Greetings and welcome to the Reclaim Me Introduction Series for Men.
The man beneath the rose.
Take a moment just to settle into your space.
Allow yourself to feel the support.
Of your feet on the floor.
You're back.
On the chair.
If someone asked you.
To describe yourself,
What would you say?
Would you talk about work?
Your responsibilities,
The people who depend on you.
Your position.
How much you're earning.
Your degrees.
The areas in which you're competent.
Perhaps you might say,
I'm a husband,
A father,
A provider.
A leader.
A protector.
An employee.
A business owner.
A coach.
And the truth is,
All these roles matter.
But they are not your whole story.
They don't.
Capture.
The full truth and essence of who you are.
Because beneath every roll.
Is a man.
A man with dreams,
With fears,
With needs,
With strengths,
With longings,
With desires.
With wisdom.
A man with a unique way of moving through the world,
Connecting with the world,
Being in the world.
And many men spend years,
Decades,
Carrying responsibilities,
The responsibilities of providing.
Of protecting.
Of performing,
Of achieving.
Holding things together.
For themselves and for others.
Solving problems.
Being the one that people rely on in times of challenge or difficulty.
And maybe somewhere along the way.
It can become very difficult to remember who you are.
Beyond what it is that you do.
The roll becomes louder.
Than the person.
Than you,
The one that's carrying it.
The expectations become louder than your own voice.
The responsibilities become heavier.
Than the life you imagined for yourself.
The life that you dreamed of.
The one that you envisioned.
And I'm gonna invite you just to take a moment right here,
Just to pause.
And just notice how that's landing in your system.
What's coming up for you?
What's bubbling to the surface?
And as you do this,
I'm going to invite you to consider.
This question.
Who am I?
Beneath everything.
That I carry.
Not what I do.
Not what I have accomplished.
Not what others expect of me,
What society expects from me,
What culture expects from me,
What my family expects from me.
Who am I?
And if you can,
Set aside the titles for right now.
Just for a moment.
If you can set aside the responsibilities for right now,
Just for a moment.
If you set aside the pressures to perform.
Right now,
Just for a moment.
What remains?
You may not have an answer immediately and that's okay.
Because this isn't a test.
It's an invitation.
It's an invitation to become curious.
About the man beneath the rose.
Reclaiming yourself.
Isn't about abandoning your responsibilities.
It's not about becoming someone different.
It's about remembering that you are more than what you produce.
More than what you achieve.
More than what you provide.
More than the burdens that you carry.
You are a human being.
Before you are a human doing.
And the man beneath the rose deserves to be known.
The man beneath the rose has a right to be known.
Allow that to sink in.
And see how your internal world responds to it.
Is it able to connect with it?
Is it resisting it?
Just notice what is coming up.
For today's reflection,
I'm going to invite you to consider this question.
Have I become?
While trying to be who everyone is.
Elf needed me to be.
Who have I become?
While trying to be who everyone else needed me to be.
And as you think about that,
If you would like to go a little bit deeper with it.
How do I feel about that?
How do I feel towards that?
Person that I've become.
In response to what everybody else needed.
I just want to thank you so much for being here today.
And I'm inviting you to remember.
The man that you're looking for?
Is not lost.
He's not.
He's probably not lost at all.
He may simply be waiting.
For your attention.
Waiting for you to reconnect with them.
Waiting for you to return.
Waiting for you.
To reclaim him.
Thank you so much and bye-bye for now.
