Hey Lucy,
The first thing I'd like to share is very personal.
You may have noticed that I've not sent you a newsletter for a few months! Sorry for the silence.
On one hand, I've been blissfully busy working with personal and business clients, happily holding groups and supervising practitioners and group leaders – this comes naturally to me and causes no stress or strain.
On the other hand, I've been heading towards burnout with my backlog of emails and admin, management and operations that saw me hitting rock bottom at the end of August / my 50s. I wrote this very personal plea when I was in the depths of it. It felt important to share the dark times and not be one of the public-facing business people who hides the realities of life, the stresses and strains that take a toll of health and relationships. Some of my high-flying clients feel they have to do this and I can't blame them.
The second thing I'd like to share is free and empowering
My 60s (all 20 days of them) have been wonderful! What came up in my 50s clearly needed clearing up!
I have a brilliant business manager Lucy Cartwright who is taking things in hand and enabling me to be free to do what I love, what I'm good at and to be an empowering elder by passing on my tools.
My best facilitators and I will be holding three FREE live online training where you can discover tools to uncover your purpose, express yourself with passion and grow your community. They'll include breakout rooms where you can experience a heartfelt men's group (this event is open to people of all genders) and on the back of it you'll get a discount code to do the full training, should you so wish.
Register here and please pass the link on to others who wish to better understand what makes men tick…
The third thing I'd like to share is unconditional love
The ability to be with someone in their fear and pain, shame and confusion, love and loss without judgement, hierarchy, the need to process, fix, dig deeper, avoid, make light of or upstage with a darker story is worth its weight in gold. This is what MenSpeak facilitators are trained to do. We can meet ourselves in our darkness and sit with others in theirs.
Once people have done the accredited facilitation training, they are welcome to debrief with facilitators after every group, as well as during our fortnightly facilitator debrief sessions at no extra charge. We're in it together and we take care of ourselves, each other and the people we serve in the many groups we hold beyond the daily MenCheck-in groups, such as NeuroDivergentMenSpeak, DadSpeak, AllGendersSpeak, YoungMenSpeak, ElderMenSpeak, BusinessMenSpeak, etc. They're all listed at www.meetup.com/menspeak/
The fourth thing I'd like to share is absolute b*ll*cks!
It's absolute b*ll*cks that men don't speak! Much as the media love to say that men don't speak, the trouble with men is blah blah blah and they add to the misandrist frenzy against men, we at MenSpeak are loving, living proof that men do speak, men open up and share anything and everything, laughing and crying together and staying away from the edge by nipping isolation in the bud and saving lives. We've sat with all types of men from those more in touch with their feminine side, to military men, ex-cons and professional wrestlers like Philip John Bedwell, pictured below.
The fifth and final thing I'd like to share is hope
As the world, as we've known it, falls apart around us with all sorts of madness from the powers that be, to governments and wars, to sickness and health issues, to secrets and lies coming to light, to feelings of overwhelm, helplessness and despair - please remember the times in your life where things have fallen apart before they could fall together again, bigger and better than before.
The falling apart part can be excruciatingly painful, lonely and enough to do your head in! So please remember to breathe out of your head and into your body, getting back to the here and now, connecting with yourself and reaching out to others to break the spell on fear as you prepare for peace. No matter what happens in the world, the MenSpeak space-holders and I will be here to reconnect to here and now, reconnect to self and others and hold a space of love, that will bring peace and see us through. Together, we can prepare for peace.
Be the love, share the love...
...and the MenSpeak space-holders in our conscious community.