Strength

What is it about this instinct that is bred within us? To help reject and be perceived as strong, by rejecting our own softness?

For men, this is woven into our culture so profoundly and for so long that it has become almost synonymous with masculinity. Strength. The assumption that men will not emote, that they are able to be disconnected from their feelings, that they do not need to be cared for, and they can tough it alone. Yet- it comes out in different ways.

These powerful men with their ego fragility. The duplicity of being able to run the world, but being over-whelmed by the thought of making dinner for a family.

They become emotionally helpless, lost in describing their emotional experience, as if they have been handed keys without ever being taught to drive. Perhaps their stoicism leads to infidelity, a lower stakes way to feel momentarily cared for and whole, with the end result leaving them lonelier and more filled with shame around their sadness and vulnerability.

Maybe their need to impress leaves them even more on an island than they ever have been, totally unable to express the tenderness of emotion.

Building layer upon layer of impenetrability. As if they were not made of flesh and blood, but steel and wire.

The wire monkey in the cage as researched by Bowlby; leaving those baby monkeys starved for nurturing. 

But who does this strength prison serve?

Yet- men are not alone in their fixation on strength.

Women have a version of this too. These beautiful powerful women that can do anything. I do not define power by the jobs they have, but by their competence.

Some of the most competent women I know do not have a “job”, yet they also manifest an ability and desire to not need.

To shoulder all of the burdens, confusing softness, vulnerability and desire, with weakness and incapability.

I do not judge this category of women, they are my sisters, I share this instinct. This need to out-competence everyone in the room, to not need and to be able to handle it all. But I have been in self-imposed emotional training the past few years. Understanding that skipping over my softness has taken it’s toll.

This is because softness is what makes us accessible. Softness allows us to show our love, and allows us to be loved fully and completely. To be able to say out loud, you know what- my birthday is really important to me, or I am so tired I need you to step in and help me. I cannot do it all- and most importantly I do not want to pretend that I can or that I SHOULD.

Doing everything without help and without vulnerability does not make us more powerful, it diminishes us for not having our needs met and not being able to ask for what we need. 

Perhaps all people need to sit down at the table and have a summit. No one will pretend to be able to do it all? We will all ask for the help we need- and see what happens? It is so much easier when it is the culture- the rule not the exception.

Just a thought….I would sign that treaty- would you?