I Feel more for Men than Chickens
We go through all the steps all the time: learning about a new relationship, learning about ourselves and what we have to offer and how to get someone’s attention… and when they do pay attention, how do we know what actually pulled their attention in our direction so that we can do it again? Tonight I’m thinking about the way we think about our situations.
The signature cosmo at The Hospitality’s cuddle club is called the Penthouse Hustler. It’s a blue drink and Virgil just outdid himself shaking it up for me with ice chips and all. It's delicious and cool enough to soothe my thoughts long enough to wonder further when I hear Virgil’s voice, “when do we give up the right to be honest? Seriously, Ma’am, when did thinking become something to lie to ourselves about? I mean, I understand that regulating the thoughts we choose to share is necessary, but regulating HAVING our own thoughts because of fear or shame for what those thoughts are, well Ma’am, men are just a bit worse off than the chickens, don’tch’ya agree?”
“The chickens?!” my attention snapping into focus on the last thing he said, “Wait, What? Explain more to me about these chickens, please.” and as I make the declaration smiling devilishly now, he knows my curiosity is engaged. He takes a breath, raises an eyebrow and continues his thought, clearing his throat to begin. “Well now Ma’am, it seems to me that there are folks who protect chicken’s rights to freely roam their range because they strongly believe, lobby, petition, hold fundraisers, and every other action they take on behalf of the poor infringed upon animal. And I’m just callin foul, … ha, ha, fowl, get it?”
Laughing at the homophone joke satisfies him enough to continue. “Well ma’am, what I’m sayin’ is who’s protecting men’s rights to free-range shame-free thinking? I just don’t know of anyone offering to protect a minimum standard expectations while allowing for free thought. And right now, people are stuck and not allowing themselves to think for fear of being found unacceptable by those opinions of others that are so highly valued, yet worthless.”
“Virgil, through and through, I’m impressed by your curiosity. Now, I must challenge you to think one step beyond this and ask yourself, ‘what is the worst that happens if we start to think freely about sex’?” This fear is what keeps the systems’ people regulated, because if we start to think freely about something like sex, well, God only knows what we will start to think freely about after that!”
Clients contemplating divorce, a career change, having children, buying a house, getting a pet or even having an affair do so because they have needs that aren’t being met and are attempting to alleviate the tension between themselves and their burden of responsibility. But we must ask two things before a big change: (and this works when we are standing at center of any crossroad)
1. What’s the best I can do in this situation as it is if all I change is myself?
2. What’s the worst that can happen if I make a decision to change my circumstances?
This is the true assessment of the risk!
When we think that our needs and wants are shameful, free range thinking is at risk.
We want more pleasure, more satisfaction, more acceptance and the freedom to find variety by hunting for fulfillment, but what is wanted is not so much fulfillment as it is to be able to push away and say “I’ve had enough, I am full, seen, and accepted”, while accepting limited risk. Most of us fear not having enough, fear missing out, and we are starving inside. But know this, Virgil, ANY change is hard work.
Imagine the best that happens if you put your efforts into trying one more time without changing anything about the situation except your perspective - changing your thoughts is changing your mind.
How would this look? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Taking a deep breath and continuing, “Now, if the way things are in your circumstance just sucks the joy from your life, and if you decide to go ahead and make a change in the circumstance, and if you put in all the hard work that any change requires, you could probably rattle off all the reasons and benefits of doing so.
But we rarely ask 'what's the worst that can happen if my choice to change goes horribly wrong?’ because we are searching for relief rather than contentment and we don’t want to hear of even more strife we’ll need to relieve down the line” and with that, the possibility of risk has now been revealed.
When do you give yourself a real opportunity to imagine multiple possibilities fairly?
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Thinking further, I see very few who are comfortable enough to create opportunities for possibility, push edges, or the freedom to grow into different possible roles securely in their relationship. A healthy working future demands new tools of collaboration - so too does a healthy romance. Any romantic partner might question if they are expendable without enough shared quality interaction, too much isolation when potential for growth is limited, and roles that lack curiosity have lost access to imagining possibility.
Relationships need new tools of collaboration to create opportunities to experiment (variety), push edges (freedom) and grow (achievement). Meaningful contribution is key! Finding specific ways to feel connected, like contributing to a common interest, is how we form our culture to gain community, and managing feelings of loneliness proactively relates our experience with another (or experience another relationally.)
“Framed another way, Virgil, it’s not about being too much in our partner’s world or too much out of our own world, but rather it’s cracking open our chest to expose vital vulnerable bits and discovering unimagined possibilities of boldly shared intentions.”
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