About being sensitive of Heart…
Hello Men and Women that care about Men, I’ve been absent for a while due to some health issues and other wonderful circumstances, but, I’m back feeling better than ever and wanting to start this men’s blog again.
Let’s start with something seen on Facebook, about “being sensitive and having a big heart.” A lesson that I feel is very important for men to understand and live from, rather than from the shame that may come from expressing sensitivity and caring from the unconditional.
The blog was put on the back burner last year due to my move to the Southern Coast of Spain. I then had a flare up of the Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, CLL, which was a result of spraying Agent Orange while flying helicopters for the US Army in Viet Nam. It was recommended that I begin chemotherapy, and after completing my last round in December, I’m now cancer free.
I then fractured my Achilles tendon two days before Christmas in a freak accident. After having surgery in January and realizing that there are no accidents, I stopped doing what I was doing, and went inside to collect as much as I could, of many years of being and living outside myself.
Today, while browsing Facebook I came across the above poster that got my attention. This caption brought to mind the absence to the men’s blog, as well as the need for submitting new copy to keep men and women connected so that men can create a more empowered emotional awareness. I got motivated, and realized that it was time for me to get back into action with the blog, and decided to start with this poster.
With that in mind, what do you men and women think about men being sensitive and emotional? As a young boy and man, I was taught to control my feelings and emotions; at that time it was seen as a sign of “strength” for men, the crying and expressing from one’s emotional body was left to the women.
From this individual’s perception, it’s perfectly acceptable for humans to be emotional, and especially to express that to others. In order to be healthy emotionally, men need to express freely about what they feel about things in life that affect them emotionally. By doing this, it creates more freedom, and a healthier mental, emotional and physical body. Something experienced just last year as I healed from chemotherapy and surgery by connecting, and expressing what I went through.
Men, have you ever apologized for being emotional, or too sensitive? Have you held back from expressing from your sensitivity of heart? What do you feel about being strong of Heart, rather than of Mind?
Women, what do you think/feel about men who are connected to their feelings and emotions and can express that to you?
12 comments
Be consistent………yet spontaneous..invest and glorify your woman, lavish gratitude.. teach us to appreciate you as well
Thank you Eaglesong for your comment that you sent via FaceBook, and later asked to post on EmpoweringMen’s blog. Why? I thought men reading this blog might want to know more about what woman want from men. Such as, by being consistent, do you mean being repetitive with our kindness, consideration and love, to the women in our lives? When you say “spontaneous,” that would be men living more moment-to-moment and coming more from our feeling body than just the mind.
When you say, “glorify” the woman, especially when she’s deserving of the glory, high praise, admiration and even exaltation, yes by all means. If by “lavishing” the woman you mean give her attention, yes, by all means, in your eye contact, physical connection, deep communication to include deep emotional sharing from the man, beyond the normal daily conversation. In reference to “gratitude,” by this do you mean being grateful for the unlimited relationship? Yes, yes.
Lastly, teaching women how to appreciate the man. When men practice what you’ve just outlined, women can reverse that to man. Men will most likely give to the woman what they want for them selves, and vice a versa. If not one should be looking at their motives for being in relationship.
All of these points have something very much in common, when coming from the heart, the emotional mind in our communication, and actions to women in our lives, we create deep loving relationship’s, and I believe this is what we all want in relationship, don’t we?
I think the challenge is that the social expectation of men with holding there emotions is upheld by women as well. The social norm is for men to be stoic and controlled. An alpha male so to speak.
When I was younger I thought controlling my emotions was a necessary part of being “the man.” As I aged and experienced life I realized that you have to show emotions for others to truly understand your feelings. How can you not cry when seeing a father or mother who has been deployed embrace their children for the first time in months? How can you not cry when sharing an emotional life story to someone who means the world to you? So yes, I cry, I share my emotions and in return the people who I interact with can truly see me for who I am and what I am trying to convey. That allows them to express their feelings back to me and that is just good open communications.
Hello Rayn,
Thank you for the blog comment and welcome to the commentary about men being ok with connecting with feelings and emotions as well as expressing them. Most, men and women believe that men should hold on to their emotions to be strong, and not feel, but to forge on with a strong upper lip.
Yes, we are being asked to be “stoic” and “controlled,” as you said, thank you for supporting that it’s not all right for men to do this subjugating any more, but to connect, own and express their feeling body.
That’s the premise of this men’s blog, to have more men express their feelings about certain issues that keep men being emotionally unavailable to them selves and others.
What do you think happens to men that keep their emotional body controlled and shut down? Live happily ever after, develop a kindness for them selves, create more unlimited emotions? No, they will most likely hold resentment guilt and shame for not speaking their truth and most will live an unhappy life holding on to their emotional body making them selves unavailable, especially to others in their lives at an intimate level.
For men that are learning to connect and express their feelings, more power to you, you will be freer, happier, and more fulfilled as you continue to express your feelings and emotions.
Welcome back Gene,
Thank you for your comment. Yes, similar feelings about holding emotions and thinking that one was being strong for one’s self and others most likely happens to many men, yesterday and today, that never seems to change.
We learned that flying in combat, we could not show what we where feeling in the moment, but we needed to keep everything bottled up inside. Now hearing you express from other than your controlling mind, I smile, knowing that men can learn how to connect and express our feelings and emotions and still be strong and faithful to our selves. You set a good example Gene, thank you for showing us that.
Showing who one really is, part mental mind, part emotional mind is really brave, and takes courage of the other kind that’s not blind to the real man inside you.
Communicating from both our minds just makes good sense for better interactions with self, and others. More power to you brother…
Great to have a new post in the Men’s Blog. I’m glad you are feeling well now Don Luis.
In my personal experience it is truly empowering and invigorating to express our feelings. There is no other way of achieving a higher freedom and inner peace. I would also invite all men to let yourselves cry, try it in a save place for you, and practice! Allow yourselves to use this natural channel of discharging burdens.
But in my point of view it is not always convenient to express in the moment. By expressing one can set out an example and demonstrate how sensitive or emotional one can be, but we have to be also sympathetic or empathic with who we are comunicating.
One must let it all out but sometimes it is better to refrain and express later. Not for oneself but for others. And remember that to refrain is not the same as to quash or repress.
Enjoy!!
Hello Eric,
Thank you for the good wishes, and yes, its wonderful to be in good health again, from this man’s perspective and especially from what took place last year there’s nothing better than good health.
Your comments about men expressing feelings, is spot on. Men can achieve personal freedom and get inner peace when one does express their feelings. Some times it can be done in private, and other times it may not be possible, which as you mention, could be a good teaching for someone else seeing that behavior with “manly” men.
Seeing a man that’s able to express his sensitivity and emotionality, just shows that he is open to other faculties in him, which gives him a greater understanding of him self and others.
It’s good to see that you differentiate between “refraining,” to put off later at a more convenient time, to repressing, which is like a pressure cooker; ready to blow when you least expect it. Becoming emotionally intelligent is about learning how to best manage and administer one’s feelings and emotions, by expressing as closest to when one feels the feeling, one could in turn avoid the emotional explosion that may be building up.
We have to remember men, that being aware and responsive to our emotional body is a quality inherent to any human, we either take advantage of that or not. This blog is about helping men become connected to their emotional body, by owning, and expressing.
I have a story that happened at work last week that’s a perfect example to exemplify what Luis and Gene were talking about and contrary to what i had said:
last week my operations manager came around the office to speak to us in small groups in turn. He informed us that a fellow co-worker had been murdered the night before. she was 8 months pregnant, the father had hand cuffed her and set her on fire. neither her or the baby survived. my manager told us this as tears streamed down his face, and being the second group he was addressing was having a difficult time getting it out. Seeing him stand in front of everyone and not making any attempt to hide his emotions was truly inspiring. I had a lot of respect for him before this but now 10 fold more.
So, maybe it’s more ourselves individually that have this expectation to be strong and stoic. Maybe it has a lot less to do with society then I thought…
Hello Rayan,
Thank you for sharing this marvelous heart wrenching story, it show us that it all starts with one, to change the whole.
It takes pathfinders and mentors like the man you mentioned that was able to show his emotions to others about the death of a co-worker, as well as all of you acknowledging that it’s all right for men to show their feelings and emotions. It may also be time for others to make the change so that each man, and woman can accept their own feminine, their emotional body, by connecting, owning, and sharing to include crying in front of others.
Your so right Rayan its all about our perception about how we hold our selves about being stoic and strong in controlling our emotional bodies. Just as we see you making corrections about previous statements, we men can make changes in accepting, and honoring our feminine, our feeling body by giving it a place in our lives as we do our mental minds. By the way, have you acknowledged the operational manager about his honesty and his forthrightness? What a wonderful way to recognize his teaching.
Hello men and Don Luis,
In my opinion, being emotionally connected to ones heart, and to be able to freely show one’s connection with his emotional body by expressing without any fear of what he’s feeling, is one of the bravest acts of any man.
We now live in a time where women keep asking men to express what we have inside, which is the way they naturally interact with other women. For those of us who grew up in times where showing our feelings was seen like a girly-kind of behavior, or something to be done by immature men, we now can show this side to others. However, through this interaction and emotional dialog with my heart, I realized that it has been always there for me. I do believe that the social, ethnical, religious… conditionings forced men to believe that expressing the emotions was only for women and that by doing so they were inferior… from another race. However, this idea could not be further from the truth.
Moreover, I do believe that for men need to be able to behave in a world were so many things needed to be done, no matter how it would be managed! They agreed to disconnect from that which makes harmony in their lives, men, censored their emotional body to bring all else to material development.
Now, men and women may have experienced that such material world is a dream made up by our mind. This brings us nothing that truly satisfies us if we are not emotional connected to our hearts. Only by becoming a master in such connection may bring the real knowledge of what our mind can offer us from this beautiful world. In addition, even more, living emotionally connected with our heart makes us artists of our world.
In my opinion, it is the most rewarding, exciting, challenging and bravest experience for a man (and woman) to be emotionally connected to their heart and to be able to show himself without any personal mask, completely “vulnerable,” in this mind’s opinion.
Take care, José
Thank you so much José for your touching comment, its wonderful to hear a man of science by profession say such things, it surely gives hope for men around the globe.
Best regards to you, and al the men and women reading this blog. Remember all of you reading this; say YES to your feelings and emotions, they are such a great part of who you truly are.
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