Wow… I am watching The Work right now… I actually meant to watch it last week after a beautiful session I participated in on Rebirthing the masculine. And then Divine timing happened and I forgot.

Since then I have gotten clear messages from my Crone that I need to feel more deeply, allow myself to swim in the ocean of my emotions. Allow the emotions to flow… but I have no reference for what that looks like in a healthy space. All I know is what it looks and feels like when it’s toxic. Directed outwardly as abuse.

Fore warning this is a long post… But I feel called to share some of the deepest parts of my journey with you all… because that is what this work is…

I was reminded to watch the documentary by a post that mentioned it yesterday in my circle. I can’t remember who posted it now, but reading what she said, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would feel triggered by the expression of masculine anger and rage…. Huge emotion coming through from the masculine. I certainly get triggered by it when I see men in my life or of those I love directing their huge emotions towards others.

I grew up in a family where my Father had a temper and would break things, he would ‘spank’ us, always while angry… it started with a belt and eventually became a 2×4 that had holes drilled in it “to reduce wind drag” and a handle carved so he could easily grip it.

I have memories of my brother being beaten so bad in the other room at the age of 16 (I was about 13) that he was screaming and crying, begging for my dad to stop… A young man in his own right, being reduced to this ….

I don’t even have words…

and for the first time as I write this, I am grieving for my brother…

I watched my dad punch him in the face… kick him down the hallway… call him names… belittle him…

He wasn’t as physically violent with me, though I was on the receiving end of the paddle more times that I can count, it was never as violent….

He did have all of the same wonderful ways of calling names and belittling me…

His ultimate wound to me was through sexual molestation.

From the first memories I have at the age of 2, which by then it was normal, until the age of 12 when I put a stop to it by confronting him. I never stopped confronting him about it, though he’s never admitted to it.

After that it turned to cameras around the house and mirrors under the bathroom doors while we showered… It wasn’t just me… it was my younger step sister as well.

My parents were divorced when I was two and my mother remarried when I was 10… the man she married had a worse temper than my father did. He was never violent with me…

I think he knew my dad and uncles literally would have killed him…but he was with my brother and my mother. He would hit her… I witnessed him choke my mother in front of me at the age of 12. I screamed at him and cussed him out and he stopped.

I witnessed my brother attempt to intervene to protect my mother several times.

Unsurprisingly, my brother now has a similar temper and hits his girlfriends, he has never been married… but he does have at least one child… I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse that he’s not in his life…

This isn’t an energy that I ever allowed in my relationships and I have spent many years loving myself back together… seeking and empowering those parts of me that were wounded by the models of the masculine that I grew up with. I am still finding parts of myself that are related to this… though the threads are becoming thinner and thinner..

So, yes. I become incredibly triggered when I see a man turning his anger toward those I love.

I laugh at them as if they were children if they dare turn the anger toward me.

My mother decided to invite that man back into her life after having left once. He had mellowed out a bit… but one day, fairly recently… after drinking too much for too long…

He decided to let that anger out in front of and in the direction of MY children…

That day became the first that I knew what it felt like to be the Lioness protecting her children.

For the first time in my life, I went nose to nose… eye to eye with this man who had been such a source of anger and rage in our household… I did not back down until he walked away.

He has never, and will never see them again.

And that day my mother saw what it looked like for a mother to protect her children from harm.

So… yeah… I was curious what this documentary would bring out in me…

And you know what it brought out? SO. MUCH. EMPATHY. I have been just crying and crying for these wounded men. For the brave souls who are letting their guards down to feel the feelings instead of lashing out in anger at innocent women and children around them.

THIS. Is beautiful! The space, and physical container these men create for all of the ugliness and heartache, rage and grief to be fully felt and expressed in all of it’s messy and painful, naked truth… It’s divine.

And what I learned is this… I will never hold space for a man to direct his anger or rage at me or my children. But I will fully support and love him through the wounds that he is willing to show up for and work through… I will lovingly help him to create a safe container for him to feel every single thing that his inner child needs to feel. And I will be the balm of love and nourishment he needs when he is raw