(Trigger warning: reference to violence towards women)

Most women I know have been on a journey at some point or currently in their lives of integrating the anger and the shame of their own boundaries being violated. Everything from rape to the various ways in which men have taken without consent.

Many men (heterosexual in particular) I know are integrating immense guilt and self-hatred for the ways they have violated, used and disrespected women in the past. They are learning to take responsibility for what they have done.

Many men are dancing with how to embrace their own masculine desire and sense of purpose while staying in a place of respect and consent. I see confusion, self-doubt, guilt, shame and tenderness—and I recognize that this is a difficult topic for many men to speak about because of the guilt and the fear of judgment. Many men meet this with defensiveness, protecting their unrealized vulnerability and unconsciously perpetuating more violence.

The reality of men violating women and how this has been socially supported for several thousand years is REAL. It is painful and difficult for everyone in coming to terms with this, but it is necessary and important that all this is coming out now. We still have a very long way to go in just women feeling safe to express their truth and men humbling their egos enough to just listen.

And yet the violence of men towards women has its roots in something far deeper than external relations.

The suppression of the feminine is something that happens first and foremost, within. Patriarchy is a wound for all souls – for the feminine lives within and without. Most men in this world carry a long-standing karmic conditioning to not be in relationship to their internal space. To not nurture and care for the most delicate parts of their own being that need to feel safe, that need to feel loved and cared for. Where men have violated and ignored women is where they have also violated and ignored the internal feminine. What is denied on the inside becomes distorted on the outside.

For thousands of years men have been violating themselves. They have been acting, thinking, doing without consent or respect for their whole being. Men have repressed, shamed, pushed away and mocked the parts of themselves that have needed the most care and attention. And these parts have not gone away – they have continued to scream for attention, for recognition, for integration. Collectively, men have not known how to respond to these screams and have projected their disowned, feared, hated, shamed inner feminine being onto women.

Healing is complete not just when we make right what we have done to others. It is complete when we make right what we have done to our own selves. Until we all come to terms with our own inner divisions, we will still perpetuate the same external violence and violations to some extent. We can’t try hard enough to separate the inner from the outer and succeed. It’s not possible.

I am a man that has have violated women’s boundaries. I have introduced sexual agenda when it was not invited. I have not cared to nurture and honor what was of greatest wellbeing for the women I have been in relation with. I am deeply sorry for this, and I carry grief and remorse in my heart for the ways I have acted over many years since my teen years to the current age and surely through many lifetimes. I pray and am committed to continue to grow in the ways of consent, respect, care, awareness.

And my journey of grief and desiring to bring healing to where there has been hurt and violation only takes me deeper to the source: to reconnect with the parts of myself that has been long violated, denied and forgotten. My greatest journey in this life is one of cultivating relationship to the beloved within; deepening care for the sacred parts of me that I have long violated, shamed and feared.

I am a man that is learning that to embody, honor and express my emotions. I am remembering that I have human needs that are deserving of my care and attention and that I am allowed and safe to be vulnerable and ask for what I need and how I need to be cared for. I am learning about my boundaries and that I need not feel shame for taking the time to listen for them. I am remembering to be delicate, sensitive and caring to my whole self and to invite my relations to meet me in this place of respect. I am mending and bringing loving awareness to the parts of me that I have denied since I was a child. The parts of me that have not felt safe, that have been hidden away and isolated. I am humbled and grateful to be learning more about and restoring relationship to my whole self every day.

Men, the deepest answer to showing up and being a safe space for women is in first and foremost being a safe space for you. Our relationship to the outside is a pure mirror of our relationship to the inside. Studying this is something that runs deep and deep and deep, it never stops revealing itself. The shame and guilt, the confusion and anger – these need our tending. We deserve to show up for these places within us.

The difficult thing for many men, as is the nature of guilt, is there is a tendency to deny self-love because to do so would seemingly imply a self-pardoning and dismissal of what one has done. Where there have been wrongs and violations (with the exception of socio or psychopathic psychology), upon becoming self-aware of one’s actions and what one has done to another, the hardest thing for the violator to do is to treat their own self with respect and care. The distorted psychology here being the belief that one does not deserve to be loved. And yet this is the very core of where the healing is most called for.

This is the truth I wish to share. I feel this is a vast topic that calls for so much more dialog. I want to be clear that I am by no means speaking about the healing of the inner feminine within men as a dismissal of showing up and listening to women. Nor is it to imply that women don’t have a right to be angry. One does not negate the other. I merely wish to bring attention to the inner space which is so often missed in this (read: all) dialog(s). I also want to acknowledge clearly that I have languaged my communication towards hetero men as this is the predominate population that has perpetuated the world-wide distortion and violation of the feminine. This being said, everything is everything.

Prayers for care, gentleness, compassion and forgiveness. To our own selves so that we may treat one another with great respect and care and build a world rooted in safety and nurturing. I feel that is the will of evolution, it is where life is leading us and we are unfolding together in this time of great healing.

Photo: Kat Jayne/Pexels