The Pact of Silence
Men conspire in a pact of silence whose goal is to suppress their emotional truth.
It’s an unwritten yet, widely understood, tacit agreement.
Share just enough of your emotional self to maintain romantic, family, personal, and professional relationships.
Avoid vulnerability.
Never cross the line.
Never overshare; keep it bottled up.
Live on the surface; never dive below.
Our fathers (many born during the Great Depression and World War II) learned from their fathers (who experienced the Great Depression and World War II as adults), for the most part, led emotionally quiet lives.
And they expected us to do the same.
Men keep how they’re genuinely feeling shoved down in the recesses of their bodies.
We do this to the detriment of our deepest desires.
Man yearns for purpose, meaning, fulfillment, peace, and freedom.
This pact of silence is the antithesis of what we most desire; it’s a prison cell of our own design.
We don’t own what we hide; what we hide owns us.
And what we hide up doesn’t disappear; it runs silently in the background pulling the puppet strings of our lives.
Many men spend the 1st half of their lives subject to the pulling of puppet strings.
They chase anything and everything outside of themselves to feel complete.
Have you ever stopped and wondered why that job title matters so much to you?
Why the next rung on the corporate ladder is so important?
The status-seeking materialism?
Chasing is a dynamic that cuts two ways; we run towards something while simultaneously running away from something.
We’re running from our truest selves.
We’re running from our unfulfilled dreams and what we’re uniquely capable of creating.
Within the inflection point between the 1st and 2nd half of our lives resides one of the most critical choices we’ll ever have to make.
Will we continue the chase?
Or will we step off the golden treadmill and become the creators of our extraordinary 2nd half?
Becoming the creator of your extraordinary life requires vulnerability.
It requires vulnerability to say,
“I’m existing, not living.”
“I’m afraid of never fulfilling my true potential.”
“I’m financially and materialistically success and woefully unfulfilled.”
“I have unfulfilled dreams, and I’m afraid to pursue them, and I don’t know how.”
“I feel guilty for wanting purpose, meaning, and fulfillment when I already have so much.”
What we’ve been conditioned to avoid is the key to our desire.
Vulnerability is a key to inner peace and emotional freedom.
Here are 4 powerful questions to begin your vulnerability journey:
- Are you settling?
- Do you know what you want?
- Are you living a life that’s authentic to you?
- Are your actions in alignment with who you are and who you want to become?
A gentle reminder, there are no wrong answers. The only way to make an error is to avoid the questions.
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