Lars: Well, Bianca can help you. She's got nurse's training. Gus: No she doesn't. That's because she's a plastic...thing. Lars: That's amazing. Did you hear that? Bianca said God made her to help people.
Lars: Well, Bianca can help you. She's got nurse's training. Gus: No she doesn't. That's because she's a plastic...thing. Lars: That's amazing. Did you hear that? Bianca said God made her to help people.
The No Woman Diet I undertook a month ago is nearing its completion. It’s been a trip! At times, I’ve felt like steam has been coming out of my ears. Or to use a picture Decker Cunov, co-founder of AMP, likes to use in the weekly teleseminars – I have felt the “snakes coming out of my eyes” (that’s an image from alchemy by the way).
I started out being totally relieved that I could allow myself to disengage from women completely. It was like I was given permission not to stress out about beautiful women in my surroundings. In fact, I was to ignore them completely. Pretty soon, passing a beautiful woman on the street didn’t trigger the hormonal cocktail of tension, longing and desire that I used to subtly feel. What a relief!
Then I started getting angry. I got pissed off that the recycling authorities of Oslo took away the only recycling container for plastic in my neighborhood. These guys are the ones who are supposed to help the environment. Fucking dimwits. I got mad and wrote them an angry e-mail, full of delicious swear words. I also got angry at the guy who smiled at me and wanted money for orphanages and I got mad at the woman who was selling shitty Tupperware at ridiculous prices. $50 for three small pieces of crappy Tupperware? Come on!
Random stuff just irked me big time. Then I got tired. REALLY tired. Like, I sleep more than usual, but I’m still fucking exhausted tired. I have no idea what happened. Was it because of weaned myself from refined sugar? Caffeine perhaps? Or was I simply feeling withdrawal symptoms from looking at beautiful women? I didn’t know. Still don’t. But processes were going on big time. I feel them still.
Then there was the confusion. What is allowed and what is not allowed? Was I too attached to the letter of the Diet and not tuned deeply enough into the spirit of it? Could I even speak to a woman without breaking my commitment? Could it be that my validation seeking behaviour was so insidious that merely opening my mouth in most situations triggered it? It turned out that the answer to that was a painful “Yes!”.
I started withdrawing into myself, conserving my energy, avoiding the hunt for validation altogether. I stopped engaging with random people as I moved about. No idle chit chat. This was edgy for me, because I’ve been a pleaser type. I’ve wanted to make people happy because I’ve been insecure about seeing them mad. This I’ve also understood.
But as time has passed on the Diet, I’ve become increasingly unconcerned with other people’s feelings. Sometimes I feel a bit badass about it. But then I realize it’s not about being badass – it’s about me being authentic. What arrogance to think I could ever be responsible for the emotional life of someone else! My responsibility is to protect my own emotional and psychological boundaries and then from there serve people.
There have been tears. The other day, I actually shed spontaneous tears of sorrow for myself. I have cried lots in my life, but rarely – if ever – for myself. The tears came after I had been smashing up my apartment real good after I tried anger release work for the first time.
Truth be told, there have been all kinds of trippy experiences, many of which I’ve not understood AT ALL.
But things have shifted lately. I’m finding that the anger is closely connected with my newfound ability to set much clearer boundaries. I’ve had no idea how much people have abused my boundaries in the past. In subtle ways – ways they’re not even aware of themselves probably. Women are especially good at this. Manipulating little vixens (I say that with love of course :-). But I will simply not allow people to compromise my boundaries anymore. This makes me feel much more powerful and filled with masculine vital force. And not afraid to be intense and even, if so required, angry.
Last night, I shared an amazingly rich evening with two of my buddies and in the middle of it, I had spontaneous strong emotion rise in me. What I became present to was that I didn’t miss the presence of a woman. Not even my ex. The moment was complete unto itself. Nothing was missing. Just guys, brothers on the path. And it was perfect. That realization really opened up my heart.
There are two weeks to go and I’m not entirely sure what it will be like to get off the Diet. Maybe I won’t get off it! Maybe not yet. Regardless of what I choose to do, I already sense I have reached a much more solid place in myself. I’m not fucking around and I won’t let others fuck around with me either. Not even in the subtle ways that most people take for granted. I have landed in the world and the grounding I have found is pulling people around me into presence as well. It’s edgy shit, but it feels good. And there is healing taking place. Deep and real healing. This is the gift of masculine intensity. This is the gift of masculine love.
I will do another report as the Diet comes to an end. This is important work, guys. Write me if you want to know more about this way of finding freedom.
Last weekend, my friend Peter Kessels took me to the American World War II memorial cemetery in the south of the Netherlands. I made a little video about my experience there.
As some of you may know, I’m on a program called the No Woman Diet. This is stirring my pot big time. One of the reasons is that I entered the NWD partly with the intention of allowing the bonds of emotional dependency between my ex and me to sever completely. That in itself is cause for some emotional distress. But the big thing – which I hadn’t anticipated AT ALL – is that the Diet is triggering some deep mother wounds in me.
I have realized now that I felt deprived of physical intimacy with my mother in very early years and that this made me feel unsafe and unlovable. This is pretty vulnerable shit, which is probably why I’ve covered it up with all kinds of distractions for all of my life, even using elements of machismo to avoid it. This mother wound also in part defined my choice of relationship partner: A healing, nurturing woman.
The heart strings that connect me to my ex are getting fewer and fewer. Every one that drops hurts a little. I’m in this strange situation where I’m encouraging and inspiring her to move on and find the next man while at the same time feeling some hurt from knowing that I will see her with another man very soon. There is this dual nature of mourning that which was and celebrating that which is allowed to take its place. It confuses me.
And while I’m on this No Woman Diet – totally deprived of feminine sources of comforting myself – and in the absence of a healing, nurturing woman as my life companion, I have become acutely aware of how much I desire validation and recognition from women, while I at the same time don’t want to work for it. This is fucking with me.
I don’t want to need that which I desire. Is that messed up or what? Maybe you’ve experienced it the same way: You are in the presence of a woman and you want to feel more intimate with her, but you feel that your need to be intimate with her disempowers you. This I’ve come to understand is a mother wound. You need her to empower you and make you feel whole and in that you recognize your own inherent lack of wholeness, which pretty much sucks to feel.
And when the woman, who I in a moment need for validation, starts moving away from me, I need her to stay, but I don’t want to belittle myself by begging for attention. So I become aloof, pretending I don’t care about her. This rabbit hole is deep!
It’s hard to become aware of this dynamic, but now that it’s in my awareness, I can enter into relationship with it, as Bryan Bayer of the Authentic Man Program keeps inspiring me to do in the teleseminars that are part of the NWD-course.
Anyone else care to share about their mother wound?
Today, I want to tell you about something that is very important to me. It has to do with my future and the future of this website and the work connected to it.
Last fall, I joined forces with my long-time mastermind partner Staale Nataas to set up a business selling The Portapad. It is a product that I’ve been a big fan of for a long time. It was developed by two of Staales’ friends and we are licensed resellers of it.
The Portapad is a small and lightweight inflatable laptop cushion that protects against harmful heat radiation. I use it all the time when I work on Masculinity Movies. It lets me recline on my couch and enjoy the work that I do here. After a long time of planning, Staale and I feel ready to present the product to a wider audience.
Now, why should you care. Two reasons:
The product is fantastic. It is super-comfortable and protects your family jewels from all the nasty heat radiation which a laptop emits.
It will bring me much needed cashflow, which will feed directly into my mission of helping men through this website and other work in the world.
This is not really a sales letter. It is a brief look into my life. The Portapad is my big plan for generating greater financial freedom for myself and I’m very intent on succeeding. So if you care about comfort and safety when using a laptop and you are interested in what I do here, why not have a look at the landing page we’ve set up for you and see if it is something for you?
Thank you for your interest, guys. This is a pretty big deal for me. This is my freedom business. Once I get it up and going, I will have more freedom to focus on my mission business: Men’s work.
By using this link, you will get a discount of £1 on the product.
After the first Masculinity Movies poll, you have all come together to choose Good Will Hunting as the next featured movie (after Last Temptation of Christ).
The votes were as follows:
Good Will Hunting: 3
The Fisher King: 1
Godfather part 1: 1
The Hurt Locker: 1
13th Warrior: 1
Thanks to those of you who voted. Expect to see a writeup on Good Will Hunting by mid to late June. A new poll is now up on the front page.
PS! The way this works from now on is that only the movies that are chosen through polls get the full treatment. I will publish other bite-sized reviews intermittently.
Register below and I’ll send you this *powerful* and much loved introduction to the masculine Archetypes (complete with exercises). I think you'll love it! – Eivind
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The No Woman Diet I undertook a month ago is nearing its completion. It’s been a trip! At times, I’ve felt like steam has been coming out of my ears. Or to use a picture Decker Cunov, co-founder of AMP, likes to use in the weekly teleseminars – I have felt the “snakes coming out of my eyes” (that’s an image from alchemy by the way).