Proud to be a hypersensitive man

I watched a great film the other week called Pride. The true story of gay and lesbian support for the miners strike in the UK in the 1980s. Beyond the huge nostalgia it provoked and the memories it stirred, I found a new awareness of the courage of the gay and lesbian movement at that time.

Perhaps its time for me to come out as a hypersensitive man!

Always one for extremes my working life can be roughly split in two.

For seventeen years I was in perhaps the most male environment possible. The trading floor is no place for sensitivity or vulnerability, and certainly in those days there were very few women traders (with one or two wonderful exceptions).

The past twelve years have been spent in an arena populated almost exclusively by women. Working with children (and adults) in an area where sensitivity and vulnerability are part of the job description.

I have observed the gender divide at close quarters and it has been fascinating to sit on both sides of this hugely misunderstood fence. From each side I witnessed prejudice and ignorance (and have been guilty of both!). But of late I have noticed something changing in the energy of the men coming into my field.

I recently wrote about some incredibly sensitive young men who have come to see us at our Centre, but on reflection there has been a stream of highly sensitive men showing up over the past year or so. As ever, they are turning up to show me an aspect of myself.

Whilst I have found it easy to be the champion of hypersensitive children for so many years I have been less willing to look at my own pain living in a world which is so resistant to the hypersensitive man. It was easy for me to be angry at a world which failed to embrace difference in kids. It was less easy to be angry on my own behalf! In fact working with children allowed me to play out a role of expected masculine behaviour (protector) and conveniently disguise my own vulnerability at the same time.

(Obviously masculine and feminine energy is not bound by gender, although many "enlightened" people forget this and are rendered unconscious by a kind of genital induced blindness, and my observations here are more about gender than energy).

But something is happening. These men are showing up and ever so subtly allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Maybe just for an instant or maybe more permanently. They are beginning to own their sensitivity in spite of and in the face of eons of conditioning. Again I am aware that this is a reflection of my own willingness to express the experience of a sensitive man. (Just writing this is an example of that and I hope none of those blokes from the City get to read it!)

I read much which blames men for the state of the world. "There would be no war without men". "The economic crisis wouldn't have happened if there were more women in business". Etc. Maybe that is true but it should also be remembered that men (especially sensitive men) carry the burden of that history at a deep and profound level and in a way which actually makes them less willing to be vulnerable. Attacking men for playing out the historic role of men simply reinforces that stereotype.

I sense the time is ripe for us all to let go of history and get some clarity in our thinking. I hope I am enough of a man to move ever deeper into my own vulnerability and in so doing create a space for others to do so.

In the meantime I am off to do some yoga followed by a few beers!

Love

Bill

Bill AylingOctober 3, 2014