… And I’m going to tell you!
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Everybody has that favorite relative. Dangerous, but fun. Once a year, he (or she) shows up at the family gathering, gets drunk, and blurts out all the wrong things. Quite possibly I’m that guy in my family. Except for the “get drunk” part. I don’t need to get drunk to be fun and dangerous 😉
In the Hallmark Holiday family, that guy is Uncle Valentine. Once a year we brace for his visit. It’s a gift for the economy, but for most of us, kneeling on rice is better. Unless you’re in love, its as much fun as a Rubik’s Cube. If you’re in a relationship that’s gone cold, you white-knuckle your way through this. If your relationship is undefined, you’re forced into…something. If you’ve suffered a recent break-up, don’t worry, Hallmark has you covered. There’s a whole section for that called the wine bar. If you’re single, you brace for the onslaught like prepping for a hurricane: shutter the windows of your mind, it’ll all be over soon.
Many people begin looking for that Valentine months in advance. The shot gets fired before Santa even shows up. On your mark, get set, SEARCH!
There’s a library the size of Canada to help you win this race. In September 2012, Jeff Brown’s pen did a magic trick and turned into Nadia Comaneci. She jumped up and began tumbling like a butterfly in the clouds. Flic-Flac, when she was done, Jeff had penned a brilliant article called, “What is an Awakening Man?” A virtuoso.
The judges stood up and applauded. Rumor has it that Simon Cowell began to sob.
10.0—10.0—10.0—10.0—10.0—10.0—10.0
Jeff Brown is a man waltzing in style with the awakening process. His article dropped a rainbow on our heads. And everyone knows there’s always a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The most interesting hue in that arc, though, was the stream of comments that followed. A chorus of women singing,
- “Where’s the gold?”
- “Where can I find such a man?”
- “Where are they?”
Kinda reminded me of Clara Peller, the “Where’s the Beef” lady who got famous for asking a simple question. All our lives most of us are busting our asses to get ahead, and Ms. Peller becomes famous for asking the one question women have been asking in a million different tongues for a million different years:
“Where’s the beef?”
Of course, her winning streak ended the day she announced — for another franchise — “I’ve finally found the beef”. I mean, we ALL want to say that. But if you’re just scooping up gold, you’re stuck looking again. You become a professional “seeker”.
A multi-billion dollar industry has been organized around “seekers”. 41 Million Americans are currently on dating sites searching for “the beef”. You see a lot of them lurking in places like Match.com, eHamony, OK Cupid, and (yes, hush hush loud as you can) Ashley Madison. Then there is Tinder, which measures “swipes” to the right vs. “swipes” to the left: 1.2 Billion
That’s a lot of Clara Peller.
Word on the street is that “all the good men are taken.’ Enter Ashley Madison 😉
The great big search is a scam. Do all the affirmations you want, pretty up your vision board, and tell your master mind group you want an “Awakening Man”. It doesn’t matter. When the navigation system hears that, it acts all drunk, spinning you around in circles until you slap it. Where is Big Brother when you need him? By the time you’re interested in this kind of article:
- You’ve probably already done years of work on yourself.
- You’ve broken free of the old conditioning,
- You’ve been through your therapy,
- You’ve liberated yourself from the old school thing you tried.
- You’ve let go of trying to please your parents,
- Maybe you’ve already raised your own fine children.
Here you are now.
Powerful in the midst of your own awakening, and you wonder, where is the man who can support — and share— this unfolding with me? So, in between yoga classes and trips to Whole Foods, you look. You think,
“Maybe I can find him at a MKP (ManKind Project) gathering, or maybe a 12 step meeting.”
Maybe you’re checking out that dude in Hard-As-Hell-Asana, your drishti wandering the room like a drunk monkey, you wonder if he’s single….
Fix your dang drishti back on the tip of your nose!
You still don’t find him.
When you see a rainbow doing summersaults in the sky (like Jeff Brown), you naturally scramble around a bit trying to find that gold. Leprechauns thinking they can smell color.
Where’s the Beef?
I know a lil’ something about where the beef is. I’ve been shaking myself awake for decades. The shake awake takes a sustained, sincere effort, will, and intention to shake oneself out of a bad dream. The falling-back-asleep part is as easy as, well, swiping to the left. Only the rare exceptions don’t fall back asleep again. For us mortals, falling asleep is the prerequisite for a subsequent awakening. Forget this idea that there’s only “one” awakening.
Awakening is a process
A wave that never reaches any shore
A wave happy being a wave.
A wave doesn’t aim.
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Be melting snow.
Wash yourself
of yourself. – Rumi
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Seekers are aimers, and aimers are sleepers. We seek a while to realize that “A”iming and ” B”eing are letters in different alphabets. For over 20 years I’ve laughed, cried, and worked with some of the most emotionally intelligent, spiritually alive, socially conscious men in the world. Many men find themselves gravitating together once they begin to wake up from the sleep of addiction. Or, better said, the addiction to sleep. Who doesn’t love to sleep, especially when things get dicey?
- The 12 apostles supposedly couldn’t stay awake just before Jesus’ arrest.
- Rip Van Winkle decided to skip the entire American Revolution.
- Even Dorothy had to fall asleep just before her transformation.
Falling into slumber seems to be part of the recipe. Don’t mess with the recipe!
Now you’re wondering, when is this guy gonna get to the part about where the beef is? What’s your rush, kid? 😉
Can you watch a rainbow singing in the sky without chasing it? Because the awakening man isn’t. Chasing. Anything. He’s a man who ain’t dazzled by rainbows in the sky. He knows the treasure is buried in the earth of the HEART. And there’s no value in it unless its OPEN.
So, while you are looking for him, he’s busy giving birth — pushing out some gift for the universe. There’s only one place you can find this kind of man:
within the sanctuary of your own personal practice.
The awakening man lives in a non-local realm where all awakening occurs. Not a “place”. A state of consciousness. Where all the dust balls gather. Can you be such a spec of dust?
Star dust, maybe?
Drop the idea that this is just “new-age drivel”. Cynicism causes wrinkles 😉 The commercialization of the “Laws of Attraction” dumbed down an important life science. Long before Mr. F-kg Manifest Millions sleazed the world with “The Secret” and its subsequent action figure dolls, the prophet Hazrat Inayat Khan said,
“Whoever understands the mystery of vibrations indeed knows all things.”
You don’t find an awakening man in a place. You find him within your own awakening. You find him on your own mat, or your own practice of loving yourself. You might be thinking this is B.S. , that you’re “better than” the men you’ve been with because they behaved badly. Don’t hurt yourself with that sad song anymore.
Newsflash: We don’t attract a partner who behaves as well as we do. We attract the one we believe (not “think”, believe) we deserve.
Here’s a free tip, because I’m generous like that: any breath wasted on how “all the good men are taken (or otherwise extinct)” distorts your own vibration and takes you out of the zone where awakening men congregate. That kind of talk is root chakra-speak for “not enough”, most effective if you want to meet orcs. If you want to find awakening men, you’ve got to lift your thinking, feeling, and language above “not enough”. There’s more than enough. Every man you see is a King unfolding. Even if he doesn’t know it yet. Its just a matter of time.
No matter what your history is, no matter your judgements, every man is in the process of trying to figure out how to pick the lock to that treasure. Trust me, a man will break his own heart a zillion times before surrendering the fight. Won’t you? Pray for a heart so soft it can’t break anymore. When you do finally surrender, you start landing perfect 10.0’s.
All the 10’s hang out in the same club. Don’t waste your time looking elsewhere. In fact, don’t waste your time looking. Retire from Seeking. You’re Found.
Just focus on your practice.
And count your change.
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Feature Photo: Dan Terzian/Flickr, Rubic’s Cube: jordanfischer/Flickr, Where’s the Beef: Wikimedia Commons, Hands: Håkan Dahlström/Flickr
TL;DR: Women quitcher entitled bitchin’ about “no good men” – and work on your own shit instead.
Loved this piece. Lots to think about, giggle about and ponder over. Very pithy, witty and wise! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Tammy! Glad you enjoyed it!
Jesus took along Peter and the two brothers, James and John, he didn’t take all 12 apostles