Joys and Agonies of Awakening and Healing the Male Soul

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30 November 1999
Posted in Spirituality

JOYS AND AGONIES OF AWAKENING AND HEALING THE MALE SOUL
By Frank Cardelle

Author: Frank Cardelle"Why Daddy?", "Why Daddy?", did you try to kill me?", came the anguished voice from the three year old boy deep from inside of me. As I listened, the pained memories of my father's rejection of me flashed in my mind like a 3-D movie. All those times when I reached out for his love, only to be ignored, put down and often punished. My gut ached. I wanted to vomit as the held-in tears of thirty-five years began streaming, down my face. I felt numb all over".

What I have described comes from one of my own therapy sessions when I was working on the healing of an earlier event when my father backed over me with a tractor, crushing my head into the ground. While it was an accident, it wasn't that easy to convince the little boy in side of me that his father did not premeditate his death. Try and provide him with the adult logic that is countered by his own child kind. To him all the evidence pointed to the implications involved. He wasn't ready to release his hold on the terror and confusion that gripped his internal memories. Despite the hundreds of hours of therapy as part of my training and education as a psychotherapist, I could not go deep enough to heal the lasting scar.
This session exemplifies those that more and more men are participating in today. This work has been aptly called "soul work", as this is today the nature of men's changing and healing process. The time has arrived for us as men to face ourselves and our histories and to plunge deeply into the pools of loss that are hidden behind our acquired and inherited mask of denial and false images and reclaim our lost essence and heritage.
For seventeen years I have been active and committed in this "soul work? in my own life and with other men. This, of course, has not been easy, but nonetheless needed. Transforming immature and misguided masculine energy is a great challenge. This work I believe augments and is the next activity of societies and the planets evolution. It is time for the male soul to be re-iniated and for men to take our rightful place in the world.
In this article what I hope to do is to highlight some of the more important aspects of this work. In the seventeen years since I began I have learned a great deal and covered a lot of territory. I have done this kind of work in twenty-one countries, both Capitalist and Socialist. I've discovered that the rigidity of "macho", and rational dominance around the world has left men numb, confused and isolated, as we attempt to find a way to live and function in the industrialized world and the fast approaching global technocracy. The emotional cost for most men, regardless of race, status or education has been great. Male to male relationships have been left in a vacuum, with men feeling unsafe with other men, even when they desire closeness and a dissonance in relationship with women.
What I will share are both the light and dark sides of this work and journey, because both are present. Men are struggling to be affirmed in a deeper way as men and to regain their lost essence of maleness, their true spiritual and natural power. This journey has its gains and setbacks, as the direction is an inner one. Different than the way we have been taught to "be" in a "doing" and outer fashion.
I describe the four stages that I have come to recognize that we men go through in our transformation journey. These stages have become the guideposts for my continued work and learning and provide a structure and some semblance of organized process. Something men need as a kind of rudder to keep us on track. This will perhaps give other men a tool to work with in pinpointing where they might be at a given time. I will offer vignettes from both my personal experiences in doing men's "soul work" around the world and talk about what lies ahead for future endeavors. It is my hope that this article provides other men with an account of life that they can possibly identify. Also, I would like this presentation to help women see more clearly what is happening with men today in our search for meaning and a better quality of existence as a male human being.
The four Stages of Soul Work
In my own journey and learning about other men I have come to relate to four distinct stages. These may not be proven to exist nor do they represent the only ones known and available, however, they do offer a modicum of a path that is visible for men. These stages are as follows:
I. Waking Up
II. Transition and Transformation
III. Healing and Integration
IV. Action and Service
These stages are not necessarily in sequence. In fact, it is better to see these in a more cyclic process. One man could be going through one or more or all of the stages simultaneously as this relates to a particular segment or period of his life. Another time he could be more concentrated in one stage for a longer time and/or could be stuck in a stage due to resistance and memory blocking. This will become more clear as I share my discoveries through this work.
STAGE I: WAKING UP
As one man said to me in one of my men's workshops after doing some deeper grief work around the death of his father when he was only seven years old, "I felt like I had just awakened from a coma". This statement does provide a good understanding for what happens to men when they first wake up. Unfortunately, most men have to be awakened the hard way. It takes the shock, and the deep pain of loss to shock them from their deep comatose sleep, that they can so easily rationalize. I've witnessed too many cases when women have attempted to get their partner's into counseling only to finally give up after so many futile starts to get their man to move and break away from the relationship leaving "him", to his wits and stubborn stance. It is only after "she" has left the relationship that the full force of the reality hammers him hard. This is when his repressed pain bursts from his control and his self-induced logic that " she won 't leave me", "she needs me", falls apart. The realization of his loss then becomes felt. The loss makes him feel "lost" and he doesn't know what to do. It is during this period that he begins his "soul work". Most men come to men's groups or workshops after experiencing some great loss. This may not be the best or healthiest way. Nevertheless this for now is the case for a multitude of men and is the way they first awaken from their coma.
I remember one man, a lawyer in a new group in Alberta, Canada, who sat frozen, with his head hung down, shaking it in disbelief from side to side as he spoke to the gathering of men. "She said if I wouldn't do anything to help the relationship grow she was going to leave", but I didn't believe her. He learned too late that his wife was trying to wake him up to the reality of the terrible state of their marriage, but he couldn't see it or hear her, and worse, he couldn't see his own denial response and his own feigned capability to listen. This again shows how out of touch men have become with not only our feelings, but our ability to do reality checking. This again demonstrates the emotional cost for many men.
The waking up stage of men's "soul work" marks the beginning of this continual journey process. AII too often some men either wake up too late and are left in an emotional mess and others don't wake up at all.
This is a tragedy of the worst kind. Luckily, I woke up when I did during the Vietnam War era. I was primed for officer candidacy during university and was eager to go to Vietnam and serve my country. Had I not awakened when I did, although I believe that I would have survived the experience I have no doubts that it would have left a lasting scar in my soul as it did with many veterans. I can only imagine how I would have felt, upon my return stateside and being called ?baby killer? and spat upon by my own people. It took the loss of my high school sweetheart to get me in touch with the limited scope of my future choices. I finally realized that I was living in a "macho dream world" and that it could end the rest of my life. This fact was not a dream, it was very real. Sadly, while I was fortunate to "wake up", many other American males did not and marched off to "macho glory", only to discover that the image was false and deadly.
The waking up stage is full of pitfalls as well as challenges. The process is like walking a very thin tight rope over a bed of hot coals and should we fall, we are burned to cinders. However, should we survive and be able to walk the full length of the rope, we find ourselves at the foot of a new path, that we know very little about. This is the greatest of challenges, for this is when we must learn to go deeper inside ourselves, and inside ourselves is where we find the keys that open the doors of our soul.
These doors have rusty hinges because of lack of use, but they must be opened for us to do our ?soul work". The waking up stage starts when we begin to open these doors that have been hidden from our view. Rational consciousness is not enough to open these doors. It takes the full embodiment of our emotional and spiritual resources to do this. Waking up to the power of these resources is what gets us moving.
STAGE II: TRANSITION AND TRANSFORMATION
It is believed that most men don't go through their midlife change until after forty while others go through it in the middle or late thirties. I was one of those that went through it in the latter. I had just finished my Ph.D. and the ink was still wet on my degree parchment. The car l was driving was ready to die, I was broke and California was experiencing an economic recession. This for me was one of the most powerful periods in my journey. Even more powerful than the waking up stage.
The stage of transition is commonly referred to as the "in-between" period. During this time nothing makes sense. Up feels like down, forward is like backwards and the past pulls us awkwardly into the future. To say that confusion and bewilderment are about as clear and definite as we can get is an under statement. This at least is how it was for me. In speaking with other men who have gone through their "midlife" some are in agreement and others not. For some it was even worse. One schoolteacher and father of five told me once "It was for me like purgatory, no matter how hard I tried to get out, I became wedged in even deeper".
An executive for an oil company said ''it was sometimes terrifying, I had never experienced anything like it before" and a psychiatrist friend shared "I thought I was going to die or even kill myself.'' The transition stage does have some common elements, but for the most part it is an individual experience.
Every man has to do his own "transition dance" in his own way, in his own time. No two events are the same. How one does this stage of "soul work" is determined by one's subsequent experiences around the wheel of life, from birth through childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The more lived each life phase the more meaningful the midlife experience. The less lived, the more fragmented the midlife drama. The quality of the experience is dependent on how integrated one life phase is to another. During my "midlife" I was catapulted back to the diaper stage at times, feeling totally dependent on others, and other times when I felt like a rebellious teenager. There were times when I was sure of myself, having a high degree of confidence in my future pursuits, to another when I was full of doubts not only about my future, but the whole of my life. One day I was ready to take on the world with my new "Doctor status" and the next day I was afraid to admit that I had a degree at all, wishing I was illiterate. These two processes jerked me in opposite directions constantly. I felt like a slave to this psyche "tug of war". They had full control of me and I was being forced to do their bidding. Surprisingly, despite my state of functioning, I felt as if this process had some deeper, maybe even secret purpose, a purpose that I would only understand after going through it. This I somehow knew, and this was that I had to go "through it" in order to learn the secret purpose. This purpose I learned later was the activity of "soul work".
Probably the greatest experience that I can remember about the whole time is the rediscovery of the animal part of myself. Another way to say it is that I re-found the "wild", untamed, part of my natural self. That part of myself that ignited my spontaneity, and fuller expression. When it happened, I was on my hands and knees on the living room floor in a friend's apartment pretending to be a four legged creature. We were both playing around and I was chasing her. She had become a cat and was "purring" and scratching the carpet. 1 assumed the position of another animal and while we were acting out our roles, I discovered a freedom of movement and grace I hadn't felt since I was a very young boy.
When I would pretend to be different kinds of animals and make sounds, to mimic their creature language, it was a liberating experience. Here I was, a Ph.D. psychotherapist, down on all fours, romping around my friend's apartment; making strange sounds, and making animal gestures. It was a wonderful moment, a time to reconnect with a part of myself that I had missed for years. A time to reclaim this part and to see that I still needed this in my adult male life. My childhood ventures of discovery, not only did not have to be left behind, but could be the enrichment for a fuller and creative life in adulthood.
This epic journey of "in-betweens", although full of confusion and uncertainty, eventually turned into something that 1 least expected. When it seemed like my whole life was being "turned upside down, and inside out", and I was going to be lost forever in this psyche whirlpool, everything turned up right and fell into place. I soon realized that this Journey was part of a larger experience than merely the transition effect. The transition was only the dawning of the greater transformation that was taking place behind my own seeing. On another level each preceding actuality was an integral part of the other. Every process and actuality fit together. It was now time to trust this inner work, no matter if I didn't understand it. From now on my trust must be from the core of my being. Learning to have this "radical trust, was to prepare me for the next stage of "soul work". The most important of the four.
STAGE III: HEALING AND INTEGRATION
I can't say that the third stage of "soul work" has a connection to one particular event or even a few. This stage remains part of a continuity process that goes on and on. It is discovery, impacted by a series of related events. Some more dynamic, meaningful and with greater depth. I have worked with men whose "soul work" is much like an afternoon soap opera. The same theme repeating itself over and over again. Only the characters change and at times the theme shifts for a short time, only to be pulled back to its original script content. This "soul work" is the most challenging and arduous. In my own work I have played out a saga of my life so many times that it has become like a broken record. It is frustrating and at times seems so pointless. Then suddenly, with no apparent reasons the theme message shifts and the deeper meaning is "felt" inside of me. This is when the healing process of integration begins to weave its magic. In time it does make sense and I find that had I trusted more the agony would have been reduced and the repetitious pattern lessened. This stage reveals the true strengths of men's vulnerability. Whether we are able to view this vulnerability depends on how strong the messages are that we received about the inner world of our maleness. Whether this internal restructuring is accepted as part of the male evolution or not is the grueling test of the healing and integration.
In 1979 I returned to the States after living in exile for ten years. The events that followed became one continuous episodic pattern that made me feel like an astronaut returning from a long period in space. I felt disoriented, vulnerable and didn't know who to trust. My "midlife change", occurred during this time, which I have already mentioned. If I was to choose some of the more dramatic events I would have to say that participating in a gestalt training in Miami with Gertrude Krause was one of these and the others were a trip to the former Soviet Union as a delegate member of the A.H.P./U.S.S.R. AMERICAN PROJECT and a visit with my parents and siblings. These are three that I would like to focus on. Even as I remember these again, I still have moments of new insight. These at times are like a medicine for the soul.
The significance of the gestalt training was the discovery of the little boy within me and confronting the "father critic" that I had struggled with all my life. I remember my fantasy of this "critic" drowning in a whirlpool and my being able to let it go down again and again until it didn't appear any more then finding myself introduced to a small, impish boy inside of me who was eager to teach me how to play again. His smile cut a line across his face from one ear to the other. In this moment, I had become the father and this impish character the son. I had finally become liberated from the struggle with the "critic" inside of me. At long last I had found both the positive empowering father part of me and was beginning a new relationship with the son inside who had always wanted a more bonding connection with his father. Now, after such a long time, I had finally arrived and the bridge had been created between us.
The second choice I spoke of occurred over three years later after I had returned to live In Canada and had become active in the Association for Humanistic Psychology. The organization had sponsored a trip to the former Soviet Union in 1983 and were selecting delegates for the next visit.
I signed on and after several months of correspondence, purchasing tickets, preparing my passport, I was gathered with thirty other professionals coming from various fields of education and therapy in New York, J.F.K. airport enroute to Helsinki, embarkation point to the former USSR. It was a unique bunch of people and I felt fortunate to be part of this historic journey behind the iron curtain. The importance of this Journey for me was that I was representing the professional field of men's consciousness development and while it was relatively new in the States, it was virtually non-existent in the former USSR. The commitment to this field was twofold. I was committed as a professional and as an individual engaged in my own male "soul work". I had only gotten started a couple years earlier, just before my "midlife change" and was working on my book about the male journey. These coupled together made the journey even more significant. Due to the impact of earlier events I was getting more in touch with the emptiness inside and this was extremely painful. Not so much for the growing knowledge and awareness of the emptiness, but the final realization that I had that hole inside of me and didn't even know it. This is what hurt most. What a waste of time and life. So crossing the border into the former U. S. S. R. from Finland was for me more than a traverse over land. It was a bridging of illusion with reality and meeting the ?shadow? part of collective consciousness.
Walking the distance of Red Square in Moscow, visiting the Winter Palace in Leningrad, and meeting with the Georgians, was like stepping into the twilight zone. All of it was so unreal, and yet it was very real. A reality that I had little experience and knowledge. The times we listened to Soviet colleagues talk about their work usually in a guarded fashion, only to have them show a completely different side when we were sitting down at dinner in their homes. Drinking Vodka, telling jokes about both capitalists and communist and criticizing both systems and individual political figures from both systems. It was painful to see the way these proud people had to live separate realities. One reality of their personal truth and the other imposed. I was impressed with the endurance, these people had and the way they could still be creative and resourceful under the circumstances. Being exposed to this new piece of my world view completely dismantled every preconceived idea I had held about the Soviet people. It broadened my knowledge base and it deepened my understanding. This in effect slowly began the process of disclosing my learned and accepted illusions about myself as a human being, a male and an American. I went there, I thought open and ready to learn. 1 left confused, wounded and not understanding the purpose and meaning of the whole ordeal. I learned later that indeed the purpose was greater than I was able to understand at that time. I learned that that step into the "shadow", was part of the inner and outer expansion of my limited reality boundaries, those I had been taught and those I had taught myself. The venture had made me move beyond and collide with my own fears and projections. As is depicted in the cartoon "I have met the enemy and he is us". I had been brought face to face with my own learned and accepted limited views of not only my world, but the part I play in it. The Soviet trip was a larger journey of integration. A journey of two reality worlds merging. At that time I had no idea that this experience was the beginning step that would change my life and the future role that I would play in merging with multiple cultures and realities and that I would return again and again in assisting our ?so-called enemies? through the step by step transition process as they learned to take their place in the world community.
The gestalt training and the Soviet trip were unique in my "soul work". They both were part of my inner restructuring. However, the venture of meeting with the male members of my family had contributed to a greater sense of grounding. In the winter (November 1988) I traveled for three weeks through Washington State, Oregon and Idaho to meet with my older brother, my father and stepfather and to visit my grandfather's farm which I hadn't been to for forty years. This is where my father had almost killed me, leaving me traumatized for years of my adult life.
When 1 was with my brother I was able to learn how he had always felt responsible for my leaving the country. He felt that he had failed in his role of "big brother". This was a revelation for me. I had never guessed that he had felt this way. It helped me to see my brother in a new way. As a result I became more accepting and was less critical of him. I also learned that he had almost punched a fellow classmate of mine in the teeth, when in a bar conversation he overheard him calling me a traitor and coward. I never realized my brother had taken my leaving so hard. This touched me.
When I spent time with my stepfather I could see that he was very proud of me. I had heard from relatives that he had bragged about how important my international work was. Especially in the Eastern Block countries and the Soviet Union. He told people that I was working under cover for the C.I. A. I had to chuckle. Here was the man who beat me until I couldn't stand up and told me I would never amount to anything. However, in spite of the beatings, psychological and physical I always knew that he cared and tried to be the best kind of replacement father he could. His methods were a bit medieval, but this is all he knew, he had been raised like this too.
The visit with my birth father was the highlight of the whole venture. For the first time in years I was able to speak to him in the way I needed, without fearing his reprisal. I asked him questions that before embarrassed me or I didn't know how to formulate them. I finally after forty years was able to say that I needed his recognition and hoped he was proud to call me son. I could remember all of his put-downs of me, telling me "I could never do anything right" and how this had damaged my self-esteem and affected my life direction. He was surprised at my request and shared that, while he didn't tell me directly he was proud as this wasn't his way, he told others. Unfortunately, I never heard from the so-called "others" about his praise of me. However, this time my need for him to do this had diminished, I had learned to praise myself and give and receive this with other people.
It was a sad moment in one respect because for the first time in my life I could see how limited and restricted my father was. Even if he wanted and wished to be different he could not. I left his home with a feeling of gratitude that he and I could finally meet before death separated us. I could accept that the wish for us to have a different relationship would not be possible and I was able to say this was O.K.
The last part of the sojourn and the most unusual was visiting my grandfather's farm in Idaho. The farm had been sold twenty years earlier and my grandfather had passed on. The new owners, reluctant at first, allowed me to spend a few hours walking around the place after hearing the purpose of my visit. It was like walking back in time. As they say "we can never go back". But the paradox is that "we must go back", to see that we can't hold onto the past. As I walked around the farm I had countless memory flashes of my childhood. I found the tricycle I rode as a three year old. The old chicken house I visited daily to collect the fresh eggs had been converted into a storage bin for grain. For me the memories were still as fresh as yesterday. I walked the path from our house to my grandfather's several times and each time discovered or rediscovered another piece of my childhood. By the time I drove out of the driveway, waving to the new owners, with a lump of emotion stuck in my throat I knew that I would never return to this place in this life. Nor would I need to. However, I was glad I did. Before leaving I planted a heart shaped piece of amber a friend gave to me in the ground at the foot of a gnarled tree that looked like it had been through a lifetime struggle of growing. I chose that tree because it reminded me of my own life. The planting of this heart was a symbol of the healing I was allowing inside of myself regarding the earlier trauma.
When I returned to Canada after the three weeks I felt like I had lived through not only forty years, but more like forty lifetimes. I felt more full, more alive, and the sadness I could still feed inside of me that I had carried behind my many masks all my life finally had some meaning. The venture was a gift to myself and this proved that I was progressing in my "soul work", Over the years I had released many of my rigid boundaries and was more into "allowing" than "having to control". The journey into the past definitely was affirming for these changes.
The healing and integration stage is continuous in "soul work" as this, in time, connects us not only to ourselves as men, but to the "collective soul work", of humanity. This work includes women, the planet 'and all of life's creatures. Here the whole universe is in one gigantic unfolding. This is creation's "soul work" and we are all part of it.
STAGE IV: ACTION AND SERVICE
Herb Goldberg, Jack Nichols, Joseph Pleck and Warren Farrell were the first recognized authors of books about the plight of men today. However, Robert Bly, poet and storyteller and student of theology and Jungian psychology has had a deeper and more lasting impact towards the understanding of men's "soul work". He seemed to be aware of the spiritual significance of men's changes where the others didn't go deep enough. He could see beyond the social sphere of conditioning to the deeper meaning of men's transition and searching. What he did that other male spokesmen couldn't do was to give a direction of a path that men could follow. He offered a more positive and empowering path and this has shown in his popularity growing around the world regarding the building of men's community.
To date the numbers of men's study programs on university campuses is growing. More and more men are attending ongoing men's groups and others are attending wilderness type workshops learning how to regain their sense of the "natural man". Congresses world wide are incorporating into their programs men's workshops or gender related components in panel discussions or keynote addresses. Even some men's organizations have had annual conferences and have created task forces related to certain subjects.
In the spring of 1993 I co-organized an International Gathering of men that took place outside of Budapest, Hungary. Fifty-two men from seventeen countries lived shared and learned together about how to build men's community over a five-day period. This was not without some difficulty but we did manage to create a non-competitive exchange of ideas and activities that enabled us to create bridges beyond language and cultural differences. The strongest moment of the event was when a German therapist stood up among the fifty-two male participants and asked forgiveness for Hitler's actions against the world. Only to have a Hungarian school principal to face him telling him that he was half Jewish and despite his losing relatives to the gas chambers of Auswich and that after years of hating Germans he could forgive them now. While this brought tears to the eyes of the fourteen German participants this was followed by every other guy in the community circle weeping as well. The event ended with all fifty-two men from parts of the world standing together arm in arm committed to healing wounds of the past from men against men, women and the planet.
Everywhere, men are waking up to the needs of their brothers and are planning, taking steps and searching for alternatives to the entrapments of society's expectations of men (as well as women). This growing involvement marks the fourth stage of "soul work" for men. Men who have learned more through this "soul work" are passing this on to other men. Men are at different places in "soul work". Some are into action and service without doing important earlier stage work and this sometimes has disastrous results. This however, is part of the exploration of men's "soul work". Learning to put our "ego images" aside and reaching to and from the heart will take time. This is not. so easy for most of us men because our conditioning has taught us to come from the head, especially in dealing with men on a feeling level. This is beginning to change as more men are searching for the tools and skills of the feeling domain and are unshackling themselves from over-rational habits. Change for men is slow it seems but it has to get started in some way. We must find the balance between forward action and patience in learning to "do" in a "being" manner.
We men are having to find a new kind of alignment in our lives. A new kind of trust. A kind that we have no controls over and through this we find a new kind of inner control. A control that rebonds us to the pulse-rhythm of life and that allows and supports our movement, creativity and choice. A control that is not a control at all but a new alignment that brings us closer to the hidden workings of life's-order domain. The place where we can see, feel and know that we are a part of a larger design and while we are part of it we are not only that. We too are co-architects of this design and this co-participation is the highest act of service to the universe and our fellow and sister humans.
The joys and agonies are all part of our current and future "soul work". Each stage we go through prepares us for the next. Often times we need to go back and undo and do over tasks we thought was finished. This is also part of the work.
The journey ahead is long and we have much work to do. We are just getting started but it is important that we are. We do have one consolation and that is that after decades of industrialized enslavement, we can finally begin to drop the chains. The good news is that we are learning to do it together, breaking the patterns of isolation. This new task is in the evolving brotherhood in which every male on the planet has membership.
About the author

Dr. Frank Cardelle is an international therapist, consultant and author. He has given conferences, workshops and trainings worldwide on issues of gender identity. He has done extensive work throughout former East Block countries and visted the former Soviet Union six times. His books have been translated into several languages