this type of man is reinforcing the story you have about men and yourself.
E.g. Men always hurt me.
Men never have time for me.
-Begin to notice around you, in the community, on social media - men who defy your internalised story.
E.g. Fathers who lovingly take their daughters to the playground
Instagram accounts of men who respect and love women openly (Chris Bale is a great start)
-Consider working 1:1 with me for some coaching, I have held space for many women to move from hatred and fear around men and begin to heal this wounded relationship.
Together we create an inner father that allows you to soften into being held by the father / inner masculine the way you have always needed and deserved
