I am choosing to be brought to LIFE!

Its been a long time since I put something new here. This time I think I’ll get personal.

The song below (and other development work I have done this year) inspired me to write this.

Maybe this will help men who look like me to escape their own shell.

But first: Check the song out. Here are the lyrics so you can sing along if you want!

If you’ve been in my truck more than a couple times, you may have heard me play this tune. I love it because the original version tested my 10 speaker sound system and I love feeling like I am in a concert when I am driving.

At least that’s what I would have told you why I loved it and played it a lot.

Then: I heard THIS version and now I get my attraction to this song. I think this song speaks to me completely.

To verify this (because I am analytical to the extreme) I took a test and asked what Wizard of Oz Character am I.

It came back with this.

I don’t know about me leading with my emotions, but the rest is very true about me!

Let me go back to the lyrics of Bring Me to Life it starts with this:

How can you see into my eyes like open doors?
Leading you down into my core
Where I’ve become so numb
Without a soul
My spirit’s sleeping somewhere cold
Until you find it there and lead it back home

I think that this represents my journey to manhood. Or has me reflecting on it and how I became the way that I am.

You see, I have been trained and have trained myself to suppress my feelings and only express the emotions that others approve of or are comfortable with and/or what is expected of me.

• Being sad is basically for funerals
• Grief is only allowed for a moment
• Love is to be shown ONLY by deed, not words
• I better NOT admit someone hurt or mistreated me
• I better not even TRY to get people to believe I was treated unfairly

So I just think that my role is just to shut up and contribute. I am clear (or have been made to think) that my only value is what I provide, NOT who I am.

So can you now see that (emotionally speaking) the safest place for me is to be numb?

I am allowed expression, but it must be contained.

• I can be angry, but not at the wrong time or place or person
• I can cry, but only if someone dies and even then for a moment
• I can laugh, but not at the wrong things or people

So I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what MY emotions should be and how they fit the situation.

Honestly….thinking about how others feel is not really benevolent or selfless on my part. For me it is a survival tool that helps me establish and create something that simulates peace.

If my emotions are correct

• No one will be angry at me
• No one will be afraid of me
• No one will be disappointed in me
• No one will think bad of me

Doesn’t that sound peaceful?

Bottom Line: I don’t know who I am and whether or not I do have a soul. I am sure everyone else has one, but me? I am not certain I have one or deserve one. At least I do not feel I have one like everyone else has or…is allowed to show.

Other men can

• Cry
• Get angry
• Say that they were treated unfairly
• Say that their feelings were hurt
• Say “I love you” and be believed
• Say “I’m sorry” and be believed (and forgiven)

Other men can do all of that and still be respected, trusted and even admired. I do not feel that I can afford to allow myself that luxury or take that risk.

You see, I have trained myself to accept that what the world thinks of me must be “the truth”. It doesn’t matter that I do not believe it. The world has already decided who and what I am so it is clear that to try and make others feel different about me is not worth the fight.

So, to avoid that fight, I will just settle for having peace in my life and what I have discovered is that what peace (to me) means is this: People will leave me alone!

Being left alone is THE solution. Not Therapy, Not talking it out, Not reaching out for help. That’s for si…. (um) weak men.

It is a good thing, right? If I am by myself….

• No one judges me
• No one criticizes me
• No one fears me
• No one dislikes me (or likes me)

That is so peaceful, right?

So the safest place for me is to be alone: How does the song say it? Leaving my spirit sleeping somewhere cold!

Its not the most comfortable place, but that’s cool. I’ll make it. I’ll survive.

Like I said, it is cold here, so in the mean time, so I am comfortable as possible I will just grab myself a warm blanket, put on my suit of armor, sit by the fire, have an adult beverage and in the morning, a cup of tea to wake me up.

Maybe my friends or those who love me will find me and I get to feel like I belong with the rest of humanity, and maybe they won’t.

Either way, I’ll take that peace substitute and settle for not finding that annoying soul thing.

THAT journey is far more scary than sitting alone up by the fire!

Because I am actually afraid that…..

• Maybe they dont want to look into MY eyes and see what’s there
• Maybe the world is not interested in my core (meaning who I REALLY am)
• Maybe its ok with the world that I am numb and expressionless
• Maybe the world has become numb to the absence of my humanity

Yes: For all that and more, I am afraid and even more scared to show I have that fear.

But it would be so amazing to LIVE one day!

The tea tastes great, the fire and the blanket provide warmth, but….this armor is getting awful heavy!

Time to take it off and begin to choose to save myself from the nothing I’ve allowed myself to become.

I see where the light from the fire (Gods Presence) is directing me and I am choosing to find my own way home, because that is where I belong.

Now that I have that direction I am choosing to find my soul and my spirit now.

Time to join humanity!

• Because I belong
• Because I am needed
• Because I cannot be replaced