Step 2: Crying Shame

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."

Booker T. Washington

I offer my deepest trust and respect only to men I know who can weep with those that weep and laugh with those that laugh. These are the men who are still standing after they have taken the brutal blows that come when one opens up to the needs of others, accepting the agony of other people's disappointments and grief.

I'm tired of seeing dry eyed boys ignorantly looking at their weeping wives and children and not having a clue how to respond to the pain they see there.

Your job is to sit with them in their pain, your job isn't to fix their pain!

I believe that men must find the courage and wit to embrace the agony of empathy if they are to be worthy to stand beside women as equals.

Boys tend to only play the role of "manly heroes" thinking life is a game that they can play when it entices them and discard when it hurts. Men on the other hand resolutely shoulder the burdens and pain of those around them and accept they can't just shrug it off when it becomes inconvenient.

Don't think it is your victories that show a growing masculinity, it is a man's proven willingness to overcome his genders' fear of experiencing their own and others' feelings. The "Crying Shame" is the great obstacle we must overcome. If you won't cry with her, don't you dare think you deserve to be with her.

Overcoming the Crying Shame

Step 1. Empathetically listening to be a mirror for yourself.

If you have no idea what you are feeling then you are almost certain not to know what anyone else is feeling. If you can't weep for yourself then I don't want to see your dry eyes looking myopically back at me when I share my pain. 

Step 2. Empathetically listening to be a mirror for others

Great Listening isn't about your ability to "not talk" it is about paying attention to what someone is actually saying. The experience of listening to yourself ought to have produced the necessary skills to begin "listening" to others expressing how they feel. It is about opening yourself to actually "hear" what the other is trying to share even when they don't actually know what it is they want to share. Eventually as you mature you will reflect back to the person what you heard them say and so become this wonderful mirror for others to see themselves. 

Step 3. Embracing the emotions you see in this mature mirror that you have become for yourself and others.

Your new found empathy has moved from being a mirror for your own soul, to becoming a mirror for other people's soul, to finally being a gateway to embracing the pain and pleasure you have seen.

Let me recap on the steps of masculinity according to Robert J Millar
Step 1: Get off your ass!
Step 2: Become an empathetic mirror. Get in touch with your own feelings, and from there, get in touch with other people's feelings.