How Mindfulness Can Help Men Improve Their Relationships

Geoff Bell-Devaney, M.Ed explains how mindfulness can help men discover a greater degree of vulnerability, authenticity, and connection in all of their relationships. In easy-to-understand and applicable ways, he shows how mindfulness techniques can shift old ways of interacting and broaden one's depth of awareness and empathy. He also explains how mindfulness can enable men to grow in understanding not only their own inner experiences but of those people they are in a relationship with, resulting in more heartfelt and meaningful connection.

Transcript

My name is Jeff Bell Devaney,

And today I want to talk about how mindfulness can help men discover a greater sense of connection,

Authenticity,

And fulfillment in all of their relationships.

And I think the first relationship that needs to be talked about is the most important one,

And that's the relationship with ourselves.

It's really the most important relationship because if we don't have a real sense of authenticity and connection with ourselves,

We can't have it with anybody else.

Unless we're being real with ourselves,

We can't be real with other people.

And unless we're being vulnerable with ourselves,

We can't be vulnerable with others.

And without authenticity,

A sense of realness and vulnerability,

It's really challenging to have any sense of true connection.

And that goes for the relationship that we have with ourselves.

The practice of mindfulness in many ways is designed to help us foster and create an authentic real relationship with ourselves.

You see,

The more that we can sit with ourselves and practice mindfulness meditation,

The more that we can begin to know ourselves and begin objectively seeing the reality of our situation.

And the more that we're able to be present with ourselves,

The more we're going to be able to understand our inner world and start embracing all of our emotions.

And this is going to lead us to not only greater understanding and connection with ourselves,

But with others as well.

But this might represent a major shift for many of us because inherently,

We don't want to acknowledge that we ever feel scared or are embarrassed or feel weak.

And until recently,

And there's a shift happening,

But in our society,

Men weren't allowed to acknowledge their emotions and their weakness.

For so long,

It's not been okay for men to be vulnerable or scared or lonely.

Yet as we begin practicing mindfulness and start building this mindful relationship with ourselves,

We're going to start to realize that not only is it okay to be fearful and weak at times,

But that in order to truly have an authentic relationship with ourselves and others,

We need to start truly acknowledging the reality of all of our inner experiences.

We need to start owning our vulnerability just as much as we're willing to own our strength.

And we need to own our weakness just as much as we're willing to own our success.

You see,

Many people and men in our society,

Especially,

Are living in relationships with themselves that are out of balance.

Many of us are living in ways that help us avoid acknowledging and integrating those parts of us that not only inherently feel uncomfortable and are hard for us to accept,

But that society has told us that we as men are not supposed to feel.

Yet as we become more mindful,

We can begin incorporating more of the true reality of the human experience.

We can begin to acknowledge more of the full spectrum of all of the emotions that we inherently feel as human beings.

And it's important to realize that by doing this,

By embracing all of those emotions that we have for so long been told that it's not okay to feel,

By doing that,

We in no way diminish our strength.

And this is really,

Really important to understand,

Especially for men.

You see,

The more that we practice mindfulness and begin to build an authentic relationship with ourselves,

The more we become willing to acknowledge our weaknesses and our vulnerability.

Yet by doing this,

Again,

It in no way diminishes our strength.

It just makes us more whole.

By acknowledging our weakness,

We don't shift away from reducing our strength per se,

But we do,

In exciting and profound ways,

Really change the way that we're able to relate to ourselves and others.

As we become more mindful and begin allowing all of our inner experiences to be present and really start acknowledging their validity,

We can slowly begin to allow this previously hidden part of us,

All the fear and weakness,

To become slowly integrated within us.

And by doing this,

We're going to be able to relate to the world in ways that are more real and more authentic.

And when we can relate to the world in that way,

We're coming from a place of wholeness and groundedness and true strength,

Because we're not acting in ways where we have to always feel powerful or always be right.

You see,

As we begin mindfully accepting all of our emotions,

We can begin acknowledging that we don't always feel strong and that we're not always right.

And by doing that,

We not only begin living in a place of greater openness and groundedness,

But we actually allow ourselves to begin tapping into all of the authenticity and vulnerability and wisdom that's held within all of those emotions that we have for so long refused to acknowledge.

You see,

When we're so cut off,

When we're living in ways where we think we have to always be strong and always be confident and always be right,

Then invariably,

All of the emotions that we don't want to accept,

They just remain hidden and stuffed away and unacknowledged,

Even though they're a very normal and healthy part of our human experience.

And society for so long has reinforced this belief that men have to be cut off from inherently natural parts of themselves,

That we have to always be strong,

And that it's not okay to acknowledge or accept our fear and our weakness and all of those other totally normal emotions that are within all human beings.

But when we live like society has told us to,

When we ignore those uncomfortable parts of ourselves and refuse to acknowledge them,

We're living fractured.

And when we're living fractured,

What tends to happen is that we only act in ways where we're going to feel strong and we only act in ways where we're going to be right.

We only act in ways where we're not going to have to feel any of that embarrassment or weakness or shame or any of those multitude of other things that are inherently part of the human experience.

But if we can slowly begin becoming mindful to the reality of the full spectrum of our inner world and all of our emotions,

Both those that we want to experience and those that we don't,

We're going to be able to engage in life in a way that's more authentic and real and whole and vulnerable and connected.

And by beginning to acknowledge the full spectrum of our inner experience,

We can start to have a real and honest connection with ourselves.

And as we start to have a true connection with ourselves,

We can also begin to have that true connection with others.

Because unless we're being real with ourselves,

It's really difficult to have a fulfilling connection with another person.

If we're in a place of needing to always feel strong and always win and always be right,

And we're not able to share our vulnerability or weakness with ourselves or others,

Then it's really hard to truly let other people into our lives and have an authentic connection with them.

Because if we always have to be in control,

If we always have to be strong and always be right,

There's not much room for anybody else.

There's no room for anybody else to be in an authentic relationship with us when we're living in that small place inside of us,

When we're only willing to have the courage or awareness to acknowledge in effect half of our emotions and those of other people.

If we're in a relationship with ourselves,

That's really,

Really fractured.

We can't be in a connected relationship with anybody else.

Unless we have a true connection with ourselves,

We can't have a true connection with another human being.

And so the relationship that we have with ourselves directly affects our ability to have a relationship with someone else.

And the way that we can start to build a truly authentic relationship with ourselves is to begin a mindfulness practice that allows us to become more aware of our inner world.

And by doing this,

We can begin to learn how to start objectively acknowledging and letting in all of those emotions that have for so long been challenging and uncomfortable for us to accept.

By practicing mindfulness,

We can begin allowing all of the different parts of us to be present.

Even those parts of us that we've been told for so long not to accept,

Even those parts of us can become part of our experience once again.

And in that practice,

We can start to become whole.

And as we become whole,

We can start to feel more at peace and we can start to become more connected with ourselves.

Because we're literally connecting to more parts of ourselves,

Right?

Because connection means touch points.

Like when we're living in societies told us that men must live and are only willing to acknowledge part of the full spectrum of our inherently natural human experience,

We're not truly connecting with ourselves.

Yet those parts of us,

The fear and weakness and vulnerability,

All of that stuff is normal to experience.

Okay?

We're humans.

We feel it.

Even though for so long we were told that it wasn't okay to do so.

But by believing that myth,

We unfortunately allowed ourselves to be cut off from having any true connection and fulfilling relationships with ourselves and others.

But as we can slowly start to mindfully accept whatever we find within us,

We can settle into ourselves and start to realize that to be human means to,

You know,

Feel the whole spectrum of our emotions.

And from this place of acceptance,

We can start to feel way more connected to ourselves and others because we won't just need to always be right or act in ways that leave us feeling strong and in control.

We can start becoming more vulnerable and truly let life and other people into our lives in real and connected ways.

As we continue practicing being more mindful,

We're going to be able to shift in ways that create a more real relationship with ourselves.

And in so doing,

We're going to be able to connect with others as well in much deeper,

Authentic and meaningful ways.

And so mindfulness as a tool for relationships is huge.

It helps us form a true relationship with ourselves.

It helps us understand who we are and it helps us let go of that false belief that society has ingrained in us for so long that it's not okay as men to embrace the full spectrum of our human experience.

And as we become more mindful,

We can begin to liberate ourselves from many of the unconscious influences that are driving our lives and begin living in ways that are more real and integrated.

We can become better able to embrace the full spectrum of the human experience and in so doing begin having a much greater connection with ourselves.

And as we begin to create that depth and connection with ourselves,

We can begin to find it in our relationships with others as well.

And as we continue to become more mindful,

Then those relationships in turn become more authentic and vulnerable.

They become more real and deep and rewarding.

And it's that true connection with ourselves and others that mindfulness can provide that gives life a true sense of fulfillment and vibrancy.