Talk: Skillfully Respond To Toxic Masculinity

Abuse of power, deception, and control. How do you deal with it mindfully? What are some practical steps you can take? Here I share seven steps to creating a new response system to bullies and narcissists. We need to learn these skills now more than ever. Bullies need to be called out. They thrive in secrecy and when you stay silent. What's really needed is transparency and full disclosure. It's important to share your side of the story. Your awareness, your voice, your experience needs to be shared.

Transcript

Hi everyone.

Talking today about a very important topic,

Toxic masculinity.

This can also refer to patriarchy,

Narcissism,

Systemic racism,

Sexism.

There's much of what we're seeing today in leadership around the world and I'm going to share with you seven mindful steps that you can practice when you are confronted with abuse,

Abuse of power,

When you're confronted with bullying,

Domination,

Gaslighting,

All the things that go into dealing with somebody who is engaging in toxic masculinity,

Which could be woman or man,

Because even a woman can take on a patriarchal mindset.

I guess I'm going to just call them,

To make it easy,

Bullies or abusers.

The way they get away with their behavior is that one,

It remains hidden.

So oftentimes when people are doing bad things,

It's behind the scenes.

They isolate the people that they are targeting and they also will deny any claims that you have against their dysfunction and forms of gaslighting saying,

What are you talking about?

I don't understand.

And they make you feel like the crazy one.

They make you feel like the one who's out of place.

So really the first most important step when you're dealing with toxic masculinity is to recognize fully that it's happening,

To stop and sit with it.

When you have this going on in your space,

And I want to share a story because I live in a part of Hawaii in a development where there currently is fraud and it's being driven by toxic masculinity.

And the pattern that I keep seeing is control,

Deception and domination.

So if you as a homeowner,

As a person,

Have a question,

You will be met with resistance.

You will be met with a lawyer who tries to intimidate you and bully you and shut you down.

And this is something that is currently in the space where I am.

And I think it's so reflective of what's happening in our society today with the US elections and everything that we experience on so many levels with toxic masculinity,

Anything to do with control,

Deception,

Abuse of power.

So this has been a wonderful opportunity for me to meditate and see all that's happening and to be honest and to confront this honestly.

And the first step is to recognize when it's happening.

Become aware that it's happening for yourself.

Awareness is healing.

Awareness opens a door.

It's powerful.

And I'm going to talk a little bit more about how you can work with this awareness skillfully when you are outing toxic masculine behavior.

And that's a very important part of this process is calling it out.

So one,

Fully recognize that what you're facing is toxic masculinity,

Naming it,

Writing about it and being present with it.

I highly recommend this.

That's the first step.

Be present with it because guess what?

This dark energy doesn't like presence.

It seeks the presence,

But it hates the presence.

So bringing full presence to it is so important.

It's part of the healing process.

It's part of the transformational process because what happens when we're faced with abuse and domination is that we become afraid.

And that's the second step is to become aware of all of the feelings and the fear and your response to toxic masculinity.

So that's the second step is to become fully aware of your own emotional response,

Your physical response,

Your mental response.

Perhaps that includes judgments about this kind of behavior or memories about this type of behavior,

What it's triggering for you.

Because the way toxic masculinity takes root in power is that it tries to bully,

Right?

Intimidation and force.

So we have to sit with very intimately our own fears of being targeted,

Of being persecuted,

Of being attacked,

Whatever that means to you when you are being confronted with this kind of energy.

What is coming up for you and what's the worst fear that you have?

I think it's so important to contemplate this fully.

What is that worst fear that you could die?

But bring it to the surface of your awareness because when those fears are latent,

When they're just back there and they're ambiguous,

They have power.

They have unnecessary power.

So as soon as you start calling out very specifically what's happening for you and raising your own self-awareness around this,

It starts the healing process.

So you are going to become aware of this,

Maybe aware of tendencies that you have within yourself where you've been a bully and you've attacked other people,

Whatever that might be.

You're going to really sit with it.

And when you sit with it,

Contemplate where does this toxic masculinity come from?

Where does it come from?

Because we want to look at the other not as an enemy but as another human being.

Another human being who has gone through harsh and intense experiences in order to be channeling that kind of behavior in the world.

So that comes from a very wounded place.

When you're dealing with people with toxic masculinity,

They have a diseased soul and it's something that's very important to recognize and to fully look at and to understand why they're coming from the place that they're coming from.

They have experienced abuse.

They have experienced control.

They have experienced domination.

That's what they know and that's what they project outwards.

They've suffered and they've had the pain of that suffering.

And they're unconsciously projecting it outwards,

Blaming other people for their pain,

Controlling other people to make them feel better,

To make them feel more secure.

So it's really important that we recognize that sitting with all of that.

That's the second step.

The third step is to remember.

Remember who you are,

Who you really are.

You are a powerful spirit.

You cannot be controlled.

You cannot be sublimated.

You cannot be limited unless you agree to it by the other.

You are a powerful soul beyond imagination.

Your spirit is eternal.

It's infinite.

It's pure grace and you are capable of anything.

You are capable of miracles.

You are capable of changing anything that is in your current present moment.

You have that ability.

You have that power and you have the power of choice.

And even more than that,

You have the power of speech.

And it all starts with the power of awareness.

So that leads to the fourth step.

The fourth step is calling it out completely.

Voicing your experience fully as your experience.

You don't have to worry about how the bully or the narcissist is going to take what you have to express.

The important thing is that you express it.

So in my case,

What I did is I wrote a letter and I said specifically I noticed this pattern of control,

Deception,

And domination.

And I listed specific examples next to each of those patterns of behavior.

I outed them specifically.

And I can't tell you just from what I experienced in myself how liberating that was to actually say what was happening.

To express the real pink elephant in the room and to talk about it openly.

Because now when they engage in that behavior of pattern,

It's already been called out.

It's already been named.

It's already been recognized.

And it loses its power.

It loses its hold and its grip.

Because the way it stays in power,

Remember,

Is through silence.

It's very insidious.

It's allowed to exist because nobody's willing to fully bring it out into the light.

So expressing very clearly your experience of what's happening is vital.

And it's healthy.

It's healthy for you.

And I feel it's a gift for the other to receive.

Because perhaps this person has never heard that kind of feedback.

And what a gift is it to share your true experience?

There's no wrong or right.

There are human experiences.

And sometimes people really don't know the full effect of their actions and their behaviors.

So saying very clearly what your experience is starts a dialogue with the other person.

And having that intention to just be in your own truth,

To speak your own truth.

Because that's how a bully wins is that they silence you.

That's how they have that power.

And the moment you agree to that silence,

You become complicit in their actions and behaviors.

And I can tell you that once I say something,

It's almost a reverse effect.

Usually we don't say something because we want to stay safe.

And we want to stay hidden.

We don't want to be in the limelight.

We don't want to be targeted.

But the moment I do say something,

At least for myself,

I feel safer.

Because now that energy isn't leading the show.

It isn't the one that's in power.

So calling it out very specifically what's happening is really important.

And that could,

Of course,

Trigger a reaction from the bully.

And that's okay.

Because here is the next fifth step that you will have in place,

Perhaps even before you decide to call it out.

And that's accountability and transparency.

Accountability,

Transparency,

Full disclosure.

That means make sure that you've got your network of people who know what is happening.

They are people,

Perhaps they're your friends,

Perhaps they're colleagues,

But they know what's going on.

They are sharing in this awareness with you.

And that awareness is powerful.

It might not be something you see,

But it's something that can be felt.

Even by the perpetrator,

They can start to feel that growing,

Expanding awareness.

So having very strong accountability by making things completely transparent and telling the perpetrator,

The bully,

That it will be made fully transparent and be made fully disclosed.

So anything that they do now is recorded,

Documented,

Shared.

And that's how we are seeing justice happen today is that people are recording videos,

They're saving emails,

They're redistributing them.

They're posting them on the internet.

And that was also one approach that I took,

Is I said,

If this continues,

I'm going to go ahead and make it public because people need to know and other people need to see what's happening,

Especially other people who are involved in this.

So make it transparent.

That is where a bully cannot survive and live and engage in the same behavior because even they know that what they are doing is wrong.

If a bigger awareness,

If a bigger light is brought to them,

Even they know that.

Have those strong boundaries.

So within that context,

Express what your boundary is.

Tell them what's okay and what's not okay.

What you will accept and what you won't accept and what those consequences are.

So for example,

If you do this,

Then I will call this organization.

You express very clearly what your boundaries are and you have to act on those boundaries.

That's also very important.

No empty threats or anything like that.

It's a healthy,

Clear boundary that you're expressing and that you're willing to act upon.

And when you do this,

You step deeper and deeper into your own authentic power and you will feel it.

You'll feel more embodied,

You'll feel more centered and present because you are facing the task at hand.

You are facing what's in your present moment fully.

And I think that's so important.

We can't heal toxic masculinity all over the world,

But we can heal what comes into our present moment,

What comes into our lives,

What gets presented in front of us.

We can take action on that and that's where the real healing medicine is,

One to one is healing.

When you heal that with one other person,

That creates a new circuitry and a new energy inside yourself and you will feel that connection and that power.

Number six.

Oh shoot,

Okay.

So what number am I on?

Tell people.

So that's the other part.

That's part of the transparency.

Create a network and a community of people that know what you're going through.

And some people call this holding space for somebody.

Ask them or tell people what's happening so that they have the awareness.

They don't need to do anything,

But they can hold that intention for you that there is divine justice or balance or integrity that comes out of that.

And just again,

That awareness that is shared is powerful.

It's a subtle tool,

But it works.

I've noticed that when I've talked to my friends about issues that are happening,

Even when I'm just talking about it in the moment,

It changes in that moment.

So I'll get the email or the phone call in the moment that I'm speaking about it with someone who's really willing to hear and to listen.

So that is a powerful tool is to share that awareness.

And then lastly,

Take positive action.

Take that action.

Today I think we have this idea about healing being soft and shanti and roses and sweet.

It is that.

It's a sweet,

Safe sanctuary,

But it's also fierce.

And what we need today is spiritual warriorship,

Not just a soft,

Nurturing held space,

But also spiritual warriorship,

The willingness to take action,

Because that's what's needed in our humanity today.

We cannot just sit back and passively avoid conflict.

By avoiding conflict,

We avoid deeper levels of health.

We avoid true peace and we avoid the truth.

And what's really needed sometimes is conflict and war or that kind of battle energy in order to set the energy at a higher place,

To have a greater level of health and function.

Otherwise we stay in the dysfunction of toxic masculinity and allowing toxic masculinity to run the show.

So if you are dealing with any of this,

Be sure to call out specifically what you experience as systemic racism,

Sexism,

Discrimination,

And document very carefully all of your experiences and write about them to the perpetrator and to the people who are around you or your community or the organizations that can support you in your cause.

So you are creating a network of awareness in that way.

And this is what I feel that we need.

We need to be able to come together to collaborate and network to really bring through the healing medicine and at the same time not allow toxic masculinity to run the show.

We can't expect to change somebody who is of that mindset.

You know,

That's a very high expectation,

But the way we deal with them can be different.

And that is where their learning experience can come from because maybe they haven't dealt with somebody the way you're dealing with it.

And the key is to stay present,

Stay fully present to that toxic masculine energy because by being present with it,

There is a transformation.

There is an alchemy that happens when you're willing to slow it down and be fully,

Fully present and aware with everything that's happening and to not only accept it,

But to take skillful action about it.

Reviews

Wow ! So sorry that happened to you ! I am glad you were strong to stand up to the bully and call it what it was . Thank you for sharing your experience and the wisdom that you shared . ❤️❤️❤️🙏🙏🙏🕊️❤️🕊️

Timely wisdom for times with toxic bullies. Thank you ☯️

These were incredibly valuable tips shared. Thanks you!! 💛

Great tips. 🙏

Very helpful. Thank you🙏

Greetings from Stockholm🇸🇪
Thank you. This was most helpful. While I don't always sit and contemplate but go straight to the confrontation I'm learning🙂 and you are so right about once it's out in the open it helps others in a group for instance to see what kind of dynamics that's occurring and to find courage to speak their minds. It makes both the individuals and the group stronger eventually.
Kindly,
Marita

Excellent points! ✨ Thank you very much!💗🙏🌷

Thank you!

Thank you i

Excellent, very informative. It made so much sense on a deep gut level and you explained it better than I have ever heard it before. Actually,,,you NAILED it. Thank you for sharing your guidance and your insight. 🙏🙏🙏☮☮🕯🏔🌲🕯🏔🦋🦋

This was incredibly helpful, thank you. ❤️🙏🏻🌈

Thank you so much for truthfully discussing this very important topic with clarity and insights that are positive for all.

Excellent talk and action plan on how to take control in dealing with aggressive personality types in all the forms that may present them selves in. This should be taught in schools and colleges. Let’s make a more emotionally -intelligent -aware next-generation.

Very clear and string and inclusive and compassionate; I can use and adapt this structure. Thank you.

This is one of the most valuable lessons available to everyone encountering toxic masculinity. I will share this with everyone dear to me. That powerful!

very helpful indeed! thank you so much Sura :-)

Brilliant. Should be a required course in elementary schools.

So strengthening, stabilizing, affirming. clarifying my thoughts and personal role of healer and warrior. thanks so much