Stella’s thought on why this site is as popular as it is and is so compulsively viewed hit me by surprise, but she’s right. Her point was that to read all this is me becoming vulnerable, and it’s rare to see and be privvy to. I don’t fear talking about the things that hold me back as they are things that will soon be historical. I know i’m not perfect. Most people who know me and read this already know my faults. My last few posts have concerned a lot of people and generated a lot of comments that i am going through a lot. I am. But i’m glad i am going through it.

I’ve come to see this year as a very strange journey - one i’ve had to take alone that’s deliberately separated me from women, business and anything else that i looked to to fix the hole in me. Its a uniquely masculine journey and designed to transform you from where you were, to where you need to be for the future. One of the books i’ve spent a lot of time reading (”Wild At Heart”) has resonated more than any other.

It explores the idea that every man has a deep question that needs to be validated by his father: “Am I good enough?”. And every girl has a deep question that also needs to be validated by their father: “Am i lovely?”. If it is not answered, we take it out into the world to get it answered elsewhere. Our lives are spent trying to have that question validated. 99% of the time, not only is that validation never apparent, we actually get attacked and injured emotionally right where it hurts the most. We are delivered a pretty vicious blow.

Central to that line of thought is that every man, and every woman, bears a wound. Both receive it from their father - if you look around you’ll notice every person who has taken a destructive detour somehow has a paternal conflict. Every rebellious kid, criminal, nymphomaniac, withdrawn loner, anorexic, sufferer of depression and more all share a common theme - a problem when it comes to the paternal relationship. Fathers are absolutely critical. Take away the father and the whole house comes crashing down. Mum comforts, Dad validates.

I can be a very violent man - not physically, but emotionally. I don’t trust authority. In fact, i don’t trust anyone with any power over me because anyone who has had any power over me has abused it and hurt me. Becoming attached or caring about someone is a pretty traumatic and scary process. I picked up a lot of things that i never should have. The message i got very young was that i was irrelevant, worthless, evil, disposable and many other things. I don’t blame my upbringing for my problems - i am merely acknowledging that they have shaped and moulded me.

In my experience, one of the greatest fears women have (other than not being beautiful and being abandoned) is a man’s anger. You have no reason to fear a man’s anger unless you have been harmed by it somewhere down the line. Anger in itself is not frightening - the actions of evil and violent men are. What women want in all men is strength. When that strength goes bad, fear is the result. The mistake a lot of us men make is to take our deepest question to women. We try to find our strength from them when we need to be offering it to them instead.

John Eldredge explains it candidly in “Wild At Heart”:

That strength so essential to men is also what makes them heroes. If a neighbourhood is safe, it’s because of the strength of men. Slavery was stopped by the strength of men, at a terrible price to them and their families. The Nazis were stopped by men. Apartheid wasn’t defeated by women. Who gave their seats up on the lifeboats leaving the Titanic, so that women and children would be saved? This isn’t to say women can’t be heroic. It’s simply to remind us that men are designed the way they are because we desperately need them to be the way they are. Yes, a man is a dangerous thing. So is a scalpel. It can wound or it can save your life. You don’t make it safe by making it dull, you put it in the hands of someone who knows what he is doing.

When you take that question to a woman, you will never find it. The journey is one you must go on alone, and you are led away from all the false answers. Men run after beautiful women because if they find Juliet, then that means they must be Romeo. We’re ashamed that we might not be strong or be wounded in some way, so we deny there is a problem. Hitler nevered denied that he was beaten - he only denied that it hurt or mattered. Taking that journey to the centre of your pain is terrifying, but it is necessary. The wound that drives everything needs to be acknowledged, faced and healed before you are able to bear responsibility for power placed in your hands, and simply, that you are able to be a man and be strong enough for the woman you will protect. If your strength has gone bad, it needs to be redeemed.

Back to John:

There, under the shadow of a man’s strength, a woman finds rest. The masculine journey takes a man away from the woman so that he might return to her. He goes to find his strength, he returns to offer it. He tears down the walls of the tower that has held her with his words and with his actions. He speaks to her heart’s deepest question in a thousand ways. Yes, you are lovely. Yes, there is one who will fight for you. But because most men have not yet fought the battle, most women are still in the tower.

Most men haven’t fought the battle. One of them is me. Another is my father. Or his. Its not easy to admit its there and that it mattered, but i don’t want the next one to be my son. I can be appallingly destructive and cruel if i want to be, as we all can. We’re meant to be dangerous, but we must use that strength and capability for good and not be driven by that wound we carry. Women who do the same become desolate and cold. A woman cannot fix it, school cannot fix it, a job cannot fix it, a newspaper article can’t fix it and so on. When i’m lashing out, it’s because someone or something is pressing on that wound and the rage flowing out is me shouting out about that wound more than it is about the person who pressed it.

To paraphrase someone, “i never know if you love me or you hate me“. That coming back in strength concept is the basis of why women are always fooled by a guy who claimed to have radically changed. I’m not going to make that claim at all, as my actions will be telling, not my words. It’s about me and the way i feel, and it’s not a tool to be used to manipulate people. I will always have faults, but that burning anger inside me leaving will be dramatic enough without me needing to sell it.

So what you do when you acknowledge that wound is grieve and mourn it, very privately. Thankfully, Its a relatively quick process because mother nature has designed us to auto-healing and resilient. That’s where i am - working through what caused that wound and allowing it air to automatically heal after i’ve let the tears and fear out. It means stopping and facing the resulting silence for all the terrifying things it brings that i’ve run away from. To get to the darkest place and walk around it and own it. To look at those awful and traumatic things for what they are and let them pass through me instead of trying to push them down or deny they are there. You do terrible things in anger that are almost as crazy as what you can do when you’re terrified.

I don’t want to wound my son or daughter. I don’t want to scare the people i care about. I don’t want a church full of people at my funeral cursing my name for all the pain i’ve caused them. I will never be able to commit to the things i want to do if there is a part of me that is involved simply for the purposes of validation - that will lead to failure, i will never find the answer, and it would be dishonest. I want to be able to smile naturally without it feeling forced. I want those i love to feel safe and protected under my strength, and see the terror i inspire in those who threaten them. I want to be able to love someone fully and be vulnerable with them knowing i can actually trust them not to hurt me.

I’m pretty scared and not really looking forward to it, but it must be done. I have paid too high a price this year, one that i couldn’t actually pay like before. But courage is what you need when you are afraid and confidence comes afterwards. That darkness is mine and i will conquer it because it has domninated for too long. Not to prove anything to anyone, but to release me, from me. And when its done, then we really start and nothing will stop me because the world will never be enough. I will break down every fucking door in sight, one by one if i have to. No more hiding or being scared. I will walk into any darkness. And next time, it is what is in the darkness that will be scared.

And this is why i am so blessed. Imagine having friends that are as insightful, captivating and emotionally brilliant like my favourite Suz. It’s amazing what you can learn from the library that is the lives of others.

Suz says:
girls are just as bad as boys
Alex says:
yah but what’s their motivation? with boys its getting their end away…
Suz says:
the same for girls.  They get horny too and I think for some (well for me) its about control
Alex says:
thats very interesting - controlling men?
Suz says:
yeah it goes way back
Suz says:
used to think I wasn’t good enough and so I’d pull men that I thought were out of my league in an attempt to make myself feel better about myself…hence the control
Alex says:
did it work?
Suz says:
to a certain extent, sometimes it didn’t
Suz says:
and then it would move on from now i’ve pulled them, why don’t they want to go out with me
Alex says:
a never-ending trail
Suz says:
I should have been in therapy but I have managed to stop bein so stupid
Alex says:
when the problem was inside you and couldn’t be healed from outside
Suz says:
exactly. i’d blame the guys but then realised that it was me
Suz says:
all stemmed from an inferiority complex that I now no longer have as much
Suz says:
i realised I was doing it but it wasn’t until someone came along and actually wanted me for me that it didn’t become as much of an issue

Jenny said to me tonight that i do everything for power, status and ego, and i responded abruptly by correcting her wrong assumption. It’s about seeing children die in front of you and realising you have little time that may be snatched from you at any moment. It’s about living a life of significance that inspires and liberates others to do the same, and to show that nothing is impossible. It’s about wanting something more and having a greater cause to fight for, and overcoming what’s inside you and holding you back.

The road that led me here was dark, and it was painful. Life is about breaking things as much as it is about making them - breaking bonds that keep us tied, patterns we repeat, and pain that is passed down generations. In my case i had to learn the hard way and saw a lot of people get hurt in the process. And i can honestly say it was down to one person, but i can’t name them simply because doing so would make them think it was another attack and scare them even more. Its ironic as they think they have no worth or value whatsover, yet they are the only person who has been able to change me out of thousands of others just by being who they are.

Oh, and apparently my aura is as big as a house, green and has a red covering. Not sure what means, but i might just go and get it photographed in Putney soon.